The Perfect Song Blog

FYE has some problems with customer relations.
FYE takes in DVD’s and CD’s for store credit. So, in November, I took some  DVD’s  over to my local FYE on a Saturday afternoon.
A young man at the counter politely  explained that they don’t take trades on the weekend. It’s too busy. Come back during the week. I nodded and said I would, thanks.
I work weekdays  so it was a few weeks later when I had a free evening and made a special trip back to FYE with my DVD’s.
Another employee, a pleasant young man, said, “I’m sorry but we’re not taking any trades now until after Christmas. Our stock is too full.”
I was mildly irritated but understood.
A few nights ago I tried it again. I walked in at 8:05 p.m.
I plopped my booty  on the counter. Before I could say a word, a rather forceful young woman shook her head: “We don’t take trades after 8 o’clock.”
I’m a mild mannered guy, patient. To a point.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“No,” the woman said. “Not after 8. It’s store policy.”
A young man next to her, ringing up a customer, said, “It’s company policy. It’s always been that way.”
I felt my face get hot. “Do you have any other little rules and policies you haven’t mentioned? This is my third trip here.”
“No,” the girl said. “We have to process them and that’s why we don’t take them after 8.” She saw my anger and softened. “We take them during the day and even Friday nights — before 8.”
I walked out without another word.” I’ve never done that before.
But they did everything wrong. The girl, while not confrontational, was not friendly. She was the epitome of the cold bureaucrat “just following orders,” just adhering to “company policy.”
Anyone in PR or marketing knows that she should have been — right or wrong –  apologetic:  “I’m sorry no one explained that to you . . . I’m sorry you had to make three trips in. . . .”
Her partner should have kept his mouth shut. First, he was dealing with his own customer and should have been paying full attention to him. The customer should not have been put in an uneasy position of now being part of something unpleasant.
And please, don’t ever, ever tell me “it’s always been that way.”
Though the kid didn’t mean it to be, it’s condescending. It inherently says, “you’re new to this game and you didn’t play by our rules– rules that we’ve always had.”
Yes, I’m new to bringing in DVD’s for credit but I’ve been a customer with FYE and its predecessor, Record Town, for longer than these two clerks have been alive.
I’ve spent thousands of dollars in this place.
I do not blame the clerks. I blame management. There are holes in the training.

Isolated case?  Maybe, but there shouldn’t be isolated cases in customer relations.

This was bad customer relations.  Bad public relations.  Bad marketing.

Business is business. Right?

Not when you’re dealing with people.

I had to go grocery shopping Saturday  because we scheduled Christmas shopping for Sunday, two events that have all the potential of purgatory.

In Sam’s Club I needed bird seed.  I roamed the aisles, remembering only when it was a special display in the middle of the outdoor section.  I finally broke down and asked an associate.  She thought a minute.  “It’s in the dog food aisle.”

Dog food. The bird seed’s with dog food.  I wanted to say, “Okay, I need new skivvies.  I suppose they’re in hardware?”  But I didn’t, figuring she’d scan my body and banish me to the software section.

Found the bird seed, pretty much buried between mountains of dog and cat food.

Over to Tops. I found what I needed without much incident except for the food sticker shock of $140 for a few bags of food.  Outside, an old man threw slices of bread to the seagulls who swooped and fluttered and fought for each slice, totally ungrateful to their benefactor.  I’ve seen him before and need to get some pictures.

It could make some neat shots:  A dumpy but caring little guy and a white cloud of birds snatching supplies offered for a limited time only.

Over to Dollar General, which takes me through the empty parking lot of a deserted WalMart.  The traffic on Rt. 64 which has grown from a pot-holed two-lane over the years to a  five lane, is packed with traffic which inches forward at the mechanical whim of the traffic lights.

Someone runs a stop sign.  Another is pulled over by the Sheriff.  Drivers honk angrily if someone doesn’t start up fast enough.  Why is it that the season of peace and love brings out all the angry, impatient people?

I leave dollar bills at every Salvation Army post even though I hate the idea of people standing around ringing a bell at  store entrances and exits, dinging up your guilt whether you fight it or not.  Today I had to take our plastic bags into the Tops recycling center.

The Salval point was an entire outpost with what appeared to be a large family supporting each other and making the silly small talk that groups of people do when they’re doing something new and having more fun than the situation calls for.  They mixed “excuse me’s” with “Merry Christmas” as they parted to let me through.

Coming back out I made my way through them to push a buck into the pot and they all yelled “Merry Christmas,” a phrase which has become a seasonal replacement for “Have A Nice Day.”

Back home a friend posted on his Facebook that as he paid  for some gift items at a box store, the cashier got her belly button ring caught in the cash register.

Where, I asked him, was his cell phone?  That could have been a picture worth a thousand hits.

I wear a turquoise ring on the third finger of my right hand. I’ve had it for a couple decades. I discovered it in a kiosk in our local mall.

