It's no secret that the economy has STUNK the last year--for everyone. The Texas economy has fared better than most, but we have still had challenges. At work they keep saying that they way to make it through challenging economic times is not just to have the best price, but to have the best service too. Truly loyal customers are ones that are happy with their interactions with a company as a whole. The thought process goes that as the economy recovers, truly happy customers will stick with companies that have made them happy.
This seems like a simple concept and I would assume that we aren't the only company that has adopted this strategy. Recently I have had several very satisfying interactions with companies and several that really weren't. For instance, my husband and I have been flying JetBlue a bit. If you want to sleep they have quieter flights since everyone is usually watching the in-flight TV's. If I want to stay awake, the TV programming makes the time fly (pun intended). My 6'2" hubby thinks the extra legroom is divine. They don't charge for the first bag and they have always welcomed my dog riding under my seat. So, when I recently purchased tickets, then saw them advertised at a lower price, I sent them an email. Without any more prompting than that, no emails back and forth about what tickets I was talking about...etc., they refunded the difference to me in an account I can use toward my next flight. Not only did they make me happy, they pretty much guaranteed the next time I fly I will look on their airline first.
When I ordered prints recently from Snapfish and the corners on one set were slightly bent, I emailed them. I didn't expect them to send replacements, I just wanted to let them know that their packaging wasn't protecting their product. But without asking, they FedExed replacements. That is the kind of customer service that will keep me coming back for more. And telling my friends that I like not just their prices, but their style.
On the other hand, I rented a car from Avis recently. I turned it in full of gas, but they charged me for refilling the tank. It took 5 phone calls and me sending in a credit card receipt as "proof I filled up the tank" for them to remove the charge. When a customer calls to complain, as a company, you should look into the matter and promptly deal with the issue. When you haggle with me over $25 after I spent several hundred renting your car, I am not interested in continuing to do business with you. And you can send me as many "We miss you" emails as you want. Put your money where your mouth is and give me some real customer service. I'm just sayin.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Spring Fever
Spring in Central Texas has brought a beautiful crop of bluebonnets, Indian paint brushes, evening primrose, and many other wildflowers I can’t call by name. The term spring fever can serve multiple meanings this spring. Many of us are itching to get out of doors. Others of us are itching in our nose and eyes with allergies. YUK!
But perhaps the most dismaying definition of spring fever this year is the rash of dead bodies being found around Austin. The other night I was watching the local news and the top 4 stories were of officers responding to the scenes of dead bodies. Today, the open homicide investigations went up to 4 in the last seven days and 10 for the year with many more already solved. Accidental drownings, shootings, pedestrians being run over, they just keep coming. Several recent incidents have already been chalked up to gang activities, but it is really unsettling. Austin seems to be suffering some growing pains lately. Hopefully spring can continue on peacefully from here.
But perhaps the most dismaying definition of spring fever this year is the rash of dead bodies being found around Austin. The other night I was watching the local news and the top 4 stories were of officers responding to the scenes of dead bodies. Today, the open homicide investigations went up to 4 in the last seven days and 10 for the year with many more already solved. Accidental drownings, shootings, pedestrians being run over, they just keep coming. Several recent incidents have already been chalked up to gang activities, but it is really unsettling. Austin seems to be suffering some growing pains lately. Hopefully spring can continue on peacefully from here.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Jumpy
My brother and I had a running joke about my mother. She is quite jumpy and several times we arrived home to find her vacuuming and unaware of our arrival. The first time, my brother walked up to her and tapped her on the shoulder. She screamed and jumped and said how badly he scared her. So the next time, he ingeniously walked in, shouted her name, and when she didn’t respond, unplugged the vacuum cleaner. He was surprised when she turned around to see what made the vacuum stop and screamed and jumped and said how badly he scared her. So, the next time, he thought he would be smarter about it. He stood outside the front door and rang the doorbell. This made the dogs bark. She stopped the vacuum and opened the door and said how much that had scared her. Over the years, it became a joke. The only thing to do when you got home and found mom vacuuming was get back in your car and come home later.
