The Stand-up Philosopher

Is Accident Forgiveness Simply a Pre-Paid Insurance Increase?

I’ve had my insurance with Allstate New Jersey for the last 11 years. It’s not a bad relationship. They don’t bother me, I don’t bother them, and I guess we’re both happy.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had to talk to Allstate. We sold a car last year, and I had to call to take it off the policy. I don’t remember how long it was before that when I had to talk to them last.

One of the last two times I had to call Allstate was right after Accident Forgiveness was rolled out. I thought that was a great idea. I’ve paid tens of thousands or more of dollars for car insurance, and so far I have not had to make a single claim. So by this point, after 20 years of driving (and paying insurance), being forgiven for an accident sounds like a great idea. I could probably have bought several cars for what I’ve paid in insurance, especially in the early years when it cost me a fortune to insure a car simply because I was young, single, and male.

But when they asked me if I wanted to add accident forgiveness to my policy, they explained that it would raise the cost of my policy. I politely declined.

I have to ask, if you’ve talked to your insurance company about accident forgiveness: isn’t this just another banking/insurance scam? Is this little more than pre-paying a policy increase? Or am I missing something?

MSN: 8 Lottery Winners Who Lost Their Millions

I’ve written several times about why I don’t waste my money on the lottery. I waste it on a lot of things, but not lottery tickets.

I know a lot of people who believe they can become “rich” through the lottery. I don’t buy it. I’m hardly an expert, but I have done more research on the lottery than anybody I know. That’s kind of sad, actually. I have 6 articles bookmarked on delicious. I’ve probably read a few more, but forgot to socially bookmark them. But that’s far more research than most people do on actual lottery winners.

It’s funny though, how I’ve read and bookmarked 6 articles, and nobody believes me that I can’t find evidence of a single lottery winner who didn’t blow the whole wad and end up worse off. They keep telling me “but, isn’t it possible that there’s somebody out there who won the lottery and was smart with the money?” I reply “Sure, it’s possible, but I haven’t come across one in my research. If you find one, please get me the information.”

Today on MSN, I found an article 8 Lottery Winners Who Lost Their Millions. Once again, it’s an account of people who won the lottery and lost everything. Some people lost families.

I do believe it’s possible that there are lottery winners out there who didn’t ultimately lose at life. But I don’t have any accounts of them. If you know of one, please let me know.

Is It Realistic To Be "Happy With What You Have"?

I met my wife when I was 25. Prior to that, I was that loser "nice guy" who complained about not being able to meet girls. When I had friends who complained about their wives or girlfriends, I'd tell them that they should be happy they have someone to complain about.

I think we all have an area of our lives that we're unhappy with, yet there is always somebody around to tell us that we should be happy with it. "I don't like my job" is answered by "Well, at least you have a job. You should be happy that you have a job".

On some levels, we should be content with what we have. But on other levels, doesn't some discontentment drive us on to better things? If you don't like your job, shouldn't that drive you to get a better one? If you don't like your neighborhood, shouldn't that drive you to move to a better one?

Is it really smart to stay in a job you don't like just because there are people who don't have jobs?

When I was a kid, my mom was a really bad cook. Yes, we talked about it after I grew up. She knew she wasn't very good at cooking, and my dad liked his food incredibly bland, which is what she cooked for. I like lots of flavor. When my mom cooked something that I couldn't eat, (seriously, I grew up thinking lasagna was horrible!) I'd be told "You should eat that. There are starving kids in Africa". I always suggested we send my mom's cooking to Africa and let me make a sandwich.

I'm not sure there are any hard and fast rules to govern the situations where you should be content with your situation and when you should strive for better. I think if you exercise wisdom and caution, you should be all right. If you don't like your car, but you have to place your family in financial peril to make the payments on a new one, then you should probably be content with your car. If you don't like your house, but you have to take up a sub-prime Adjustable Rate (Rape) Mortgage (ARM) to get a better one, then you should probably be content with what you have for now. If you don't like your spouse, I can't help you in this post, but I have come across some interesting thoughts on love that I might share in another if anybody will actually read it. It helped me a lot.

If you don't like your job, I'm all in favor of bettering yourself and getting a better job. I've done it a few times myself. There are ALWAYS jobs out there. Yes, even in the Great Depression there were jobs. 30% unemployment means 70% employment. You just have to stand out a little better to get a job in those situations, but they're out there.

I guess "be content with what you have" could function as a general guiding principle by which to live your life, but it shouldn't be considered a law of behavior.

I think I've rambled on enough and not given enough answers. What about you? What rules do you have for when you should be content and when you should strive to improve?

Cash for Clunkers: Buyer's Remorse

I wish I were possible for Congress and the long line of government expansionist Presidents that we’ve had to get buyer’s remorse. They don’t, because they’re often very well insulated from accountability. Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last few months (got room for a couple more?) you’ve probably heard of the Cash for Clunker’s program.

According to Dave Ramsey, this program generated a lot of buyer’s remorse. It will probably generate a lot of other remorse in the future, like when the demand that got pushed up isn’t there later on when those people would have bought cars anyway. Dave Ramsey ranted about this program. Dave reads an article on AOL Autos and supplies his commentary. If you like Dave’s rants and commentary, don’t miss this one.

If you’d like to follow along on the original article, you can easily Google it. Or, I can save you the work. Here it is.

Tim Ferriss: The 10 Worst Airlines In The U.S.

Tim Ferriss has a post about the 10 worst airlines in the U.S. He created a poll for people to vote on them. U.S. Airways came in at number 2.

You can cast your vote here. Who will you vote for? I voted for U.S. Airways. Since I live near Philly, which is a U.S. Airways hub, it's been about 10 years since I've experienced any other airline. I think when my mom died, I flew Continental, since Houston Intergalactic is their hub, and it's hard to get into San Antonio without flying through Houston. I haven't had many problems with Continental, except for this one in 2006, but that was resolved with another call. I've never wished for Continental to go out of business like I have U.S. Airways.

United came in at #1. I'm not sure if I've ever flown United.

Reclaiming the Mind: Doing Business with Christians

C. Michael Patton asks an interesting question: have you ever been burned doing business with Christians? I think the question was directed more toward believers, but I’m sure most people in the west have stories. We’re notoriously picky diners and cheap tippers on Sunday afternoon right after church. I’ve heard horror stories about how waitresses are somehow expected to feed their families with those contrived Chick tracts rather than like money. My wife and I go out of our way to leave good tips on Sunday. If they don’t suspect we’re Christian, under the circumstances, we can live with that.

I’m not sure if I can say I’ve been burned by another believer, at least, not any more than I’ve been burned by anybody I’ve done business with. Have you ever done business with somebody who went out of his or her way to make sure you knew that he or she was a Christian, then either delivered a substandard product or service or just plain ripped you off?

High Pressure Sales: Is This Really Lying?

My wife and I bought a timeshare in Virginia Beach last year, and went on our first timeshare exchange this week. We went to Williamsburg, Virginia. We like Virginia. I travel to a couple of locations in Virginia for work, and I always enjoy it. The people are friendly and the hospitality is awesome. Let's face it, New Jersey license plates don't say "The hospitality state". Even in restaurants where the service is slow, it's still friendly, which sure beats the slow and apathetic service we get in some places in New Jersey (like the Lindenwold and Blackwood-Clementon McDonald's).

I knew from reading reviews of this resort that we'd be invited to a meal and then have to sit through a sales presentation. I thought about getting out of it, but they have ways... We went to it on Wednesday. I wouldn't say it was incredibly high-pressure, but they did use some tactics that I find questionable, and every time these tactics are used on me, I always wonder if I'm being lied to.

Dishonesty From The Start Is a Poor Sales Practice

Last year I spent a week in Virginia for work. I ended up being able to get an ocean front suite in Virginia Beach within what I could be reimbursed for, so I brought the family with me. While we were there, we of course got invited to a timeshare presentation. We figured we'd eat the free breakfast, take the tour, listen to the pitch, then fight like heck to get out of there.

Yes, I am uncomfortable with taking free breakfasts and other gifts when I have no intention of buying. We like VA Beach, so we were intersested in what they had to say although we figured it would be priced out of reality for us. Somehow, it wasn't. They had a unit within a reasonable price, and it includes a deed, so my wife was interested and we bought in.

We're currently on our first exchange to Williamsburg, VA. The resort we're staying at wants us to have a free meal, then take a tour of a model and then take a survey. As usual, they claim there will be no pressure. I'm not sure. I read in some reviews of this resort that even if you already own a unit somewhere else, they will try very hard to get us to switch to a unit here. That won't happen. At least as we understand things, a VA Beach unit gives us some power in exchanges. We also like VA Beach, so we're not giving that up.

