Brain Dungeon

I just learned something about blogger. After typing in your title, if you hit “Enter,” blogger will post your title and close the editor. Good to know. I normally hit the “Tab” key, but for some reason I hit “Enter” and learned something new.

So…why have I been so quiet? I spent a week in a city about 3 hours away from home helping to put the technological touches on another one of our restaurants. It.Was.CRAZY. I don’t think I’ve ever seen something develop so quickly! If you would have asked me on Sunday if we would be opening on Friday, I would have said, “Are you crazy?” And if you had in turn asked me at midnight on Thursday night if we were opening on Friday morning, I would have said, “There’s just no way!” But…the persistence of those who employ me and the hard work of everyone involved had us opening those doors the next morning. INCREDIBLE!

I also had a little mini revelation while staying in the hotel down there. There is just NO recovering from a cold blast of water coming out of the shower-head as you turn on the water when you’re EXPECTING the water to come from the faucet. NO RECOVERING. You can turn the water on as hot as you can tolerate it, but you will still feel as though your bloodstream is now suitable for the filming of “March of the Penguins 2.” I am still shivering, and this was well over a week ago.

So I had an interesting conversation with a friend a few days ago. If you haven’t yet read about the pink jeep, it would be a good precursor to what you are about to learn.

My friend called me up to tell me that he actually pulled up next to the pink jeep at a traffic light. I was going to say “stop light” but that’s not entirely accurate as part of the time it’s a “go light”. Anyway, he said that he was able to see the driver of this vehicle. Now, I am sorry to stereotype, but I imagined that the driver of this…aberration…could likely be a young blonde female who was full of herself and just didn’t care that she was making a mockery out of jeep owners EVERYWHERE by choosing to adorn her vehicle in such a shade. In my mind it very easily could have been a Paris Hilton type – with attitude and everything…and of course her excuse would be that it’s CUUUUUUUUUUTE. Well – IT’S NOT CUUUUUUUUUUTE! It’s PUUUUUUUUUUKE!

Anyway, so when he tells me that he has seen the driver of said abomination I suddenly doubt that it is going to be what I might expect because, let’s face it, otherwise this conversation would not be noteworthy. So I said to him, “Please tell me it’s at LEAST a girl!” He does not. He does not even just tell me what the driver looked like, but posed his statement in the form of a question.

“What if I told you that the driver was a completely bald man in his 30s with arms covered in tattoos?”

…

Paris Hilton, if by chance you happen to read my blog some day, I apologize for making an assumption that involved a likeness of you. But would you do me the favor of PAYING THIS MAN WHATEVER IT TAKES TO REMOVE THIS VEHICLE FROM HIS POSSESSION???

Ok, now I have to admit, I did not see the driver, nor did I really take the time to listen to see if he might describe in better detail what this driver looked like so now I have a different image in my head. A big, scruff, biker-type dude with a handlebar mustache and a tattoo on his shoulder that has “Mom” in a big ol’ heart that he uses as an excuse to pound the life out of someone, should they choose to mock him. Now this vision can go one of two ways. This big, tough, killing-machine of a man could be secretly dainty…picking daffodils and wishing he had hair to adorn with said flowers. OR he could also use the JEEP as a means of providing him with a reason to expose a mocker’s innards to the whole world.

I have to say…I don’t know what to feel.

But…I will close with this. My friend called with a different reason entirely. Sure he brought further shame on the idea of a pink jeep, but he also called me to vent about his frustrations regarding a recent database upgrade the company he works for just experienced. To keep it short, he explained that the ONLY person tasked to work with the main office (in another state) was an 87-year-old woman who “does not know how to spell ‘PC’ and if you ask her a technical question, she will cry!”

Perhaps you had to be there, but I found that HILARIOUS.

Maybe it’s a geographical thing…maybe it’s just an insanity thing…I don’t know what to attribute it to, but I find myself absolutely appalled at the fact that the people around me haven’t heard (or have heard of but have not TRIED) things that were common to me as a child.

The first one is peanut butter and banana sandwiches. How is it even POSSIBLE that there are people out there who have not sampled this delicacy? How is it possible that some have not HEARD of this fine treat? HOLY COW! What kind of deprived childhood did these people suffer???

