Drummer's Corner of the World

PODS website says "the average wait time to reach an operator has been 12 seconds" when waiting for LiveChat.

I'm at 7... now 8 minutes... no sign of a human, but the bot wanders through and does the "All operators are current assisting others" thing every minute or so.

Edited to add: And now, 35 minutes in, I have a human telling me to wait, instead of a digital recording. Gee, that's an improvement...

Edited again: Oh, gee, that's customer service. I asked my question, in the window where "Patty" kept saying "thank you for your patience" alternating with a few other platitudes, and then I finally went to sort through some stuff so I could take out the trash. In the five minutes I was gone, "Patty" apparently finally showed up in the chat window, never answered my question, and then disconnected me "due to no response." Maybe I don't wanna do business with PODS after all...

So... I've got emails documenting where my agent told me he'd make sure everything got changed from old insurance to new insurance last year.

This morning, after having emailed him last night to explain what was going on, I get an email from him that (a) shows that he didn't bother to actually read and comprehend my entire email from last night and (b) stating that I'd need to pay Indiana Farmers immediately in order to keep the policy in force.

Now, I'm willing to admit that this is not Indiana Farmers' fault. However, it _is_ my agent's fault as far as I'm concerned, and it's his problem to straighten out. And I don't really care, at this point, if the IF policy lapses for a week while they wait for payment from the mortgage company, since I'm apparently already (still?) covered under the policy with the old company.

*sigh*

And my agent wants to call me to "discuss it". No. Really. Email please... at least that way I have the paper trail to document the stupidity.

I'm finding it interesting, because he was great to deal with in the process of getting the policies (he has my homeowners and both auto policies), but he's been completely useless when I've needed him to actually _do_ something since then. Silly me... I thought the whole point of having an agent was so that they did all the crap work so I didn't have to. If I have to deal directly with everybody myself, what do I need him for?

(And yes, I'll be changing agents when I move. Grrr...)

...how badly I hate UPS?

On Dec. 20th, I sent a Next Day Air Saver package with two gift cards in it from my office in Indy to my sister's office in Manhattan. When the mailroom entered the address into the system, they got the zip code wrong by one digit, but everything else was right.

On the 21st, the tracking info said that the address had been corrected and delivery rescheduled. Okay... i can live with that.

Nothing more happened. I called late in the day to see what was up, and they still had the zip code listed as the wrong one. I gave them the correct one. They said they'd get it delivered. On the 24th, the next time the tracking info was updated, there were two notes... one that a correct company or receiver name was needed (even though both were clearly listed in the confirmation email that I got when the package was shipped) and then one that "the receiver is on a holiday" (they weren't) and that delivery would be attempted when the receiver returned.

Okay, so at that point it became obvious that my niece wasn't going to actually get her present on Christmas Day. On the 26th, I called and they read me the correct information, except the zip code, which I had them fix (again). Promised that it would be delivered by 3 p.m. Info was updated to include my sister's phone number in case they still couldn't find the office (which, being a business on 5th Ave., isn't exactly hard to find, even _with_ an incorrect zip code).

Note that at no point since the 21st had the package itself ever been scanned. 3 p.m. came and went... no package. I called UPS again. They promised to have somebody from the local package center call me within the hour. They didn't (still haven't, in fact). I called again on the 27th. Updated the information again to hopefully correct the still-incorrect zip code. At that point it got entered in the system as a "request for delivery to an alternate address" (WTF??) and delated again. By this point, we were at the weekend. Since I hadn't paid for Saturday delivery, and even though the package at that point was a week overdue, they wouldn't schedule it for delivery on Saturday.

Fast forward to tonight, when I checked the tracking once again. Lookie! It says they've delivered it and it was signed for by "Kostos". Unfortunately, they said it was delivered at noon, and my sister was at work 'til mid-afternoon, and there is no "Kostos" at her place of employment.

So I guess I get to go have gift cards cancelled and reissued tomorrow, hopefully before some random stranger starts using them.

Hate UPS. Hate them hate them hate them.

Grocery stores are not usually a matter for inspiring high passion... at least not for me.

But the Kroger across the street (well, okay, down my street and then across the big street) is more obnoxious than most.

First, they plopped what was supposed to be a 24-hr Kroger in the middle of what was (at the time) a residential area, one mile from another large (competing) grocery and about four miles from another Kroger. We didn't need another grocery store out here, but "ZOMG we can't let Marsh have all the customers!" so they built it anyway. Over the loud protest of the surrounding neighbors... including me. (And yes, I did my protesting in person at the town council meetings... not just random bitching.)

( This way to the ranting... )

I hate Kroger.

Someone posted to one of my mailing lists that he was getting tired of all of the coverage of Hurricane Katrina. It depressed him. He doesn't have money to donate, and didn't feel like there was anything he could do from 600 miles away to help.

This pushed a hot button with me, because in our flashy media lives, it's all too easy to just move on to something less uncomfortable when the pictures and the stories start to get to us.

This was my response to him... (and sorry, no, I'm not hiding it behind a cut)

> so anyone?????? how do I help a million displaced people?

How 'bout asking the Red Cross here what you could do? They may need people to man phones... or when they start putting together truckloads of supplies, they may need hands to help load trucks.

But don't just push it aside because it makes you uncomfortable... don't you dare! They deserve better than that. And for all the publicity given to the looters and the urban terrorists, there are a lot of good honest people down there, fighting to dig out... fighting to help their neighbors clean up... hell, fighting just to find their neighbors or their family members. At the very least, they need our thoughts, our prayers, and our energy.

Remember the hottest nastiest weather we had all summer, just a few weeks ago? Those days when it was over 90 during the day and barely dropped below 80 at night? Humid all the time? No wind?

Now think about this... summer in Mississippi is like that every day... every day from May through September. It was 94 in Gulfport today and will be 93 tomorrow. And sunny and clear. Talk about adding insult to injury. So they've lost their homes... lost the businesses where they work... and it's hot, and sunny, and humid and miserable. There's no power... and may not be, for 100s of thousands of people, for weeks or even months. Not only no air conditioning but no fans. And, guess what... all the lovely old live oak trees that used to provide shade? Many of them are gone too, and the roofs are stripped off of the buildings that should be providing shelter, if the building even still stands.

I think about them every minute of every day. I thank all the gods for the fact that the eye passed right over my parents' town and they took no damage, and all my Dad's employees still have their houses. I think about my friend from New Orleans who had a beautiful house a block and a half from Lake Pontchartrain. She and her older daughter are in a hotel in Houston, and her younger daughter is in Memphis with an aunt. The first floor of the house is flooded... her older daughter's house was destroyed... her younger daughter, who is a senior in high school, is trying to get back into school somewhere... anywhere... in order to keep her chances of getting into the college of her choice intact.

If you can't do anything else, you can at least think about them... and pray for them... and when you do have money to contribute, do it. It doesn't matter if it's six months from now... this isn't a problem that's going to go away next month or even next year.