Customer Service Failures:Does It Matter to Businesses That They Could Lose a Customer?

In 2003, my wife and I had to replace 10 windows and the sliding glass door in our house. We opted to use Window Wizards. The sales process and installation went well enough, but getting service has been a nightmare. Nobody seems to bother to check the voice mail on the service line. I've tried to call sales to get service, and still be given the voice mail. I've had service calls get canceled after taking a day off and sitting around. I've had repeated problems with some parts, and by the way, a "lifetime" warranty isn't a lifetime warranty.

My wife recently started pointing out to me that I'm going to have to call Window Wizards again. The vinyl on the back of our sliding door is cracked again, and the door is hard to open and close. We have a window that needs to be adjusted because it won't stay open, and the wheels on our screen door rusted out, rendering the door useless.

Verizon FAIL: No Customer Service for my In-laws

I hope the word FAIL isn't too contrived. Since discovering Failblog, it's working it's way into my daily vocabulary. I think it's appropriate here.

I was with Verizon for several years. I don't miss them. You can use the Google search box to the right to search for all of my rantings over the years about Verizon DSL. You could not PAY me to go back on DSL, and every time a friend gets DSL, after asking me if they should and I say no and they get it anyway and I have to help them with a Verizon DSL problem, I'm reminded of how much I hate dealing with Verizon.

In the days when I had a Verizon land line, it was little more than an open conduit for telemarketers. Despite paying for Call Intercept, which was supposed to prevent "unavailable" calls from getting through, they continued to get through. All my land line was good for was for people I didn't want to talk to to get through to me about every 20 minutes all day long. My wife and I switched to AT&T cell phones and haven't looked back. Our AT&T lines haven't been without problems over the years, but for the most part, when I call AT&T, they don't jerk me around. They try to deal with the problem and I'm gratetful for that. I do have a Verizon BlackBerry that's provided by work. For the most part, it does a decent job. Every now and again when I have to tether it, I'll get cut off and go through up to a half hour of "The Remote Computer is not responding", but my company is paying for it so what can I do? During a period when my wife's line wasn't working very well, I tried to threaten AT&T with leaving for Verizon, but now that I have my iPhone, I'm not giving it up for anything. AT&T it is.

Lottery Budget: Dave Ramsey Nails It!

Apparently, one of Dave Ramsey’s callers asked if he should set aside a budget for buying lottery tickets. I’ve long since (independently) come to the conclusion that the lottery tax is merely a voluntary tax on greed, misplaced hope, and a poor mindset. Then I actually did some research on lottery winners, and was more than convinced that I’ve been right to stay out the the whole thing for most of my life.

I haven’t listened to the call. I’m sure when I get home and sync my iPhone,that podcast with sync across for me and I can listen to it then.

You can use the Google Search box to the right to look for the posts I’ve written over the years about the lottery. I have no use for it.

Will the Declining Home Size Trend Continue After the “Recession”?

I’ve been reading lately about people downsizing their homes. Just like how home sizes kept getting larger during “good times”, now they’re getting smaller during “bad times”. I’m fine with that. It makes perfect sense.

What drives me nuts are predictions that this will continue. After home sizes supposedly peaked, suddenly mankind has reached a new awareness that too big a home isn’t necessary and even if the “recession” ended tomorrow and prosperity returned, some people claim the trend will continue.

In the Navy, we had what we called a “BS” flag. We actually said the entire term, but I won’t here. I’d like to raise the BS flag on this one. I highly doubt that if tomorrow the entire nation woke up prosperous, we’d continue to downsize our homes. I’m sure people would go right back to borrowing too darn much and living in too large of houses and driving more car than they need just because everybody else is doing it.

Cool DARPA Project of the Day: Biodog

Check out this link. Watch the video. This thing is cool. It’s a robot with 4 legs that can run, climb steep terrain, and carry a heavy load. I assume it can do all three at once. The video shows it taking on a variety of obstacles, from a steep hill in the woods, to a swift kick in the sides, to a pile of cement blocks, to ice, to a snowdrift. It’s also featured carrying a 400 pound load, and running and jumping. It looks strangely life-like in many ways. The legs almost look like spider legs.

I’m not joking when I say I look forward to concepts like bio-horse and bio-camel. I think there is a lot that can be done with this.

I’m not entirely convinced that artificial intelligence will ever achieve any likeness to a human soul or spirit, but I do get excited by robots that perform valuable service roles. We only have one room in our downstairs with carpet, so a Roomba is out, but we have talked about getting a Scooba robot to keep the floors clean. Yes, I know it requires maintenance and service.

Technorati Tags: Biodog,robots,service robots

Things That Don’t Suck About New Jersey

When I met my wife, she had The Bloodhound Gang’s CD. It listed a track as something like “10 Things That Don’t Suck About New Jersey”. I’m not sure about the exact wording, but when you sequence the CD to the track, it’s about 10 seconds of silence.

I can be very hard on New Jersey in my talking and writing. I got out of the Navy in 1998 in San Diego and started working as an alarm installer, which was the first job I managed to get after 2 weeks of not having an income. It was fun while it lasted, and I appreciate the time I had on that job and the men I worked with. In 1999, I got a job offer to move to New Jersey to work at a development site. This job was to be more inline with my training and experience from my time in the Navy.

Don’t Tell Sellers at a Yard Sale That You’re Going to Sell on Ebay

I’ve written several posts about how the words we use and the way we say them can cause seriously negative consequences for us. I’m just as guilty as anybody of this, which is scary because I try to be conscious of it.

My wife and I have had a few yard sales over the years. We’ve also been to a lot. My wife loves yard sale shopping. I’m sure that within the next month, when yard sales start back up, she’ll expect me to get up on Saturday and start driving her around. I’ll do everything in my power to get out of it, including offering to keep both kids at home with me.

Dave Ramsey Offers Free Report on Investing

I get all kinds of junk in my Gmail spam folder about special reports on investing. They also invite you to participate in some kind of “pump and dump” penny stock scam. That’s not what this is about.

If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you know that I follow Dave Ramsey and put a lot of stock in what he has to say. I listen to his podcast almost daily. One of his ELPs (Endorsed Local Providers) has a free report that Dave is making available on his website. Click the link and download it. Dave does not advocate getting out of the market. He advocates buying certain varieties of good growth stock mutual funds. Buying single stocks is too risky. When you buy single stocks, you’re at the mercy of idiots who short Apple whenever Steve Jobs sneezes or spends an extra minute in the bathroom. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when Apple stock suddenly drops several percent on any news story however inane.

Buying funds and planning to stay in for the long term is the strategy that pays off every time.

Technorati Tags: Investing,stocks,mutual funds,Dave Ramsey,Free Investor's Report

No Note, No Mortgage?

I came across an interesting post on Vox Day’s blog recently. Apparently people facing foreclosure are asking their banks to show them the original note for the mortgage. Because mortgages have been bought and sold many times, most notes are misplaced in distant warehouses. I have no idea how successful this tactic is. I have an idea how ethical it is though…

I once had trouble with my note. When I bought my house in 2001, somehow I did not get a copy of the note in my mortgage paperwork, even though it’s supposed to be provided. In 2002 or 2003, I went to do a VA Streamline mortgage, and while assembling my documents, I couldn’t find my note. I looked all over for it. At the time, our mortgage was serviced by Washington Mutual, who had the note, but wanted to charge $20 to pull it from archives, copy it, and FedEx it to us. I was fuming over this. If our note had been digitized, we could have gotten an email copy for free. The title company, which should have given us a copy of the note in the first place, did not maintain our records. I was fuming.

No Spend January

My wife got the idea to go for an entire month without spending money. I think she got the idea from one of her blogs. At first, I was against the idea, then I didn’t believe it could work, but I decided that we had nothing to lose and agreed to do it. Here are some of my thoughts and experiences from our “no-spend” month.

Obviously, going into a no spend month requires setting some goals and boundaries. It’s  impractical to not spend ANY money whatsoever, so we had to restrict ourselves to the most necessary expenses. I needed to put gas in my car to get to work, and we allowed a $20 a week withdrawal for fresh fruits and vegetables. We figured this would be realistic. We also allowed cash withdrawals to give to church. My wife fueled her car up at the end of December. Since my car is the family car, hers is only used for errands and she can easily go two or three weeks without putting gas in her car.

Did Anything Interesting Come Out of MacWorld and CES This Year?

The past week two of the biggest tech tradeshows of the year went on, it at least from my perspective, both seemed like non-events. Did anything actually happen? Oh, Apple released iLife and iWork 09. OK, that was exciting. Oh, there’s a newer, more expensive MacBook Pro with a non-serviceable battery. Yawn. I’m not quite in the market for a $2800 computer right now, removable battery or not. I’d like a review unit though if Apple wants to send me one. Some tech journalists suspect that Apple has run out of steam. I’m not sure that’s true, but it’s plausible.

