A Working Life

I have spent the vast majority of my working life in the retail industry.  When I was 15, I started working at a local convenience store.  From there, I moved on to a small local grocery chain that had about seven stores in the area.  I worked for them for about 5 years when I landed a job at one of the major supermarkets in the area, thus doubling my hourly wage.  Unfortunately, that position only lasted two months before the chain decided to pull out of the DC market.

After I lost my job at that chain, I was unemployed for about two months until I landed a job in the Safeway chain.  At that time, no frills warehouse stores where you bag your own groceries were popular.  I started with Safeway with their version called Food Barn,  After I graduated college, I moved from the store side of the business to the backstage side in the local division buying office.  I spent 21 years at Safeway before the company decided to centralize the buying function to their corporate offices in California.

That was the start of a rather tough period in my life.  It took almost a year to find a solid full time position that would pay the bills on a regular basis.  We thankfully made it through that tough time, but it was definitely a struggle.  We didn't have a lot of money in the bank, and unemployment didn't come close to covering our expenses.  I had a severance package for a few months, but after it ran out, I went through whatever retirement savings I had in my 401k with Safeway.

It was during this one year period that I tried a failed attempt to work in sales.  I really floundered as a salesman.  A lot of what I did was cold telemarketing.  It was brutal.  Most of my calls were calling numbers out of the phone book.  It wasn't very productive.  I might have had a little more success if I had of had access to a service like List Giant.  They provide targeted lists to sales and marketing folks for the purpose direct mail and telemarketing.  With a more focused and targeted list of potential customers, I might have been more successful in sales.

After that, I moved on to a company that did the category management function in the stationary category for grocery chains in different parts of the company.  Unfortunately, it looked like that company wasn't going to be around for long, so I left there after a couple years when I landed a job as a buyer for a company that sold products to property management firms for apartment rehabs.  I stayed there for another two years before I finally got back to what I knew best.

For the last six years, I have been back in the retail world and it is the happiest I have been since my Safeway days.  It is also the longest tenure of a company that I have been with besides the 21 years at Safeway.  The company I work with now has retail stores in airports across the country.  I started off as the candy and snack buyer until we decided to put in a software package to do our store planograms.  For those that don't know, a planogram is a diagram of where to put product in the store.  I volunteered to head up that initiative for the company and it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

Is Customer Service Dead?

I started working when I was 15 years old.  At that time, the concept of customer service was instilled into my psyche.  I was taught that the better I treated the customers, the more they would return, resulting in more hours for me, and therefore more money.  Consequently, I tend to spend my money at businesses where I am treated well.  Conversely, I avoid those places that don't.

My wife and I have recently had some very bad experiences. The first occurred when my wife went to get her eyes examined.  She had her exam and got her prescription from the doctor. She picked out a set of frames and wanted to find out how much her glasses were going to cost before committing to purchasing them.  The customer service representative refused to help her saying it would take too much time to figure it out if my wife wasn't going to buy the glasses.  We took our business elsewhere.

On another occasion, my wife and I went out to eat at a local brew pub.  We have been regular visitor of this brew pub since they opened several years ago.  Over the years, I have built up a sizable collection of pint glasses and t-shirts from the various seasonal beer launch parties that they have every month.  Unfortunately, after our most recent visit to this establishment, we will never be back.

I ordered a salad and my wife ordered the seafood cannelloni.  When they brought our food, my wife's dinner wasn't hot.  She complained about it and asked to have the dish remade.  Our server was very apologetic and seemed willing to help.  Unfortunately management wasn't so helpful.  He came out and told us they could not remake her dish.  Instead, he argued with us, telling us that the dish was made correctly, brought out hot, and the best they could do was reheat it for us.

We objected saying we wanted a fresh dish as a reheated dish would not be as good as a fresh dish.  Eventually, the server came back out with another plate.  This time the food was hot and you could see steam coming from the sauce.  Unfortunately, it became obvious that it was the same dish heated in the microwave.  The pasta was overcooked and hard.  The cheese looked like a frozen dinner that had not melted completely.

We came home from dinner and I went to the corporate website and sent a complaint detailing what had happened during the evening.  In the past, whenever we have complained about service in a restaurant, we have either received a written apology, and in some cases gift certificates to visit again to give them another chance.  This time, we received no acknowledgement that we had a problem.  We won't be back to that establishment ever again.

Going Global

Increasingly, we hear about the global economy.  Businesses are constantly looking for new markets and opportunities in other countries.  Not only do they have to worry about the laws and regulations of their own countries, but they also have to worry about the laws and regulations of any country that they are trying to do business with.

The international flavor of business has really started to hit home with me personally.  I work for a company that was founded and based in the DC area.  Before I started working with them, they were bought by an Italian firm with interests located globally.  For the most part, the company I work for has primarily done business here in the US and to a lesser degree some business in Canada.

My company actually consists of two separate parts; the retail side which I belong to and a food service side.  While there was some interaction between the two sides, we pretty much worked independently of one another.  The food service side of the business is how my company started, but the retail has been growing steadily.

As I said previously, the parent company in Italy has interests globally.  In the majority of those interests, the retail side of the business has been separate from the food service side.  In Europe, they have been consolidating the retail side of the business into an interest that is headquartered in Spain.  Last year, the decision was made that our retail unit would become a part of that Spanish entity with an operating branch here in the US.

