Customer Service: It’s Not Just For Sissies Anymore!

Posted: August 6, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Culture, Humor | Tags: , , , , | 4 Comments

So today I’m going to sound off on a topic near and dear to my heart, having spent far too long (two months) suffering through a life of retail hell: customer service. I understand that actually having to deal with the common hoi polloi that inhabit this globe on a daily basis for no better reason than to keep body and soul together is a tragedy  that befalls far too many people, but is it too much to ask that when your entire business model relies on people actually wanting to purchase your products, you maybe consider this to be something more than the awful afterthought that comes between “thanks for your money, sucker!” and “Welcome back, sucker, gonna give us some more of your money?”

A good example of customer service is Mattress Discounters. We bought a Temper-Pedic bed there. They delivered exactly when they said they would, and let me tell you, getting it into our bedroom at all was no easy feat. I highly recommend them to one and all. That’s great customer service, and it deserves to be rewarded.

Thumbs up

Bad customer service, on the other hand, deserves to be called out in public, put in the stocks in the public square, pilloried and ridiculed, humiliated as they humiliate us.

As my case study, I will use a six month odyssey that recently befell my entire household. In order to avoid a potential lawsuit, the company involved will not be called on by name. I will simply mention that they are a retail home improvement store who rhyme with Beers and start with S. You may have seen their softer side in the Nineties. Anyway, my landlord prefers them for appliances (although I still hold out hope that this recent experience may sway him to consider changing to a more sane alternative. It’s not likely.) The whole story begins with the attempt to get the oven repaired. This required two trips, as the first trip involved finding out that the oven was, indeed, broken, but the repairman didn’t have the part with him. This trip took two weeks to arrange in the first place. The follow-up, with the correct part, took another two weeks. A week later, the oven broke again. This necessitated another two week wait, at which point we found out that the oven was, in fact, broken. This came as a shock to all and sundry, assuming that “all and sundry” is code for “only the Sbeers repairman.” He then informed us that the cost of repairing the oven at this point would be higher than replacing it, and I informed him that he could have come to this conclusion two visits ago. (Okay, maybe only in my head, but I thought it really hard.)

Believe it or not, this was one of the better interactions of our customer service experience with Sbeers in what I can only assume, from what you will see below, was a deliberate campaign of terror against us. Notice how he lured us in by being almost as helpful as someone who actually intends to be useful without actually making our lives better in any meaningful way. This set the standard for the following FOUR MONTHS. It all started with the new oven. The oven my landlord bought. I should note that my landlord lives in a different house than I do. This should come as no surprise to you kind folk, as I assume that all of my readers are intelligent, sagely, wise folk with reasoning powers that at least match those of gerbils. Apparently the same cannot be said for the people at Sbeers, who cannot distinguish between a billing address and a delivery address. This would be annoying once. It would be comical twice. It would be infuriating three times. Round about the fourth time in two months it got to seeming diabolical and deliberate.

What impressed me most of all was their utter failure to have any sort of coordination in their attempts to infuriate me, and yet they still did it with ease. It seems that nobody at Sbeers talks directly to anyone else, or even to the same customer more than once. I’m not entirely certain anyone in their customer service department works there more than once. After they got my street address connected to my landlord’s city and state, I found out that they didn’t even have one delivery company. No, Sbeers doesn’t deliver the stuff they sell, they subcontract it to people who are even more incompetent than they are.

This incompetence shines through in ways I can’t even describe, I can only report it. It begins with the first (yes I said first) attempt to install our new oven. After the oven was installed, there was a piece left. I wasn’t home at the time, so I have to rely on second hand reports from my wife, but as I understand it the conversation went something like this:

My Beautiful Wife: “Why is there a piece left?”

Installation Guy: “I dunno.”

My Incredibly Intelligent Wife: “What are you going to do about it?”

“Installation Guy: “I dunno.”

My Wonderful Wife Who Dealt With Sbeers Customer Service So I Wouldn’t Have To: “Shit.”

I may have gotten the details slightly wrong, but that was the basic gist of it. So for the next month and a half, we had a piece of oven sitting in our kitchen while my wife tried to get Sbeers to send someone out to correct the situation. This resulted in three aborted attempts, one because they were trying to go to the wrong state (again), one because they wanted me to pay for the visit(!), and then there was my personal favorite…

You see, the best the original delivery guy could come up with was that we had the wrong part for the oven. The part that came in the box. With the oven. That he had just installed. The solution of course was to simply deliver a completely different oven and install that one. Now, one Saturday (after they had rescheduled for the third time that week) I got a call from the delivery guy telling me he had an oven to deliver. I said, “You mean install, right?” No, no, no. They only deliver. The installation guy comes later.