As for CES, about all I’ve heard is that nothing happened.

Obviously, with the economy supposedly on a downturn (you still can’t get a parking spot at the mall), I guess businesses will enter a period of spending less on trade shows. I’m sure they’ll be back though.

Free ebook: Suze Orman’s 2009 Action Plan

I got a newsletter from Ramit at I Will Teach You To Be Rich informing his readers that Suze Orman’s 2009 Action Plan is available for download as a free eBook from Oprah’s website. Ramit highly recommends the book. After I’ve read it, I will post a review. I currently have 2 reviews in the pipeline, 1 new book on the way, and a couple of other books that I wanted to review because I enjoyed them and found the information contained in them priceless and I want to recommend the books.

I’m really starting to enjoy doing book review. I love reading the books, so this just seems like the next logical step.

Perspective on the Economy from Harvard Business

I came across this post on the Harvard Business blog. I can't say that the "animal spirits" reference does anything for me, but I'm posting this article more for the perspective it provides than for the title.

Yes, things look bleak, but don't forget, some of the most revolutionary moments in key industries happened during poor economic times. If you want to succeed, look for problems to solve and needs to meet.

Communication: Getting to the Point

I've always been taught that in communication, getting the the point is always best. Different mediums do have slightly different requirements, but for the most part, effectively communicating to the reader or listener the point that you'd like to get across quickly is always best. Nobody likes a preacher or politician or salesman that rambles on and on and gets nowhere.

I've always wondered if certain industries have different standards. Like many people, I have joined a few organizations that represent causes that I believe in and feel strongly enough about to support, even if just by my membership dues. I've also ended up on the mailing lists of several ministries and organizations over the years for a variety of reasons. Some I believe bought my contact information, but others I deliberately signed up for because I was interested in information or a freebie.

Customer Service Redemption

Due to the frustration I went through in May when my cable modem stopped working in my computer room and my seeming inability to get the situation corrected through Comcast’s 1-800 number, I’ve been ranting on my blog about the situation. Last week when I linked the original post, a Comcast representative invited me to email the details of my situation to her. It took me through the Christmas weekend to get the email put together, but when I did, it was sent up to corporate. Corporate scheduled a technician to visit my house and investigate the problem. The tech came, replaced some coax and splitters, and checked the signal strength. I am now able to keep my cable modem and router upstairs in my computer room, safe from the kids and our Borg cat that likes to eat wires. Seriously, we had no lights on our Christmas tree because the cat ate some bulbs and the power cord.

I’ve written before about how smart businesses will monitor the web for negative incidents. I’m glad that Comcast did that. To be honest, as long as my cable modem and TV work, I am perfectly happy to stay with Comcast. There really isn’t a viable alternative to Comcast high-speed internet, but as long as it works I’m happy. I don’t have any complaints about our cable package, which is honestly a very low price. Several years ago we dumped our expanded cable to try to save money. This was right after Joshua was born in 2004, the same time we switched to DSL. After 3 weeks with a newborn baby and only basic cable, our sanity was stretched to the limits. We’d spend Saturday mornings in a half-catatonic state watching those used car commercials. I found out about a $5 value package and asked for that. Our cable and internet bill is under $60 or $70. We don’t at present see a need for a several hundred dollar a month digital package. I don’t watch sports, and as long as I have the History and Discovery Channels and my wife has Food TV and the kids have Nickelodian, we’re happy. I also recently discovered that we have Speed, which was a nice surprise. Maybe I should channel flip more often.

I know that customer service is one of the most expensive and time consuming functions of business, and no business can expect to please everybody. I was very happy to see that Comcast monitors blogs.

Frugal Dad- Language of the Perpetual Poor

I came across an interesting blog post today. It's been up since April, but I just found it today. I was reading comments on I Will Teach You To Be Rich and found the Frugal Dad blog. I agree with the post, and linking it saves me the trouble of writing my own.

As The Frugal Dad says, there is a difference between the "perpetual poor" and those who are financially hosed due to other circumstances. Dave Ramsey uses the terms "broke" and "poor" as a contrast. Broke is a circumstance while poor is a mindset as Dave puts it.

I grew up listening to my mom telling us that we can't afford basically anything I might have asked for. Of course, there always seemed to be plenty of money when she wanted to take a trip or buy something, but that's another story. My parents never gave me access to their financial statements so I can only go on my perceptions. When I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I came across an interesting mindset. Rather than saying "I can't afford it" you should ask "How can I afford it?" I've taken this a step farther in asking "Is this a wise use of our money at this point in time?" Note that there are some issues with Rich Dad, Poor Dad, but you can read about that here. In any case, I will say that Rich Dad, Poor Dad is dead on about the mindset part of finances.

I have had several jobs I didn't like. With the exception of the Navy which had me under a contract, when I reached the breaking point of not liking a job, I got another one. In the case of my last job, I got a college degree then I got a new job. It was hard work but I had to do it unless I wanted to stagnate there until the contract ran out, which I didn't.

When you find yourself in financial difficulty, there are usually two options: cut expenses or increase your income. One way to increase income is to get a better job. Another is to freelance by offering a skill you have in your spare time. Sometimes you can only cut how much it costs you to live by so much, then you've got to find a way to increase your income. That's what I did when we had Joshua. I was working the swing shift, my wife was on the day shift, and we had no time together. I floated resumes, got a better job, and she was able to come home. Actually, it was more complicated than that. The two guys I worked with told me about a "5 year plan." I sat down to try to figure out where I wanted to be in 5 years, and I realized I did not want to be there in 5 years. That story goes on a lot longer.

If you find yourself constantly swimming upstream with your finances and just can't seem to get ahead, why not stop. Find a quite place and examine your life. Do you find yourself to have a limiting mindset? Do you place more faith in lottery tickets than in your own ability to succeed? Do you read much, or try to improve your skills or develop new ones? By read, I don't mean the mindless motivational fluff like Rich Dad, Poor Dad or Think and Grow Rich. I mean, do you read anything that will teach you something? Do you read books or magazines about your trade? Have you ever talked to your manager about what it will take for you to move up?

There are many cases when we're only prisoners of our own mindsets.

How Would You Like to Live in a Tiny House?

I stumbled across the Tiny House Movement today. Wow. I'm not sure what else to say. I guess I can say good for those who want to live this way, and have achieved that goal. I'm not sure I could do this. My books alone would not fit in that kind of house. It might be fun for a weekend, but my family would have to be in dire straights. Of course, CNN really doesn't explore the issue in this story of how families are doing.

People have a few prime reasons for moving into these tiny houses. One husband and wife had a construction business that went south. Making tiny houses was a way to boost revenue. The other guy didn't like his job and didn't want to be in debt. He lives in a 100 square foot house on $15,000 a year. Most people move into these things to be "green". Well, good for them.

I'm not opposed to doing weird things. My wife is planning to go the entire month of January without spending money, with the exception of gas and tolls. We'll see how it goes. There's no doubt we're going to see some economic changes, and we had all better adapt as they come. I don't think it's wise to overreact though.

I Hate Having to do Other People’s Jobs for Them

OK, here’s the situation. In July, I visited a dentist’s office. Their business policy required me to pay for the visit up front, then they would send the claim to my insurance, and if any was covered by insurance, they would send it to me. I remember filling out a form telling them how I wanted the money refunded.

Somewhere along the way, I did get a notice from the insurance that the visit was covered and the money would be paid to the office. I heard nothing more from either. Recently, my wife has been on my case to call and find out where the money is. I hate making phone calls. I’ve documented some of the many painful hours I’ve spent trying to straighten out simple medical claims here on my blog. I finally broke down and called today.

I gave my name and the issue. The person who answered the phone immediately said “Oh, I have a note here to call you to ask what card you want this refunded to!” I decided to save any discussion of “OK, how long have you had that note, and why the heck haven’t you bothered to call me until now?” for my blog. So, here you go.

I am starting to believe that I should have the ability to bill businesses for my time when I have to call to follow up on problems that are caused by them. If they drop the ball, and I have to call to straighten things up, I should be able to send them a bill for the time I spend on the phone, plus gathering documents or searching my gmail and Evernote archives for any data related to the event. This should include Comcast and Verizon. Comcast definitely should pay me for the 40 minute phone call in which I was told by tech support that I lost my IP address and have to call Microsoft to get another one. I was also told that there were no managers or engineers (or anybody who understands DHCP networking) available. Comcast should also pay me for the last time when I called, was told I’d be transferred to Customer Service (you mean 1-800-COMCAST isn’t customer service?) and got a “The number you have dialed has been disconnected…). Seriously, Comcast, as soon I find a viable high speed internet provider, I’m leaving. Verizon DSL is NOT a viable high-speed internet provider. It was horrible, and Verizon couldn’t pay me and include my own personal 24 hour tech support to use it. FIOS might be viable, but there’s that whole Verizon stigma associated with it.

