This is why you’re the Genius

Feb 1, 2009 | Whinging

When interacting with people who hold in their corporate policies, subject to their whims, the ability to fix your broken technology and perhaps stretch the constraints of your extended warranty (which has paid for itself several times over), it helps to make it apparent (subtlety works best here) that you know at least a little bit about the problem at hand. Especially with those staffing the Genius Bar at an Apple Store. Some of them are nice, helpful, and not condescending, but that’s a hat trick not found in most of them. And who can blame them, what with Genius Bar in huge letters on the wall above their heads and a crowd of supplicants milling about the store, waiting like brain-washed Steve Jobs acolytes for a few minutes in the exalted presence of a designated Genius? I’d have a hard time reining it in if I were referred to as a genius all day: “A Genius will be with you in about two hours. [And we know full well that you will wait, without complaining.]” “Sorry, we’re just waiting for an available Genius.” “Hold on, let me find a Genius and ask her.”

I can usually figure out software and firmware fixes, but there are a number of physical problems with C2’s MacBook. We asked a few questions; the Genius smiled and said a bunch of words that resembled answers but weren’t. I began mentally formulating a plan to get what we wanted by demonstrated that I’m not a complete rookie, so don’t think you’re going to get away with telling me that there is hair and dirt sandwiched in front of the screen but too bad for me because you can’t fix it because it’s one piece and the stuff is in there, inaccessible to the user, because that’s the way the computers were made because Apple couldn’t very well glue down the bezel because there are a bunch of tabs and clips and that’s why the new MacBooks don’t have bezels but are one piece out to the edge and the only way to keep it from happening is to clean the outside of your screen often. Yes, he said that, albeit with more punctuation. First, how stupid do you think I am that I might believe that it’s possible for dust and hair to get between a computer screen and its protective cover if it’s one piece? Has Apple been experimenting with osmosis, too? Second, the construction details of the new MacBook are entirely irrelevant here, and you’ve just admitted that it’s a problem that was fixed in the new models. Third, I’m not an idiot and didn’t suggest that Apple should have glued down the bezels, you can see that my screen is nice and clean, and, in fact, frequent cleaning of the screen is more likely to push debris under the bezel and in my field of vision, you self-important prick. Fourth, you don’t have any bezels in stock because you have to replace them so often under warranty, which I know because your store has had to replace mine once before for just this reason.

I’m at a disadvantage at an Apple Store because, while I know something about PCs, I know next to nothing abut Macs. We wanted to know about backup utilities, but all I know about backup utilities for Macs is what I’ve Googled. I like to supplement information searches with personal endorsements, so we asked the Genius what the best way to back up a Mac was. He said he used Time Machine in Leopard. He’d been looking at the computer, so I shouldn’t have needed to tell him that the computer doesn’t have Leopard on it. Instead, I told him, it has “Safari.”

This morning I woke up in very nearly a cold sweat: Safari? That’s like asking a bartender for his opinion on the best way to make a margarita and he says he prefers a blender. To which you answer, “That won’t work for me because I don’t have a blender. I have a curling iron.” Scratch the above: You’ll find me at the Idiot Bar.

Tis the season

Nov 30, 2008 | Whinging

In the spirit of the holidays, the Council of Parents Who Want Other People to Do Their Jobs for Them has asked that toy manufacturers cut down on advertising directed at kids this season because saying “No” is hard to do in the best of circumstances and it makes these trying economic times even more stressful.

According to this article

I had one parent who said she’d prostitute herself to get what her child wants,” Almodovar said. It’s heartbreaking. They feel inadequate as parents.

And well they should. Just what every kid wants: To be the reason Mama has sleepovers with the nice fellows she meets on the corner.

Most of us would like to say “Yes” to our kids a lot more than we do, but we have a responsibility to not create monsters. I took that responsibility seriously and someday I hope my kids can share with their kids the old-fashioned fun they had playing with Mommy’s broken gin bottles.

