Customer Guru

Last week, my computer died and was resuscitated three times in a single 24-hour period.

Given that the lack of a reliable computer renders me unable to make a living in my chosen field, I bowed to the inevitable: it was time for a new computer. The old one, after all, was just over four years old; about 96 in people-years, by my calculations.

I dreaded the change. It’s not that I’m particularly attached to that computer, but that it held the accumulated intelligence, archives and programs of at least three computers before it. The last time I made that kind of switch, I had a computer guru come to the house and magically transfer all my enormous amounts of data quickly and efficiently. By the time he was done, that computer could have almost prepared a mean cup of coffee.

This time, I wanted not only a transfer of data, but also help setting up a two-monitor system.

As it turned out, Mr. Helpful Guru had sold his business to someone else. I made arrangements with his replacement and went out to buy my new computer. Not being enamored of the big box store near me, I tried a different location.

A cheerful young man (Justin) offered his help. He listened carefully, found the exact items I wanted - he even knew what a translator did. On my way out, the store’s general manager met me at the door and handed me a thank-you card with his direct email address for any complaints. Then he called someone over to carry my purchases to my car.

Two hours later, Mr. New Guru arrived. As is my wont, I stuck out my hand. He looked at it a little nervously, then held his out in the general vicinity of mine. You couldn't say we actually shook hands: he observed while I bobbed our hands up and down a couple of times.

Then he followed me back to the desk where my old and new computers sat waiting on his magic. I offered him a glass of water. He said no, but could I please turn off “that music”. I dutifully turned off Celtic Woman.

Surveying my new purchase, he sighed. Deeply. “I suppose you use Outlook,” he said and when I nodded, his eyes rolled slightly. Perhaps involuntarily, I couldn’t be sure.

“What other programs do you have?” he asked. I began listing the nearly two dozen programs I use on a regular basis. In an aggrieved voice, he then proceeded to list for me the reasons why my project was a Difficult Burden and basically Doomed: Outlook was always complicated, all of my weird programs would slow down the system, I had a lot of data to transfer and, by the way, “you can’t have two monitors with this inferior computer that you bought.”

When he was done, it took all the will power I could muster to ask what he recommended as a solution. He informed me that he did not make recommendations, but that my options were to have a second VGA port installed in my inferior computer, or buy a decent computer.

To his credit, as I walked him to the door the unhappy man did stick out his hand and watch curiously as I once again shook it. I managed to make sure he was safely in his car and driving away before my self-control broke and the laughter took over.

Mr. New Guru is now Mr. Old Guru, and I’m not sure which of us is happier about it.

Back at the big box store, a helpful attendant carried the hapless computer to Customer Service to await a verdict. Their tech on duty, Matt, listened to my woes. Then he grinned. “Yes, you could buy a more expensive computer or pay us to install a second VGA port... or you could pay about $30 for an adapter and use the HDI port.

He rummaged around and triumphantly produced the necessary adapter, conveniently marked down to $18. “Oh,” he added, “About that second monitor? Here’s how you do it.” The lesson took under 5 seconds. I could have hugged him.

Later that evening, I pondered the different manifestations of customer service (or lack thereof) and how future choices are directly and indirectly affected by such passing moments as a friendly smile or rolled eyes. Basking in the glow of dual screens, I turned up the volume on Celtic Woman and popped in another program.

Mrs. No Guru, at your service.

Fatherly Advice

A couple of weeks ago, I pulled up my bank account online for a quick look. Even though I usually have a pretty accurate idea of what my balance is (or should be), there is a little voice inside my head that insists I actually check the account from time to time. It –the voice- sounds suspiciously like my father.

It has been embedded in my subconscious mind since the first time I managed a checking account. I was barely 15; we were living in the USA for a year and I had my first after-school job. Dad insisted that I open a student account. The idea was that he could help me learn how to be responsible with money well before I graduated from high school and had the potential to mismanage greater amounts. As it turned out, “great” is not an adjective that should ever be used in the context of my money management skills.

And so, my father’s patient admonition echoing down through time, I check my account online with some semblance of regularity.

Two weeks ago, I noticed an odd charge against my debit card: $14.95, purportedly for a “free” credit report from a particular credit agency. Since I have never ordered a credit report from that agency, free or otherwise, I called my bank. Another charge for $19.95, also for a “free” credit report was listed among the pending charges. Apparently, the free stuff gets more expensive the second time you don’t order it.

The bank immediately cancelled my card and refunded the $14.95. They couldn’t reverse the $19.95 charge because it was still pending. That would take a day or two and I should follow up accordingly.