Bullshit.

I actually called bullshit on him, right there and then. And he, poor guy, had to have his supervisor call me, ’cause his job is just to drive the truck and drop off the appliances. And I called bullshit on his supervisor, too. When he asked me point blank if I wanted the oven or not, I asked him, “Would you want an oven sitting in your living room?” He had the grace to admit he would not. “Nor would I.” That pretty much ended that conversation.

And here’s how the story ends: two weeks later (after two more reschedulings), a guy came out to deliver and install the new oven… and he installed the “leftover” part correctly.

Son. Of. A. Bitch.

So yeah. Customer service. Just get it right. If you do, you get a nice blurb and a free product endorsement. If you get it wrong, you get a 1,000 word rant talking about how much you suck. And yeah, I’m talking to you, Sbeers.

Disappointing Delights

Posted: July 30, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Culture | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments

I’m a huge fan of guilty pleasures. Whether it’s the horrors of eighties hair bands or watching cartoons from my childhood just for the pure nostalgic value of them (“…and knowing is half the battle!”), I feel neither guilt nor shame for indulging myself in these decadent delights. What I do regret however is when I delve into what should be a guilty pleasure and find that it doesn’t live up to my expectations of it. Such is the case for two pleasures I have tried recently, only one of which I will go back for again and can recommend to others.

The first is Burger King’s Bacon Sundae. You heard me right. I actually tried that monstrosity, and damn proud to say it. Why shouldn’t I? It’s everything I should love in a desert: bacon, vanilla soft serve, bacon, chocolate fudge, bacon, caramel, and best of all it’s got bacon. Nothing that has bacon can be all bad, right? And that’s the worst part: it wasn’t all bad. It was meh. I’ve had better, I’ve had worse. I should not be able to walk away from any sundae and think “sure, it was okay, but I could have had a vanilla cone”, let alone one with bacon.

To be fair, I didn’t eat it right as the guy handed it to me because I got it from the drive-thru, but seriously, who’s gonna eat this monstrosity in the restaurant with everybody watching? I will say this for it, though: that first bite was a special kind of magic. I may just have to get some bacon powder and sprinkle it on my next bowl of vanilla ice cream, or maybe even bacon bits. Or both. Mmmmm, bacon. All things considered, I would give this one a pass.

The other recent disappointment for me is Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom. I had high hopes for this one at the outset. The writing seemed sharp, witty, and vibrant, the characters seemed fully realized, and the idea of challenging the status quo of both right and left Big Media™ by Taking a Stand and Speaking Truth to Power actually appealed to me. Sure, I was aware going in that Sorkin was the brainchild behind The West Wing, arguable the most lefty show on the airwaves in the past twenty years that didn’t star Jon Stewart or Bill Maher, but a guy can dream. Then I actually watched the show. I won’t criticize the politics of the show, but you can read an interesting piece I mostly agree with here that does. I will however address its other shortcomings.

Despite all the desperate defenses and protestations to the contrary, the show is one-sided. Balance in news coverage is not (or does not have to be) equivalency, despite Sorkin’s assertions in this show; it is simply the admission that not everyone believes the same thing and giving reasonable people a chance to air their opinions. There is no balance here, and I’m not suggesting there should be, although when you say things like (and I’m paraphrasing) “we’ll include intelligent opposing views” in your very first episode but you never do, the implication is that either (a) you don’t believe there is such a thing as an intelligent opposing view, or (b) you are unable to even acknowledge opposing views. Both are common flaws in major media today, but I was really hoping for something more. That same lack of balance makes all the characters horrible caricatures. The good guys are shining good, the bad guys might as well be twirling their mustaches. It borders on being clown shoes.

Which is a damn shame, because despite all of that, it’s still a damn good show. The actors rise above the source material to deliver powerful, compelling performances. I actually care about their characters, and I want to see them grow. When they aren’t busy lecturing me (although I do love to hear them lecture each other) they manage to be witty, or tragic, or just fun. There are more moments that make me laugh, cry, and cheer in one hour than a whole night of network television. Most of all, there is sex and violence and foul language, but it is tasteful, meaningful, and drives the plot rather than being driven by it. There is nothing gratuitous here; I am shocked, not by the simple fact that Sam Waterston’s character dropped the F-bomb, but by the fact he would have the gall to stand up to his boss in that manner. And that is compelling television.