I don’t remember how it came up, but I was talking about this at work and NO ONE in my office (those that were present at the time anyway) had ever tried this sandwich. At first it was a conversation with one person and I couldn’t believe that she hadn’t ever tried peanut butter and banana. So then I turned to someone else and said, “tell her how good peanut butter and banana sandwiches are!” and that person had not tried them either! So this continued on as I started moving from person to person trying to express how insane I thought they were for not having tried this sandwich only to find out that I WAS THE INSANE ONE in this situation! I WAS THE ODDBALL (not that it’s unusual for me to be the oddball, but in this case, COME ON!)

So I moved on to something else…peanut butter and marshmallow…also commonly referred to as a “fluffernutter“

…

Ok…how is it possible that out 5 or 6 people that were in the office at the time, that I was the ONLY person who had not only had BOTH of these sandwiches, but even ONE of these sandwiches! Ok, granted I never was a huge fan of the fluffernutter, but it was VERY common where I spent the majority of my youth/teen years.

And the next one…this one had me ready to call the looney bin. ELEPHANT JOKES! The hilarious because it’s not hilarious art form of the elephant joke!!! And what’s worse still is trying to EXPLAIN an elephant joke to someone who has never heard one.

Me: “How do you get down off an elephant”
Them: “…?”
Me: “You don’t! You get down off a goose!”

Why…oh WHY did I have to explain this??? Seriously…just do a Google search on elephant jokes and you’ll know I’m not crazy. This one had me chuckling for a good bit:

What did the cat say to the elephant?
“Meow”

*Sigh* Am I the ONLY sane person in my world?

Sometimes I act weird.

Even at work.

I’m an IT Manager and when called to someones desk for help, I like to stand with chest puffed out and hands on hips like I’m superman or something. Yeah, I know…I’m a geek.

So the other day I was standing in the doorway of a co-worker’s office in the aforementioned stance. She says to me, “So where’s your cape?”

“Today’s laundry day,” I reply. “Crystal’s washing it for me today.”

We get a chuckle and that’s the end of the first part of the story.

About a week later my co-workers are standing outside smoking and I decide that I could use some socializing so I go stand outside to chit-chat with them while they fumigate their lungs. I decide to stand in my super-pose again…I don’t know why. Remember – I’m a geek. So the previously mentioned co-worker is there and says, “is your cape STILL in the laundry?” and I said, “what, you think I only ever wear it at work?”

We chuckle and then I said “you watch, I’ll come to work one day wearing a cape.”

She says “will you put a giant I.T. on the cape?”

“On the CAPE??? No! On my chest…like superman!”

Another lady in the group chimes in and says, “it?”

I explain, “I.T. – Information Technology”

“I know,” she says “But that’s what people will think when they see you. It?”

I get clever. “Well, I COULD title myself Super Human Information Technology.”

No laughter. They didn’t get it.

I had to explain it.

Then they laughed because it was VERY funny.

Maybe you had to be there.

NEVER shop at ANTonline.com

After posting about my Best Buy experience yesterday, I felt obligated to finish telling the story about the business I reported to the BBB…so here it is:

Up until recently, I was a faithful buyer of twice. They had reasonable prices, fast turn around…holy cow, it was AWESOME!

Until…

I placed an order for the two restaurant locations that we’re working on building. This time it was for surveillance system equipment. I needed some cameras and some power supplies for said cameras. Placed the order, paid for it, got an order confirmation, everything was hunky-dory.

Then I got a call. Michelle wanted to verify my order and I needed to call her back at a number she provided. So I did. And I reached a voicemail mailbox that did not identify who I was calling but only said “extension 1-1-2 is not available” and instructed me either press 9 to exit voicemail or wait to leave a message. Well…considering this is a BUSINESS – you would think that someone else could either help me or point me to someone ELSE who could help me. Not only that, but I had no indicator that I even dialed ANTonline…this could be a scam. I dialed 9.

Ok…so the number was legit, because I then entered the auto-attendant for ANTonline.com and listened to the choices and finally selected the option for customer service. I explained that I had placed an order, that according to their website, my order had left the warehouse and was sitting at the shipping hub. I also explained that Michelle had left me a message saying she needed to verify something on my order and wondered if there was someone else who could help me because she was not available.