While I am not involved in the legal aspects of that integration, I can only imagine that it involves some heavy work by lawyers on both sides of the pond.  With the different laws and regulations, not to mention languages, it is important that there is substantial litigation translation being done to minimize any potential negatives or pitfalls that such an endeavor can bring about.

Workers Credit Union

There used to be a television commercial for a well known credit card company that used the tagline "Membership has its privileges."  One area where membership definitely has its rewards is belonging to a credit union.  Credit unions all have some requirements for membership, such as working for a particular company or having a family member that works for that company.

There is a Credit union Massachusetts that has a fairly simple membership requirement.  You don't have to work for a particular company.  You don't have to do business with a particular business.  You just have to live or work in Massachusetts or the southern New Hampshire area.  That credit union is the Workers Credit Union.

Workers Credit Union is located in the north central region of Massachusetts and has 14 branch locations.  Like a lot of credit unions, they belong to a network of over 1300 shared credit union branches where you can do banking without incurring any fees.  That way, if you are on vacation or move away from the Massachusetts area, you can still take advantage of your credit union membership.

Workers Credit Union offers a full range of financial services no matter what your banking needs are.  They have savings accounts, checking accounts, CDs, IRAs, loans, and credit cards for individuals at competitive rates.  They offer planning services to pay for college education and for retirement. You can have all of the benefits of banking at a big bank, without all of the fees.  So remember, membership does have its privileges, especially at a credit union.

Locked Out

I hate when I do something stupid.  Well, maybe stupid is too strong a word.  Maybe a better term would be absentminded or forgetful.  I tend to do most of my absentminded stuff in the morning before I have had my morning fill of coffee.  Though that doesn't mean that I am immune from it at other times of the day.  My wife says that I suffer from Craft disease-I "Can't Remember A F---ing Thing."

One example of my early morning forgetfulness due to lack of coffee actually occurred while trying to prepare my first cup of joe.  I fired up the Keurig coffee maker, put in a K-cup, and pressed the brew button.  The only problem was that I forgot to put a mug on the Keurig to catch the coffee in as it brewed.  Thankfully it wasn't too much of a mess.

The coffee making fiasco only happened once, well nearly twice but I caught myself the second time.  Most of my early morning forgetfulness involves keys, as in, forgetting to put my keys in my pocket before heading out the door to work leaving me locked out of my car and my house.  Fortunately, each time this has occurred, the wife has been home and I had my cell phone with me so that I could call and wake her up to let me back in.

I had another incident with getting locked out of something when I got my current car.  After the car salesman dropped the car at our house, I was checking things out.  Most of my recent vehicles had automatic locks so that you locked the car by pressing a button on your key chain.  This one has good old fashion manual locks.  As you can probably guess, I put the keys down inside the car, shut the door, and locked the keys in the car.  We had to have roadside assistance send out an emergency locksmith Calgary.

Of course, getting locked out of your car or house isn't the only reason you might need a locksmith Calgary.  Our house is getting up there in years.  We had a front door lock that kept sticking.  Sure, we could get in, but it was getting harder and harder to turn the key.  Another problem is that my wife suspected that her sister, who had a spare key, was sometimes visiting our house when we weren't home and helping herself to a thing or two.  So, we ended up changing the lock on the door.

I haven't had any recent bouts with my early morning forgetfulness.  I try to make sure that before I head out the door that I have everything I need before closing the door.  That means patting myself down to make sure I have the keys and the cell phone. Still, my wife still maintains that I am suffering from Craft Disease as I tend to forget some small details of conversations she claims we have had.  At least I haven't locked myself out of anything recently.

Miss Spectacular

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about some of the people in my office that a friend and I had given nicknames because of habits that those folks have that happen to annoy the two of us.  To show that not everybody on our floor annoys us, I also mentioned another person on our floor that we refer to as Miss Spectacular.

As you can imagine, she has been dubbed as such because she is a very attractive woman.  At least I think so.  She actually reminds me of somebody by the name of Priya Anjali Rai.  Ms. Rai, is an actress of sorts.  I am not sure I want to admit this, but she is featured in films of, shall we say, an adult nature.  <Currently trying to find a safe for work of Ms Rai>

I know, right?  Anyway, I bring up Miss Spectacular because I have had a couple of run ins with her this week.  No, nothing bad or earth shattering.  It is just that our paths have crossed a couple of times and (at least in my juvenile guy mind) made me chuckle to myself.

Our floor is equipped with two network printers that also happen to be copiers.  The machine on my side of the floor has been out of order this week, so I have had to use the machine on the other side of the floor, which also happens to be the side of the floor where Miss Spectacular works. The machine is situated in a little alcove around the corner from a small hallway.

The first run in occurred when I went to pick up a print job off of the printer.  As I was leaving the alcove, she was coming around the corner and we were headed for a collision course.  If we had been automobiles, one of us would have t-boned the other.  My only thought was, "thank goodness she is equipped with airbags!" I know, totally inappropriate and juvenile, but funny.  (I'm a guy, I'm not that complicated)

Another incident occurred when I went to pick up another print job off of the machine.  She happened to be there making several copies.  Her back was to me as I was heading to the machine.  I was waiting patiently for her to finish making copies and stood silently.  She must not have heard my approach because when she turned around, I startled her.  I must move like a ninja.