Years later, DH has discovered that I am indeed my mother’s daughter. When he comes home, he frequently startles me. Last night I was brushing the dog quite vigorously on the back porch. I was tucking a big pile of fur in a trash bag and worried Moxie would jump off the table while I had my back turned. I heard a knocking and quickly turned back to keep her from jumping when the back door opened and DH greeted me. Unfortunately, my response was a blood curdled scream and jumping back 2 feet. He kept saying, “but I knocked on the door to warn you I was coming.”
The embarrassing thing about it is that I react in much the same way even when I KNOW he is in the house. I can be in the bathroom folding clothes and he walks in to ask me something and I will squeal and start. He has taken to announcing, “I am coming in the room now” as he approaches. I have no idea why I react this way. I just get startled when I am alone, or deep in thought. I wish I could control it, but I can’t. And in fact, I have actually had this same reaction at work. I had headphones on and was deeply engrossed in whatever I was doing and a manager approached me. Not receiving a response to his initial query, tapped me on the shoulder. Boy, you can see why the term gopher farm has been applied to cubicles. Within seconds, at least five co-workers popped up to see what had happened.
I guess I just have a jumpy personality.
So today, I am thankful for my calm hubby who never seems to startle.
Years later, DH has discovered that I am indeed my mother’s daughter. When he comes home, he frequently startles me. Last night I was brushing the dog quite vigorously on the back porch. I was tucking a big pile of fur in a trash bag and worried Moxie would jump off the table while I had my back turned. I heard a knocking and quickly turned back to keep her from jumping when the back door opened and DH greeted me. Unfortunately, my response was a blood curdled scream and jumping back 2 feet. He kept saying, “but I knocked on the door to warn you I was coming.”
The embarrassing thing about it is that I react in much the same way even when I KNOW he is in the house. I can be in the bathroom folding clothes and he walks in to ask me something and I will squeal and start. He has taken to announcing, “I am coming in the room now” as he approaches. I have no idea why I react this way. I just get startled when I am alone, or deep in thought. I wish I could control it, but I can’t. And in fact, I have actually had this same reaction at work. I had headphones on and was deeply engrossed in whatever I was doing and a manager approached me. Not receiving a response to his initial query, tapped me on the shoulder. Boy, you can see why the term gopher farm has been applied to cubicles. Within seconds, at least five co-workers popped up to see what had happened.
I guess I just have a jumpy personality.
So today, I am thankful for my calm hubby who never seems to startle.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Playing Catchup
Well, I should have been blogging more frequently. I enjoy reading the daily blogs of others and would love to be able to look back and see what random thoughts I was thinking a year ago.The problem is I was a little busy with engagement, and wedding preparations, and a wedding, and then fixing up and staging a house, selling Glenn's house and moving him into mine, I mean OURS.
Much has gone on in the last months, but now I can get back to blogging about my dogs, or silly things that are catching my attention in life.
Today, I am thinking about recorded books. I am really enjoying borrowing books from the library. And since I am still integrating two households into one, I don't have a lot of time to SIT DOWN and read. So, I get my fix by listening to books in the car. I belonged to a Netflix type service for audiobooks back when I was commuting from Georgetown. When I moved closer to work, I didn't think I was spending enough time in the car to warrant the rental cost. But when I purchased a new car last September, I discovered that it tracked EXACTLY how much time I was spending in the car. Namely, about 11 to 13 hours per TANK of gas. I realized this about the same time I realized the Austin Library changed their policy and allowed all Texas residents to borrow books! So began my renewed affair with Books on CD.
After listening to several books on CD, I can tell you there are some things that can affect the user's experience:
First, the reader must have a soothing voice. If they do, you can ignore the voice and focus on the story. If for example, they make a loud clicking with their mouth when they speak. Or, if they read and read and read and then make a huge gulping swallow, it can irritate you to no end. At least it can if you hate repetitive noises like I do.
Second, the CDs need to be clearly labeled, both externally and in the audio. Imagine listening along to a particularly tense portion of the story and then, inexplicably, the topic, tone and situation change entirely. It might take you a beat or two to realize that without warning, the CD has ended and your CD player conveniently began at the beginning of the CD. The best audio books have a nice speaker who says "{Name of Book}, Disc 3" at the beginning and end of the CD. So you know to switch CDs. And, if perhaps you have the discs out of order and don't look at the external label well, you will hear "Postmortem, Disc 3" , then change the disc and hear "Postmortem, Disc 5" and know immediately what the problem is. As opposed to putting in the next disc and then listening for 2 minutes in confusion before discovering the error.
