Monday, July 23, 2007

What I learned in Driver's Education



Gina is the know-it-all of driving rules and regulations. Most people, when they are driving with their spouse and do something stupid on the road, will get yelled at and that is the end of it. Well in my case, I get yelled at, Gina will quote the law I volated and what code # it is, and she will tell me what day of driver's ed she learned the rule on and what the appropriate penalty would be if I were caught breaking that law. She takes great pride in her Driver's Ed experience and I commend her for that.
With that said, if I see another maniac texting in their car while driving next to me I am going to take my plunger and stick it to their forehead. Cell phones must be made illegal while driving. You add a teenager who just graduated from driver's ed with 2 other friends in the car, mix in a little alcohol and add a text message exchange into the mix and you have a deadly combination.

Technolgy and Customer Service

The latest developments in technology have had a large impact on society as a whole-not even those who try to avoid the wrath of the "text" or the blackberry are able to do so. It seems that employees these days spend more time monitoring their incoming messages than they do their customers. Here is a log of my latest run-ins with bad customer service...

1. UHAUL-female employee made me wait 10 minutes, and put same customer on hold 6 times (I kid you not), while she said she was "working on it". What was she doing? Let's just say her cell phone was right by her side the whole time.

2.TACO BELL- While ordering my food, the employee (who happened to be the shift manager) was on his cell phone (had the little ear piece) talking to his buddy and would graciously interrupt his conversation on the phone to tell me my total. After I place my order, he left outside to continue his call and smoke, while another employee was literally standing by the drive thru window twirling a set of keys. The people outside the window were looking in wondering where their food was because it was taking so long. It took me 15 minutes to get my 7 layer burrito, and, oh yeah, there was ONE other customer in there. ONE.

3. WENDY'S-This employee took my order, then took and order from 2 young girls (17 year olds) and their dad, was able to finish their order, check his cell phone a few times in the meantime, looked at my order like 11 times in total confusion, and I waited 10 minutes for fries-there were about 10 ready to go. Then I waited 2 minutes for him to fill up our 4 waters and get me sweet and sour sauce instead of the honey mustard he had put on my tray. Gina was sitting down and looked at my at one point and said "What's taking so long". He must have been worried about one of his missed calls.

I am sure the list will go on in the coming weeks.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

"Sell" Phones


To all you cell phone lovers out there who tell me it is a necessity, listen to this. We drove to Montana this past week and borrowed our sister's cell phone to be able to call the other cars we were traveling with. I think it worked 3 out of the 40 times we tried to use it. What a luxury! We had to resort to using walkie-talkies. Cell phones are a joke, do you copy, 10 4...I won't be buying one anytime soon.