Vaguely Understood

Today we attacked a couple of issues around the house. Just little things. We accomplished nothing, made things worse and pissed ourselves and others off. We only vaguely understand how mechanical things and such work, sadly. Customer service is dead in America. Billing is all that people understand. Other than that I think we are going to have a great day. We are going to see a movie. We are walking to the movies. I think I'm going to work out first. Just a short bit of the bike and weights. But only if I hurry and do this entry and do that and get a shower. So...that's all folks!

Notes From Downtown

I haven't been keeping a good 'personal' journal of what is going on with me. (I usually write down some notes in a Word document about what I do each day. Boring.) Last night I sat down to try to post here. (I already received one "Are you OK, Visible Woman?" note so I knew, given the statistics of such things that roughly four of you out there were wondering the same thing.) So. Yeah. Now, Austin Daily Photo has been going along, dutifully posting a pic a day. So there's that.

But what wisdom to post here?

I just couldn't decide.

Should I talk about sampling tacos downtown? (Las Manitas and Jo's so far and both are great, I must say.) But that's kind of boring. Lots of tacos in my old neighborhood, too.

Should I talk about the parking garage. How, being on level 6, it takes two minutes to get in or out? How the door from the elevators to parking sticks and we can't get them to fix it yet? Boring.

OK. How about what feels like 'home' at this point? Sometimes we stay in what we now call the 'big house' and we have a computer setup there with bells and whistles (scanners/printers/copiers, wireless, etc.) and we have a fancy bed we bought in 2004 and Time Warner Cable and DVR. Several rooms are almost empty. One room has too much stuff in it, stacked with paintings and such from other rooms. Our bedroom is missing our "TV-watching, sleeping, reading" chairs because they are at the condo. The Capresso, our beloved coffee machine, is still at home. We have a new Cuisinart drip coffee thing at the condo. We will ultimately use the Capresso every day at the condo and the Cuisnart as a backup or to make decaf for friends. We are back and forth, though, and need to be caffeinated at both ends. One of my neighbors said that they know when someone has really moved and that is when the computer moves. Well, I'm typing this on my laptop at the condo where Internet miraculously appeared in the wall when we moved in and, tonight, a nice wireless signal has also shown up. So, yeah, is someone moved when the computers move? Or the coffee? Well we have both at both ends. Confusing. And possibly, um, boring.

I feel pretty much at home at the condo, really. Oh, I have to go through quite a bit of stuff to make and unmake the sleeper sofa but after a few nights camping on it I have to say it is comfortable enough. Our night light is the Frost Tower and the green light band of the new AMLI building. I can see the red H on the Hilton, too. We are going to have a platform bed built and we have a new mattress ordered for it. But. First we have to (1) get the plan approved to attach some cabinetry to outside walls; and (2) get the cabinet guy in here with materials and get it done. I'm hopeful, though. The closet people almost did their thing today. Tomorrow they promise that things will be finished, that the right lengths of things and the proper brackets will finish it off. And, I feel better now that we have painted the walls something that is not white. Made the place feel better and more personal.

I could talk about the saga of the hot water heater. How the inspector I hired found that the lower element was burned out, how they repaired it without a washer and it leaked, how there is still moisture from somewhere in the upper element. (I had it inspected again!) Yeah, but, boring, yes?

Hey. I could write about how really close Whole Foods is to us. I walked there today. It was pretty hot but I didn't break a sweat. I had some tuna/avocado rolls and a Naked Juice Green Machine Super Food and then I bought some Hummus dips and Tofu dip and chips for the Austin Film Festival kids and walked further west for my film team meeting. FFP was handling the 'big house' and met me there. I was unbelievably smug about walking to Whole Foods and the Festival office. (It's less than a mile, but hey. I'm Urban Girl. OK, Urban Old Lady. Whatever.)

Did I mention that I got DirecTV installed (only choice here) and then over the weekend couldn't get some channels? But I commandeered the installer in the lobby today and he replaced something to strengthen my signal. I just have a 19 inch TV here but HD is reasonable.

Wait. Wait. The elevators. Actually today they worked OK although it was a bit slow getting our closet guy's stuff up and down. But we have had some annoying outages. Ho. Hum.

I know, I know! I'll talk about Lance Armstrong's bike and coffee shop next door. They are even delivering some free pastries and coffee to the club room for a while. Yeah, nothing much to go with that topic.

I guess I could talk about all that stuff still at the 'big house' that I don't need. Or how exciting it is to look forward to the day when we can pick and choose the art and books to come here. But then, what to do with the stuff left behind? Are you as bored with downsizing as I am?