Two days later, I checked, and the refund for $14.95 was listed, followed immediately by the debited charge of $19.95. I called the bank again and explained the sequence of events to a patient young man. (If they sound like they could be my son, I assume they’re “young men”. Since he called me “miss”, it’s likely he was actually my own age and thinks I sound like his daughter.)

The gentleman –see how deftly I move away from age- assured me the credit would be made promptly "in 2-3 days" and recommended that I check back later.

Three days went by and I revisted my account. There was the refund for $19.95. Followed by an extra one for $14.95.

The bank was now on speed dial. I informed the cheerful young agent that they had given me too much money. She gasped in shock and promptly transferred me to another department.

The next person to answer wanted my name, date of birth, mailing address and last four digits of my social security number; I was prepared to offer my children’s birth weights and 11th grade PSAT score if necessary. Once my identity was identified in sufficient detail, she asked, “What seems to be the problem?”

“You gave me too much money,” I said.

Silence. I don’t know if it was the concept of an honest customer or the mere suggestion that a bank might give back any more money than it had to, but in the lengthening hush I began to fear for the poor man who accidentally over-refunded me in the first place. I'm guessing he was shipped off to a retraining camp somewhere in French Guiana.

“We did what?” the woman asked, and I explained again: the initial $14.95, the later $19.95, the three refunds. She could be heard muttering as she went through my account. She called a supervisor who confirmed that they had, indeed, Goofed.

She thanked me for drawing attention to their error and I expected the standard, “Your account will reflect the change in the next 2-3 days.” Instead, she hung up. Out of curiosity, I went back online and looked – the mistaken refund had already been reversed.

Over the years, my father has given me a wealth of good advice to help me be productive and responsible. He didn't mention, entertained.

Too many balls in the air makes for a very full car

Six days past Epiphany and contrary to my custom, the Christmas tree is still up.

You see, sometime before Christmas, I did a little winter cleaning. No one was coming for the holidays and many of my clients were shut down. It was the perfect opportunity.

Then we decided to have a family gift exchange at my house. With time running out and no chance to run to the recycling center, I piled the recyclables in the trunk of my car to drop off later.

Around that time, a couple of interpreters went out of town for the holidays, causing a spate of panicked requests for someone to cover court cases. Figuring I might be able to swing by the Goodwill on my way to cover these last-minute assignments, I put a few bags in the back seat of the car.

A few days later, I took the bags back out – it was time for the annual Oma-Granddaughter-Borrowed Granddaughter Sleepover, which couldn’t be pushed out any further if we still wanted to claim the word “annual” in the title. The trunk was still full.

Somewhere in there, my dishwasher decided that umpteen-eleven was old enough, and quit.

The clothes washer died of empathy a few days later.

Also somewhere in there, a friend and I went to check out my parents’ old house. The workmen hired to paint and repair were done and it was time to get the house ready for sale. I’m no good at those details but Arline is, so off we went.

Maybe all the good ideas and planning alerted Murphy. Before we could do anything to the house, I came down with a bug. Not a 24-hour bug, mind you. The kind that makes you want to climb under the covers and whine for your mommy to bring you juice and a good book.

So I pulled my laptop into bed with me and doggedly plugged away at those projects, instead. They would have gone faster if it weren’t for the unexpected naps. Once, my son Adrian walked in and found me face-down on the laptop, snoring. He considerately turned the lights out and left me there.

Just as the bug was beginning to subside, the real estate agent told me that someone wanted to see the house. So I climbed out of my sick bed, marshaled the troops in the form of my offspring and daughter-in-law, and took off for Mom and Dad’s old place. We cleaned, scrubbed, vacuumed and mopped. Or rather, they did. I mostly lay on the couch and played queen.

We found two cupboards that I’d forgotten to clear out earlier. I told the kids what needed to stay in the house and asked them to put everything else in the back of my car.

After a while, Patrick came in and asked if he could use the front seat, too.

In less than four hours, the house was clutter-free and ready to be seen. My car, on the other hand, was filled half-way to the roof with cleaning products, vagrant curtain rods, throw rugs, a bucket of clothespins and countless other odds and ends.

The next night, the color on my ancient TV started to do things color shouldn’t do.

My fever let up two days later. Figuring that much of the stuff in my car was destined for Goodwill, I crammed those bags– the ones I’d removed to make room for granddaughters –into the overflowing back seat.

You would think I might have remembered all of this and postponed my trip to the grocery store.