Before you get the wrong idea, it wasn't like I was standing right over top of her when she turned around.  I was a good four or five feet behind her waiting patiently.  Of course I apologize for startling her, but I still thought it was kind of funny to hear her gasp when she turned around and saw me standing there.

It just goes to show that it take very little to amuse me.  Like I said, I am a guy and I am not that complicated.  And speaking of guys, come check out Dudewrite and check out blog posts from other bloggers who happen to be guys.

My Working Life

For the vast majority of my working life, I have spent my days in the retail industry, primarily the retail food industry.  My very first job was in a convenience store when I was 15 years old.  I started a couple months before my 16th birthday in order to earn money towards a car.  Through high school and college, I worked in the retail stores at night and attending school during the day.

After I graduated from college, I worked in the stores for another year or so.  At one point, I considered a retail management career, but I really wanted to have a regular Monday-Friday, 9-5 job with weekends and holidays off.  Eventually, I was able to land a job backstage in the buying department of the grocer chain that I was working for at the time.

I spent the next 18 years with that company working my way up to a management position within the buying and merchandising department.  My last position with them was to be in charge of the promotion and sales of our store branded product.  Things were going great for me up until the time that our corporate office decided to centralize the bulk of our merchandising functions to the corporate office in another state.

After losing a job that I had for 21 years, I had a difficult time finding work.  It took me over a year to find a full time job again, and that was in the days when you only got 26 weeks of unemployment, not 99.  After spending my career on the buyer side of the desk, I decided to try my hand on the sales side of the desk.

My first sales job was selling insurance/benefit packages to small businesses.  I spent a great deal of time making telephone calls trying to reach business owners or benefit managers to make my pitch.  I also spent a lot of time on business databases on the internet trying to find names and phone numbers.  It was not something I was very good at.  I might have been able to do a better job had I had access to an email list of decision makers in the businesses I was targeting.

My next sales job was back in the field where I had spent the majority of my career. This time, I was calling on buyers of grocery store chains selling them a retail dry ice program. At least it was something that I knew something about.  I knew what buyers were looking for, and I knew how to tailor my sales pitch to be able to benefit retailers.  Still, it was not something that I was happy doing on a daily basis.

Eventually, I got back into the buying side of the retail world.  I had one position where I managed a program for a distributor selling to retail customers.  After that business failed, I landed where I am today as a buyer for a chain of convenience type stores.  My current company is on good solid ground and I hope to be there for quite a while into the future.

Do Not Call

telemarketing (Photo credit: Stitch)

Do you remember the "Do Not Call" registry to stop unwanted telemarketing calls?  When that registry became active, I registered my phone number right away.  In fact, I just verified that my phone number was registered on the Do Not Call List on July 1, 2003.  It was so nice to have an end to unwanted telemarketers calling the house constantly.

Being on the list worked great for several years.  More and more, however, it just seems that companies are just ignoring the list and coming up with whatever technique they can to get around it.  I double checked the official Do Not Call website, and according to the site the only organizations that can call are charities, political organizations, and business that you have a business relationship.

I constantly am receiving calls from charitable organizations.  I do not mind that so much, and I know that they are just doing their job, but when I say that I am not in a position to make a charitable donation at this time, then that should end the call.  Now that we are in an election year, I imagine there will be a constant barrage of robocalls.  I know there were prior to the primary.

Unfortunately, I have been getting a lot of unwanted calls from businesses these days.  People calling me to tell me they will be in the neighborhood giving free estimates on new windows and wanting to stop by to give me an estimate.  No, I do not want you to come by and I am on the Do Not Call list.  If I wanted to get an estimate on windows I would have called you.  Leave me the hell alone.

Take tonight for instance.  I had a flat tire after work so I dropped my car off at NTB to get a couple new tires.  I was expecting their call, so when the phone rang, I answered.  It was not NTB.  The lady on the other end of the line proceeded to launch into a spiel about my electrical energy supply company.  The conversation went something like this:

Me: I am on the Do Not Call List

Her: I am not a solicitor.  I am a customer service representative

Me: Do I currently do business with you?

Her: I don't believe so.

Me: Then it sounds like you are trying to sell me on a new electrical supplier.  Good night. click


Yeah, I know I don't have to answer the phone when these idiots call.  But, like I said, I was expecting a phone call, and unfortunately, the caller ID isn't very clear on the phone where I was sitting so I had to answer this particular call.  Since I was already in a bad mood from changing a tire and needing two new tires, I was more than happy to treat the caller rudely.

Related articles

• FTC takes action to protect Do Not Call list numbers - will "Rachel" from cardholder services stop calling? (jennstrathman.com)
• FTC Action Puts Robocallers Out of the Telemarketing Business (ftc.gov)

Swamped

I have a lot of things going on right now.  Most of the time, I am able to keep a fairly good balance between the  real world and my blogging or online world.  By the "real world" I mean those things that I have to deal with on a daily basis like my job and my son.  The other stuff are just those things that I do to help me unwind and relax after dealing with the other stuff.

A few months ago, I took on a new position at work.  Shortly after I moved into the new position, the person who took my place left abruptly, and we have been shorthanded for a couple of months.  Plus, another coworker who had also taken on some of my old responsibilities took an extended vacation to get married.  So, I ended up pitching in on my old desk while also trying to move into my new responsibilities.