My advice to Aaron Sorkin is set your politics aside and do what you do best: write witty, adult television. Until he does, my advice to everyone else is to set your politics aside, just like I do, and watch The Network so you can get a dose of witty, adult television. Best case scenario, everybody else gets the message and it raises the bar. Worst case scenario, you see some good TV.

Oh, and get me some vanilla ice cream with bacon sprinkles while you’re at it.

 

UPDATE: SInce I mentioned 80s cartoons, this seemed like the best place for this, even if it is a bit of a downer. I just found out that Roger Slifer, a major creative force in a lot of 80s cartoons including “The Transformers”, is in a bad way. If you are interested in helping, they are accepting donations here.

The Greatest Stand-Up of All Time

Posted: July 9, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Culture, Humor | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

There’s an old joke that goes “dying is easy; comedy is hard.” Having tried (with mixed success at best) to do comedy on stage, on the printed page, and on the electronic screen, I can attest to this fact. The hardest of all is doing stand-up. When you do stand-up you’re putting yourself out there, in front of the audience, with no script, no character, nothing separating you from them except for the common decency and respect that we all have for each other as human beings… and they’re all a bunch of rowdy drunks looking for a good time, and they don’t care if it’s at your expense.

When you do stand-up, you put it all out on the line, every time, and dealing with hecklers isn’t the hardest part of the job. Dealing with the raw reality of it, baring your soul to a new crowd of strangers and making it funny, insightful, and compelling each and every time, keeping it fresh and new for them even when you’ve done it a thousand times before – that’s the hardest part. I have nothing but love for good stand-up, and nothing but respect for great stand-up comics. Each one has to create their own unique style to stand apart from a sea of others, a special and compelling character that is both individual enough to be recognizable and familiar enough to be relatable.

For my money, these are the best stand-up concerts of all time, and are must-see items for anyone who likes to laugh.

Best Classic Stand Up: Bill Cosby – Himself

The heart of stand-up is not telling jokes, it’s telling stories. Funny stories, poignant stories, stories that pull you in or let it all hang out. The greatest storyteller of them all is Bill Cosby, and this is the concert where he is at the top of his game. He manages to combine words, gestures, running gags, and most of all just the character of Bill into a tour de force performance that doesn’t require anything except him to keep you enthralled. The most magical moment for me is a single story that (if I recall correctly) takes over ten minutes to get from point A to point B, and by the time he gets to the end he’s already covered more comedic ground than many comics can do in an hour… and then comes the punch line that actually references back to something he said a half hour before. Pure comic gold.

Best Underrated Stand-Up: Christopher Titus – The Fifth Annual End of the World Tour

“If it was a good show that got canceled way too young, it must have been on Fox!” That should be the slogan for the network that canned Titus (along with everything they’ve ever touched by Joss Whedon, but that’s a different rant.) Fortunately I discovered this stand-up special by Christopher Titus many years later and was able to see that his particular brand of dark, cynical, and yet still somehow hopeful comedy is still alive and well. Covering a wide range of material in a frank, honest, and mature fashion that is distinctly unfashionable among most comics, Christopher Titus walks a very fine line that manages to be both wildly entertaining and deeply thought-provoking, as well as more than a little moving on occasion.

Best Angry Stand-Up: Dennis Leary – No Cure for Cancer

I love Dennis Leary in pretty much everything I see him in, but for my money this is and always will be his defining moment. His humor is at best irreverent and at worst vulgar, but it is always challenging: challenging the status quo, challenging what is acceptable, even challenging just how far you can push the boundaries of bad taste. He is a thinking man’s angry comic, critiquing modern society even as he criticizes  it.

And to all the Sam Kinison fans out there, let me be the first to say, and I’m pretty sure Sam would agree with me when I say this, fuck Sam Kinison. He was a no-talent hack, the shock-jock of stand-up who got by on a little humor, a lot of screaming, and a willingness to say absolutely anything. That’s not comedy, that’s Tourette’s syndrome.