You would think that somewhere a sane fragment of my brain might whisper that shopping bags have to be transported home.

You would be wrong.

Under the amused gaze of the employee herding shopping carts, I surveyed the garage-sale-on-wheels that is my car. I carefully stuffed bags of groceries into what nook and cranny I could find. And I swore that this year – this year – I will learn to keep a few less balls in the air at a time.

Right after I take down the ones still on the Christmas tree.

Hope and Años Viejos

In these last few hours of 2011, it’s time to build my Año Viejo.

I remember the dancing when I was little. Bands set up on corners throughout the city, neighbors and strangers coming together with a common sense of excitement, of change.

Concession stands sold every kind of treat. Children dressed as “widows” of the Año Viejo (old year) ran through the streets asking grown-ups for a coin to help them through the year. If the adult refused, the “widow” might hit them with her sock full of sand. When I was five, my friend Ruby and I wanted to join in this version of “trick or treat”. We snuck out and went to the market by ourselves to buy a mask. Turned out, we only had enough money for one mask. Unable to decide whether to share the mask or cut it in half, we spent the money instead on hard candy which we promptly had to hide from our parents who were unaware of our illicit excursion.

I remember the Años Viejos, those effigies of people or events that define the outgoing year. Sorrows, loss, crises, joys: representations of the Year and all it brought were staged on little palm-fringed stands along the city streets.

Tonight, I remember and sketch my own image of 2011.

First, a figure of Death standing in a big empty spot, like the one left by my brother-in-law who passed away in March.

Next, Age and its conflict of emotions. Mom resting her head on my shoulder as I used to do on hers. Dad quietly leaving me to work during my visit, unwittingly an echo of my childhood self watching patiently at the study door while he worked. Son moving home again; parents and children, tracing the continuity of life.

Instead of palm fronds, I lace my stage with travel. Journeys to reconnect and introduce my children to my other home. The long drive north with my parents to their retirement home, the short flight back alone. The chance to discover a new city with old friends.

Frustrations, accomplishments, little joys and big, times I let myself down and times I disappointed others, laughter – oh, so much laughter! It’s all laid out across the floor.

I remember the stroke of midnight, the fireworks and the Años Viejos pulled down and set on fire. The past crumbled into ashes as we watched. Memory-laden smoke rose, whispering through the night. The crowds erupted into cheers. The Year is dead. Long Live the Year.

On the stroke of midnight my paper Año Viejo curls into ashes. The candle smoke carries memories on the night wind and with a prayer and a sense of excitement and change, I will let go.

Long live 2012!

Philadelphia - a tribute

Twelve years ago, I flew to Philadelphia to meet some dear friends. I didn’t know what most of them looked like, nor they me. But we had laughed (so much!) and cried together, talked about life, swapped recipes, studied Gaelic, and I knew I would recognize them on the inside.

Back then I was a single mom. Since I didn’t want to leave my children with a babysitter much, but dearly needed adults to talk to from time to time – outside the politics of work, that is - I joined a chatroom peopled by others of Irish descent or affinity, in search of conversation. What I found was a close-knit group of friends. There was the nurse in Maine, the florist in Pennsylvania, the retired professor in Québec City, Herself (and stories of Himself), a Swede with an Irish echo. There were siblings and cousins and strangers and the one thing that bound us all together was our little chat room online.

That weekend in Philadelphia in the summer of ’99 we came together, those who could, for some in-person time.

I told Betsy about a guy I’d recently met; I knew in my gut that he was something special. Linda and Jeff struck up a friendship. We made the rounds of a few pubs guided by a local member of our room. And two days later we all hugged and said goodbye.

Last night, the airline put me up at a hotel in Philadelphia after a missed connection. It’s the first time I’ve been back to Philly since that weekend in 1999. The chat room system closed down a few months later. I married my special guy and had five wonderful years with him before he died. Linda and Jeff got married and have a granddaughter. Betsy’s teenagers are now wonderful adults. We still hear stories of Himself, and Rebekah found her echo in the professor from Québec City.

So here’s to you, Stargazer, Webby, Angharod, LadyB, Petey, Liam Seamroige, and the rest. Forgive me if I misspell your old names. I’ve known you a long time now by your “proper” ones, but the fact that you’re still a special part of my life makes me want to pull out those old screen names and dust them off again.

Slainte! And please pass the chardonnay.

New Girl About Town

I stood in the doorway of my garage this week and watched a tow-truck haul the Brown Goddess away. She went without a whimper, but only because her engine was off and the keys tucked inside the driver’s bag.