Ramit Sethi Tip # 29: Stop being a loser and pay money to save money

Ramit Sethi from I Will Teach You To Be Rich posted Tip #29 in his save $1000 in 30 days challenge. This is a long post but is full of value. There is more to saving money than being cheap. Ramit also deals with the idea of paid online content. Even I have some kind of mental block about paying for services on the Internet. I’m already paying approximately $40 for my cable modem, and I’m used to sites on the Internet providing free or ad-supported services. I provide this blog for free, but I only say that in jest. I’m not convinced yet that I provide enough value to anybody to put a price on my ramblings.

One problem that I have with paying for membership sites on the Internet is that some I have joined provided little value. I fear that if I pay for another membership, I will get ripped off. It seems like the big players (Google, etc) provide a lot of value that I don’t have to pay for directly. I would hate to have to calculate what Google’s services like Gmail, Google Analytics, and others would cost me if I had to pay for them. If you won’t pay for a service, however, what might you be losing? It’s been a long time since I’ve checked into what a Wall Street Journal Online subscription costs, but if I were willing to pay the money to get access to the information, what value might it give me?

One comment Ramit leaves is that you must apply what you’ve learned. If you don’t apply a tip, it’s worthless. I recently read “Eat That Frog” and posted a review. I thought the book was a good value, but if I don’t apply what I read, then it’s worthless.

Economic Perspective

OK, obviously we’re hitting some uncertain economic times. Perhaps you’re one of those who has already been affected or is waiting for the ax to fall. I don’t spend a lot of time following “the news” but I do gather and analyze information. I’ve had a thought in the back of my mind lately and I decided that it’s time to write this up. This will be a short post.

Few combinations of words strike fear into the American psyche like “Great” and “Depression” used together. We’ve all seen the imagines of bread lines and tent cities and unemployed and the Dust Bowl. I want to try to give one thing that perhaps can provide some perspective on what is going on. Remember, on the news, if it bleeds, it leads. None of the news networks could stay in business for long with reports like “3 Billion People Reported having a good day today”. It would go nowhere. I’ve heard reports that unemployment during the Great Depression was as high as 26%. That’s almost unimaginable, but let’s turn that on it’s head: employment then was 74%. There were actually jobs during the Great Depression! Look at footage of Hollywood: it was doing just fine. People were going to movies, and stars and studios were making money. The grocery cart was invented during the Great Depression. Why would a grocery cart be needed unless people were buying enough groceries to need one? Many businesses did just fine during the Great Depression, many scientific advancements were made, and many people did fairly well.

Even if we hit another “Great Depression”, that doesn’t mean that everybody will be unemployed. Many will. There are some industries that will probably take a hit. Some companies will probably fail. In order to make it through, those affected may need to adapt, to learn new skills or even change industries.

Even if we do hit tough times, there will be bright spots, and eventually, they will come to an end.

What Am I Missing II: Silence

I ran across a post by Mark Driscoll about Silence. I should know as much as anybody what it’s like to have a steady stream of information coming in, yet for some reason I don’t feel it as a crushing weight. I read a lot of bloggers complaining about a lack of silence. For some reason, I tend to feel comfortable with a lot of information coming in at once. I subscribe to 113 blogs at present in Google Reader. Some of them are like Lifehacker and put up a lot of posts a day. A few of them haven’t put up a new post in months. I also subscribe to several podcasts through iTunes, which I sync to my iPod Touch. I find a lot of websites on the internet that I want to read and look into more. On top of it all, I seem to have new books and magazines flowing into my house faster than I can read the old ones.

How do I do it without going crazy? Good question. Perhaps it’s because I don’t have many friends and therefore have more time, but that’s not true. I have a family and a job.

Let me tell you my trick, which really doesn’t seem like it’s that tricky. I don’t let the flow of information coming in become my master. If a blog that I follow starts to get out of hand or starts to become a waste of my time, I delete the feed from Google Reader. I periodically reevaluate the podcasts I subscribe to. At one point, I had more podcasts than any human being could keep up with and I had to reevaluate which ones my time was best spent listening to. I used to love Leo LaPorte’s TWIT network, but I finally got tired of listening to them complaining about Windows Vista, plus their podcasts got longer and became more like listening to friends ramble than a panel of experts discussing pertinent tech topics. I deleted those subscriptions as they weren’t a good use of my time anymore. Other podcasts became more important to the limited time I have. I’ve had plenty of other podcasts that I stopped subscribing to.

As for my books, I just let them pile up. When I finish one, I pick another one. Sometimes I pick one up and just can’t get into it, so I put it aside and get another one. I have plenty to choose from. I dream one day of having a huge personal library like blue-blood rich people in movies have, with bookshelves all the way up the wall that require ladders to get to the top. That would be so cool.

I’ve written before that for those rare times that I don’t want to talk on the phone, I ignore calls or just shut the phone off. I don’t do that often. It’s very rare.

There are some things I just can’t do anything about. The location of my cubicle at work is an example. I have the corner cube outside the conference room and next to the door, so people walk by looking in at me all day, plus people are in the conference room and other people walk by, stop, and talk loud. I can’t do anything about that and it does drive me nuts. I also can’t do anything about traffic, and I can’t do anything about crowds. But for those “inputs” that I have control over, I keep the relationship just like that: I keep them under control,.

If you feel like the information streaming into your life is totally out of control, then get it under control. Draw some boundaries. I don’t mean push your family out of the picture, but draw some boundaries. Take some charge and responsibility for yourself. I recommend the book “Boundaries” by Cloud and Townsend if you need help in this area. The link is below, and I have also added the book to my Amazon aStore if you find that more convenient.

Service and Support: Evernote Resolution

I wrote last week about service and support, and I used Evernote as an example, though I was not trying to cast them in a negative light; I only wanted to point out using their webpage how companies attempt to deflect wasting time on stupid questions versus people with real problems trying to get through.

I contacted Evernote’s customer support. It took most of the week, but exchanging email back and forth with Evernote lead to a resolution of my problem. I can now sync Evernote from my work laptop to the web client, which will increase my efficiency and my ability to record, file, and retrieve information. I highly recommend Evernote if you’re looking for a way to keep track of your electronic notes.

The Androgynous Holiday

I heard a hilarious DJ song this morning on the radio. Have you heard that song “Happy Holidays”? I hate it. I consider it the “Seinfeld Carroll”, the song about nothing. That’s not a slight against Seinfeld; consider it a backhanded compliment. The song went:

“P.C Holidays…

P.C. Holidays…

Non-specific bells keep ringing

P.C. Holidays, to you!”

I thought that summed it up nicely. I honestly hate this time of year because I get tired of the intellectual cowardice surrounding it. I actually saw a Radio Shack commercial that said the word “Christmas”. I was impressed, and I plan to write Radio Shack a thank you note. My regard for Christmas has no dogmatic or “religious” undertones though I do celebrate it with my family. I recognize that Christ’s birthday was most likely in September, but this is the tradition that we’re left with. Would you like to move Black Friday to the day after Labor Day? Do you want to combine your “back to school” shopping with your former “Christmas” shopping?

I look at this this way: Black Friday got it’s name because many retailers spend most of the year operating in “the red”, or in the negative on their balance sheets. It is the American traditions of spending ridiculous amounts of money (often on credit cards or second mortgages) buying presents for others for Christmas that put many retailers in the “black”, or the positive in their accounting, thus granting them another year of life until Congress just breaks down and nationalizes everything, putting us under a Soviet style centralized economy that is going to SUCK REALLY BAD WHEN IT HAPPENS. The Bread lines weren’t a joke. That’s all I’m saying. When a “Christmas” season goes badly for retailers, they often go out of business. Remember Montgomery Ward? Died, right after Christmas of 2000, along with Bradlees, a Target or Wal-mart Wanna-be local to New Jersey that died the same time as Montgomery Ward’s.

That leaves me wondering why retailers want to bite the hand that feeds them. I don’t honestly know any of the 3 people who are so offended by the mention of the word “Christmas” that they are likely to commit suicide if we don’t stop immediately using the word in favor of the androgynous “day that many get paid to not come to work so that they may sip hot chocolate and exchange presents around a fake tree”. I know that some people celebrate other days during December like Hanukkah, but I would like to see some evidence that American retailers would survive if we simply cancelled Christmas and went back to work. It seems to me that the people who can’t tolerate the mention of the word “Christmas” don’t make up a significant segment of the retail market to replace the Christmas shoppers, therefore, retailers should just call it what it is and stop biting the hands that feed them.