Third, the CDs need to have short tracks. The engineers need to have broken the dialog into nice 2 or 4 minute tracks. My car has a somewhat nice feature in that the volume, source and track number can be changed with handy buttons on the steering wheel. I really wish they had placed the PAUSE button on the steering wheel, but alas. I don't really see a burning NEED for this feature. It doesn't seem like very far to reach to change the volume. But, perhaps if you know the controls well enough to perform the task you want without taking eyes off the road, it might be useful. For me, occasionally when turning the wheel I inadvertently push the button to change the track number. And if the tracks are 10 minutes long, I spend a lot longer time fast forwarding through the track to find my place. Shorter tracks are preferable.
But most of all, a reader should be able to have distinct voices for the different characters if there is only going to be one reader. I have listened to books with a different reader for each character. For some books, it is needed, but for most, a good reader who can create and then reliably use a different voice for each character makes it MUCH easier to follow the action. Some audiobooks are the equivalent of reading a Cormac McCarthy book (an author fond of using little to no punctuation--and here I digress, but SERIOUSLY, punctuation is a convention created to make it easy for everyone to tell what is going on. It is amazing how much confusion the lack of quotes, commas and apostrophes can cause. I am reading a book which discusses this ad nauseum. But here is an example: "Eats, shoots and leaves" vs. "Eats shoots and leaves". One refers to a rather cold-hearted gangster who can shoot and run after finishing his meal, while another refers to the dietary habits of a panda bear. One little comma makes a world of difference. Getting off the soapbox now, thank you.) and trying desperately to figure out who is speaking which lines.
In closing, if you spend time alone in your car and get frustrated by commercials and boring DJs, an audiobook might be just the cure. Check out your local library sometime. Mine allows me to check my account online. They let me borrow a book from any library in the city and have it delivered to my library. And I have a Holds queue where I can put books I want to borrow. When they arrive at my library, they send me an e-mail to tell me. And the whole $4 in fines I have racked up by inadvertently keeping books over their due date pales in comparison to the weekly cost of renting them. It pales considerably to the amount I was spending at Half Prices Books and Amazon. Plus, utilizing your local library ensures that it will be there in the future if you need it.
And taking a leaf from a friend's blog: Today I am thankful for the library. All those free books just waiting to be read or listened to!
Much has gone on in the last months, but now I can get back to blogging about my dogs, or silly things that are catching my attention in life.
Today, I am thinking about recorded books. I am really enjoying borrowing books from the library. And since I am still integrating two households into one, I don't have a lot of time to SIT DOWN and read. So, I get my fix by listening to books in the car. I belonged to a Netflix type service for audiobooks back when I was commuting from Georgetown. When I moved closer to work, I didn't think I was spending enough time in the car to warrant the rental cost. But when I purchased a new car last September, I discovered that it tracked EXACTLY how much time I was spending in the car. Namely, about 11 to 13 hours per TANK of gas. I realized this about the same time I realized the Austin Library changed their policy and allowed all Texas residents to borrow books! So began my renewed affair with Books on CD.
After listening to several books on CD, I can tell you there are some things that can affect the user's experience:
First, the reader must have a soothing voice. If they do, you can ignore the voice and focus on the story. If for example, they make a loud clicking with their mouth when they speak. Or, if they read and read and read and then make a huge gulping swallow, it can irritate you to no end. At least it can if you hate repetitive noises like I do.
Second, the CDs need to be clearly labeled, both externally and in the audio. Imagine listening along to a particularly tense portion of the story and then, inexplicably, the topic, tone and situation change entirely. It might take you a beat or two to realize that without warning, the CD has ended and your CD player conveniently began at the beginning of the CD. The best audio books have a nice speaker who says "{Name of Book}, Disc 3" at the beginning and end of the CD. So you know to switch CDs. And, if perhaps you have the discs out of order and don't look at the external label well, you will hear "Postmortem, Disc 3" , then change the disc and hear "Postmortem, Disc 5" and know immediately what the problem is. As opposed to putting in the next disc and then listening for 2 minutes in confusion before discovering the error.