Apparently, ineptitude runs deep at ANTonline.com because the person I was talking to not only did not know who Michelle was, but could not tell me ANYTHING about my order that I didn’t already know. She could not transfer me to anyone who knew anything about my order that I didn’t already know because they can’t do that.

WHAT???

She tells me that her recommendation is to call Michelle’s number again and see if Michelle can give me any information about my order to prove that she was indeed from ANTonline.com. I told her that the same number I used to try to reach Michelle was the same number that I used to reach her.

“Oh”

I think she used her brain-cell (singular) quota for the day.

So I called Michelle again…got the same irritating voicemail mailbox…but I left a message this time with my cell phone number (she had called my desk phone the first time and I was out of the office) and asked her to call me back.

No calls. I called a few additional times throughout the day to see if I could get through. No luck.

I get an email a day or two later that says “My name is Michelle and I’ve been trying to reach you.” as if she tried more than once. She told me I needed to call her right away on the same phone number she left on my voicemail. The email came from support@antonline.com so I figured a response to the email would be fruitless, but I responded anyway. I explained that I had already tried calling her SEVERAL times and that I had even left a message with my cell number. I left my cell number in the email and sent it off. I then attempted to call AGAIN. No luck.

A few minutes later I got a response! It was an AUTORESPONSE! It said, “Thank you for contacting customer support at antonline.com. Please accept this email as acknowledgment of your support inquiry.” It went on to tell me how I can track orders and all kinds of other CRAP. I couldn’t BELIEVE that they sent an autoresponse like that to a REPLY on an email that THEY SENT! I contemplated trying to use telekinesis to force every person involved so far to smash their shin up against something hard and painful or force them to pour vinegar in their eyes…but unfortunately I have not yet mastered the art of telekinesis.

This went on for a few days and I was starting to get irritated that they hadn’t shipped my order yet. Especially since I couldn’t answer whatever question they had because they were not reachable. I had, in the past few days, talked to a few more inept ANTonline call center idiots who all told me the same thing. They couldn’t transfer me, they couldn’t answer my questions, they didn’t know what Michelle needed to ask. They offer to submit a support ticket to see what the delay is and I tell them that the problem is their support team is non-responsive and I’m tired of waiting for them to call me back.

By this point I was pretty irritated and talking not-so-nicely to the people at the call center. My assistant chimes in and offers to call in like he has no idea what’s going on to see if he can find out the status of the order. He does and they tell him the same status that’s on their website (because they are probably using the same interface as we are to find the status) and say that they can submit a support ticket to see what the delay is. He allows them to do so.

I get an email a few hours later. It says nothing more than “This order cannot be processed and has been refunded.”

That’s it. Verbatim. No explanation. No apology. NOTHING.

I call in AGAIN. This time I have a bright idea. Instead of going through customer service, I go through sales. I get someone who sounds more intelligent (probably because they care about selling to people…just not supporting them). This guy looks up my order, explains to me that Michelle works in accounting and wanted to verify information on my credit card (that they had charged before she ever called me), but that she had already found what she needed.

Great! SO WHY WAS MY ORDER CANCELLED??????

Apparently the item was out of stock. I pull up their website which conveniently shows how many are in stock. I ordered 16 cameras. At the time of order there were 31 in stock. Now there are showing 24 in stock. Just in case my mental math fails me on that, I check with a calculator…yep…24 minus 16 really does equal 8…there should still be a surplus of 8 cameras. Trying to be polite so that I don’t make matters worse at this point I calmly ask, “So when do you think you WILL be able to fill my order?”

I kid you not. He said, “look, we have seven warehouses nation-wide so unless we just get a massive shipment of these cameras, we’ll never be able to fill your order.”

It took everything I had not to convert myself into an electric signal and force myself through the phone lines so I could jump out of his phone or headset and strangle him with the cord.

You would think that with seven warehouses, they could CONSOLIDATE and get me my order…that is, after all, what you do when you’re in business to MAKE MONEY.