I have long, thin fingers and most men’s rings are too large, but I tried it on and it fit as if it were made just for me.

I thought it was too expensive, though,  and put it back.
I stopped by two weeks later. The price on it had dropped 25%. I decided if it was made for me, it would wait for me.
Sure enough, in another two weeks the ring was still there with an even greater discount.
I took a calculated risk, waited until it dropped another 15%. . . and bought it.
Over the years, many people have commented on it and asked me if I bought it out west. I’m always  honest and tell them the real story, which, in a mystical way, I think is much more interesting.

This ring waited for me!

In every single case I watch their expressions of anticipation melt into disappointment. They want to hear about a New Mexico Indian reservation and how I bought it from a native American artisan in the quiet glow of the sun setting over the golden plains.

That’s the image attached to turquoise.  It’s embedded so deeply into our minds and culture that any other story is a disappointment.

I recently became a trustee at our regional public broadcasting station.  Before a meeting I was talking with another newly named board member, a man obviously very cultured and well-traveled.  Making conversation he pointed to my ring: “I see you’ve been to Santa Fe.”

I thought it over quickly.  “Yes, I have.”  It wasn’t a lie.    We began exchanging stories of our travels there, the jewelry, how Santa Fe has grown, the beauty of New Mexico.

Some brands are so strong  that the myth is reality.

And the truth is just not worth the disappointment.

Sunday Branden hauled out his box of graphic novels and proceeded to give me a quick overview and rating of each one or each series.  He brought in a second box that I didn’t even know about, reviewed and rated those.  I stood there divided: his reviews were so enticing I wanted to read all of them while the other part of me realized I’ll never live long enough to read all of them.

He had brought back CDs that he had borrowed and I told him to go up to my library and find more.  He came back a half hour later with a box full.  “I’m borrowing all your Emmylou Harris CDs if that’s okay.”  Mildly stunned, I said sure. He had about three dozen others.

“Man, you have a lot of Cds, like thousands!”  I nodded.  “You have enough to like apply for a grant for a project!”

He left around noon.  I moved into action, feeling like a student who’s put off his homework until the last day.  I repotted plants, mowed the lawn, weed whacked, cleaned out the kennel and scattered fresh straw.  I ran over to ProMart and bought siding for the shed.

Leigh and I both made supper.  Cleaned up, played with the dogs and began reading one of the graphic novels, The Preacher, and Monday Morning Mentor, an assignment for work.

So I accomplished about half of what I wanted.  It was an ambitious list so I’m fairly happy.  The one thing I didn’t mention in previous posts that I found myself, slowing down, sometimes just watching the clouds or appreciating the beauty of our wooded property with the flower and vegetable gardens, and sometimes just feeling the natural, quiet buzz of a slower pace, outside.

I took my brother Terry’s advice and had a couple night caps and sat on the deck feeling the peaceful power of the night, trying, as Blake advised, to “hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.”

It was good.

I noticed that in both Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart many of the associates are very heavy middle aged women who walk with a limp.  I suppose this is from carrying too much weight unevenly distributed.

I’ve had enough of retail stores for one week.

Branden arrived 11:30 Friday night.  He came in lugging a box of probably 100 graphic novels.  “I picked out ones I thought you’d like.  This weekend I’ll go over them with you and give you an overview of each one.”  We talked awhile and I sent him to bed.

I like to put my overnight guests to work if at all possible.  It gives them a sense of contributing and helps me get jobs done faster.  So Saturday after breakfast, I broke the news to him that we were going to seal the north deck. “It’ll be a big help and give us a chance to talk,” I said.

He was all for it and he did most of the talking.  Most of it was about being a middle school teacher in the paranoid 21st century full of helicopter parents and fearful teachers.  “One kid got mad at me and said in class that I acted like a pedophile,” Branden said.  “I sent him immediately to the principal’s office.  You have to deal with that stuff immediately or the gossip starts spreading and you could lose your job.  The principal called the parents.  The kid’s father was a cop.  The father said his son didn’t know what he was saying and that I should rescind my punishment of not letting the kid go on a special field trip.  The principal said he would back me no matter what my decision.  I decided to let the punishment stay.  The father insinuated that I’d better never do anything wrong in his town.”

He was full of stories about life in the middle school, making me count my blessings I’m in higher education.

Later he took off for a wedding.  I worked around the house, played with the dogs, made supper and cleaned up.  Leigh spent the day working on the last of the sidewalk.

When Branden returned, he was ready to watch movies, as many as we could fit in.  I didn’t want to be up until 3 so we went downstairs at 7:30.  He spread the dvd’s out and gave me his personal ratings of each one.  I chose The Old Dark House with Boris Karloff, The Island of Lost Souls with Bela Legosi and The Fly with Jeff Goldblum which I had asked him to bring.