Third, the CDs need to have short tracks. The engineers need to have broken the dialog into nice 2 or 4 minute tracks. My car has a somewhat nice feature in that the volume, source and track number can be changed with handy buttons on the steering wheel. I really wish they had placed the PAUSE button on the steering wheel, but alas. I don't really see a burning NEED for this feature. It doesn't seem like very far to reach to change the volume. But, perhaps if you know the controls well enough to perform the task you want without taking eyes off the road, it might be useful. For me, occasionally when turning the wheel I inadvertently push the button to change the track number. And if the tracks are 10 minutes long, I spend a lot longer time fast forwarding through the track to find my place. Shorter tracks are preferable.
But most of all, a reader should be able to have distinct voices for the different characters if there is only going to be one reader. I have listened to books with a different reader for each character. For some books, it is needed, but for most, a good reader who can create and then reliably use a different voice for each character makes it MUCH easier to follow the action. Some audiobooks are the equivalent of reading a Cormac McCarthy book (an author fond of using little to no punctuation--and here I digress, but SERIOUSLY, punctuation is a convention created to make it easy for everyone to tell what is going on. It is amazing how much confusion the lack of quotes, commas and apostrophes can cause. I am reading a book which discusses this ad nauseum. But here is an example: "Eats, shoots and leaves" vs. "Eats shoots and leaves". One refers to a rather cold-hearted gangster who can shoot and run after finishing his meal, while another refers to the dietary habits of a panda bear. One little comma makes a world of difference. Getting off the soapbox now, thank you.) and trying desperately to figure out who is speaking which lines.
In closing, if you spend time alone in your car and get frustrated by commercials and boring DJs, an audiobook might be just the cure. Check out your local library sometime. Mine allows me to check my account online. They let me borrow a book from any library in the city and have it delivered to my library. And I have a Holds queue where I can put books I want to borrow. When they arrive at my library, they send me an e-mail to tell me. And the whole $4 in fines I have racked up by inadvertently keeping books over their due date pales in comparison to the weekly cost of renting them. It pales considerably to the amount I was spending at Half Prices Books and Amazon. Plus, utilizing your local library ensures that it will be there in the future if you need it.
And taking a leaf from a friend's blog: Today I am thankful for the library. All those free books just waiting to be read or listened to!
Friday, July 3, 2009
Alienation of Scottish Affection?
I have always thought that Bailey was not your typical dog. (Duh!) She has never been cuddly. She has always been one of those dogs who will let you hold her for a VERY short period of time, unless it is her idea. With me, and with most of my family, she employs what we call a "butt weld" which is basically sitting with her butt near yours, usually with her front legs elevated onto the arm of whatever chair you are sitting in. She never liked to be held. She never sat on my lap for very long. But, she is very attached to me. And when I leave, she gets very upset. If I walk a course in agility, she watches intently as I weave in and out of others. When I am gone, many people have told me she attempts to pick me out of a crowd. So, she is attached to me, she just doesn't do a lot of cuddling. I have reconciled myself to this over the 8 years we have spent together.
Exhibit B: Moxie, not to be outdone, is laying with them. She lays her paws over his arm and watched the movie quite intently for a while. Note the underside of Bailey's chin on the left.
So, when I got Moxie, I was so excited to have a dog I could hold and cuddle. Much to my dismay, she seems quite similar to Bailey in that she will allow me to hold her for very short periods of time, unless she initiated the contact! I have been told this is a symptom of the alpha relationship I have with my dogs. That they show me deference and respect my space. Small comfort when I just want to cuddle a puppy.
Well, recently I have begun noticing VERY different behavior from both of my dogs. Bailey will happily sit on Glenn's lap for an ENTIRE movie. He can hold her upside down on his lap and she will GO TO SLEEP. And Moxie, as any little sister does, follows in Bailey's paw prints. She too will allow Glenn to hold her for rather long periods. Both of them will seek him out when we sit on the couch. He has two dogs draped on him, and I am sitting on the other side watching in awe and frankly, partial jealousy. I mean, what goes on here? Both dogs seem to think he is their own personal easy chair.
Evidence Exhibit A: Bailey and Glenn
Exhibit B: Moxie, not to be outdone, is laying with them. She lays her paws over his arm and watched the movie quite intently for a while. Note the underside of Bailey's chin on the left.
