Self Magazine Hates Us

Much has been written about the whole Kelly Clarkson airbrushing fiasco and I really don’t have much to say that hasn’t already been said about this ridiculous situation, but I had to make one point.

Here’s the fabulous, talented, lovely Kelly Clarkson:

and here:

And here’s the woman who stands by the decision to airbrush Kelly, thereby telling all of us, that we’re just not good enough, Lucy Danziger:

Who would you rather look like?

‘Nuff said.

One Bad Apple

No, this isn’t another post about the recently deceased pop star, it’s about my rapidly deteriorating relationship with Apple.  Apparently, I’m not the only one.  Look at the Google Results… Yikes, right?

Anyway…

On July 9th, as previously mentioned, I drove about 80 miles to drop my Macbook Pro off to have a defective video card replaced.  This is a known issue, so the repair didn’t cost me anything.  As per Dave, in the Altamonte Springs store, I would have my laptop back to me within 6 days, although my receipt says that it would only be a 3-5 day turnaround.  That was a Thursday and somehow the machine didn’t make it to the repair center until Monday.  Ok, fine - it was a weekend, maybe they didn’t get it out in Thursday’s pick up.  I check the support website on Monday and on Tuesday and it says, “on hold waiting for part”.  I call the support line and a rep tells me that she doesn’t know why the support says that, that her end is showing that they have the part, and it’s in diagnostics being repaired.  When the support site still says on Wed that they’re waiting for the part., I call and speak to a young woman in Canada, who says that, no they didn’t get the part and that it’s still on hold and she has no idea why another rep would tell me that it’s anything different.  She tells me that she’ll “accelerate the repair” and do a global search for the part.  If this is a known issue, why do we have to do a global search for the part?  And why do I have to call to have an “accelerated repair”, shouldn’t they be repairing them as fast as they can just because, I don’t know… we paid $3,000.00 for them and this is the second known issue with a defective part?  The first one was the battery, which I was lucky enough to experience as well.  She assures me that the part will be in on Thursday morning,  and that the repair will be completed and the computer shipped, Thursday or Friday at the very latest.

On Thursday (late morning), I check the website and it still says that they’re awaiting the part.  I call and speak to probably the most arrogant Apple employee I’ve ever encountered.  Up until now everyone has been very polite and friendly, even if they didn’t do what they said they were going to.  This guy is rude.  I explain to him (never once raising my voice, which was VERY hard for me) and I say that this is really unacceptable.  He tells me that there is nothing he can do and asks if he can answer any other questions for me.  Written out like that, it seems like a very polite way to end the conversation, doesn’t it?  The problem is that the sarcasm was fairly dripping off the question.  At this point, I’m extremely frustrated and more than a bit angry.

Within an hour I get a phone call from Apple, from a gentlemen who tells me he’s been assigned to my “accelerated repair”.  He says that the part has been located and received, that the repair is being done as we speak and that if it doesn’t ship that night, that it will definitely ship on Friday (at this point, I don’t believe anything that anyone from Apple says to me), but when I check Thursday evening, the site says that the repair is complete and the product is “pending return”.  I’m beyond thrilled.

On Friday, I check and it still says “pending return”.  I call again and I’m told by a delightful young man who says “aboot” and “oot” and I love a good accent and.. what?  Oh yeah, the computer.  Anyway, he tells me that his update says that it’s complete and shipped and there isn’t a tracking number yet  because they update that in the evenings and I should check back later that night.

I checked this morning and it still says, “pending return”, so I call yet again and this time I’m told that the repair will be complete by Monday.  What? Are you kidding me? I explain to them everything that I’ve been told all along and they apologize (which sounds an awful lot like bullshit at this point) and tell me that there’s really nothing that they can do because all the repair centers are closed on the weekends.  “Ok” I say, “then why does the support site (and the automated call in line for that matter) say that the repair has been completed and the product will be shipped shortly?”  No one can answer that and the supervisor that gets on the line says, “the site needs to be updated, I guess”.  Um no, it would appear that the site needs to be “downdated”, since it’s ahead of what you’re telling me the actual situation is.

Really this is just unacceptable.  I have purchased a Macbook Pro, 2 iPhones, 6 iPods and had planned in the next six months to purchase an iMac and a Macbook.  I have to say though that I’m seriously reconsidering.  Has Apple become too big to properly service its customers?  Have they hired too many people and can’t effectively train them?  Or is it simply that they’re no longer interested in providing “award winning” customer service?  Because they are certainly not going to win any awards from this particular situation.

Still In Limbo

As I sit and wait for my laptop to be returned to me, I get more and more frustrated.   So far, Apple has told me three untruths.  I won’t say that they lied to me, because I still love them, but right now I don’t like them very much. At this point they say that they’re doing a “global search” for the part, but I find that really hard to believe.   The woman I spoke to this morning said that they’re going to make me a priority now.  My question is, “Why wasn’t I a priority in the first place?”, but I digress.

 I’m typing this from my husband’s laptop because not blogging at all is harder than blogging from a PC.  However, I can’t create a post with all the pretty pictures like I usually do, because Photoshop is on the Mac, as well as the library of photos that I cull from.  I guess I could connect my camera to the PC, but the thought of trying to get things done on this machine is more than I can bear.   The good news is that I’ve packed a ton of boxes and we’re in really good shape on that front.

Anyway, I’ve got some really great things going on behind the scenes here!  While I pack for our move at the end of this month, I’ve got some really exciting things for you too!  First of all, I think I’m going to have some invitations to beta test a really cool online game.  It looks like a lot of fun.  Then I’ve got an amazing giveaway that I really think everyone is going to love and as always I’ve got a couple of recipes up my sleeve that are absolutely delicious, if I do say so myself.  