Advertising is never targeted to kids because kids don’t have any money. It’s targeted at their parents who are too spineless to say no to both the things and the whining. Miley Cyrus is not a gazillionaire because her ten-year-old demographic buys her hair scrunchies and concert tickets. It’s because her demographic’s parents will do anything to make their kids “happy” in the short term. Ever watched My Super Sweet Sixteen? Those monsters weren’t born, they were created.

In Toys R Us many years ago I was in the doll section looking for a black baby doll for C2 for Christmas (she had a fondness for black dolls). She and several relatives, whose only common connection is one grandparent, exhibit certain features, notably their hair, that indicate that perhaps there is some African American material in their genes. This is just my pet theory based on that scant evidence, but I’m fond of it because it would freak that grandparent the hell out. Back to Toys R Us, a girl of about eight was overdosing on the pink and frilly universe of Barbie surrounding her on aisle 12 and her mother was having no part of it, espousing her views on the objectification of women, impossible-to-reach standards of beauty, limiting women’s roles to that of subservient play thing. Finally, the little girl had had enough equal-rights talk: “But Mommy, pleeeease! I just want a Baaaarbieee!” Until then, I’d had my own conflicted feelings about Barbie, but that little girl taught me that if I can’t teach my child to separate her self-worth from that of a bumpy eleven-inch hunk of plastic that is fun to play with and, let’s be honest, sometimes torture, then they should take away my Parenting Permit, but at least that mom recognized that it was her responsibility to decide which toys she bought her child.

Without toy advertising we would have no real working submarines for $6.98 or X-ray Specs in the archives of our popular culture. There would have been no impetus for A Christmas Story, and I don’t think I can live in a world without 24 hours of A Christmas Story on TNT on Christmas Eve.

No packages to sign for

Nov 17, 2008 | Whinging

Amid a worldwide credit crisis, multiple wars, sanctioned torture, and the starvation of millions, not getting a pair of headlights delivered on time is not a big deal (although the money spent on those missing headlights was not insignificant and now I have neither money nor headlights), but I find the attitude of the shipping company interesting when one’s missing package goes from the initial status of not being delivered exactly on time to still not delivered days later. We start out with, “I do apologize, ma’am, for the inconvenience. I suggest you contact the shipper and ask them to put a tracer on the package. Again, I apologize” and move to something quite different.

I called UPS today to see if anything has changed because, again, the last information they told me on the phone still does not show up on the Web site tracking page. Upon being greeted I say, “Can you tell me if there is any more information about my missing package?” Now that it is officially missing because the shipper has put a trace on the package, the response moved from the singular, blame-assuming “I” to the general, blame-evading “we.” So far, my encounters with UPS customer service indicate that a great deal of thought and training are put into the choice of words and the scripts to be read, so the use of “I” is obviously deliberate. Today it’s: “The investigation only started yesterday, on the 14th [never mind that today is the 17th]. We have seven more business days to complete the investigation.” I ask what the last thing she has noted for this tracking number is: “The investigation.” That was helpful. It’s the same package and it’s still missing, so why does it move from one person being terribly sorry that it was not delivered the day it was promised, to UPS as a whole saying: Keep your pants on; we told you we wouldn’t know anything for, effectively, two more weeks.

