Images by John 'K'
Life as seen through my lens…
Category Archives: Random Rants
Sometimes we focus on the wrong things…
Posted by on February 28, 2011
I’m on Facebook. I’m there so I can more easily keep in touch with my family who are spread around the globe, and more recently I’ve started to share some of my photography there, but I’ve added a collection of friends and acquaintances as “friends” too.
In watching their updates, I often wonder what it is that makes people want to share their every thought and action on a site such as Facebook, where pretty much everyone can read what you put out there.
Without naming names, here are a few examples of the stuff I see…
“Experimenting with my big top cupcake again today…there is nutella involved.”
“Just discovered his X-box 360 has a free version of Pandora on it! OMG, I can do chores now!!!”
“Felt like tbe biggest asshole filling up my SUV”
“: ]”
“suppose I should get on with this ironing!”
“just seen Captain Glamtastic is at the club in October – will he… won’t he….??????”
“Seattle. Spa time.”
“bad dream :(“
“your phone being off doesn’t make it as special dude”
These are just from the past few hours…. and this is without all of the game updates (which I block the moment I see a new one).
Are people really that bored that they can find nothing else to do than post this cr*p to the world? For Pete’s sake people, get a hold of yourselves. Get outside and see what the real world is like. Go take a walk or a hike or a bike-ride. Go and check in on an old neighbor and make sure they are OK. At the very least, if you’re going to post cr*p, at least make sure you’ve spelled it correctly!
Oh… and use some common sense in what you post too. Don’t post personal details (phone number, address, stuff like that) and then go telling everyone that you’ll be away from home for the next 2 weeks on vacation. That’s just an open-house invite for all the low-lifes near you!
Also, do people realize that a search of someone’s profile on Facebook is becoming one of the standard things that potential employers do before they will consider looking at a job applicant?
Facebook is a great tool if used correctly, but so many people are blind to how it can be used against you, and it’s all because they focus on the wrong things…
It’s all in the eyes…
Posted by on February 17, 2011
You can tell a lot about a person by looking them in the eye. In this case you can probably tell that this person (me) is tired. Tired of stress at work, tired of pressures at home, and tired of worrying about what the future will bring.
By this stage in my life I’d expected to be free of the responsibilities of small children at home, and for that matter I was hoping that my kids would have all left home, but it’s not to be. My two youngest daughters (both at an age where their mum and I were living in our own place building our own family) are still living at home, and add to that the fact that one of them has a 16 month old daughter and will soon be bringing another baby into the world, and at times I find myself wondering if I’m just being taken for a ride.
I’m lucky enough to be in a fairly secure job that pays pretty well, but at a stage in my life where I should really be making sure I have a solid retirement plan, the money that should be getting set aside to help support my wife and I in our retirement is being spent on supporting a growing list of dependents, and so I find myself worrying about the future and whether we’ll be able to live without hardship in retirement.
There are times I feel like kicking my adult daughters out of the house and forcing them to make their own way in the world – it works in nature, and I know some people that would do it in a heartbeat… but something holds me back. Whether it’s concern for their safety, a fear for what it would do to our granddaughter (and soon to arrive grandson), or just something in my mind saying “now what would your mum have done – certainly not that” that stops me from doing it I don’t know… but I do know that while I don’t want to see them suffer unduly, I also don’t want to see our plans for a secure retirement go down the tubes because of the continued drain on our resources from having to continue to support them.
… so I’m going to take these tired eyes, and my wife, and get away from things for the weekend. Hopefully a quiet relaxing time away from all of the stresses and pressures will allow me to see things a little clearer.
“England entertain France at Wembley”
Posted by on November 17, 2010
Earlier today the BBC sport site headlined “England entertain France at Wembley”. Clearly the French were the only ones being entertained in today’s game! So glad that being over in California has desensitized me to the shambles that is the English national soccer team ….