Should You Go On A Media Fast Because the News is Depressing?

This seems to be all the rage. If you look at news headlines on any given day for at least the last year, you should probably expect the Second Coming this afternoon. The media is full of dire predictions. Some people, in an effort to not be depressed, have decided to start a “media fast”. Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson, just posted yesterday about his media fast, and his Twitter posts reflect the newfound joy he feels from such fast. In this regard, I feel like I’m so far ahead of the curve that nobody will ever catch me. Somehow, I figured out a while back that the “liberal media”, or “mainstream media”, is full of it. Occasionally, they report on something useful, but for the most part, it’s either sensationalism or an attempt to get you to tune in so that they can sell advertising. “Will your children's’ school bus kill them? Tune in at 11!” Sure, the story runs at 11:23 and takes 20 seconds and has something to do with a badly placed stop sign, but in New Jersey all the stop signs are in bad places so that really isn’t news.

My wife hates the fact that I won’t watch the local weather. She doesn’t like the Weather Channel much. Come to think of it, neither do I. I’ll take them more seriously when they start holding “Global Warming” conferences from cold climates in the middle of winter to show us how much warming is actually taking place. That’s not the focus of my post. I hate the local Philly stations because as far as I’m concerned, they don’t report on “news”. They report on “sports and murders, murders and sports” followed by mindless public interest stories. I’ve tuned in too many times to find a live shot of a sports reporter at 5 AM in the hallway of a hotel saying something like “One of the Eagles is sleeping in THAT ROOM!” Oh, wow! A football player is SLEEPING! Dude, I’m so glad I have a job that I get up at 5 AM for so I can watch NBC 10 report like this! What a great use of my time this early in the morning! I saw the door to a hotel room that an Eagle slept in!” I’m so glad that NBC10 Philadelphia doesn’t show up when I travel. “A local engineer is sleeping in THAT VERY ROOM! In just 3 hours, he’ll be discussing hardware requirements with a vendor!”  I ignore the local news. I don’t care much for the national news networks either, including Fox News, which I call “The other party line”. Of course, if the fecal matter hits the rotary ventilation device, I do prefer Fox News until they find a way to spin the story.

Should It Be OK For Adult Children To Live With Their Parents Long Term?

I’ve been working on this post for over a week, but haven’t found a way to finalize it. It turns out this video might be what I’ve been missing. Remember Stanly Johnson? I thought that was hilarious. “How do I do it? I’m in debt up to my eyeballs. Somebody kill me. Please?” This is the “new” Stanley Johnson, and a perfect lead-in to my question:

I grew up in the Air Force. My dad was a career enlisted man, and retired as a Tech Sergeant with 21 years in 1987 in San Antonio, Tx, where he still lives. Spending my high school years in San Antonio, most of my friends were military brats as well. The majority of us planned to either join the military or leave for college after we graduated. I can’t remember anybody saying “I’m just going to live rent free with my parents until I have grandchildren.” I’m being mildly factitious, but only mildly. I can’t ever remember thinking that I would not be ashamed to be living with my parents as an adult. I’m hardly a representative sample of ANY group, but I distinctly remember (and my mom, up to her passing away, kept bringing it up) that when I was 4, I informed my parents I was moving out. They told me I could not move out until I was 18, so I spent the next 14 years planning to move out on my 18th birthday. I had a few pesky snags in that plan, like having 2 months left in high school and a Kentucky Fried Chicken salary that wouldn’t cover living alone at the time, but 2 months after I turned 18, I graduated and left for Navy Recruit Training and never looked back. I joined the Delayed Enlistment Program at the end of my Junior year of high school, when I was 17. Sometime during my Senior year, my mom approached me and said that if I wanted to live at home after I graduated, I would have to pay rent. I told her I already had an enlistment contract and that would not be a problem. (She knew that at the time, which has left me wondering to this day why we had that conversation.)

Seven years later, after serving in the Navy for six years and working in San Diego for about a year, I moved to New Jersey on a job offer that included relocation, which I could not match in San Diego. I was 25, and I was proud to have my own apartment. I’d already been splitting an apartment with a friend for 3 years, but this one was all mine. I was completely shocked to find that just about every other 20-30 year old I encountered still lived at home with mommy and daddy. Many weren’t even expected to chip in for rent or do very many chores. It utterly blew my mind. I’ve been to some interesting countries. I spent a summer when I was 17 with a German family. My mom had exchange students every year. I’ve been to places that some who may read this post might not be able to locate on a map. I’m hardly a world traveler, but I have seen a few things. Nothing shocked me as much as adult children proudly living with their parents long term. (The runner up was in Bali, when I could not walk two steps without people either begging or trying to sell me cheap junk for money, and when I pulled my money out of my pocket, people swarmed from out of nowhere and started grabbing it. That really freaked me out, and once we got a hotel room I was afraid to leave.)

Customer Service Surveys for Huge, Global, Monolithic Corporations

Lately I’ve developed an interest in business. I’ve even considered pursuing an MBA as my next educational step. I had to take a business class to finish my IT degree at the University of Phoenix, and that class really piqued my interest. As I go along, I try to figure out why businesses do the idiotic things that they do.

I’m currently staying at the Marriot Courtyard North in Charlottesville, VA. For whatever reason, I like the Courtyard brand. I don’t know if it’s the colors or the slightly-better-than-the-Fairfield accommodations, but I do like to stay at Courtyards when I can. I actually prefer the Springhill Suites, but they are not widespread and I have to get a business rate to stay there. The last time I stayed at this hotel, I got an email survey asking what I thought. The survey asked questions about how I perceived that Marriot cared about me as a person and met my needs. To be honest, I thought the whole thing was really cheesy. Sending me an email link to a survey only serves to make me feel like a statistic rather than a valued customer.

Service and Support: Can A Medium Between Business and Customer Be Reached?

By far, the most time consuming and expensive phase of the Systems Development Life Cycle is support. That copy of Windows XP Home that you bought for $99 in 2001 is still in support by Microsoft until 2014, but they’ve long since gotten their only payment for it. Think about who wins in that transaction. As our economy transitions from a manufacturing to a service focus, support and service are two areas that every business needs to provide, yet they are often the area where service falls short.

For instance, I’m having a problem with Evernote. Evernote 3 is a web based database with clients for Windows, Mac, the iPhone, and Windows Mobile. I had been using Microsoft OneNote for a while, until I saw that Evernote had an interesting “cloud-centric” approach and I started using it. I mostly use Evernote at work, which is where the problem comes in. When I create a note in Evernote’s web client, it will sync to the desktop client. However, when I create or modify a note in the desktop client, I get a message the my sync failed and the content won’t upload to the web client. I don’t consider this to be satisfactory, so I went to the Support link on Evernote’s web site.

Vox Day vs. Federal Express

Vox Day is a Worldnetdaily columnist, blogger, and author. He’s also highly insightful. He currently lives in Europe and recently had a battle of wits with Federal Express in America. At least, in this recount, Vox Day was armed with wits, but FedEx was armed with business processes and morons who follow them legalistically. Vox makes some statements about humanity which I’ve been hesitant to utter myself. You should read them. Were it not for my own battles with Comcast, Aetna, Lowe’s, and several doctor’s offices, I might write Vox’s recount off as the rantings of an elitist. I understand what he went through all too well, however. You can ready some of my stories (though not all, I don’t have enough time to dig them up) of horrendous customer service and STUPID, MINDLESS business policies below.

• Darn It Jim, I’m A Computer Geek, Not A Medical BIlling Specialist
• Darn It Jim Part II
• Darn It Jim Part III
• What Is Your Opinion of Customer Service In This Country?
• Darn It Jim Final- Aetna Finally Paid
• Darn It Jim: Attention To Detain In the Health Insurance Industry
• Traumatic Tech Support
• My Cable Modem Works
• Verizon DSL: When Will People Learn?
• Customer Service Policy: Is This Good For The Company?
• I’m About Through With Lowe’s

I definitely need a good cheering up now. Why do we worship business policies and processes in this country?