We finally got back up to full staff again a few weeks ago.  Needless to say, I am not far along as I would like to be in my new project.  So now I am trying to get caught up to where I would like to be.  Normally, I get to the office around 8:30 each day, and stay until a little after 5:00.  This week, I have been trying to get to the office by 7:00 to get more work in.  I am also taking work home with me on the weekend.  It is a bit harder to work from home, as the VPN can be a bit slow.

On top of that, we have several things going on with our son in the upcoming weeks.  With his 18th birthday coming up later this year, we have a number of things we need to do for him.  First we need to apply with the Social Security Administration to get Supplemental Security Income.  We also have a meeting scheduled with an attorney to retain guardianship for him for when he turns 18 so that we can still make decisions for him for his day to day care since he is incapable of making those decisions on his own.

I hope that with all of those things going on that I will still be able to blog here on a nearly daily basis.  The reality of it is that there is a pretty good chance that I will miss a few more days here and there updating the blog.  While this is fun for me and a nice outlet, there are a few things that take a higher priority.  Thanks for your patience.

Big Oil, Apple, Democrats, and the Media

Image via CrunchBase

The other day I was driving to work when I heard that Apple had just released their most recent quarterly earnings.  For the most recent quarter, they had earnings of over $13 billion.  I thought to myself, "Wow, that seems like an awful lot."

I do know that Apple is a tremendously successful company providing goods and services that people around the globe desire.  As a capitalist, I do not begrudge them one bit the amount of profit they make in the marketplace.  Still, curiousity got the better of me and I wanted to see just how that $13 billion in profit compares to other companies.

What better company to compare Apple's earnings to than one of the greedy oil companies.  After all, Exxon Mobil and other oil companies have been demonized by Barack Obama, his fellow Democrats, and the media every time they release their quarterly profit numbers.  Obama wants to impose a "windfall" tax on their profits and some Democrats have proposed a "Reasonable Profits Board" to regulate oil company profits.

Image via Wikipedia

The most recent quarterly earnings report from Exxon that I could find was released in October of 2011.  During that quarter, Exxon reported profits of $10.3 billion dollars.  Not shabby, but nearly $3 billion less than Apple just announced.  I wonder if Democrats would consider Apple's $13 billion a reasonable amount of profit?

Perhaps a more telling way to look at it would be to look at the profit margin as opposed to strictly the dollar profit of the company.  Now most politicians and members of the media would not know the difference between profit and profit margin if it bit them on the ass.  In simple terms, profit margin is the amount of profit for every dollar of sales or revenue brought it.

Exxon had revenue of $125 billion in order to achieve their $10 billion in profit.  That means that for every $1 in revenue they earned a mere 8 cents on the dollar, a profit margin of 8%.  Apple's $13 billion in profit came from $46 billion in revenue for a profit margin of 28% for every dollar of revenue.  That is 3.5 times the profit rate that Exxon earned.

The Democrats and the media demonize Exxon for their profits implying that Exxon is ripping off customers to achieve their high profits.  However, if any company could be accused of gauging the customer, logic would seem to dictate that the company earning 28 cents on the dollar is more likely gauging the customer than the one earning 8 cents on the dollar.

Now, I am definitely NOT saying that Apple is ripping off their customers.  They make a fine product and have created a demand for that product.  My point is to highlight the hypocrisy of the left.  Rather than comment on how high Apple's profit is, the media talks about how great Apple is. By the way, Apple is one of those companies sitting on a ton of cash (nearly $100 billion) and outsourcing their production to China but you don't hear any outrage about how they could be using that money to produce goods and jobs here.

Related articles

• Apple surpasses Exxon to become the world's most valuable public company (again) (venturebeat.com)
• Apple Beats Estimates Again: $46.33 Billion In Revenues, $13.06 Billion In Profit (fastcompany.com)
• Can We Afford to Forget the Benefits of Oil and Gas? (thefracdog.com)
• Six House Dems Would Confiscate Oil Company Profits (mb50.wordpress.com)
• If Obama's Serious About Jobs, He Shouldn't Punish the Energy Sector (usnews.com)

Tough Times

It is no surprise to anybody that things are pretty tough out there these days.  Unemployment is over 9% and has been for over two years.  There is talk that we are on the verge, if we aren't already, of a double dip recession.  Energy prices, while down in recent weeks, are still at pretty high levels.  In general, things don't look like they will be improving any time soon. Food prices are rising rapidly.  Just this week it was reported that the price of peanut butter was expected rise 30-40% in the coming weeks.

I count myself as fortunate that I have a pretty good job right now.  At one point, I had a job that I held for over 21 years when the company I worked for eliminated my position.  At that time, it took me nearly a year to find another full time job, and that was during better economic times.  In the years since then, I had three other full time jobs between that one and my current position.  I held each of those positions for about a year or less.  I have been in my current position now for a little more than three years.

These days, businesses are looking for just about any edge that they can come up with to give them a competitive advantage.  There are a lot of different strategies that a business can utilize to differentiate themselves from the competition.  Some differentiate themselves by emphasizing price, while others emphasize service.  Then there are businesses like Apple who make their product offerings the focus of the business.

Of course, that type of differentiation is fine for things like brick and mortar retail outlets or internet retailers, but what about other types of businesses?  What is it that can help to get you in the door?  To me, a lot of it has to do with their business signs.  Entering a business with a nice, custom made sign with brass letters gives you a positive feeling about the quality and stability of the business.  However you can make your business stand out during these tough economic times can mean the difference between success and failure.