Their end of game report was titled “Classy France expose poor England” and states “France outplay England at Wembley as goals from Karim Benzema and Mathieu Valbuena earn them a 2-1 win in the friendly international.” and “A late England rally could not disguise a gulf in class and technique as France earned a deserved victory at Wembley.”
Clearly the team has learned nothing from their abysmal 2010 World Cup appearance.
Don’t get “The Midas Touch”…
Posted by on June 7, 2008
It’s been a while since I’ve had something to have a good moan about, but take the followig rant as a lesson to always be sure that 1) instructions given are clearly understood by all concerned, 2) that you make sure that everyone concerned knows to not be afraid to tell you if something unexpected happens, and 3) that if you pay to have something done at a shop, check it while at the shop – don’t just take for granted that it’s done right.
So on to the story. My youngest daughter learned to drive last year and got her license. We brought a relatively cheep car for her to use – a little 1999 Saturn SL2. We knew it’d need some exhaust work doing when we got it but as a temporary measure we patched it until such time as it would need replacing. That time came this week, so I took it into the local Midas shop in Dublin (CA) for them to check it out with a view to replacing the exhaust. They got it up on the ramp, examined the exhaust, and then called me over to view. Sure enough, the area previously patched was beyond patching and so the whole of the rear exhaust system (middle and rear muffler, and pipes) would need replacing as it’s an all-in-one unti. In addition, the catalytic converter will need replacing sometime soon, but as I wasn’t expecting to pay for that at that time I deferred that for later.
As the part to be replaced was not something they stock locally, they took the details to place a special order, which meant I had to pay then. I did the necessary paperwork then left the stop, and 45 minutes later while I was driving around I had a call from the service rep who told me it should be in the next day. Initially I wasn’t sure of my schedule so I suggested that the day after would be better. On getting home and checking things out I found I could to the next day so phoned them back and was told that it would be OK. – bring it in any time.
The next day came, and things got a bit busy in the morning, so I didn’t get the car to Midas until around midday. I arrived and identified myself, to be faced with "we were expecting you tomorrow" so when I explained about the subsequent call I had made, they said "oh – OK – well if the service manager said it is OK, we’ll do it now". I explained that I would wait for the car (I had no other way of getting anywhere), so they took the keys and started working while I sat in the waiting area with my laptop and phone doing some work.
About an hour later, they drove the car to the front door, I was handed the completion paperwork by the service manager, and was told it was all done – he even explained that as I was waiting they had 2 guys work on it so they could get it done quickly. I thanked him, and as I could hear the car wasn’t anywhere near as noisy as it was I assumed they’d done what was needed and duly drove off.
As I drove home, the overall level of noise from the car sounded odd. It was like the rear of the car was more noisy than before, so I pulled over and looked underneath. That is when things took an interesting turn, as what I saw was that rather than having a new exhaust system with new pipes, and new center and rear muffler, they’d simply removed the old center muffler and about 2 inches of piping each side, and welded in place a section of pipe. I was livid – I got straight on the phone and spoke to the service manager who said I should bring it straight back. Needless to day I turned around and was back at their desk in about 5 minutes, and in front of 3 other waiting customers started to very vocally complain about that they had done vs what was the "agreed" work I was paying for. The manager was most apologetic, and went off to the work area. I heard loud voiced (mostly his) and a minute later he came back with a senior engineer who then took the car, and put it back up on a ramp so we could all see the bodged job they had done.
After I explained the conversations from the previous day and again expressed my dissatisfaction in no uncertain terms, I was told to leave it with them, that they’d sort it all out and make it right, and that they’d hire a car for me so I could get around while this was sorted. As I sat in the reception area waiting for the hire car company to come pick me up I heard the manager making frantic calls trying to find someone with the right part. After 3 attempts, he found one, and sent one of the mechanics off in a truck to go get it.