Well, none of it matters much, does it? I met a woman yesterday whose life is so clearly delineated by tragedy that it completely refocused her life. Forever. There are lots of people like that, but most of us think that whether the TV works or we can find our socks matters.

All this typing. Still no focus. Well, anyway I'm here. I'm marching on. I have too many homes.

Cutsomer Service

Is this a cigarette machine? Yes and no. Yeah, candy cigarettes. I took this at Big Top on South Congress, of course working hard to get my reflection Candy cigarettes. Innocuous enough I guess except for all that implication of imitating adults in a nasty habit, yada yada.

This is not a battle I'll fight. The youngsters I took to the candy store ignored the machine (and the chocolate bacon for that matter).

Big Top is delivering what they promise. Sweets of all stripes. Cheerful help. What more could you want?

Things are not so well in other customer service realms that I'm currently navigating. I called one provider of service for my old address, thinking I might migrate this service to my Dad's house. The result? They increased my bill for my current service. After threatening to do that and then getting management to say that they would not do that.

I had a 'final' walk through of our condo today. Yeah, they fixed some things. They broke some things in the process. They admitted they didn't fix the hot water heater, but they are 'having meetings' about 'final delivery from the contractor.' FFP said this meant that finger pointing was proceeding (at our expense?). You think?

I am so disappointed in the AV provider for the condo that I've decided not to spend any more money with them. (I'm already committed to an expensive set of surround speakers from them.) I have hired a consultant to help me buy components and flat screen TVs and to talk to the EPS guys. (Empty Polo Shirts.)

I had a very sad experience with the TV/Internet/Internet Phone provider (a monopoly for one year as I understand it). On my last foray to their call center, I was told that they had no record of my 'community' and therefore couldn't sell me anything. Today I bought a little LCD TV for the condo (online, Costco, selection assisted by my consultant above) and decided to try to schedule installation of the TV service. So, yeah. Four calls, or more, and every time I punched the button for 'new service' it hung up on me. I got through to a live person by selecting the choice for existing customers. I told them my problem. They transferred me....to the hang up service. I called back, navigated to get a live person and told them I'd run out of time to buy something from them but that the new service choice wasn't working. Later I called and got through. I ordered my service. The person didn't say anything about Internet or phone. She said I needed to pay the installer for installation and my converter. "Can I use a credit card?"

"No. You have to have a money order." I'm totally serious. What does she think I am, drug dealer or homeless person? Finally it became clear that I could give her a credit card.

When we checked out our condo, I asked if the Internet worked. (It is supposed to be "included with the homeowners fee.") She (it's always a she at this point, a she who takes off her spike heels before entering your hardwood abode) said she didn't know and couldn't test it! I said, "I brought a laptop, can I test it?" She agreed. It didn't work. After we'd been through the punch list with mixed results she took us to an EPS that we'd talked to before. He was in a state of high bewilderment. He said our Internet would be installed 'when we got our TV service.' We would have to be assigned a user ID and password. This last info really threw him and he kept repeating it. He was using a (wired) Internet connection in the sales office we were in and seemed amazed that it worked. I told him that I had sent an e-mail to someone he had recommended the other day. This was about enhanced Internet service. He did not remember telling me this nor who it could have been. I asked if I would REALLY get Internet service when I got TV. He said that his installer was 'pretty good' and he hoped he wouldn't be too busy.

Holy crap. Customer service is dead. Well, except for a couple of my consultants. Even the Apple 'Genius' managed to insult me with a "don't call me we will call you" attitude although they did get us a new hard drive in only a week's time. Customer service rule? BE a genius. Don't call yourself one, though.

None of this surprises me, of course. And my only bully pulpit is this blog. But, yeah. Customer service. Dead. Oh. But. We like the concierge folks we've met at our new condo. So far they seem concerned, competent and interested in service. There is that.

There's Something in a Sunday

I'm not sure I feel so all alone (a reference to a Kris Kristofferson song) since FFP and I have been interacting most of the morning and early afternoon. I do feel a little overwhelmed and sad, though. I think that's probably typical for someone a couple of weeks away from acquiring a new place to live that will then have to be decorated, redone, settled into, furnished and adjusted to. All the while, maintaining the old abode and getting it fixed up and things removed from it and somehow getting it sold. Adding to my list of things to fret about is a visit from a bunch of relatives. They are staying with Dad. They won't be here too many days and the hope is that they won't drive him crazy!

When we ask the people at the condo office to let us do something or get information, their standard response is "We know you are excited about moving in, but..." followed by some explanation about why we aren't seeing things clearly. Ha. Excited. No. Scared, weary, afraid I'm forgetting something, certain they are forgetting something. Yes.