Actually, she never whimpered. It wasn’t her style. She grumbled, creaked, squeaked and occasionally squealed, but self-pity was not in the old girl. The paint on her roof was faded. Her transmission was failing, fuel injection hiccupping, the ignition was wonky and the mechanic suspected a broken strut. I might have gotten a couple hundred dollars for her as a trade-in but that seemed like an insult to the old girl. Instead, I donated her to the Dallas CAN! Academy.

Before she started the Great Inanimate Conspiracy against me, the Brown Goddess provided safe passage for my granddaughters and bore the stain on her ceiling of a slurpee-gone-wild incident. She was with me as my children left the nest and one got married, there when my parents moved. The Brown Goddess had room for loved ones, worked harder than she should have. She didn’t always get the maintenance needed to be at her best.

Kind of like me. Middle-aged, fading despite the wonders of Garnier, working more, taking less time than needed for the things that keep me going.

Buying her replacement took tenacity and a thick skin. Twice, salesmen looked at me in surprise when I explained that yes, I actually could drive a stick, thank you. Mostly, they treated me as a middle-aged, fading woman who probably had bunions inside those sensible shoes.

I searched the web and prowled car lots. And then, one night, there she was: a little, blue Honda Civic Hybrid. A pretty car, just barely inside my price range; small, park-able and thrifty at the gas station. I said a prayer and called the dealership.

The salesman talked to me like an intelligent woman who probably didn’t worry about sensible shoes, then made sure the car was still available. First thing the next morning, we drove over to the sister dealership and picked up my car. Paperwork was signed – a mere formality because it was my car from the moment I turned on that engine. With the shape of the interior and the angle of the seat and the console lights blazing, it was obviously only a car on the outside. Inside, it was a Cosmic Space Pod. Move over, Spaceman Spiff*, there’s a new girl in town.

She’s parked out in the garage now, where the Brown Goddess used to patiently wait. My environmentally-friendly low-budget midlife-crisis with the grownup exterior and a world of imagination inside.

Kind of like me.

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*Calvin and Hobbes©

The Ones who Wait

There's a parable in the Bible that has always caused me a bit of a hiccup. It's the one about the workers being hired throughout the day and being paid the same at the end. It flies in the face of everything our culture considers right, just and fair. If you work harder and produce more than someone else, you should be compensated accordingly, right?

On the other hand, my assumption when reading the parables of Jesus is that if something seems "off", the fault lies with my perspective.

This morning's sermon was on that parable. As the pastor developed the story, she said something that really caught my ear. She talked about the guys who waited until the very end. And all of a sudden, I could see it:

It's dawn, and 50 men congregate at the marketplace. The landowner has sent out an all-points-bulletin: "Be at the market by dawn and wait to be hired." And they come.

Jim and his buddies are lean, athletic, confident they'll be hired.

Over to the side, there's Carl and his crew; less showy but steady, hardworking men.

Josh and his team, they're young and just starting to make a name for themselves among the landowners.

Sam just lost his job at the local flour mill, but he's willing to learn about vineyards and the Good Lord knows he's got a family to feed at home; he hangs around with some of the other men laid off from the mill.

And then there's Joe and his pal Fred. Not in the best of shape, not the sharpest knives in the drawer, but Joe's a good guy and Fred tries, God bless 'im.

At 6:00, Jim and his buddies are hired. They negotiate sharply and settle on a fair wage.
At 9:00, Carl and his crew are added. They know their worth, and trust the landowner to be fair.
At 12:00, Josh and his team finally get their chance. They forget to ask about the pay.
At 3:00, Sam and his band of misplaced mill hands get picked up. They're grateful; a little pay is better than none.

And Joe and Fred wait.

They don't go home.

They don't give up. They're supposed to be at the market waiting to be hired and that's exactly where they are.

One hour before quitting time, the foreman comes for Joe and Fred.

Most of us know how the parable ends. The payroll clerk hands Joe and Fred the amount Jim had negotiated. When they see the misfits get full pay, the rest begin to envision the nice bonuses they'll surely get - they, who actually worked hard all day. But there is no bonus, just the same pay negotiated at the start of the day.

I'd be upset right along with Jim, and I would be wrong: because it was never about Me or my accomplishments. It was about the Landowner and the worth He places on my trust and willingness, and Jim's, and Carl's, and Josh's, and Sam's and Joe's and Fred-God-bless-im's.

Even - especially - if it means sitting rejected at the marketplace all day.