Advice Like This Frustrates Me

Ramit Sethi at the blog I Will Teach You To Be Rich is running a series about how to save $1000 in 30 days. Many of his tips are good and sound, but this one is impractical for many people, including me. The tip can be found here:

http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/tip-24-cut-your-commute-expenses-by-40

Cutting commute expenses is an admirable goal. Ramit gives two tips, one is to carpool one day a week, and the other is to work from home. No doubt, both of these would save money. However, unlike his previous tip Go Cash Only for 15 to 30 days, this one is like saying “If you want to be a good stand up comedian, you have to be born with a talent for humor.” At the very least, that’s how advice like this sounds to me. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have somebody to ride to work with (there’s that darn $4 a day bridge toll in addition to gas), and I’d give quite a bit for the ability to work from home once in a while, but I hate to read advice that is impractical for most people mixed in with advice that is practical. Ramit includes an excerpt from Tim Ferris’ book, “The 4 Hour Work Week”  that includes a conversation about how to ask your boss to work from home. (NOTE: I have not read the book, but have included a link below if you’re interested in buying it). Obviously, this dialogue results in success. Here’s how it happens in my case:

Me: Do you have a minute?

Boss: Sure, what can I do for you?

Me: I’d like to be able to work from home.

Boss: No.

Me: Why not?

Boss: Because we need you here.

Me: I would happily come in for meetings. A lot of my work can easily be done on my work issued laptop with my work issued BlackBerry over our work implemented webmail.

Boss: No.

Me: Why not? I would be a heck of a lot more productive at home. Here I’m in the corner cubicle next to the conference room. I can’t concentrate because people are walking past my cubicle and looking in at me all day long because it’s a high traffic area. It’s unnerving. Because I’m near the door, people are constantly stopping to to talk as loud as they possibly can outside my cubicle. For some reason, everybody but me seems to get a good cell phone signal outside my cubicle, because that’s where they like to talk on their phones. I spend more time fuming and wishing they would realize that they’re being inconsiderate buttplugs than I do concentrating on any actual work. I could get so much more done if I could lock myself into my study at home.

Boss: No.

My: Why the heck not?

Boss: We have to be able to keep an eye on you.

Me: I’m a military veteran with a Bachelor’s degree and 16 year of professional experience. You’re also familiar with the quality of my work that I manage to produce in spite of this horribly located cubicle and a building full of people that I can’t describe without using words that I won’t use in front of my children. Why can’t you trust me to get my work done if you’re not walking past my cubicle, stopping and looking back at me all day long?

Boss: We just can’t.

And so it goes. I would like to note that “Boss” is not my direct supervisor, but a composition of my organization’s attitude toward concepts like working from home as well as a variety of conversations I’ve had with people about working from home. Obviously, I will admit that Ramit’s advice is sound. You can save a buttload of money on commuting costs by carpooling, even one day a week, and by working from home. However, all his advice today did was frustrate me by reminding me of the fact that I work in a cubicle for an organization that is still stuck in another time as far as a philosophy of employee productivity. The philosophy says that employees, even college degreed professionals, work best when crammed into cubicles and constantly scrutinized and constantly interrupted all day long by other employees with no concept that other people exist outside of their notice. Productivity and compensation are measured by hours present, not results produced.

I should also add that one short blog post cannot capture my entire perspective. There are obviously a lot of things about my job that I do like and there are people that I enjoy working with. This post is merely picking on the attitude about cubicles and whether or not experienced professionals with college degrees can be trusted to work without constant supervision in a fishbowl environment. And yes, the location of my cubicle is not something I enjoy, and I can’t move. I’ve asked. It’s called a “move of convenience” and is not allowed. I also have a workstation that is directly tied to my network jack and to my name, and moving that would apparently be too much work for somebody else even if I did the physical move and they just processed a piece of paper and changed a network setting on the domain.

Follow-up on Lowe's

I thought it would be fair to post a follow-up to my last post about Lowe's credit somehow sending my 12 months no-payment no-interest purchase to collections. It wasn't the local store's fault. My wife and I went into the local store to check with customer service. The representative pulled up my account, and sure enough, the promotion was on it. Then she called the credit department. Credit had to run "maintenance" on my account to remove the late fee, add the promotion, and of course take my account out of collections.

As soon as I heard collections, I almost went into a panic. I listen to Dave Ramsey's podcast. I've heard some of the things collections can do to people in an attempt to get payment. This is all the more reason to get rid of debt completely.

I don't hold Lowe's Sicklerville, NJ store at blame for this incident. Considering that the credit department is "GE Money", it looks like once again, Lowe's subcontracted out another function to remove accountability for it's own behavior.

I’m About Through with Lowe’s

I’ve been getting a lot of calls lately from a strange number. The number is (330)433-5996. For about the past two weeks, at least once per day, my cell phone has rung with that number showing up on caller ID. I answer, and get a click. I finally got annoyed and just started hitting “Ignore”. No message has been left. I did a search on Google for that number, and found that it is somehow connected to “GE Money” and Lowe’s. My wife and I recently bought a refrigerator and dishwasher at Lowe’s (I blogged about that traumatic experience here), but we bought on a “12 months, no payments, no interest” coupon, so I figured it was a pointless marketing call that I could safely ignore. I wish there were an easy way to block an individual number from my phone.

Today, as part of the routine, I got a call from that number. I hit “Ignore”, which has become part of my workflow in regards to that number. Imagine my surprise when I saw that a message had been left! I checked the message, which referred me to a 1-800 number. I called the number, and sure enough, I was routed into phone menu hell, although a computer helpfully read my account information to me. I was able to speak to an operator, when I found out what the problem was. Not only did Lowe’s do a terrible job coordinating delivery and installation with me, but they didn’t put the charge on the 12 months, no payment, no interest coupon! My account is past due, and interest is accruing. Obviously, the operator wanted me to make a payment right then. Normally, my wife handles all of the bills. I just get to make the calls when something goes wrong, whether I know anything about what is happening or not.

The outcome of the phone call is that I need to go to the store and find out why the heck they didn’t put this on our card under no payments, no interest for 12 months. If they won’t fix it, I’m just going to pay it off and I will not be shopping at Lowe’s again.

During the call, the operator went to verify my information. He had my cell number as my home number, he had a work number from several years ago. I said that my cell would be fine. He then, as part of the script, had to ask if it was OK for Lowe’s to call my cell phone with automated messages if my account goes into collections. I said “No, it is not acceptable. You may have a live person call me, but you may not have an automated call dial my number.” Seriously, they’ve been calling every day for at least two weeks. Had a live person been on the other end rather than a computer which hung up on me, I would have known about this two weeks ago and I could have fixed it.

I have an IT degree, and I LOVE technology. I can’t get enough of gadgets. There are many instances when I would much rather email or text somebody than make a phone call. I even prefer to text my wife back and forth rather than speak on the phone while I’m at work. However, there are times when a phone call is most appropriate. I would think that customer service would be one of those times.

I’ve been begging my wife to read Dave Ramsey’s “The Total Money Makeover”. I’m going to step up that request. I want us to get on the same page so that we can set up a budget and pay off our debts and not have to deal with these idiotic credit services ever again.

Goodbye, Olive Garden

I came to the conclusion tonight that I have somehow outgrown the Olive Garden, which has always been one of my favorite restaurants. Our experience tonight pushed it over the edge and I told my wife that it will be a long time before I ask to go back to the Olive Garden again.

It all stared innocently enough. I've been seeing the commercials for the yearly "Endless Pasta", one of my favorites. I've been wanting to go, but something always got in the way, from my wife claiming that she can do it better and cheaper, to the kids getting way too cranky and us chucking a trip to Olive Garden in favor of Friendly's. Finally, tonight things lined up and we made a trip to the Olive Garden, into an experience that pretty much killed whatever magic has been bringing me back year after year. I've always enjoyed going to Olive Garden for my birthday and other special occasions.

First we showed up and were seated. Looking at the menus, we saw no Endless Pasta. Our waiter confirmed that Endless Pasta ended yesterday. OK, fine, poor timing on our part. Then we find out that we had been given lunch menus. The waiter took them and brought back dinner menus. Since there was no Endless Pasta, we thought about leaving, but elected to stay. Our waiter took a long time to do anything, and while he wasn't incompetent, he also didn't seem very experienced. My wife and I were texting each other back and forth, which is a heck of a lot more fun and convenient than complaining out loud.

Like I said, we were given lunch menus when we sat down. The waiter gave us dinner menus. My wife asked, since we originally had lunch menus and Endless Pasta is over, can she just get the lunch soup and salad? Request denied. We ended up with food that was good but not terribly great and a $52 tab for us, her sister, and both boys.

It took the waiter a long time to come back to see if we needed more water. After we finished, it took him a long time to come back to see if we wanted the check. Then my wife asked for a box, which he forgot. I started thinking about some "heuristics" that I've eaten at the Olive Garden under for years.

