Category: cackle

Well, You Asked!

There are many things in this world that I take evil glee in doing. Taking a flyer forced into my hands on the street and walking it right to the trash can. Hanging up on telemarkers. Shoulder bumping the oblivious spandex clad ladies on the nice wide walking path who won’t move over after I’ve moved over.

This is but a few examples.

This morning brought an especially fun one. You see, yesterday I had to call in to Very Large Telecom Company to make some changes to my mobile phone service. These were not changes I could make in a store or online, I was forced to call in.

After being on hold for fifteen minutes waiting for “the next available operator” and listening to a litany of bad advertising, I was finally connected to a call agent. Now, to be fair, the call agent was very nice and rather helpful.

She did tell me that Very Large Telecom Company would have to assess a “one-time fee” for making the change I was making.

I questioned this, “Let me get this straight…I’m only making a change in how this is billed and I always pay on time and I have been a long time customer and you are still charging me for this!?!?”

“Yes, ma’am, that is our policy.”

Well that cheesed me. No need to unload on the lady on the line, she’s just a minion.

“Oh fine,” I snapped, “Just make the change.”

Then it took another fifteen minutes as the call agent waited for their computer system to respond. Waited. And waited. And waited.

All in, the call took forty minutes of my time. FOUR ZERO minutes. Whisky. Tango. Foxtrot.

So, this morning, Very Large Telecom Company called me and asked me to take a survey regarding my experience yesterday.

Oh I do love it when I get to take a survey after a crap experience.

When I bought my first car, I was treated so poorly by the shark of a salesman that when I was sent a survey from the car manufacturer, I not only filled out the form, I attached three pages with details, figures, facts, dates and times. The shark was demoted to the used car lot and I was given several free tanks of gas. It wasn’t even the free gas I was after, I just wanted SOMEONE to know how poorly their employees were representing them.

Also, it should be said, if I get really good service and I am asked to take a survey, I will gladly answer the questions and sing praises. That kind of behavior should be rewarded. After managing two different call centers, I happen to know that often times these survey results are used in annual performance reviews for call staff.

So this morning, on every question that pertained to the call rep, I gave very high scores. She really was very lovely, and certainly stuck in a bad situation.

On every question that pertained to “call length” and “time to resolve the issue” I gave them the lowest possible marks. One on a scale of one to ten.

Look, Very Large Telecom Company doesn’t give two rat’s butts about my one on a scale of one to ten but hey, they asked.

It kind of felt good to say my piece. Felt good in that evil glee sort of way.

I do love me some survey.







Image from Savage Chickens by Doug Savage.




The Right Answer and the Best Answer

Today was pretty much a banner day in my little life. Here I am in New York enjoying the city life, eating good food and loving every minute of it.

Today just took it up an extra notch.

What precipitated this trip to the big city, as described here, was the chance to see the Tony Award winning stage show “War Horse.”

After seeing this amazing show in San Francisco on its closing weekend, I suddenly knew I needed to see it again, and I wanted to see it in New York.

The Good Man and I had been batting around the idea of a trip to New York for a few years, but this idea of seeing War Horse on Broadway really put a charge into the idea.

And so today, all of those plans came together.

The show is staged at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre.

I had never been to Lincoln Center and in fact in my one visit to New York prior to this week, I hadn’t really spent much time above 50th and Broadway.

Lincoln Center really is an amazing place.

I have much more to say about the show and about this magical day, but I just wanted to stop a minute and share one of those slice of life moments. This is a very telling story, indeed.

You see, we arrived a bit early for our 2:00pm matinee, and so The Good Man and I decided to stroll around a bit so I could see the layout of the Lincoln Center.

It’s quite lovely.

And as I looked around, all amped up and excited to see the show and to be in New York and to be seeing all these things I’ve not seen before, my eyes fell upon this building:






Now when I saw this building, in all of my geekery and excitement and still-got-a-little-New-Mexico-hayseed-in-my-hair, I turned to The Good Man and I asked “Is that THE Julliard?”

Now, pause here.

True confessions: That’s a pretty dumb question. I’m not even sure why I asked it.

And yet….

My darling husband, a man of Brooklyn from his childhood and in many ways still a New Yorker probably should have turned to me and replied in deep New York accent (with much sarcasm), “No, it’s the other one,” and rolled his eyes.

But he did not.

My darling man replied, “Yes, honey. That is THE Julliard. Pretty cool, huh?”

