I’ve decided to refresh the blog. See you soon with a new look (but the same writer).
I’ve decided to refresh the blog. See you soon with a new look (but the same writer).
I’m taking today off. It’s not a holiday or anything, so I’ll make one up: National Just a Saturday Day. Everybody who wants to can take off (unless you’re in the middle of complex neurosurgery or something). I’ll be back next week.
I thought I had just one topic about which to blog this week, but suddenly I was overwhelmed by possible topics, and none of them were pleasant.
I was ready to play devil’s advocate for Steve Harvey, the king of TV show hosting whose recent attempts to gain some privacy by sending out a memo about when and how to approach him became tabloid fodder. Hey, being a celebrity does not mean you sacrifice the locks to the bathroom stall doors; the man does need some space. I think if the folks read between the lines, he really meant that people should knock first; who really needs to make an appointment to ask in-the-moment questions when a show is taping and you’re on the clock? He had obviously had enough of asking politely because people just didn’t listen.
I was ready to grieve with a parent of an eight-year-old boy who committed suicide following a school bathroom incident in which he lay unconscious on the floor for a while and was poked and kicked and avoided by fellow students.
http://nypost.com/2017/05/12/video-shows-brutal-bullying-at-school-days-before-8-year-olds-suicide/
Then along came a ten-year-old who provided a note with a list of bullies who had driven him past his endurance, and he also hanged himself. I had still been working on notes from the first one, which isn’t easy because I, too, was bullied (and repressed by the faculty), so I had to step back as a writer and work hard to be informative without going off on a tear and become morbid or hateful. The topic will have to wait a bit longer.
http://6abc.com/news/mom-says-bullying-led-to-10-year-old-sons-death/1986682/
Then there was the follow-up story about a parent whose son he named Adolf Hitler, who ran into a problem with a bakery that would not put the name on a birthday cake. It seems the dad has adapted the Hitler name for himself.
Then there was a story about a woman with overactive bladder who, while flying, was forced by the airline crew to find relief in a cup, then had to carry the cup in a walk of shame down the corridor to the restroom while the attendant said aloud that her seat would have to be cleaned by a hazmat crew.
While I’m sorting all of this out, Mother’s Day is tomorrow. I hope all mothers out there reflect on the good things tomorrow. Maybe Monday we won’t have as bad a week of news as this past one.
How many human beings does it take to change a light bulb? Or to put it into the context of my recent situation, how many does it take to process an online order for in-store pickup? At least five, but probably about eight to ten.
I ordered a product online. Delivery was expected in a week. The day before the product was to be sent to the store, I got a text from my ever-vigilant credit card asking, “Is this charge yours?” At the same time, I got a phone call asking the same question. I was in a situation where I couldn’t answer either. Bad idea. Automation doesn’t care about what human tasks you are engaged in. The charge didn’t go through. So when I could get online I tried to run it through again through the vendor’s site. No luck.
The next morning, I called the store’s customer service. After navigating the phone menu (which is designed to route calls but is not always a good match for how people communicate what they want), I got a nice person who, after a few minutes on hold, told me my item was in the store, and simply go and pay for it there.
At the store, I went to the pick-up counter and provided my order number. The sales associate went to the racks of pick-up items and found nothing. The situation started turning into the famous “Gas Cooker Sketch” from Monty Python.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWqJECZelhQ
She went to another associate to find out where the item was; he thought it would not have been shipped without an approval code. A third thought it might be in stock, in which case my original order could be cancelled and a purchase done with the in-stock item. After a fourth and fifth person chimed in, one of them actually went back to the stock room and found the item. It still had to be charged as a separate sale, and my original order cancelled. Who knows why.
So there was the person who processed the original online order, a stock locator, a packer, a shipper, the transportation people, the stock staffers at the store, the credit card processor, the person who sent the phone message, the person who sent the text, and the five in the store.
One item.
No wonder prices are ridiculous.
Tomorrow is the first day of May, also known as May Day. The term is known both as the date on the calendar and a distress call, but one has a history behind it. Legend has it that in 1923 Frederick Mockford, a British radio operator, took the french term M’aidez, meaning “Help me,” and anglicized it into the term we know today.
Of course, for those of us who work in places where the first of the month is a real pain in the neck, we will be calling for help quite a bit tomorrow.
 | Eden on Getting the Message |
| Eden on The Unasked Questions |
| Eden on And Her Shoes Were #9 |
| Eden on The Poison Field |
| Eden on Final Tally |
Susan's Scribblings the Blog 