I am just not sure how I feel about this. I am glad they like him. It is a much better situation than the one I find myself in with his cat. She would gladly (and has on occasion) cut me to ribbons for merely walking past her. She has growled at me when I sit with Glenn or lean in to kiss him. (What a prude!) And she doesn't attempt to conceal her contempt for me in the slightest. However, I have a feeling that when Glenn and I are married, I may spend a lot of time puzzling over the "Glenn oreo cookie" created by Glenn bookended by two sprawled out scotties. Is this the beginning of me being the "mean parent"? I am the enforcer? I am the alpha pack leader, and Glenn is simply the pack mate, who can be part of the "dogpile"? I don't know.
For now, I am happy that they seem to look forward to his visits and enjoy hanging out with him. And I feel a small spark of vindication when I walk out the door and Bailey runs after me. I hide a smirk when he tells me the whole time I was gone, Bailey sat by the door and waited for me to return. I enjoy the butt welding and try not to worry about the gratuitous chest sleeping they do with Glenn. But I have to wonder if 24/7 Glenn exposure will strengthen or lessen the bond they seem to have with him. Only time will tell.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Birthday Surprise!
Father’s day was also my birthday and Glenn and I spent most of the morning at my parent’s with some extended family. We went to dinner together Sunday night and then played with the Scottie girls a little bit at my house. When I announced I was tired and started getting toward bedtime, Glenn came in and asked me if I was going to even look at my present. I asked where it was and he said it was on the table. I came in from pottying the dogs to find a beautiful bouquet of roses (which he arranged himself earlier in the day and hid in the house so they wouldn’t get hot in the car at dinner) and I told him they were beautiful and smelled them. Glenn then asked if I was going to look at the cards. I went back to the table and grabbed a large card. It was from Bailey and Moxie. When I opened it, it barked the happy birthday song, which caused lots of head tipping and interest from the dogs. I pulled the card out and it said “Happy Birthday Mom. Will you marry the glenn-bo? Love Bailey and Moxie” (Glenn-bo is what I call him when I talk to the dogs---don’t ask, I’m just weird like that) I had to read the card twice before it made sense to me. I looked at Glenn, who was grinning from ear to ear. He said “Well?” I said yes and he handed me a beautiful diamond ring.
So, it was quite a birthday! And my dogs did the
proposing. Turns out Glenn had the ring for almost 3 months. I had told him it was very important to my parents that he ask permission. My dad has been working out of town for the last year and a half and Glenn just didn’t want to ask over the phone. He kept waiting until my dad would be in town. Seems Glenn showed up early for brunch on father’s day and asked my parents together before I got there.
I am so tickled that he thought of such a unique way to propose. It is something I will remember forever and it shows that he really gets me. He was heard several times this weekend claiming that Moxie is “his dog.” I am late getting this blog up, and I know for sure the next one will be about him stealing my dogs’ affection!
So, it was quite a birthday! And my dogs did the
proposing. Turns out Glenn had the ring for almost 3 months. I had told him it was very important to my parents that he ask permission. My dad has been working out of town for the last year and a half and Glenn just didn’t want to ask over the phone. He kept waiting until my dad would be in town. Seems Glenn showed up early for brunch on father’s day and asked my parents together before I got there.I am so tickled that he thought of such a unique way to propose. It is something I will remember forever and it shows that he really gets me. He was heard several times this weekend claiming that Moxie is “his dog.” I am late getting this blog up, and I know for sure the next one will be about him stealing my dogs’ affection!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Does she know?
Bailey earned her MACH (Master Agility CHampion) title this weekend. Someone posed a question that I had already been pondering: “Does she know?” They were asking if Bailey was aware that she had just earned one of the biggest titles an agility dog can earn. I began thinking about this in earnest. Does she really know?
First, let me say that I am aware that titles are for people and not dogs. I know that in reality, even if she senses something different about this weekend, she knows nothing of qualifying runs, or titles, and is entirely unaware that the collection of letters in front of and behind her name eclipsed mine long ago. And as Sandy Mowry states in her article “What is a Title Really?”, titles are just a way to say you loved your dog, loved to spend time with them and believed in him enough to give him another chance when he failed [or you failed him].