Not according to this salesman. I told him I wanted a manager or supervisor to call me and he said “no one is going to be able to do anything for you” and basically ended the call there. I replied to the vague “your order has been refunded” email and demanded that someone call me. I also went onto their website and submitted a support request explaining the situation and asked that someone call me.

I get an email a few hours later that says (paraphrased),

“Our Texas warehouse is misreporting on the website. We have reported it to our support team. We are sorry for any confusion but no amount of phone calls or emails will change this until we have more stock.” That last sentence is word-for-word. On top of being inept, now they turn to being antagonistic.

I reported them to the Better Business Bureau and said that it was unacceptable that they were willing to charge over $800 to my credit card immediately but that they were not willing to talk to me about what happened. I was upset because their customer service was extremely poor and there was not one single returned phone call.

Their response? The forwarded the antagonistic email. The BBB asked if I accepted their response. I very verbosely explained to them WHY I did not accept that response. ANTonline responded again by saying that the credit card was refunded.

I was too busy to respond again in the few days it took before the BBB closed the case. But you know what…it’s not worth my time anymore. I’ll just post this blog and hopefully people doing a search for ANTonline or ANTonline sucks or ANTonline reviews will stumble upon my blog and learn just what a miserable company they really are.

But I don’t hold a grudge! PPPFFFFFFFTTTT.

I know what causes baldness.

No. Really.

You may have heard that it’s a result of hormones…but I don’t think that’s right. It comes from the hair-pulling, desk/head-banging experiences that people have to go through!

After reading The Rock Chick’s thread I Swear (Warning: Strong, but necessary language!), I felt inspired to share something that I went through during the past couple of days.

You see, I work for a franchisee of a well known Quick Service Restaurant (read: Fast Food) chain. I am the IT Manager and I handle things like point-of-sale systems, surveillance systems, back office PCs, dining room music, drive-through audio…things like that. My team and I (read: both of us) not only maintain the equipment, but we put it into the new stores our company is building. In order to DO that, you have to purchase the equipment…enter another well known chain…Best (read: Worst) Buy.

Before I go off on my little rant, let me just say that I am prone to swearing off stores for bad experiences. I expect the highest levels of customer service and when I don’t get what I expect I get very angry, turn it all inward, make a mountain out of a molehill and write the company and tell them I will never shop with them again. I even reported one online business to the BBB in the last couple of weeks due to the complete and utter ineptitude of their service, but that’s a different blog for a different day. I have not yet completely decided whether or not Best Buy will be my next boycott, but let me tell my tale.

Oh, one other quick note: the sequence that leads to this story sounds like it’s made up, but I SWEAR to you it’s true. Like I said…I’m an IT Manager. I know that most of the time when people claim what I’m about the claim it’s a P.I.C.N.I.C (problem in chair not in computer) or a bad infestation of the U.S.E.R. (no acronym, just fun to say it that way) virus.

So we (read: my assistant) went to the local Best Buy to purchase some equipment we needed. He called me from the location to tell me that he found a variant of what we needed to use that might serve us better and because one was discontinued and the other was opened, he was going to get them for a discounted price! EXCELLENT – I love being able to get things cheaper. The sales associate explained to him the difference between what we normally get and what we would be getting and it sounded like it could save us some shopping and some money, so I figured, sure…why not? Oh…except one thing he’ll need to go with it isn’t in stock…so he goes to Circuit City.

At Circuit City he explains to the sales associate what he is looking for and why and what he will be using it with and for and the sales associate explains that what the Best Buy associate sold him was not what the Best Buy associate TOLD him it was. After deciding that the Circuit City guy knew what he was talking about (and after deciding that must be the reason the other piece of equipment was returned the first time!) he returned the equipment to Best Buy and got what we were looking for from Circuit City…except that part that he went to Circuit City for originally – because it was not in stock there either.

So – he goes back to the good ol‘ internet and tries to place an order on the Best Buy website for in-store pick up at a location 3 hours away (where we are building the restaurant) since we will be there in the early part of next week. No luck. The item is not available for in-store pick-up. No big deal…it’s still a few days away…we’ll just have it delivered our restaurant location nearest where we are building.

Long intro – I know…that’s what started it.

