Today I also ordered some lucerne hay, straw, dynamic lifter and ag-lime for the weekends veggie garden activities. These are all being delivered tomorrow. I'd hate to be feeding a horse at the moment as the effects of the drought have been that hay and straw are exorbitantly priced at the moment.
I also picked up some 'greenfeast' pea seeds ready to plant this weekend.
I got a rude surprise on my email this week. Last week I cancelled a web hosting service that was surplus to requirements so that I wouldn't have to pay another year's fees. Tonight i found in my inbox an invoice stating I'd just paid 200 bucks for it. I called the service provider, got hung up on once and transferred about 4 times. They then gave me the run around a bit, but I guess my reputation for quickly losing my patience with anyone involved in a service industry that isn't on the ball started to show once again and some quick backflipping later I got another invoice through showing the 200 recredited to my account.
I don't mention this because I advocate for, or am proud of, the fact that I get impatient so quickly. In fact I consider it a personal character flaw but there is something about idiots in customer service that makes me crazy. Lets examine the case in point. Despite being assured last week by Jane that she had received my cancellation form and that it would be cancelled, today I was told by another lady that it wasn't cancelled because I had answered the security question incorrectly. The question? My mother's maiden name. After pronouncing it a few times and spelling it out for them, the 'customer service' lady informed me once again that I had it wrong and that they couldn't therefore cancel the service for which they were charging me $200. By this point I was perhaps over-emphatic in suggesting that I only had one mother, she only had one name and that given I knew her far better than they did that it was not inconceivable that they had it wrong, not I. Furthermore, that it was perhaps a little unreasonable to refuse to accept my identity but merrily accept my credit card in the same breath. Apparently this clever deductive reasoning convinced the customer service lady as to the legitimacy of my postulation. Descartes would have been very proud.
Besides being rude to people who irritate me, I'm also a bit of a poetry fan. Its ok, I've become comfortable with my own pretentiousness and grateful for those around me who put up with it. Anyway, knowing this, Ree gave me a book of Elizabethan poetry for my birthday. Sir Phillip Sidney. I think I mentioned it a few posts back...yes i did, but erroneouslt said it was 18th century when it is, in fact, 16th century. Anyway I thought I'd share a verse here for something a little different.
Since Nature's works be good, and death doth serve
As Nature's work, why should we fear to die?
Since fear is in vain but when it may preserve,
Why should we fear that which we cannot fly?
Until tomorrow.
1 comment:
So many things to comment on.
I still say that your car has only had problems since you let John drive it last time we were in Canberra. I have never heard a car make noises that he made your car make. Its like he is the car whisperer.
I look forward to eating you potatoes in January (and that is not a metaphor).
Your mention of your lack of patience with bad customer service is funny. I was imagining your tone while talking to the rep on the phone. It was very clear in my head.
You say that you consider your lack of patience with bad customer care as a flaw, but on the other side of the coin, its bad, probably worse when you are so used to being nice, that you cant even stand up to somebody who is obviously in the wrong. I sometimes get in a situation where I think to myself "I wish Dave was here, he would rip this nong a new one".
By the way. I loved the picture of the invisible cat.
Adam
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