I expect an upscale but not ridiculously expensive service and meal at the Olive Garden. I expect competent and friendly service. What we got tonight we could have experienced at any diner in the local area for less than $40. Over the years, the Olive Garden has gotten rid of just about any menu item that I really liked. Years ago, they had this chicken pesto ravioli that I loved. It was discontinued. Have you ever had one of those meals that you leave feeling really good, like you are on some kind of high? Tonight I left dinner feeling really disillusioned and ripped off. I told my wife I'm going to have to find a new favorite restaurant. I don't see myself asking to eat at the Olive Garden again.

So goodbye, Olive Garden. Take your overpriced low-class diner (that is diner not dinner) experience with you. I'll find another place to enjoy eating. I really don't feel like going back to the Olive Garden again.

Technorati Tags: Customer service,Olive Garden,bad service

Robert Kiyosaki Predicts "Crisis"

This is interesting, not that is was all that hard to see coming. People have been talking about "bubbles" for years, but everyone was too busy making "easy money" and running up debt. It can't last forever.

 

Technorati Tags: Kiyosaki,crisis,prediction,rich dad

Customer Service Policy: Is This Good For the COMPANY?

(Image Courtesy of Google Images)

Lowe’s really set me off last Friday. Five years ago, my wife and I bought a fridge and a stove from Lowe's. The fridge wasn’t working anymore. The freezer was frosting up and the fridge wasn’t keeping anything cold. We were told that means it’s low on freon and it’s easier to just buy a new one. Our dishwasher also stopped working, so we decided to kill two birds with one stone and buy both, from Lowe's, on a 10% off coupon that my wife had.

My wife doesn’t like contractors and delivery people coming to our house when I’m not there. Obviously, we wanted the use of our new appliances as soon as possible, so we asked for the earliest delivery, last Friday, but please come in the afternoon. I had a risk review meeting that I needed to be at in the morning, but I could make it home for an afternoon delivery.

Microsoft Can’t Do Search to Save It’s Life

When it comes to search engines, my choice has always been Google. Well, not always. I can remember the days before Google really took off when I was forced to stumble in the dark with inept search engines and portals like Alta-Vista, Yahoo, Excite, Snap.com, and some others. Google is far from perfect, but for the most part, when I need to find anything other than a solution to a technical problem. Google will find it fast and right away.

Because the Delaware River Port Authority raised it’s bridge toll rates, I decided that maybe it’s time to get EZ Pass. I know from previous attempts to sign up that I have to go to the EZ Pass NJ site. I’m used to using the built-in search box on my browser, but I keep forgetting that IE on my work laptop is still set to Microsoft’s Live Search, which for all purposes is worthless. I went to the search box in the upper right-hand corner and typed in “EZ Pass NJ”. This is what I got:

OK, the main EZ Pass site was the first response, and I could have navigated my way to where I needed to go, but EZ Pass is some kind of “public private partnership”, which means that it has no competition and has no burning need to make things easy for a consumer to use it’s services.

Since I realized at this point that this was NOT Google, I opened another browser tab to Google just to see what the difference is. Here it is:

Wow, look at that! www.ezpassnj.com was the FIRST response. It was so easy I could have guessed it, yet Microsoft’s Live Search algorithm didn’t return it.

I do think that Microsoft does some things right, but search is not one. It’s probably too late considering public perception of Microsoft to adopt some kind of mirror of Google’s “Don’t be evil” creed, but I have a suggestion if they’re interested: “Just be useful.” Stop getting into areas that you’re no good at just because other companies are raking in the money. Just because Google is making billions on search and advertising doesn’t mean that Microsoft will mirror their success. As I recall, there is an area that Microsoft has made billions at. Oh, that’s right, it’s SOFTWARE. It’s making software.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,search,google,search engines,EZ Pass

Is The Internet A Help or a Hindrance to Businesses and Artists?

This is a discussion I’d love to have. Yesterday, Michael Hyatt posted a message about Building a Brand Online. In it, he discussed how a bad business experience can within minutes make it’s way onto the Internet and be read and commented on by thousands. I follow his blog and Twitter feed, so I read through in near real-time his experiences at a Hyatt hotel in Dallas. If not real-time, within a few hours or whatever interval in which I checked my Twitter feeds I knew about it.

Michael Hyatt also discussed how he uses services like Google Alerts to keep tabs on what’s happening with Thomas Nelson or his own name. He can tell when a blogger posts something good or negative about him or his company, and act on it, especially if it’s negative. If it’s bad enough, he can respond personally. If only other company executives would take such an active role in public relations perhaps negative experiences wouldn’t have to wound so deep.

Car Headaches

My cars are driving me nuts. At least, mine is. In July, I noticed that the air conditioning on my 2003 Kia Sedona wasn’t blowing cold. We were driving around on a Saturday, and I popped into a Monro to ask if they could do a recharge. I’d been taking my car to Monro in Stratford for oil changes for years, and I found out that some of the guys from Stratford now work in Williamstown. It turned out that I apparently had a bad shredder valve, and they couldn’t get one until a weekday. That was the week of my marathon trip trying to get back from Maine, so I was able to bring my car in the following Saturday. The valve was replaced, coolant was added, and we drove off. Three weeks later, the air wasn’t working again. I called and made an appointment, and I brought the car in after work one day. My wife learned her lesson about bringing both boys to sit at Monro for an hour and a half just to save a little gas on our errands.

This time, the air held out for about a week, then the coolant was gone again. I brought the car back in to find that now my high pressure hose was bad. Being a Friday afternoon, about 4:45, no Kia parts center was available anywhere in the world so I had to wait until Monday. In the meantime, my ‘95 Windstar needed a $1400 front end/power window job plus another $100 when the muffler dropped down. At first it looked like the hose for my Kia was on national backorder, but the guy at Monro followed up and found out that somebody was using the wrong part number. We’re not dealing with highly intelligent or motivated people here (the Kia parts people, not Monro.) The part wasn’t on the shipment to Monro yesterday, so the mechanic drove to Cherry Hill to get it today. I took my car and Caleb to Monro. I also found a screw in my tire, but that was a quick fix.

Verizon DSL: When Will People Learn?

A friend of mine got a new laptop and I was more than happy to go over to his house last night and help him get the laptop and his wireless network setup. Once again, I found myself up against the personal hell that is Verizon DSL. I spent about seven months on Verizon DSL between 2004 and 2005, before realizing that it was better to just pay Comcast $10 a month more for a connection that WORKS. I’m, of course, not much happier with Comcast since being told by a tech that I lost my IP address and have to call Microsoft to get another one, but I will not be returning to Verizon DSL anytime soon.

       

My friend had somehow setup security on his router, but we weren’t sure how or what the password could be so I restored the router to factory settings. I then logged into the router and gave the network a name and security. It looked like the router had a connection through the DSL modem, but when I tried to load Google, I was redirected to a page that wanted to download and install some kind of Verizon Internet Connection Manager software. I had to step through 4 “Invalid certificate” warnings to get the software to download. When the software tried to install, it asked for a username and password, but wouldn’t take the username and password that my friend told Verizon to give him. I had no choice but to call tech support. We called twice, both times stepping through the painful voice-activated menu before being told that we would be transferred to a tech, only to have the call drop. The third time I called back and was somehow routed through to the “Account Cancellations” department. I could have done my friend a favor, but that wasn’t what he asked me for so I held back with all my might. I explained to the person on the phone my problem, and he routed us and stayed on the line until a tech picked up. I tried explaining my problem to her. She needed the account information, and asked me who I was. Somehow there was confusion over my name and my friend’s name as to who was on the account. I kept asking her why my name mattered. She finally said she needed to know what to call me. I said “My name is irrelevant. Just help me get this connection working.” Apparently, what happened is that somehow security was set on the DSL modem. I had to shut down everything, connect the laptop to the modem, and plug the modem in and boot the laptop up. Then we could disable security. The tech helped me to set bridge mode, but before I could ask what the next step was, the phone disconnected. The tech never called back, and I wasn’t going through that again (this was a total of 50 minutes consisting of two dropped calls plus the third, which lasted more than a half an hour.) I gave her a number to call back on “in case we get disconnected,” but she never did. I kept trying different settings on the router until finally an Internet connection showed up.

 

I then setup a printer, which worked flawlessly. That was the true definition of “plug and play.” Then we had dinner, and I walked him through setting up a gmail account, the mail service I highly recommend.

 

Before I left, I asked “Now do you see why, whenever somebody asks me if they should get DSL, I say “No!”? I’ve helped several people out with DSL, and of course there was my own experience with it. I’m not much happier with Comcast, and to be honest, at least the Verizon tech didn’t tell me to call Microsoft to get an IP address, but still, I’ve never had a painless experience with Verizon DSL.