It's Bloody Hot in Here

Image via WikipediaIt has been fairly miserable here in our home the last few days.  We have been without air conditioning since Wednesday morning.  If you have ever been in the DC area in August, you would understand why Congress goes on recess for the entire month of August.  The heat and humidity here can be unbearable in August.

The genesis of our air conditioning issues actually goes back a little more than a week ago.  I got home from work on Thursday night and noticed the temperature of the house as I walked in the door was a little warmer than usual.  I put my hand against the air vent and did not feel any cold air coming out.  I went down to the basement  and found that one of the coolant lines that connects to the inside unit was icing up.  Thankfully, that night it was fairly mild with low humidity so we were not uncomfortable.

Fortunately, we have BGE Home's Smart Service Contract which gives us priority for scheduling and covers a lot of labor and some parts.  They were able to get a technician to come out the next day.  He said our unit was low on refrigerant and added it to the outside unit.  He did not check to see if we had any leaks in the system.  I guess this is routine when the system is a little more than eight years old like our is.

After the technician left, everything seemed to be working fine.  That is, until Wednesday morning.  As I was in the laundry room getting clothes for the day, I heard the inside unit running, but it didn't sound right.  Sure enough, I looked down and noticed ice on both of the coolant lines.  Another call to BGE Home.  They sent a technician out the same day.  This one checked for leaks and the diagnosis is that we needed a new coil for the system; nearly $800.

We were told that they would have to order the part.  Unlike our first day without air conditioning, the past few days have been particularly hot and muggy.  We have had window fans in all of the windows to try to create a breeze and keep the temps reasonable, but couple the heat with the constant threat of thunderstorms each day has required us to occasionally close the windows to keep the rain out.  There have been a couple days where the temps have risen above 80 degrees in the house.

The lack of air conditioning has been particularly hard on the wife since she does not work and is home all day.  She has said that I have been lucky because I have not had to deal with the problem in the same way that she has.  I certainly understand her frustration, and I would be miserable as well if I had been home during the hottest parts of the day.  However, I am not quite sure that I fully agree with her assessment that I have been "lucky."

The first night that we were without air conditioning was Wednesday night.  It was pretty uncomfortable when I got home from work.  That night was the night I had my second sleep study, so while my wife and son were home with no air conditioning, I was in a hospital bed.  Granted I had a cool room, but not exactly what I call "lucky." 

Her other argument that I was "lucky" is that I got to go to work in an air conditioned office.  Then last night, I had to go to my part time pizza delivery job.  By the time I got home, after a couple of waves of thunderstorms rolled through, the outside temperature had dropped to around 65 degrees.  It was cooler outside than inside the house, but part of the problem was exacerbated by my wife using the oven.  Still, I did miss the worst of the heat within the house.

The technician was supposed to come out with the new coil today to repair the unit.  I got a call from him this morning informing me that they had sent him the wrong coil, so it could not be fixed this today.  He is going to come out later to add refrigerant so we can have air conditioning while we wait for them to get the correct part.  We are going to try for a Monday morning repair if they can get here fairly early before we head to the beach.  Otherwise we may have to wait until we get back later in the week.

Related articles

• Keepin' it Cool: How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America (theatlantic.com)
• Air Conditioning on the fritz. (fatherofthreelittlegirls.wordpress.com)
• Portable Air Conditioning Units, Because This Weather is Ridiculous (inquisitr.com)

Cicada Ice Cream

Image via Wikipedia

The restaurant patron called his server over and asked, "Waiter!  What is this fly doing in my soup?"  The waiter looks down and replies dryly, "The backstroke, sir."  Yeah, I know it is an old joke, but it helps set up this post.

I hate the thought of any kind of insect in my food.  One time, while drinking a glass of wine, I felt something in my mouth.  A fly had landed in the wine and when I took a swig, it ended up in my mouth.  Needless to say, I could not finish that particular glasss of wine.

Now, I know that in some parts of the world, some insects are considered a delicacy.  I have heard of folks eating chocolate covered ants.  Grasshoppers and crickets can be prepared a number of different ways.  The thought has no appeal to me and to be perfectly honest, grosses me out.

Back in February, I talked about an ice cream shop that had created an ice cream recipe made from human breast milk.  The thought of having ice cream made from breast milk didn't exactly make me want to give it a try.  However, given my prediliction against insects in my food, this next ice cream variety may top it in the gross out factor.

Sparky's Homemade Ice Cream shop in Columbia, MO has developed a variety of ice cream made with cicadas.  The cicadas were boiled and then covered in brown sugar and milk chocolate and then added to a brown sugar and butter ice cream base.  The first batch sold out the first day.

Sadly for Sparky's their success is over before it ever got started.  A local health department official has asked them to no longer use the cicadas as an ingredient because the food safety guidelines do not have any rules regarding how to safely prepare cicadas for consumption.

Related articles

• Sparky's First And Only Batch Of Cicada Ice Cream Sold Out (neatorama.com)
• That crunch in your ice cream isn't nuts (oldstersview.wordpress.com)
• Missouri Ice Cream Store Makes Cicada-Flavored Batch (newsfeed.time.com)

Traveling Blues

I just got home from a business trip to attend a trade show in Chicago.  I guess you could say that I am an antsy traveler.  It isn't so much the actual flying that gets me so much as the anticipation of the flight.  You see, I am one of those who actually gets too the airport at least two hours before the flight.  I am absolutely paranoid about being late and missing my flight.  I think it stems from nearly missing a connecting flight in Denver. That day I did my best impersonation of O.J.Simpson running through an airport in a Hertz Rent-a-Car commercial.

