Author: Steve Krause

Posted on

Paraphrase of an actual customer service conversation I had this morning

For rather innocuous reasons, Annette and I decided to change the billing due date on a credit card we recently acquired/signed on to. Annette called and was told it would take months and a special over-ride to accomplish this. I thought that odd so I called a bit later. To paraphrase the experience:

Me: I was told when I signed up for this card, I could change the billing date whenever I wanted. So I was under the impression that it didn’t really matter and this would be no big deal.

Customer Service Rep (CSR): Well, you can’t keep changing it whenever you want. That’s what people do to avoid finance charges.

Me: I understand that. I just want to do it this once.

CSR: And we can do that. It will take two billing cycles though.

Me: Why?

CSR: Because we have to do this manually. The paperwork has to be filled out and sent and such, blah-blah-blah.

Me: Huh. Where do you send this paperwork?

CSR: Williamton, Delaware.

Me: And do you send this by mule? (I do remember that I did actually say this to the guy). I mean, two months seems like an awfully long time to process this.

CSR: Sir, we service 80 million credit cards, and blah-blah-blah/I’m gonna give you a lecture about how credit works and your credit score and such/blah-blah-blah.

Me: So, there’s no other option here?

CSR: No no no no no no no no no no nooooo and no.

Me: Can I speak to your supervisor please?

CSR: Well, there’s not going to be anything they can do. Blah-blah-blah-blah-diddity-blah, more about what I should do to help my credit but I’m not a credit counselor.

Me: Uh-huh. I’d like to speak with your supervisor.

CSR: Fine.

(On hold for a few moments)

Customer Service Supervisor (CSS): Hi, what’s the situation here?

Me: Here’s the deal: blah-blah-blah. Does this really take two months?

CSS: Nah, I just went ahead and fixed it. You’re fine.

Me: Oh. Oh, good.

CSS: Glad to help. Any questions on that?

Me: Nope.

CSS: Have a nice day.

So, the moral of the story: it never hurts to ask for the supervisor, does it?

Posted on

Sp?

Not to dwell on Joe the plumber and such, but I found this post at the daily kos pretty amusing: apparently, team McCain is running a post debate featuring Joe the P commercial with this typo:

everbody-- do you mean everybody?

As an English professor and a writing teacher, I am contractually obligated to point this error out. Nothing personal, McCain. Though can you at least run the spell-check?

Posted on

Fall a-comin’

I changed the header not so much in honor of my wife’s recent poem but to point to the end of the summer harvest around here, despite the lovely weather we’ve had around here lately. I took these off of the last plant we had last week, I think.

Posted on

“That One,” the terrorist

Two handy links via my wife’s facebook page: first, a very smart piece by Frank Rich, “The Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama” from Friday’s NYTimes. For reasons I myself don’t even quite understand, I found myself last night surfing about the conservative blogosphere, and the collective cry of conservative bloggers was that it was unfair to hold McCain and Palin responsible for a few nutjobs yelling stuff out at their rallies. I would agree with that analysis if it weren’t for the fact that McCain’s ads and Palin’s speeches have been fanning the flames, and Rich makes a pretty good argument in his article that it goes beyond that.

And then there’s this short video, “Obama ‘that one’ (mocean worker):”

It’s a catchy tune, and I think it’s right– knocking on wood, snapping fingers, not stepping on cracks, etc., etc.– oh, and oh yeah: getting out and voting.

Posted on

What Obama really said about “my neighbor” (or, context is everything)

I was just listening to NPR this morning, and apparently, McCain is still peddling this line about Obama associations with “terrorist” William Ayers, about how calling this guy “just my neighbor” is a lie, how this speaks to Obama’s character, etc., etc. That darn untrustworthy Obama!

Well, as luck would have it, I found a link via daily kos to this story the other day, and the tab is still open on my browser. The “Ayers is just my neighbor” thing came up originally on an ABC News moderated event between Hillary Clinton (then clawing for life to stay in this thing) and Obama. The hosts were Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos Here’s the transcript from the beginning; and here’s a link to the part of the debate that features the comments in question.

Below the “more” part, I include the whole passage so you can read it yourself, but basically, this comes up during a back and forth about patriotism and a question from someone on the internet about the whole flag lapel pin thing, and Stephanopoulos used this as a chance to turn it back to Ayers. The context here, ironically enough, was a discussion about whether or not Obama was “tough enough” to take on the Republicans when they make attacks like this one. As the full quote/passage makes clear, Obama said much more than “he’s just my neighbor,” and the context/direction of the conversation didn’t exactly lend itself to a full discussion of the Obama/Ayers relationship.

Besides the obvious and rather desperate smear McCain is trying here, a tactic that seems especially ugly given that the world economy appears to be ending, what bothers me personally is the bad freshman writing mistake that McCain is making here. I’ve seen plenty of students who take this tactic, cherry-picking quotes in order to make a point no matter what the evidence they are quoting really says. In other words, if McCain was a first year composition student and he handed in a paper about how Obama is a terrorist with this claim about Ayers, I’d probably circle that line “Obama lied about him just being my neighbor” and write something like “What is the full context of this quote, John? Do you really think that was the intent of your source? Is this the full story? It sounds like you’re twisting the words here.”

Anyway, here’s the whole thing:

Continue reading “What Obama really said about “my neighbor” (or, context is everything)”

Posted on

If I was really really freakin’ rich…

… then I would want a library like this. This, which I discovered via boing-boing, is the personal library of zillionaire Jay Walker (among other things, he came up with the idea for Priceline.com apparently) as described in this article in Wired. Read all about it. I’d pay an entrance fee just to see what it’s like in person. Un-freakin-real. I’d Who said it isn’t good to be the king?

As it is, I’ll have to settle for my mancave with ikea fiberboard shelves. I do have more snow globes than this guy does at least.

Posted on

Misc. “town hall” thoughts

I’m watching “the debate” while simultaneously commenting on student essays. A few random thoughs:

  • I think a buzzer or a bell for time expired is in order. Poor Tom Brokaw.
  • McCain seems to be shuffling around on stage quite a bit. I dunno, but he looks really really old to me in this format next to the much younger and vibrant Obama.
  • And McCain keeps saying the same thing over and over again. If he says “my friends” again, I’m gonna throw something.
  • If Obama was a white guy, he’d be 25 points ahead. Easy.
  • Hair transplants? WTF?
  • I don’t think Obama gave a good response to the the genocide question. But there is no good answer to that, really. But stop saying “my friends,” Johnny. Two in one sentence! That’s quite the drinking game….

On the whole, not much happened. No big crashes. I watched this on CNN, and their various tickers/etc. seem to have Obama as the winner, and that was my impression, biased as it is.

Okay, a little more grading….

Posted on

On keyboards

I came across this via Lifehacker: “The Best Keyboard You’ve Ever Typed On.” One of the winners is the aluminum keyboard that comes with the latest version of the iMac, but for my own tastes and preferences, that one seems a little too thin and quiet and not enough bounce for me. Actually, my problem with keyboards as of late as been a sort of stickiness, perhaps from crud getting caught in there. The keyboard on the computer in my office is particularly annoying, but I have also replaced the keyboard that came with my home machine (an iMac circa 2006, I think) with a generic $30 or so keyboard, and I have to say, I like the old-school clickity-clack.

Perhaps more information on my typing habits than you need, but there you have it.