 

I wish there were a viable alternative high-speed Internet service besides Comcast cable and Verizon DSL. I’ve heard FIOS is pretty good, but it’s a Verizon product, which is two strikes against it in my book.

 

Technorati Tags: Verizon DSL,DSL,Verizon,Should I get DSL?,Don't get DSL

I'm Starting to Hate Homebuyers...

OK, maybe "hate" is too strong a word, but I'm definitely starting to hate the whole selling process. I've blogged on and off again for more than a year about my wife and I trying to sell our house. So far, it's gone nowhere.

It's been more than a month since our last showing, and we had one today, with the usual results. We had a strong, steady stream of showings through the month of June, but they dropped off in July and August. I honestly can't blame my Realtor one bit. She has been working her butt off, in fact, a significant portion of her brokerage has been working on trying to sell our house, but so far, nothing. If you're looking for the best Realtor in south Jersey, please, let me know and I'll put you in touch with her.

The worst part of showings is how hard it is to keep the house in condition to show, especially while we're living in it. That's by far the hardest part of the entire process. Sometimes we only get an hour's notice for a showing, and we have to scramble. Even when we can keep up with the house, it can still take us two hours of butt-busting labor to get the house ready. The kids can undo seven hours worth of cleaning over lunch.

Then, after working for hours to get the house ready for somebody to see it, they walk through in less than five minutes. By the time my Realtor beats some feedback out of the potential buyer's agent, normally it's something really stupid like "The bedrooms are two small." Seriously, what do you need a bedroom for anyway? I've been married seven and a half years and have two kids. The bedroom is a place to sleep; that's about it. I envy people who apparently need more than that.

It's very hard not to take it personally to spend between two and seven hours getting the house ready for a showing to hear "The bedrooms are two small." Seriously, our MLS sheet specifies all of the room sizes! Stop wasting my freaking time! Maybe I should tell my Realtor to ask all buyer's agents to make sure that their buyers LOOK AT THE ROOM DIMENSIONS PRIOR TO AKING TO SEE THE HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AARRRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you can't live with a 10x12' bedroom, then don't make me clean! I don't care if it's a proverbial "Buyer's Market," this is getting on my nerves.

I had one incident that really set me off. One person came to see the house, then made an offer. However, during negotiations, this person disappeared. Then, about a week later, reappeared. We thought we negotiated to an acceptable offer, but before a contract could be signed, the person disappeared again. Then we had another showing. This showing turned out to be a family member of the first person. This family apparently wanted the house. However, once again, we went through the offer process, agreed to an offer, the contract was written up, and this family member disappeared. In the meantime, while this family member was supposedly negotiating a contract with us, we had another showing. That showing turned out to be the Realtor of the first person who almost went to contract, but the Realtor didn't leave a card, so my Realtor found out who came through by checking the logbook. When my Realtor went to investigate, it turned out that the first person came through to show the house to another family member WHILE YET ANOTHER FAMILY MEMBER WAS SUPPOSED TO BE GOING TO CONTRACT! I'm not really concerned with the ethics of the situation, but we're talking about more than seven hours of total cleaning for this family to jerk us around. Then, the first person came back to the table supposedly to go to contract, but once again, before the contract could be signed, pulled out. That really, really, pissed me off, and I asked my Realtor if we could send them a bill for all of the time we had to spend getting the house ready and standing around outside down the street for THREE SHOWINGS only to get jerked around three times and left with nothing.

We had one more bite after an open house, but all I've heard back from my Realtor on this (and she normally fills me in on a lot of detail) is that this bite was from people who did not have the credit to buy the house at all.

When you count in the adventures that we had with BuyOwner and the two months that we were listed with a Realtor who apparently had no interest in working, my current Realtor says that she's never seen a selling situation go like this. We're talking about writing a book when this situation is all over.

Back to the grind...

Technorati Tags: Selling a house,Buyer's Market,real Estate

Living The Simple Life

My wife sent me this video. This family home grows all of their food on only 1/5 of an acre of land in suburban California. I have more land than that. I'm sure my wife would love to do something like this, but I'm an engineer. I don't know much about farming. I can't keep a plant alive. We have talked about getting our own chickens though. I know my wife would love a farm. Where to get one on an engineer's salary in New Jersey? Not a clue.

Technorati Tags: Farming,the simple life,home grown

Store Credit Cards Are Getting to be a Pain

(I think I will be moving back to this blog. I hate the CAPTCHAs, but Blogger is a better platform to blog from than MSN Spaces.)

 

I was at the mall with my wife and kids tonight. In the time that I’ve been blogging on my MSN Spaces blog and leaving this one dormant, I’ve been listening to Dave Ramsey quite a bit. He really does change the way you look at money. My wife stopped at Sears to buy shoes for Joshua. She also needed a bathing suit for my company’s picnic tomorrow. She went to pay, and sure enough got the inevitable “You can save 10% if you open a Sears card account.” We politely declined. After paying, my wife went upstairs to look for clothes for the kids. She found a few, and went to pay again. This time, once again, the cashier tries to push a Sears card on us. My wife said “I don’t work.” Well, she works harder than I do, but I don’t issue her a W-2 :-) . The cashier looked at me, and I said “No thank you. You can tell how much money Sears is making off finance charges by how hard they’re pushing the card on people.” My wife told me to knock it off, but after 3 hours at the mall chasing uncooperative kids around, I didn’t feel like it. I muttered “You can hardly get a cup of coffee at Wawa anymore without hearing ‘you can save 10% on your purchase if you open up a charge card account.’”

 

According to Dave Ramsey, (and I assume his sources), most stores these days have very narrow profit margins. Apparently, Best Buy and Circuit City don’t really make any money off of merchandise anymore. Most of their money is made from finance charges and warranties and service plans, like charging $50 to install a RAM chip, a service I am proud to still perform for pizza and beer for ten straight years. Even with a Meat Lover’s, and a six pack of a premium lager, I’m still cheaper, but Best Buy doesn’t make money otherwise.

                                                                                           

Be careful with the store credit cards. My wife and I often will buy larger items on a “12 months no interest” plan. Dave Ramsey recommends not doing that, as Murphy’s Law is in full effect. It doesn’t matter how disciplined you are; life still gets in the way.

                             

Technorati Tags: Dave Ramsey,Sears card,profit margins,charge cards,store credit

Labels: Finance

Casey Serin Is Coming Back

Casey Serin is coming back. This should be interesting.

I first heard about Casey Serin I believe around March of 2007 from a story titled "The World's Most Hated Blogger." At that point, I still had aspirations of being a "problogger" and making lots of money from blogging. The title of the article intrigued me, so I clicked on the link wondering what it could possibly be about. I read about a person named Casey Serin who spent a bunch of money on real estate "investing" courses and bought a total of eight houses in several different states, maxed out all of the available equity through routine yet illegal means such as "liar loans" and overstating income, then couldn't sell the houses and the entire deal crashed down around him. He started a website, I Am Facing Foreclosure.com, which is no longer available but thanks to the Internet Archive can still be read. For some reason, like a lot of other people, I was intrigued by this guy. A lot of people suspected him of being some kind of viral marketing stunt, as if there is no way what he did could have been possible. Could anyone really be that greedy and stupid? I followed along for months with others watching him borrow more money, take afternoon naps, and pursue more "sweet deals" rather than trying to get a job and provide for his wife. I honestly didn't know what to make of the whole deal. Did he have some kind of personality disorder, or was he brainwashed by too many real estate seminars or "Rich Dad" style motivational books? I don't know.

One of the things that really bugged me about Casey is that everybody who disagreed with him was labeled a "hater", which later came to take a more trademarked style of "haterz." As you can see through political correctness in society, disagreement with a position is often immediately connected to hate. This is a logical fallisy but is highly useful as it has the effect of immediately shouting down the dissenting voices and dismissing any possible points they may have.

Casey had several people along the way who tried to help him. They all attempted to get deals with him, which would give him some productive work to do and give them the chance to capitalize off of his popularity. He always managed to slip out somehow, leaving the other person hanging. Sometimes money and commitments were involved and a lot of feelings were hurt. One person did pursue legal action, but as I remember he was talked out of it.

Like other readers, I tried to leave comments and even sent Casey an occasional email offering prayers and advice.

Casey ran off to Australia on an offer to stay with a fan on really short notice, leaving his wife to deal with the collectors. By the time he came back, his wife had it. He eventually sold his blog and shut the operation down. So far he's popped back up twice, only to dive back into obscurity.

I honestly want the guy to come out of whatever got him into his current mindset and be successful. Honestly, he makes a perfect case study for a Dave Ramsey class: trying to borrow your way to prosperity does not work.

I'll stay tuned. Let's see what develops.