Since I always get to the airport early, I usually have a couple hours to kill before I board my airplane.  For most of my travels, this hasn't been too much of a hardship because I have rarely had a flight delay or cancellation.  I usually spend that time reading and making frequent trips to the rest room.  As I said, I get a little antsy while waiting to board the plane and that, combined with BPH, leads to the trips to the toilet.

My trip was scheduled to begin on Monday evening with a 5pm flight out of BWI.  When I arrived at the airport shortly after 3pm, I discovered that my flight was to be delayed by a little more than two hours.  So, instead of my usual two hours of waiting in the airport, I now had a little more than four hours to kill.  In addition to my Kindle, I have recently gotten a new Samsung Galaxy tablet to help keep me occupied.  Still, four hours is an awful lot of reading, playing on the tablet, and trips to the bathroom.

Eventually, I made it to Chicago Monday night in time to attend my trade show on Tuesday.  I had two coworkers that I was going to meet at O'Hare on Monday night.  They both flew from different airports in the DC area and their flights were also delayed at least two hours.  We attended our show on Tuesday, and got an awful lot done that day.  We headed back to our hotel to unwind for a bit before dinner.  The hotel had a free happy hour with free beer and buffalo wings, so I had a couple drafts and some wings before we headed to dinner at Harry Caray's Italian Steakhouse.

Originally, we were scheduled to attend the show on both Tuesday and Wednesday.  Since we were able to get everything done on Tuesday, we decided to head to the airport early to try to get an earlier flight home.   I arrived at the airport shortly after 10am.  My original flight was scheduled to leave O'Hare around 7:30pm.  When I checked in for my flight at the hotel, I booked a standby flight scheduled for 2pm.  Thankfully, I was able to get onto the 2pm flight and get home early enough to say goodnight to my son who came home yesterday for the weekend.  One of my coworkers not only could not get on an earlier flight, but had their flight cancelled and had to stay one more night.

With four hours to kill in BWI on Monday night, and another four hours to kill in O'Hare yesterday, I got to do a little bit of people watching in addition to my reading.  Now, I would not exactly consider myself to be a fashion expert, but I do know what colors go together.  In BWI, I saw one guy wearing a bright orange polo shirt with a pair of bright purple track pants.  You might expect that it was a young guy, but no, it was a middle aged guy around my age.  It was not a pretty combination.  Then in O'Hare, I was walking from one terminal to another to see if there was any way possible to get on an 11:30 flight when I saw a lady sitting on a bench just strumming away on her ukelele. 

Recently, I saw an article somewhere that said that some folks were calling for a ban on children on some flights.  At first I thought this to be a preposterous idea, until I had a baby sitting behind me on the first leg of my trip who did nothing but cry until the flight took off.  Fortunately, the child calmed down, or the plane was loud enough to drown out the cries as we flew to Chicago.  I think, however, that besides terrorists, there is one group of people that should definitely be banned from enclosed aircraft; those with terrible body odor like the slob that I happened to be sitting behind on my flight from Chicago.

Related articles

• Chicago Area on Tornado Watch (chicagoist.com)
• FAA: Controller causes close call at O'Hare (cbsnews.com)
• Airport traffic up as summer travel takes off (ajc.com)
• Hurry! Hurry! You're gonna miss your connecting....oh, never mind, just hold tight and we'll let you know soon. (caridwen.wordpress.com)

Further Adventures of the Pizza Guy

Image by crylov via FlickrI am a little bit on the sore side today, due to my part time job as a pizza delivery guys.  It isn't so much that the job was that strenuous or that it was unusually busy this past weekend to make me sore.  It is because I took a bit of a spill last night.

I was making a delivery last night at an apartment complex.  The outside area was not very well lit.  As I was coming down the steps to head back to my car, I missed a step and fell to the ground, landing on my shoulder and shin.  No real damage other than being sore today and some dirty clothes.  Pizza guys hate delivering to areas that aren't well lit.

I am not sure why, but there seemed to be an unusually high number of houses last night that did not have their outdoor lights on.  First, by not having the outside lights on, it makes it that much harder for the delivery driver to find your house.  Second, and more importantly, there is the safety issue.  If we show up at a dark house, especially both outside and inside, it gives us pause.

I also do not understand people who order a pizza, and are not there when you show up with a delivery.  Most nights, I never have to use my cell phone to try to contact a customer because nobody is answering the door.  Last night I had to do it twice.  The first call was to a woman who was in her car.  She told me her son was inside playing video games so she would call him to answer the door.

The second call that I had to make was to one of those dark houses that I alluded to earlier.  I showed up at a townhouse that had no lights on outside or inside.  I walked up to the door and rang the doorbell.  No answer, so I knocked, at least two times.  I called the phone number on the receipt, and it went straight to voice mail so I left a message.  Two hours later, he called the store to say that I never rang the bell. WTF!

One of the reasons that I was particularly sensitive to dark houses last night is that a pizza delivery driver was shot and killed in the DC area last week.  The delivery area that we have is not as bad a neighborhood as the driver that was shot, though we do have one apartment complex that we deliver to where a couple drivers have been robbed.  I get a little antsy whenever I have to take a run over to that complex, especially if it is dark out.