And I wonder about the fact that the shipper is the customer, and the shippee can’t even request that a package be traced. Rarely does a shipper actually pay for the shipping, but collects the shipping charge, and then some, from its customer. A few years ago I ordered some flower leis from Hawaii, very much an uncharacteristic extravagance on my part. I paid too much money to have them shipped by FedEx, the only way such a perishable item can arrive in usuable shape (I had no choice in which shipper was used). They didn’t arrive on time, and there is no point in having leis after the occassion they were ordered, with some care, for. My only recourse was to ask the merchant to get the money for the product and the shipping charge back from FedEx (they did), and then refund the money to me (they didn’t). I was out my leis and the money I spent on them, while the flower company was paid twice for the product, with the bonus of getting the shipping charges I paid for given to them. I called Hawaii but never got a live person. I e-mailed multiple times and still, two-and-a-half years later, the only response I’ve gotten are regular sales e-mails: “Thanks for ordering from us in the past. Here are our current specials.” They ask that customers rate their buying experience on a Yahoo board. After telling them multiple times that I was going to leave a negative comment explaining exactly how they had stolen my money, they didn’t respond. I did as I said, careful to use only facts and not emotion so as to not discredit my comment. Still no response. I called FedEx, but their customer is the shipper and so what the shipper does with the refund is of no concern to them. The merchant acts as an intermediary between the customer and the shipper, and often collects a handling charge for doing so, but the person paying for the shipping has no rights.

It’s a good thing the box with my headlights didn’t also contain the new kidney I’ve been waiting for.

Who’ll sign for the packages?

Nov 14, 2008 | Whinging

You are waiting for a package from UPS. You are terribly excited about this package because it contains headlights that the good German engineers intended your car to have when the Italian designer designed it a couple of decades ago. In this car we get the best, at the time, of a cross-cultural affair of Italian design and German engineering. The designer was so pleased with himself that he still owns one of those cars.

But your car doesn’t have those European headlights because the US Department of Transportation thought they knew better than the Germans and an Italian, but only a non-engineer, non-designer idiot bureaucrat mucks about with German engineering and Italian design. There might even be a Geneva Convention against the practice. This was in the mid-80s, and if you remember American cars in the mid-80s, you know what a dismal period in American automotive history that was. So, instead of lovely headlights that actually light up the road at night and look like they belong on the car, the US DOT required the manufacturer to install ugly headlights that light up the road about as far as you can spit from the driver’s seat. Not only are the DOT headlights inferior with respect to lighting, they are not the same size as the European headlights, requiring the fitment of plastic pieces to fill up the resultant gaps. Those plastic gap-fillers fool no one.

Because you are impatient, you frequently check the UPS tracking page because who doesn’t love to receive packages? You convince yourself that maybe UPS was kidding and are hoping to see a Psych! It’s really coming today! We were just messing with you! The Web site, however, does not demonstrate a playful sense of humor and sticks with its original pronouncement that the package is due to arrive on November 13 because it is coming from a location diagonally across the country from you. You convince yourself to grow up and wait the few days until then.

Upon waking on the 13th you check the status of the package with the eagerness of a long-haul trucker pulling into a Hooters after a three-day slog through the Bible Belt. All is right with the world: Your package is “In transit and on-time for a scheduled delivery of November 13.” At noon it is not here, but not to worry because sometimes the UPS guy comes in the afternoon. It is not here when you leave at 2:30, so surely it will be waiting for you when you get back home. There is no happy package waiting for you at 4:30 when you arrive back home. You leave the house again at 6:30 and still no package. Or at 10:00 when you return home again, when it has become even more clear that your US-spec headlights blow and Captain OCD asks, “You have your brights on? When a car is coming?” Yes, because even with the high beams on, the oncoming car is thinking that you took the owner’s manual specification for candle power literally.

It’s late, but you check the tracking page. Again, as you have 28 times already. The notice stating that it arrived at a UPS center an hour-and-a-half away from you on the 12th at 1:51 AM has not given up its status as the head of the list, but the “on time for a scheduled delivery of November 13” has bailed, leaving “In Transit” to take all the blame. So you call UPS, knowing that these people do not want to talk to you. You know this because about 49 times on the phone there is a pleasant woman’s voice telling you that everything you need to know is on their Web site, after which she helpfully gives you the URL. Because, of course, you are too stupid to know that there is package trackage available on the emails. When you respond to the voice prompts off-script with statements like, “Help me please!,” “Nooooo,” and “Can I pretty-please talk to someone?” the friendly voice finally says, “Okay, I’ll let you talk to someone, if you insist, but you do know, as I’ve already told you, that no one has any more information than what is on the tracking page of our Web site. That is the latest available information. We have spent a lot of time and even more money developing that system: Perhaps you’ve seen the documentary about the awesomeness of our tracking system on The Discovery Channel? If so, you are already well-aware that you will be wasting both your and our time. But, by all means, please hold for a moment.”