I got the confirmation email the next morning saying that the order was placed, but not yet shipped. I looked at the address – it was not the location we agreed to send it to. It was another location in the same city – no big deal – but I asked my assistant “So you decided to have it delivered to Boca Chica after all?” (Boca Chica is what we call the restaurant located on the street name “Boca Chica“)

“No – I had it sent to Padre” (the location on Padre Island Hwy)

“It says here ‘Boca Chica‘.”

So here I am thinking to myself that perhaps it’s possible he got confused and entered the wrong address…but he swears he entered the right address. He’s a smart guy…I don’t like doubting he did what he’s telling me he did. I look again at the address…something’s not right. The address has the STREET NAME of Boca Chica, but the STREET NUMBER is of our Padre Island Highway location. Ok…now something REALLY seems off…is it possible he got in a hurry and entered the street number of one and the street name of the other? Trust me…as much as it sounds that MUST be the case…it ABSOLUTELY WAS NOT. Best Buy CHANGED THE ADDRESS.

Ok…maybe Best Buy didn’t change it, but their system did. I SWEAR IT DID! It changed ONLY the street name! I went into the online account we used to place the order and added a “ship to:” address and proceeded to enter the correct address…clicked save…and now had TWO instances of the wrong address. I did it a third time to make sure that I didn’t do something wrong…now I had THREE instances of the wrong address!!! So…I deleted them, because, what good would any of the wrong address serve me? I called Best Buy.

To make an already very long story as short as possible, I then proceeded to go back and forth between Best Buy and UPS while trying to get the address corrected. Best Buy would only tell me “Since it’s already in the ’shipping’ state, we can’t make any changes to the address,” and then tell me that my only option was to call UPS. I’ve been through this before…I knew they wouldn’t let me change anything since I’m not the shipper. I told Best Buy this…they cared not. “Call UPS” they said.

So I did.

And it sucked.

I explained the story to UPS. Did they care? Well, they seemed to…but there was nothing they could do as I was the not the shipper. This did not surprise me.

Back and forth – probably 10-15 phone calls and my desperately and KINDLY trying to get SOMEONE to help me. My last conversation with UPS ended up with them telling me the only way that I can change the address is after they make the first delivery attempt and it fails.

This is true…I said this to them…

“Look, I don’t have a problem with that. I have no problem, whatsoever, in picking up the item at your location. MY concern is that the delivery will NOT fail. I have no idea what’s at the location that your driver is going to go to. It could be an empty plot of land. There could be A COW standing there ready to accept the package. Or, it could be a legitimate residence or business and there could be someone there who is NOT expecting a package, but when they see that it’s from Best Buy they will gladly accept it. It’s not like the driver is going to require a signature, and if they do, they’re not going to ask for an ID. I would rather it not go to the wrong place to begin with. Can you change the address and charge ME the $10 fee? I’ll give you my credit card.”

Nope…since it was done using the Best Buy UPS account…there’s nothing they can do.

So I make ONE FINAL CALL to the Best Buy customer service.

I basically tell them the same paragraph you see above. But…nope…there is nothing they can do. So I said something like, “Look…I’m not trying to be a pain. I have worked in a call center, I know you are doing everything you can do…and I know you’re telling me that there’s nothing you or any supervisor can do…and I get that. I really do. BUT…there HAS to be SOMEONE there who is in charge of the Best Buy campaign in your call center who has the authority or can call someone at Best Buy Corporate who has the authority to make a five minute phone call to UPS and give them your account number and say “please change the address.”

This guy – in his inability to help me – actually helped me more than anyone else that day. (I probably spent a total of 1.5 – 2 hours on the phone trying to get this resolved). He said, “there probably is someone here who can do that, but if there is I have no idea who it is or how to get in touch with them. The only thing I can suggest is perhaps going to our website and seeing if the number for our corporate office is on our web page.”

DUH!!!!

I pulled up the web page and sure enough on the right hand side near the bottom was their corporate address and phone number. It was too late in the day at this point to call…so I called the next day and FINALLY got in touch with someone who could make the five minute phone call to UPS to change the address.

So…I think I have thinner hair…and a flatter forehead…a bruised brain…and a bad taste in my mouth for Best Buy…but mission accomplished.

Just wait til you get to hear about my other online merchant story!