Best Dirty Stand-Up: Eddie Murphy – Raw

In 1987, Eddie Murphy had nothing left to prove. He was at the top of his game. That was the year Beverly Hills Cop II was released, for crying out loud. So what on earth possessed him to do a stand-up film in a skintight purple leather suit? Pure genius, that’s what. This is Murphy at his best, and he lives up to the title of the film all the way through, in every sense of the word. His language, his subject matter (you’ll be saying “I want half!” for hours afterward), even his gestures are all direct, honest, and completely uncensored. It’s not for every audience, but I highly recommend it for everyone who can get behind it.

Best All Around Stand-Up: Eddie Izzard – Dress to Kill

I named this my best all-around for two reasons: first, because at the end of the day I just can’t pin down how else to define Eddie Izzard; second, I have almost as much fun watching other people try to describe his show as I do watching it, which is (for me) the mark of great comedy. He covers so much ground, and with such style and panache, if I were to try to say “this special is about this” I would miss about 90% of what it’s about, and that would miss the point anyway. What it’s really about is watching Eddie Izzard be Eddie Izzard: funny, frenetic, charming and delightful.

Honorable Mention for Lifetime Achievement:

Chris Rock

Honestly, I can’t pick out any one stand-up special by Chris Rock and say, “you must see this.” Just pick one, any of them will do. They’re all good, and for me he’s the best of a lot of great comedians who all seem to do the same brand of comedy. He just does it with that little extra bit of je ne sais quoi. I might even go so far as to say that Chris Rock is the new Richard Pryor.

George Carlin

No, I’m not focused on George because of his seven dirty words. To be honest I don’t think it’s all that great of a bit, although I do love him for doing it. I more love Carlin because he had such a great character about him, and while I didn’t agree with his politics, I think every aspiring comedian should be required to study him to understand timing and delivery.

Vacation Movie Round-Up

Posted: June 29, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Culture | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

I finally took some time off this week, and I caught up on some movies I’ve been meaning to see for a while. As the greatest critic of pop culture I know in my house, I felt it was my born duty to share with you all my thoughts and impressions of some of the fantastic cinema I’ve finally gotten around to seeing in case you missed it for as long as I did.

The Avengers. I’ll cop to the truth and hope they don’t take away my geek card: it took me this long to see The Avengers. Yes, despite my pathetic man-crush on Our Whedon Who Art in Hollywood, hallowed be his name, I held off on seeing this one until now. Why? I dunno. I guess I was afraid it couldn’t live up to the hype, especially since they were on the third Hulk in as many films, or the fact I hadn’t seen Captain America yet (see review below) and I still haven’t seen Thor (although I might actually try it now.)

So how was it? Well, lest I squeal like a schoolgirl I’m afraid I can’t give a completely accurate depiction of my initial impression. Suffice to say that I thought this was hand-down the best action film I have seen in a very long time, and the very epitome of a superhero film. While it played to many of the tropes you would expect, it also played with some tropes as well, and I always like to see that sort of thing. Without giving anything away I think I can safely say my favorite surprise character was S.H.I.E.L.D., which played a much larger role than I anticipated, and in a much more interesting way. The special effects were well integrated, enhancing without dominating the action.

That’s not to say there weren’t some drawbacks. Once you go Ed Norton, it’s really hard to go back, and while Mark Ruffalo does a credible job it’s just not the same. The action is a little slow in the beginning, although threading together four different franchises and adding in some extra material at the same time is always going to be a challenge; Whedon did the best job possible, but that doesn’t make it great. Also on that front is the fact that there are some subplots and character development points that don’t come through very clearly if you haven’t seen the lead-in films. Again, not much you can do about that given the situation at hand; it would be like trying to a sequel to Return of the Jedi for someone who had never seen episodes IV-VI. Doesn’t make for as smooth of a movie as it could though.

All that having been said, it was a rollicking good time, and well worth the price of admission. This is one you will want to see in the theater, because it just won’t be the same at home.

4.75/5 stars

 

Rock of Ages. The simple fact that my wife, who isn’t really old enough to remember any of the songs in this movie, refuses to go see it, pretty well sums up everything you need to know about it and whether or not you should even bother watching it. The simple fact is, I grew up on 80s music, and hair bands in particular, so for me this was a no-brainer. Going with my sister (who saw several of the bands that originally did the songs in the film IN CONCERT) just added to the fun.

