happy birthday to me

I want to show you what my coworkers did for my birthday a few weeks ago. I share a birthday with a girl in my department. We both lived in Texas for much of our lives, still love it, and miss it. So, instead of a traditional birthday cake, our coworkers made the cookies below. Note Matagorda Island in the Gulf.

*sigh*

Okay. Let's say, hypothetically, that while watering your yard flowers, you notice the 18 month old baby who lives on the next block moseying down the alley toward your street. Say when you run from your yard to the other end of the alley to catch him, you don't see him because he has ducked through an opening in the fence and into another yard. Say also that when you get to him and say, "Where ya goin' kiddo?" he grins really big and giggles... and then you notice that he isn't wearing shoes. Or pants. Or a diaper. Just a shirt. And he really needs a soapy bath, but he sure does grin at you as you carry him all the way back down the alley and down to his house. By the way, say you also pass the baby's older sister who is riding her tricycle in the street out of sight from her house. Then say that you hand the baby to the mock-surprised father on the porch who says to the baby, "That's it, you're going inside," and carries him inside, leaves him inside unsupervised, then goes back to the porch.

Now, having previously witnessed that the parents are regularly drunk and use marajuana, scream at each other and the kids, and routinely let the kids wander under-clothed and unsupervised out of sight of the house, what would you do?

Hypothetically, of course.

Customer Dissatisfaction, Part 4

I bought a new laptop from Circuit City a few months ago on tax-free weekend. It was quite a deal, including a free printer and a year's worth of virus protection. I signed up for Verizon mobile broadband, too. Huge mail-in rebates all around.

When I walked in on Friday night, I was greeted by a well-oiled-customer-service-machine. Right off the bat, they asked if I was there to buy a laptop and assigned a laptop sales guy to me. He didn't leave my side, which was fine, but I was a quick sale because I had already done my research and knew what I wanted. He gathered up my items and handled the check-out process. He happily and competently completed the sale, including my complication of wanting to pay half then and put half on a Circuit City card with 90 days no interest, knowing I'd pay it off and enjoy stretching it out over 90 days. (I wouldn't normally tell the world how I paid for it, except it comes into play later.) I had bought several software options, so I left it with them to install everything and I'd pick it up on Saturday morning.

"This is a nice change," I thought, considering my recent Lowe's experience.

Saturday morning, I picked it up and took it home, but was busy all day, so I didn't open the boxes and set it up until Sunday afternoon. When I turned it on and started poking around, I discovered they had installed the wrong software package. They had installed, in fact, a package worth considerably less than what I had actually purchased.

I called the store and they confirmed what I had purchased the night before and told me to bring it all back and they would correct the mistake. Now, on Sunday afternoon of tax-free weekend, the place was PACKED and the employees were rather frazzled.

But they immediately took my laptop to install the correct software package. The Firedog guy (Circuit City's in-house tech crew) disappeared to the back, then returned with the bad news that they were now SOLD OUT of the software I wanted. But that part turned out okay, because he installed the programs separately, which actually saved me money because of a licensing technicality.

But as he installed the new software, he discovered that the "3" key on my laptop DIDN'T WORK. Not at all.

Never fear, he said, he'll just run to the back and get me a different laptop of the same type and start all over with installation. But then he returns with the bad news that they were now SOLD OUT of that type of laptop.

The store was crawling with Circuit City big wigs from the corporate office who were supervising the insanity of tax-free weekend. So, my Firedog guy cornered one of them for help. Big Wig called another Nashville-area Circuit City and determined that they had one left at that store. He held the phone away from his mouth and looked at me with a raised eyebrow that conveyed he wanted me to drive the 20 miles to that store to get it. (Really? You want me to take my business elsewhere? How about offering me the next laptop up for the same price?) I said, with a smile, "I'd be happy to come back later after you go get it." They were supposed to call me when it was finished.

Within 30 minutes of closing time and still no "it's ready" call, I moseyed back to the store parking lot. My Firedog guy called with 10 minutes to go saying he was almost done and to come on over. I get to the front door and the store manager refused to let me in because she was locking it, in fact, she clearly intentionally avoided eye contact with me. I caught my Firedog guy's eye inside and gave him the look of death and he rushed over and argued with the manager until she let me in.

I waited another 30 minutes for him to finish installation. Poor guy clearly hadn't slept all weekend. He packed it all up and walked me and my stuff over to Customer Service to finish up. Since I was now leaving with a different laptop than I had originally purchased on Friday, they had to refund the original and charge for the new one. And that's when the cashier broke it to me... One of the rebates I qualified for on Friday was no longer valid. Instead of that $200, it was now only valid for $50. She didn't know what to do. "Huh, oh well," was what she said to me. "That's not okay. Can you get your manager?" Here comes the girl who tried to lock me out earlier, and she was not in the mood to do anything but have birthday cake for some employee. I'll spare you our entire exchange with my suggestions for how to possibly handle this and her shoulder-shrugging responses. The corporate big wigs are long since home in bed by this time. Her ultimate solution was to hand-write a note on the back of her business card saying I should still qualify for the rebate, which I was to include in my rebate mail-ins.

Care to guess what happened when that envelope was opened at the rebate center in El Paso by a machine? I got a form letter back saying I'd returned the merchandise and don't qualify. Of course. I'm calling tomorrow to argue my case since it was a manufacturer's defect, so wish me luck.

Meanwhile, when I went by the store weeks later to make a payment, the cashier wasn't paying attention to me AT ALL and messed up the payment transaction. I understand that everyone makes mistakes, but before she messed up mine, she complicated the two transactions before mine, too. It was like watching a train wreck, knowing I was next.

I'm making the final payment this week, so you can wish me luck with that, too.