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, our financial situation is better than it was when I first started delivering pizzas.  Unfortunately, it is not so much better that I can afford to quit the delivery job quite yet, especially with the price of energy and food rising so much in recent days.  I am hopeful that my wife will soon be able to start substitute teaching again, but they are not currently taking applications until the next school year.  That would help a lot.

Related articles

• Pizza That Delivers Of The Day (geeks.thedailywh.at)
• I love pizza and I love Jesus, therefore I LOVE Cheesus pizza! (blahbethany.com)
• Pizza Habit Saves Woman (neatorama.com)
• Cop Goes Undercover as Pizza Delivery Guy (rawjustice.com)

Promote Your Blog or Organization

As a pizza delivery driver, I tend to lose a lot of pens.  I can't tell you how many times I have handed a pen to a customer to sign a credit card slip and ended up not getting my pen back or having to ask to get it back.  Around the house, I never seem to be able to find a pen when I need one.  That is one of the reasons I like when banks or other businesses have promotional pens available for their customers.

Businesses are not the only organizations that can benefit from having promotional items.  Charities can help build awareness of their cause with a wide variety of promotional items like magnets, tote bags, coffee mugs and just about anything else imaginable.  Schools can get personalized pencils printed up for their students and teachers.  My fellow bloggers can even promote their blogs with various promotional items for every budget.

The promotional products business has changed a lot over the years.  It used to be you could only get a basic pen or pencil with just the name of your organization stamped on it.  Now, companies like Amsterdam Printing can provide much more elaborate items with graphics on more upscale items.  You can find a lot of graphic resources for backgrounds on line.  This month, Amsterdam Printing has a promotion to give you 20% off of your order.  Check them out today. 

Related articles

• The Advantages Of Promotional Products (tnpromotionsplus.wordpress.com)

Customer Service

Image via CrunchBaseI got my first job when I was 15 years old.  It was in retail.  At a very early age, I was instilled with an ethic to provide good customer service to our customers.  In most of my positions over my career, I have had to perform some level of customer service.

It has been ingrained into my psyche what is, and consequently what isn't, good customer service.  As such, I have high expectations of how I expect to be treated if I am the customer.  I know how I would treat customers, and I expect to be treated the same way.

These days, unfortunately, it is harder and harder to find quality customer service.  If I am in a place of business, and I receive what I perceive to be shoddy customer service, I do not hesitate to lodge my complaints with management.  By the same token, if I encounter what I consider customer service that I consider meets or exceeds my expectations, I want to talk about it.

We picked our son up from school yesterday.  He was pretty excited about an upcoming Christmas party that his school was going to have next week.  When we got home, he asked ,e to burn him copies of some Christmas CDs that we had bought for him last year.  One of which I had saved on my current laptop (it has become my custom to rip a copy of any CD that we buy from him since he tends to break them) but the other was going to be a problem.

The second CD was called "60 Christmas Carols for Kids" that I purchased as a digital download from Amazon.com last year.  Unfortunately, I had those MP3s saved to an older laptop and an external hard drive, both of which have crashed in the past 6 months.  (Remind me to start making backups of my backups.)  I contacted Amazon customer service through their website, informed them of the situation, and asked if there was any way to allow me to re-download the files.

I received an email from them in less than 12 hours informing me that they had reinstated the option to download all of my previous MP3s that I had purchased from them.  Since the original purchase was over a year ago, I fully expected that they would not be able to help me.  Tonight I have downloaded all of the files that I needed, and burned them onto a couple of CDs for my son. 

In today's day and age, it has become increasingly difficult to find good customer service.  My experience has shown it is even more difficult to find it in larger companies.  I want to publicly thank Amazon.com for helping me out in this situation, and making it much easier to provide my son with the CDs he wanted.

Related articles

• Best Customer Service: Amazon.com, Kohl's, Nordstrom and More (dailyfinance.com)
• Intruiging post: Don't expect customer service from a US health insurance company (fredzimny.wordpress.com)
• 3 Examples of Stellar Social Media Customer Service [Mashable Awards] (mashable.com)
• Customer Service Insight. (makemarketinghistory.blogspot.com)

Open Enrollment and Health Care Reform

Image via WikipediaEvery company that I have ever worked for has had open enrollment for signing up or changing your health insurance benefits in early October.  With the passage of the health care reform bill earlier this year, I have been anxiously waiting to see how the bill would impact me this fall.
 
Since the passage of the bill, most of the news stories that I have seen have not been encouraging.  There have been numerous reports of higher increases in premiums than in recent years.  Other stories highlighted businesses debating whether or not they would be better off dropping employee coverage due to the higher costs of complying with the new federal law.

With my current financial situation, I have been dreading the prospect of having significantly higher insurance premiums.  I have been checking my mailbox, visiting the company benefits website, and browsing the company HR intranet site to find any information on the upcoming open enrollment and any changes that I might occur.  I finally found an update stating that the open enrollment would not start until November 27th, almost two full months later than normal.

Maybe I am being paranoid, but this delay has me concerned.  I fear that our portion of the premium will be going up significantly, or that our choices of plans will be curtailed greatly.  The other thing that adds to my concern is a conversation I overheard in the elevator while leaving the office today.  One person was apparently working on a presentation because she made a comment about how to make "health reform" interesting.  The other person replied, "and all that comes with it."  Uh-oh!