So, while I sit and stew wait for my beloved mac to find its way home, I do hope that you’ll pardon my disappearance and come back in a few days for the fun stuff!

My Achilles Ear

I have another ear infection.  No, that’s not right.  I may have an alleged ear infection. See, you can’t really tell and they could prescribe anti-biotics, but I hate anti-biotics and think we over use them.  If I have an obvious infection that I can’t seem to shake, I’ll consider them, but other than that, I don’t want them.  Even when they prescribe something they can’t be sure if it’s the anti-biotic that got rid of it, or if whatever it is just left when it ran its course.  Unfortunately, I get these a lot.  I’m a 44 year old woman who is prone to agonizing, swollen, fluid filled, ear… situations. And I have to tell you, it has made me a real advocate for babies with earaches born to parents who don’t get them. It’s excruciating.

Last night I felt it coming on.  My ear started to sound squishy and I could feel a certain warmth deep down in the ear canal.  Uhoh.  I went to bed about 12:40 and fell asleep easily although I remember my last thought being something about how it sounded like the ocean in my ear.  At 5:40 this morning, the pain and the pressure woke me up. I’m so familiar with waking up like that - I hate it.   I’m useless today. There’s so much fluid in my head and everything is loud, but I’m having trouble differentiating between the noises. If I lower the television, I can’t hear it at all, but it’s like some sort of audio depth perception problem.  I can’t read because I’m in too much pain to concentrate on a book, and I’m not really sick, so I don’t need to sleep.  I’m just miserable and bored and cranky and hurting.

I put some homeopathic ear drops in the ear.  It’s a glycerin drop and it feels like a thick oily post nasal drip, except it’s coming from my ear, not my nose.  I’ve had warm compresses on it on and off all day.  It still really hurts.  Another lovely side effect is that my equilibrium is a bubble off plumb.  So yeah, I’m seriously useless today.  Jim’s supposed to be off at 6 tonight, and he’ll bring home dinner. but I’m not counting on his actual arrival at any set time.  In the meantime I’ve enlisted my children’s help.  The upside is that it’s really nice that these kids actually like taking care of me. It’s funny.

Any other ideas out there for homeopathic ear ache remdies?  You know, that won’t make me lose my hearing?  Thanks.

Fast Food Chain Closings in Ocala

An article in Ocala’s Star Banner this morning, talks about two recent fast food chain locations closing in the the past week. The article blames the economic climate as the main factor for the store closings, but I beg to differ.  While I’m not exactly their target customer, I am not above a quick drive through meal once or twice a month.  If we’re being honest, I quite enjoy a Big Mac now and again.  Also, I’m very big on supporting our local economy and entrepreneurs.  I visited each of these restaurants a total number of once and I’m here to tell you it wasn’t the economy that shut them down.

The first of these to open and the first to close was Whatabuger, a franchise that I was unfamiliar with when it opened here in Ocala and I found myself, one early afternoon, on my way to a homeschool playdate, running late and without the bag lunch that we were supposed to bring.  Whattaburger was not far out of our way, so I decided we’d give it a shot. We ordered two Whataburger meals and one Whataburger Jr. Meal, each came with fries and a soda.  I utilized the drive through option and the woman who waited on us was so rude and nasty that if I wasn’t in such a hurry I would have stopped in and complained to the manager.  The store was not at all busy, as far as I could see there was no one in the dining room and there was only one car in front of us at the drive through, yet we still had to pull over and wait about 15 minutes for our order.  The woman who brought it out wasn’t exactly friendly. In retrospect, I actually did have time to complain, but I didn’t and  I pulled away, now very late for our commitment and didn’t look at the sandwiches till we got there.  The sandwiches were so poorly constructed that they wouldn’t stay together and there was so much mayonnaise on the bun that we had to borrow a knife to scrape it off.  It seemed that they didn’t even try to stack the sandwich properly, you’d almost think that they had to actually try to make this so bad.  I threw mine out and if you knew how much I hate waste, you’d know it must have been really bad.  I never went there again.

Backyard Burger was a much anticipated opening - they claim that their burgers are as good as if you grilled them yourself and while I didn’t think they would be quite that good, I was hoping for a little more sophisticated alternative to the McDonalds/Burger King route. Once again, running late, I didn’t have time for lunch if I was going to get my children to guitar lessons on time.  I raced down Easy Street, dropped the kids off and thought I’d grab a burger.  I pulled into Back Yard Burger, where I was the only customer.  I ordered the Mushroom Swiss burger (one of my favorites, usually) and the seasoned fries.  The women at the window, while not rude like our friend at Whataburger, certainly wasn’t friendly.  You know what?  We all have to do our jobs, right?  And if you’re taking my money, smile and say thank you.  She didn’t.  The burger, while more edible than the one above, seemed to have been quick grilled and then put in an oven to finish.  The meat had that gray tinge that you get if you don’t sear beef before roasting it.  The fries were soggy and cold and needless to say, I never went there again either.

Please know that I’m not taking these closings lightly, people are out of work because of them and I completely empathize.  Especially in a slow down economy, if you’re going to be in business, make sure your employees are treating your customers well, thanking us as they take our money and being polite and friendly.  Make sure that your product is fresh and hot and make sure that your customers don’t feel like they’ve been fleeced when they leave your establishment.

Let’s not whine about how we didn’t have time to build a following before the recession, let’s try to make ourselves stand out in a sea of mediocrity.  There are businesses that are still making money in this economy and especially if you provide a lower cost meal alternative for families that can’t really afford to go to a sit down restaurant at this point in time, you’re in a good position to make some money.

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