Know this: She is paid to LIE to you. You know this because you disregard the warnings of wasted time and persevere until a nice person answers your polite plea. You try to save time by preempting the part of her script that says, “Did you know that you can track a package on our Web site . . .” by calmly asking her if she can help you find the package that is not here and not showing on the Web page that you are looking at right at this moment. After apologizing by proxy, she will tell you that she does not know where your package is and, again, she is terribly sorry about that. And then she will let slip that the last thing she sees is that it was unloaded at 7:49 PM. At the same place it arrived seventeen hours and 58 minutes earlier. It is not her fault that the package-tracking Web page committed a lie of omission by failing to note the 7:49 PM entry, or the collusion in the lie by the voice on the telephone answering system, so you thank her for her time and tell her you will follow her advice and check again in the morning. Because, really, were you going to install those headlights tonight?

Trust the machine at your peril

Oct 16, 2008 | Whinging

Four years ago C2 was a 16-year-old exchange student in Spain (all about that here). Now she’s a 20-year-old study abroad student in Chile. I learned a lot last time, especially about logistics and not trusting anyone who says anything the first time they say it, especially representatives from official organizations who, by the smallest slip of the tongue, might misstate a seemingly inconsequential detail that could end up costing you time, money, and opportunities. I firmly believe (and it’s worked for me in practice), that it’s impossible to be over prepared. Preparation saves money, worry, and, curiously, affords one more opportunity to be spontaneous. While there’s a certain charm in checking out of your hostel early to take a chance on catching a bus to catch a train for a weekend trip to an amazing waterfall that an Australian backpacker told you he’d heard about from a Swedish girl he slept with in Peru, that’s not how I roll. I’m happy to trade in a little spontaneity for a phone call that tells me that the train isn’t running until tomorrow because of a little-known holiday celebrated only in even-numbered years. Look at me, not spending the night on the bench outside the locked doors of the train station because there are no available rooms in the village with a population of 42 people and 186 dogs.

She wanted to change her departure date, which was already a week after her program ends. It is much cheaper and easier to do it from here than from Chile, so I called Delta to find out what’s involved and how much it would cost. The cheapest it’s possible to get away with is a $200 penalty (their term) to change the date. To leave from a different airport or at a time when a different fare code is in place could mean hundreds or even thousands more (and involves much research on Delta’s part to determine the final cost). So, $200 it is. The nice telephone representative told me that I can make the reservation, and then C2 pays the $200 at the airport in Santiago when she departs for home. Unfortunately, she said, I couldn’t pay for it now. I wanted to pay for it now because confirmation numbers and e-mailed itineraries with the changes clearly indicated in print make me happy. I didn’t change the reservation then because the only available fares were either four (not long enough) or ten (possibly too long) days later and we (or maybe that was me) weren’t ready to commit yet.

So. A few days ago I call again to change the reservation for real. Those fares are still available and all she has to do is go to a Delta office to pay for it.

At the ticket counter when she leaves, right?

Unfortunately, a lot of those Latin American countries won’t allow us to collect those fees because they want to collect their extra taxes and fees themselves.

You are f—, um, kidding me, right?

No, unfortunately [a favorite term of customer-service reps, I’ve discovered], that’s how they do it there. Let me check Chile just to be sure, but if we have a ticket office in the country they require that the fees be paid in person.

A couple of minutes later she comes back and confirms her earlier statement, with two “unfortunately”s this time. She’d be happy to make the reservation, but it could be held for only 24 hours.