However, I began considering whether Bailey KNEW that she had reached a milestone. For sure I can say she knew something was different. In her career, I have never reached down and picked up the last bar and then turned and begun running the course backward with it. (Her ADCH was earned on a Snooker SuperQ and we never got a victory lap around the ring!) Perhaps she thought I was running with the largest baton she had ever seen. Afterward, she probably realized that I was gushing a little more than usual. I am not sure she recognized that everyone came up and hugged me, except to note that they were keeping her from getting back to her treats at her crate. The many people that said “MACH Bailey!” to her as she ran past were probably ignored entirely. And while I know she is able to understand delayed gratification enough to know that the treats she gets at her crate are for having a good run in the ring, I highly doubt she is able to grasp that the hamburger patty and ice cream she had at Sonic on the way home were for REALLY good runs 4 hours earlier.
In a way, I hope that she doesn’t know much of a difference. I would like to think that I celebrate good runs with her all the time. Unless she totally blows me off or is really bad, she always gets treats, adoring pats and cooing praise at her crate after a run. I know without a doubt that most of the NQ’s we get are because I did something wrong. Almost every knocked bar is a result of poor timing on my part. Most wrong courses can be tracked back to sloppy body position of mine. And even for the issues that aren’t mine, I try extremely hard to forgive as graciously as she forgives my mistakes. This is not to say that I don’t get upset about a bad run (especially when I know it is something dumb I did to cause it), but I try to keep in mind that this is my dog. She is an animal who shows as much devotion to me as I can ever hope to receive. She does the things I ask her to do partially because they are fun, but mainly because I ask her to do them. She loves to go have fun with me. She barks and gets excited to run. And when we come off a course after a good run, she KNOWS we just had a lot of fun. So I hope that this was just another run where we danced around and celebrated afterward. I hope this is just another great, fun time with Mom and the only difference is the ribbon hung on the front of her crate obstructed her view just a little more than usual.
Does she know? I hope she thinks every run is a MACH run!
First, let me say that I am aware that titles are for people and not dogs. I know that in reality, even if she senses something different about this weekend, she knows nothing of qualifying runs, or titles, and is entirely unaware that the collection of letters in front of and behind her name eclipsed mine long ago. And as Sandy Mowry states in her article “What is a Title Really?”, titles are just a way to say you loved your dog, loved to spend time with them and believed in him enough to give him another chance when he failed [or you failed him].
However, I began considering whether Bailey KNEW that she had reached a milestone. For sure I can say she knew something was different. In her career, I have never reached down and picked up the last bar and then turned and begun running the course backward with it. (Her ADCH was earned on a Snooker SuperQ and we never got a victory lap around the ring!) Perhaps she thought I was running with the largest baton she had ever seen. Afterward, she probably realized that I was gushing a little more than usual. I am not sure she recognized that everyone came up and hugged me, except to note that they were keeping her from getting back to her treats at her crate. The many people that said “MACH Bailey!” to her as she ran past were probably ignored entirely. And while I know she is able to understand delayed gratification enough to know that the treats she gets at her crate are for having a good run in the ring, I highly doubt she is able to grasp that the hamburger patty and ice cream she had at Sonic on the way home were for REALLY good runs 4 hours earlier.
In a way, I hope that she doesn’t know much of a difference. I would like to think that I celebrate good runs with her all the time. Unless she totally blows me off or is really bad, she always gets treats, adoring pats and cooing praise at her crate after a run. I know without a doubt that most of the NQ’s we get are because I did something wrong. Almost every knocked bar is a result of poor timing on my part. Most wrong courses can be tracked back to sloppy body position of mine. And even for the issues that aren’t mine, I try extremely hard to forgive as graciously as she forgives my mistakes. This is not to say that I don’t get upset about a bad run (especially when I know it is something dumb I did to cause it), but I try to keep in mind that this is my dog. She is an animal who shows as much devotion to me as I can ever hope to receive. She does the things I ask her to do partially because they are fun, but mainly because I ask her to do them. She loves to go have fun with me. She barks and gets excited to run. And when we come off a course after a good run, she KNOWS we just had a lot of fun. So I hope that this was just another run where we danced around and celebrated afterward. I hope this is just another great, fun time with Mom and the only difference is the ribbon hung on the front of her crate obstructed her view just a little more than usual.
Does she know? I hope she thinks every run is a MACH run!
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