Oh, the plot? You mean there was one? No, seriously, there was? This movie is the epitome of a musical that exists for the sole purpose of stringing together a bunch of songs that already exist in the most clever way possible. There are a few inside jokes (including one song that quite creatively DIDN’T get used), but that’s more about wit than anything that could pass for a script. As far as acting, Tom Cruise can’t help being great, and Alec Baldwin has comedy down to a science. Everyone else did an acceptable job to keep the movie going, never taking you out of things, but it’s not exactly Rent. Hell, it’s not even Chicago.

Should you see this in the theater? That depends if you remember teasing your hair, or watching someone else do it, and if you feel like you would have to bite your tongue to keep from singing along to the songs. If not, take a pass and catch it on DVD if you love Tom Cruise, Alec Baldwin, or musicals in general. Otherwise you might want to just let this one go by.

4.5/5 stars (if you remember the 80s), 2.0/5 stars (if you don’t know who Twisted Sister is)

Captain America: The First Avenger. Overall not a bad film. I was never a huge fan of Captain America, but I never exactly hated Cap either (unlike Daredevil or Punisher, both of whom I would sooner see dismissed to the dustbin of comic book history.) Also unlike Daredevil, I had very low expectations going into this film, which may have helped. For those of you unfamiliar with Captain America… you know what, if you’re unfamiliar with Captain America, I can’t help you. Seriously, crawl back under the rock you’ve been living under for the past seventy years or so. Seriously. That’s like not knowing who Superman or Mickey Mouse are.

Anyway, the film follows pretty closely to the established mythos as I know it, although to be fair I don’t know it especially well, unlike the Spider-Man films, where I was one of the nerds complaining bitterly about the changes even as I had a nerdgasm over the coolness of it all. (Before the third one. That was just awful. What I saw of it. I couldn’t even sit through the whole thing.) But I digress. They stick to the plot fairly well, and though the action doesn’t move along as well as I might like in the middle, there is some nice character development. The end is a serious downer, and more than a little of a Fellowship of the Ring moment for me personally. However, since I didn’t even bother to see it until the Avengers was already in theaters (and they kind of telegraphed it from the title) there’s little room to complain.

3.75/5 stars

Red State. I’m not really known for being a fan of thrillers, but I am known for being a huge Kevin Smith fan, so going into this one was a big toss-up for me. Truth to tell, I got a HUGE surprise out of this one, in a very good way. I have no idea how to describe it without giving anything away, so I’ll do my best but just in case I’m going to say *SPOILER ALERT*. Now don’t call me out for crying wolf even if I don’t spoil anything.

So this movie is a thriller, like I said, but about what? Well, sex and religion and politics. That’s probably the best way to describe it, and I take that more or less from the credits, so don’t credit me with any great insight for picking up on this one. The truth is I was just frozen still for the entirety of the movie, constantly waiting to see what would happen next. The action moved at exactly the right pace, never dragging but not going so fast as to be an action movie either. The tension was perfect throughout.

There were two aspects to this film I enjoyed most. First, there were no heroes. Yes, there were protagonists, but there was nobody I really liked or felt like I needed to root for. But somehow I still felt satisfied by the movie. Second, the customary witty Kevin Smith dialogue was there, but it wasn’t silly, it was sharp, crisp, and direct, almost like David Mamet if Mamet were in any way tolerable. This movie isn’t going to be for everyone, because it’s chock-full of gore and violence and lots of disturbing imagery. That being said, if you think you can handle it, it’s worth checking out.

4.25/5 stars

John Carter. Ah, the curse of mediocrity and what might have been. I’m convinced this movie could have been so much better if Disney had only been willing to go for the gusto rather than trying to appeal to the family audience, or the mass market, or whoever it is exactly they were trying to appeal to. It can’t have been the hardcore fans of the original novels, because outside of a few truly dedicated nerds, I’m not sure anyone even knows there WERE original novels (or did before the movie bombed -er, came out.) As it is, the results of this film were so deep into the realm of “so close” that it’s almost insulting.

Which is kind of misleading to say, because if it hadn’t come so close to being really, really good, it would have been really good. It was fun, exciting, well made, and all around worth watching. It just had so many points of bad dialogue, dragging action, and generic silliness that it was hard for me to focus on the meat of it, which was a decent film. There were some enjoyable characters, and it wasn’t so thoroughly “family-washed” as to lose sight of all the barbarity that existed in the original.

If you like science fiction, if you like heroic films, and especially if you like not having to think too hard while you kick back, this is a good popcorn rental.

3.0/5 stars

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