So, yeah, we dug into some of our tasks today. We attacked the cabinets in our media room. What a graveyard of anachronistic media. Laser disks, VHS tapes, cassette audio tapes, CDs, LPs, DVDs. If we sell the house to the buyer of choice all the equipment will stay. (All these media have players in that cabinet!) Therefore we decided to leave the laser disks behind. Cassettes are going to thrift store or trash. A few VHS ones survived. I packed four boxes of CDs. Yikes. Perhaps more winnowing will occur at the other end? Yeah, right. We haven't addressed LPs or DVDs yet.

Lots of stooping and lifting. FFP made migas while I started on the job and then he did lots of getting up and down off the floor to get the lower shelves. Finally we lost the will to continue on this particular task and FFP went to get the cars washed. My car would never get washed if he didn't take it.

While I was eating my migas, I sat at the table in the big room (the media room) because our breakfast table only accommodates one person with newspapers spread out all over the place. (FFP said that soon we will have a table where we can both sit. Which is true because our table for the condo is bigger than the breakfast table in question. However, in this house we had two other tables steps away from this one in other rooms. One is gone now, but still. I think he has a point, though, but I'm sure we will be bumping into each other in the condo in more ways than this.) I looked out into the backyard I will soon abandon and watched a blue jay bedevil a junk iron sculpture of a bird. It's beautiful. But there is always something dying or something growing where it isn't wanted as in the vine shown above.

There is a funny feeling that you spent money on components and media and, really, when did you think you were going to sit down and listen or watch all this stuff? I turned the CD player on and we listened to a few CDs. I flipped on the cable first and discovered that all the premium channels were blocked. We haven't watched TV in that room for a while. I'd returned cable boxes from two other rooms and I figured they had messed something up. I called and, amazingly, I got a technician with a big brain. He found something in their "quirky" (his word) billing system that caused it. He checked a box and voilà...we were getting the service we were paying for in that room. I mean we probably won't watch in there again for a while (ever?) but I hate it when things are like that. I still haven't gotten anyone with the company that is providing TV and such for our new condo to discuss it with me. And we are buying new (flat screen) TVs. So it may be months before I have a DVR and stuff in the condo. Not watching TV for a while would probably be a good idea! We could listen to CDs! Watch DVDs! (Yeah, I have three Netflix titles sitting around in the bedroom.)

Meanwhile, the computer transition isn't going too swimmingly. I called the Apple Store on Tuesday and Thursday. Both times the part was going to be in 'the next day.' Thursday the genius said "and then we will fix it and call you when it's ready." Don't call us, we'll call you. This made my guru upset (he's the real genius, I think). He called and they said "the part is being shipped and it will be in tomorrow." Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I'm spending too much time trying to tweak computer environments. I seem to be a master at crashing machines. I crashed the Windows XP in the VMware as well as getting the iMac in a state where it wouldn't restart without a boot to the head. It all came back, but I've got to admit: I'm getting a little gun shy! Not that I'm not backing up everything and not that it isn't fun to break things, but sometimes you just want your computer to work!

But for the moment, I'm going to go through some more stuff. Maybe shred some old receipts. Maybe try to find some more stuff to get rid of. Maybe catalog a few things.

Do You Ever Have Those Times?

<rant>
Do you ever have times when it seems that everyone is treating you like a child except your parent? That everyone who works for you is trying to tell you what you must do and what they refuse to do and why their offereings are ironclad and only make sense, you fool! I am the customer and people think that means that they get to tell me what the rules are, that they get to tell me that they are sorry but it is 'policy.' Some of them refer to another 'they' which is apparently a part of their company, perhaps a person who doesn't work there anymore or some unassailable management person who is unreachable for the likes of me, and this 'they' has either not kept good notes, or has carefully researched how things should be done.

I'm sorry, but sometimes I'd like people to remember that I'm the customer. If you don't want to cooperate in being the vendor please don't be strident and please don't treat me like a child. Just face that you aren't pleasing me and move on.

Not having a good time of it. The exception is my computer guy who came over here Sunday and worked and worked on my computers but adamantly refused to take money because he was just "getting us back to where we were." I told him it was not his fault we had a hardware or software problem but he was adamant. I'll make it up to him, of course, but it so made me feel like a customer. And not a stupid customer who just didn't get it either.

Photo was taken in the Second Street District of the window at Mercury in April. That phrase 'Take a Seat' was used I'm sure to sell chairs but to me it has those overtones of "you are being ripped off so sit down and take it, customer." So I'm not sure I'd use it to sell even the handsomest of chairs.
</rant>