I am wondering if anybody else has gotten their information yet on open enrollment.  Were there a lot of changes within your company in regards to cost increases or reductions in choices?

Related articles

• New Consumer Education Website Helps Simplify Health Benefits Decisions in Era of Health Care Reform (eon.businesswire.com)
• Looking Ahead to Open Enrollment (well.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Health Reform Law Could Bring Surprises to Millions as Insurance Plans Are Renewed for 2011 (eon.businesswire.com)
• HHS launches $3 million ad campaign "advising" seniors on ObamaCare (hotair.com)

Quality Customer Service

Image by markhillary via Flickr
I started working when I was 15 years old.  My first job was in retail.  At a very early age, I was instilled with the importance of providing good customer service.  So, I have an idea of how I would expect to be treated when I am the customer.  Unfortunately these days, it is becoming harder and harder to find good customer service.  That is why when I encounter an example of good customer service, I like to call attention to it.


Friday afternoon, my wife called me to tell me there was a large crack in the windshield of her car.  I called our insurance company, but unfortunately the crack was too large to be repaired with a sealant and would need to be replaced.  My insurance company has an arrangement with Safelite Autoglass for windshield repairs, so they made an appointment for me to get the windshield replaced.

My appointment was scheduled for 1:30PM on Saturday afternoon.  I was a little hesitant about a Saturday afternoon appointment because most of my experiences in getting auto repairs done is that you rarely get taken in at your appointed time, and the work is rarely finished in the promised amount of time.  Plus I was supposed to deliver pizza last night, so was afraid of being pushed for time.  Shortly after 11:30 yesterday morning, I received a call from the Safelite branch where I had an appointment.  They said they could take me in early if I could get there.  So far off to a good start.  I headed out to the shop. 

On a side note, I have to admit that as I rapidly approach the age of 50, there are aspects of today's youth that escape me.  On the way to the shop, I saw a young man running across the street.  He had to hold on to his pants to keep them from falling down.  I don't understand the style of wearing the droopy drawers half way down your backside.  What is the point if you have to hold on them to keep them from falling down when you are jogging across the street?  Buy a pair of pants that fit and a damn belt!

I arrived at the shop shortly after noon and was told that they would be doing a preliminary inspection of the vehicle.   Within 15 minutes, a technician came out to tell me what they would be doing and that it would take about 60-90 minutes to complete the work.  By 1:30, I was sitting in the car and headed home.

I hope that I don't have to get another windshield replaced any time soon.  If I do, I will be sure to take it to Safelite.  They gave me an appointment, and not only kept it, but took me in early.  Then they completed the work in the time frame they promised.  Truly an example of excellent customer service.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Safelite AutoGlass Honored with 2010 American Business Award℠ (prweb.com)
• The awful state of customer service (money.blogs.time.com)
• Real World Examples of Good Customer Service (brighthub.com)

Bob Ehrlich's Entrepreneur Agenda

Image via Wikipedia

When Bob Ehrlich lost his reelection campaign as Governor of the state of Maryland in 2006, Maryland was rated in the middle of the pack (#25) in the Tax Foundation's State Business Tax Climate report of 2006.  After four years of Martin O'Malley's alleged leadership, Maryland has fallen to #45 in the 2010 report.  I supported Ehrlich in 2006, and am doing so again in 2010.  In fact, I plan to be an even more active supported of Ehrlich this time around.  Below, is an email newsletter I received from the Ehrlich campaign outlining his agenda to help Maryland improve it's climate towards business.  Let's face it, it is business that creates jobs, not government, and Ehrlich wants to get the government out of the way to let entrepreneurs create jobs.


Dear friend,

I wanted you to be among the first to receive “The Entrepreneur Agenda,” a new plan I unveiled today to help Maryland small businesses create jobs and turn the economic tide in Maryland. With 3,000 small businesses closing last year and nearly a quarter million Marylanders unable to find a job, we must have higher expectations for Maryland’s economic future.


My Entrepreneur Agenda, which is product of conversations with more than 100 small business owners, is centered on three big ideas:

First, I will fundamentally change the mindset in government so that we are encouraging entrepreneurs to succeed rather than discouraging them. I will propose a Small Business Bill of Rights that guarantees small business owners a fair, timely, and predictable business environment so they can expand and create jobs.

Second, I will lower Maryland’s tax burden to jump start economic activity and put more money in the pockets of Maryland families. To achieve this goal, I will work to repeal Governor Martin O’Malley’s 20% increase in the sales tax and identify ways to make our corporate income tax more competitive so that Maryland employers stop moving across state lines.

Third, I will shake-up Maryland’s most inefficient programs, especially Maryland’s unemployment insurance system. By streamlining Maryland’s bureaucratic maze we can unleash entrepreneurs to do what they do best: innovate, hire new workers, and help improve our overall quality of life.

To read the entire “Entrepreneur Agenda,” just click here.

Thank you for sharing my interest in turning the economic tide in Maryland. I know you have higher expectations for Maryland’s economy. I do too. Together, we can create a brighter future for Maryland.

Sincerely,

Bob Ehrlich


Our mailing address is:

Bob Ehrlich for Maryland
P.O. Box 2
Timonium, MD 21094-0002


Copyright (C) 2010 Bob Ehrlich for Maryland All rights reserved.