Then I kind of laughed and shook my head and said “well, that was a silly question.” Then I thanked him, because the right answer was probably the sarcastic one, but he is used to my propensity to geek out, so he gave me the best answer instead.

And when he’s being that much of a Good Man, I just gotta let him know how much I appreciate it.

Then I told him I was going to blog about it.

Hi honey!





Photo Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth. Taken with an iPhone5 and the Camera+ app.



And That’s All She Had to Say About That

The scene: Tuesday evening in Opelika, Alabama at a delicious little restaurant called the Warehouse Bistro.

The people: Several of my coworkers, a large group of folks from the supplier we were visiting, and me.

The situation: We’d had a day long business meeting. It had been a full marathon session that was mostly good and occasionally heated. We ended the work day on a good note and headed off for drinks and good eats. We’d all started with a few mixed drinks, then beers and wine bottles were ordered, and delicious food was served. Near the end of the night as the servers cleared dessert plates the whole group was feeling quite convivial, there was a lot of good natured ribbing going back and forth.

I got a fair bit of grief for being from California. Things like “you buncha wine sniffing weirdos” and “You damn Californians!” I’m used to it, I get it back home in New Mexico too, so I know how to hold my own.

At the table were three guys who had driven over to Alabama from Daytona, Florida. It’s about a seven hour drive and they had seen the entire span of Georgia along the way. This one ol’ boy from Florida was the one leading the charge on giving people grief. He was dishing it out pretty hard to everyone at the table. Didn’t matter who you were or where you were from, you were gonna get your share. Even the guy from Australia.

So at one point he was talking about the drive over and saying, “geez, what is it with Georgia? All along the road all we saw were adult shops and fireworks stands. I mean all along I-10 that’s all there was. I couldn’t find a damn McDonalds but I could find all that crazy stuff. There’s gotta be something wrong with Georgia.”

Then he got an evil look in his eye.

He turned to the sweetest, quietest girl in the room who was sitting at the end of the table.

“Hey Cathy*, you’re from Georgia. What’s up with that? I mean, I thought this was the Bible Belt!”

She paused, took a sip of sweet tea, then said, very clearly so all could hear….”That’s because here in Georgia, we’re so good, when we’re done having a little fun we don’t smoke a cigarette, we light off a Roman candle.”

The room was quiet for one, two three beats….then came thunderous applause and laughter.

In the vernacular of our times, that ol’ boy from Florida just got served. In the most quiet, gentle and polite Southern way.

Loved it!






Image found at AnimalCapshunz.com


* Not her real name



Important Distinctions

My British education continues. This time, the lesson arrived over what my coworkers call “a curry and a pint.”

At a local Indian restaurant, I tucked into some buttery Tikka Masala and we discussed the day’s events.

I’ve been watching a lot of morning television, particularly the news shows, and so I had a lot of questions.

One question burned uppermost in my mind.

Thus:

“Is the Mayor of London insane? Because I’ve been seeing various video clips on the news and he seems…well…batshit crazy.”

“Boris Johnson, you mean? What leads you to that conclusion?” asked a wise coworker.

I told them of the video I’d seen that morning of Mr. Johnson, filmed just after London won the Olympic games. In the video, the honorable yet wild haired Mr. Johnson goes on at some length about how people in England used to play lawn tennis on their dining room table and it was called wiff waff. He kept saying “wiff waff” and rambling along that England originated table tennis and is the center of the sporting world and so on.

The man standing behind him is doing all he can to not laugh hysterically as an elected official natters on. (You can watch the video here, or Google Boris Johnson and wiff waff)

This video was played to set the stage for the next video, a clip that had been filmed earlier that day. In this video, they showed a large set of Olympic rings being hoisted and put in place under the London Bridge. When interviewed, Mr. Johnson went off on a repetitive rant that this adornment of the well known landmark was a wakeup call to London and an invitation to the world. His hair was surprisingly calm this day considering the wind.

So that, I told my curry crew, was the basis for my question.

Here was the reply and my lesson:

“Oh, make no mistake, he’s barking mad. However, his father was a member of Parliament and he is from a very posh family. He attended some of the best schools in the country. He was an MP of a small town for a while and then made his way to Mayor of London. The people love him.”

She went on to say, “You see, the difference between bonkers and eccentric is money. Boris Johnson is merely eccentric.”

Oh I see.

I took a sip of my beer.

Then another.

I nodded thoughtfully.

“Fair enough,” was the extent of my reply.






Image found here