So, if a customer is in, say, Tierra del Fuego and wants to change her reservation, she must travel for days back to Santiago to do so?

Unfortunately, that’s what a lot of those Latin American countries require and until they allow us to collect the tax there’s nothing we can do.

I didn’t change the reservation because I didn’t know when C2 could get to Santiago. In this case it’s not such a terribly big deal because C2 has a friend in Santiago where she can stay and who will accompany her to make the transaction (native speakers always good to have along in such cases). But it’s a couple-hour trip each way and an inconvenience in many other ways. The plan was that tonight she’d leave for Santiago and her friend would take her and her cash (after being charged four times for one plane ticket, she’s become a fan of cash – the problems get worked out in the end, but your account is tied up in the meantime and you are not refunded all of the foreign transaction fees) to the ticket office. If I’d changed the reservation the first time I called, she would have gotten to the airport and found that it had been canceled because it hadn’t been paid for.

After establishing when she’d go to Santiago and trying to keep within the 24-hour reservation-holding window, I timed my call to Delta today to be about 24 hours before the ticket office in Santiago closed tomorrow. My call was close to the time C2 would be boarding a bus to Santiago. I told her to listen for her phone and that I’d call if she needed any additional information to pay for the change. I call to change the reservation. After we get it all figured out:

And what credit card would you like to pay with?

What? I can pay now? Now? Over the phone? Like, now?

Yes, ma’am. Which credit card?

Wait a minute: A few days ago I spent 20 minutes on the phone with Delta telling me that was impossible. You mean she doesn’t have to go to a ticket office?

Um, no, ma’am. Why would she have to do that?

Because of taxes and because that’s what I was told the last time I talked to Delta. And the first time I talked to Delta.

I don’t know what might have happened, ma’am [customer-service rep code for “you’re lying”], which credit card?

While I’m thrilled, I’m also worried that, as I’m talking to Delta, C2 is boarding a bus for a long trip to Santiago that she doesn’t need to take. We finish the transaction, she confirms my e-mail address and tells me she’s just sent the updated itinerary. It’s not there at that instant and, having been burned before, I ask if there is some sort of confirmation number I can use in case the e-mail gets held up anywhere and I don’t receive it.

It’s the same confirmation number you’ve had all along, ma’am.

Yes, I know, but is there something that confirms that we’ve had this conversation? To prove that the reservation has been changed and paid for?

You know, something that confirms to me, her mother, the thing that is the only thing between her coming home as planned and not sleeping on the floor of the Santiago airport until she has to start hooking outside the mens’ bathroom until she earns enough money to pay for a much more expensive ticket, necessitated by not changing the ticket now, like you told me you just did?

I sent you the e-mail, ma’am.

Yes, I know, but,

JUST IN CASE Y’ALL FUCK ME OVER AGAIN DESPITE YOUR ASSURANCES TO THE CONTRARY,

is there something to indicate what we’ve just done?

I sent you the e-mail ma’am. It’s the same number ma’am.

Clearly, she’s not going to acknowledge my need for a belt and suspenders and a bungee cord woven through my belt loops and hooked to my bra straps, so I stall until the e-mail shows up. I very nearly ask her how the weather is where she is.

There it is. New dates, all paid, same confirmation number.

I make a quick call to C2, she hasn’t bought her ticket yet, so all is well. If I’d not called back after the second call C2 would have made an unnecessary trip to Santiago, which costs time and money. What if that information was given to someone who was in Brazil at the moment with a planned departure from Santiago? When in a foreign country, speaking in not your native tongue, on a sometimes expensive cell phone or a dodgy public phone, you’re not likely to make a lot of calls just to ensure that the last person you talked to knew what she was talking about. That conversation could have cost that hypothetical traveler hundreds of dollars, much time, and an alteration of his itinerary.

In case you were wondering, only the second person, the woman who gave me the most inaccurate information, had an American accent.