The hire car duly arrived, so I after making sure they’d call me when completed, I headed off home to do some work – I’d already lost 2 hours to this – wasn’t going to waste the whole afternoon. A couple of hours passed and we got close to the time that they had said it’d be done by and there had been no phone call. Conscious that they’d be closing in less than an hour, I called them to be told "it’ll be done before we close". Well not wanting to chance things (I couldn’t let this lapse into another day), I hopped in the hire car (actually a Dodge RAM truck!!) and drove back to the hire car place – finished off the paperwork there, and asked them to run me back to Midas, which they happily did (the local Enterprise car hire office in Dublin – VERY HELPFUL and I can’t recommend them enough BTW).
As we pulled up at the Midas shop, I could see my daughters car parked up at the back of the lot. There hadn’t been a call to my phone telling me they were done, so I assumed the worse. I walked up to the desk and asked how things were going with the car. It was done. I proceeded to launch into a rant about them not contacting me as agreed (more apologies), and sorted out with them a refund on the car hire fees (as Midas don’t have a direct bill contract with Enterprise – something they by the looks of things should consider). They got the car and popped it back up on a ramp so I could see that they’d done the job properly this time.
It transpired that they’d ordered the part on the previous day as was told to me, and it was due to arrive that morning however didn’t show. So rather than when I arrived them tell me that they didn’t have the part, they’d taken it on their heads to do what they did. This sparked another interesting and very loud conversation in front of other customers in the waiting area about appropriate responses when faced with this sort of situation.
So at the end of the day the exhaust was sorted on the day promised, but whereas I would have been OK re-scheduling for another day when they had the part, the exercise in miscommunication ended up costing me a couple of wasted hours and a lot of frustration, and cost Midas 2 mechanics time for an hour on a bodged repair that was then removed later that afternoon, cost them another mechanics time for an hour to go collect the right part, cost them a day’s hire of a truck so I could use it for a couple of hours, and cost them a lot of embarrassment in front of other customers (who were clearly sitting there re-thinking their decision to use Midas as things unfolded in front of them). They also now have another Saturn SL2 exhaust sat around as the originally ordered part arrived shortly after the mechanic returned back to Midas with the one they went to pick up.
"The Midas Touch"… I won’t be touching them with any of my cars again.
Do people not check their own records?
Posted by on August 24, 2005
Random rant number 6: What’s the point in keeping records if you don’t check them?
Twice recently I ran into issues applying for things where had the companies involved simply checked their own records they would have taken a totally different course of action than was chosen as a result of going through an external agency.
Let me elaborate a bit. Problem number 1) I requested a credit limit increase on a credit card I’ve had since December of last year. Having not long had the account set up (8 months), I expected a possible kick-back here, but the account had been run smoothly, the balance paid in full every month, and it was opened as a result of years of good history with the UK branch of the same organisation. The reasons that came back were "proportion of revolving balances to revolving credit limits is too high" and "too many accounts with balances". Now up until last month I only had 1 form of credit in the US, and it was the card I have with this company, and the balance had been paid in full each month. This month we added a store card which has a balance but only because we haven’t had the first request to pay the balance yet, and we only took this to qualify for a 10% discount from the store! A quick phone call to the card company sorted the confusion out, but had they simply looked at their own records for my account they could potentially saved them and me some time!
Problem number 2 was with my bank. It was for an application for a credit card with them. They rejected the application quoting the following reasons; "unable to verify employment" and "unable to verify income". Well given the bank verified my employment when they let me open my checking and savings accounts with them, and given that my salary is paid every 2 weeks into the checking account I have with them, these reasons came as somewhat of a shock, so I rang them about it. It seems they don’t check their own records when processing credit card applications, and the external agency they used goofed up. Needless to say the situation was sorted as soon as they checked their own data, but again this was one where the process led to an irate call from a customer and wasted time at both ends.
Funnily enough, the same bank also refused to add my wife to my bank account because a process they use got her ID information confused. Again all sorted now, but it all builds a perception that they’re not as good as the say they are. Were it not for some good customer service representatives stepping in things would be in a bad state.
Rant over for a bit….. 😉
Images by John 'K' 