The two old movies were fun and interesting.  Good stories with no special effects.  Lost Souls had monsters much scarier than today’s creatures that cost millions in make up and special effects.  I was pleasantly surprised at how good The Fly was. (It earned an amazing 91% approval on Rotten Tomatoes).  Hard to believe it was made in 1986.

Accomplished:  sealing the deck.

One day to go.

Thursday, after breakfast, I ran over to Lowe’s again.  I should know every employee there by their first name by now.

Back at noon.  Called my mother to see if she’d be home.  She said she was busy planning a new kitchen but Anthony was there.  Anthony was a skinny little Latino kid who stayed at my parent’s home every summer as a Fresh Air kid.  He was sweet and smart and our family became as important as his broken-home inner city family.

He had already been at my mother’s three days and was getting ready to leave.  “Stay, and I’ll be there in a half hour,” I said.  I packed in a cabbage and lettuce from our garden for Mom and took off for Pine City.

Anthony, now 40, is no longer skinny.  He works out everyday and has a body tone like Rambo.  But it came after years of drinking, smoking and a long, painful divorce.  Now he’s upbeat, positive and determined to live fully.  Our conversation was brief but intense.

Mom was into picking out cabinets for her kitchen with the kitchen planner so I dropped off the produce and left, happy that my 80-year-old mom is planning a new kitchen.

Drove up to Turks produce and bought vegetables and a bale of straw for the dog kennel.

Found out Branden Wood is planning to come down from New Hampshire for the weekend and stay with us.  At first I panicked, thinking all my plans for my two final days would be altered, but the more I thought about it the more I looked forward to it.  Of all the guys in my son Nathan’s high school circle, Branden was the brightest and most offbeat.

Nathan’s circle was a pack of guys who were (and are) musicians, writers, artists, kids who reveled in the creative process and drove each other to create.  It was an intense, joyous group.

All of them today are working musicians, artists, media folks, except Branden, who became a teacher in middle school, a brilliant teacher whose teaching methods drove a left hook into the establishment  (more on him some other time).

At the same time, Branden can talk and talk, not about himself, but his profession and our shared interest in music, movies, politics and literature.  There is 30 years difference in our ages, but when we talk on these things, we’re both on the same level of enthusiasm.

Made supper of sausage (local meat from organically fed stock) onions and peppers and tossed salad.

Since the day was already shot, I loaded the dogs into the Jeep and drove to Tops to do the weekly grocery shopping.

By the time I returned, it was dark. Read, wrote and crashed.

Not sure, but I don’t think I accomplished anything on my to-do list.

I really screwed up.  I forgot I had a meeting today.  I was asked to serve on the board of trustees of WSKG Public TV/Radio and agreed.  Today was an orientation meeting of new trustees.  I left at 9:30 and headed for Endicott, NY, an hour and 15 minute drive.  Returned at 3p.m.

Listened to podcasts on the way up and back — No Agenda, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me and Science Friday.  And 10 minutes of Rush Limbaugh, just to see where he’s at these days.

The day, pretty much, was gone.  I transplanted a couple plants, played with the dogs and made supper (poor man’s lobster, brown rice and tossed salad with lettuce and tomatoes from the garden).

Played with the dogs and spent time looking for Bongo, Nathan’s cat, who decided, apparently, that he is going to camp out in the woods tonight.

Came up to the office and wrote the report for work, checked my two email accounts, answered emails, checked Facebook, Huffington Post, and Twitter.

Leigh has a short soundtrack for one of her videos that needs to be tweaked.

End of day.

I’m running out of time.

Ended last night watching an American Masters documentary on Neil Young.  Never followed him that much but I admire his artistic integrity and social efforts.

Up at 9 a.m. Fixed breakfast and played with the dogs.  Because heavy thunderstorms were forecast, Leigh and I went out and measured the walk to see what more materials we needed.  I drove to Lowe’s and picked up bricks, leveling sand and a few plants for my bonsai collection.

On the way back I stopped at a local farm market and bought local corn, tomatoes and onions.  The thick-set woman behind the counter was complaining of the heat and humidity.  I did the standard “Well, it will be January before you know it.”

Usually people say, “Yeah, and we’ll be complaining about the cold.”

The woman nodded.  “I like January.  At least in winter you can put more clothes on.  In in the summer you can only take so much off.”  She pulled on her baggy dress to press her point.  What I saw in my mind was not pretty and I quickly agreed that we should leave some clothes on.

Followed signs to a local farmers market in Big Flats and bought a hot pepper bush.

Worked on the walkway thought it was 95 degrees and humid.  It was so muggy the rocks were sweating.

I took a break from the walkway and mowed the lawn with my brand new lawn mower which broke.  This is the second new mower in a month.  I’ll do a separate post because Sears is selling junk.  Kids’ toys are built better than this brand of mower.  A toothpick lasts longer than this $350 machine.

Helped Leigh on the walkway and finished it at 3:30.  Here’s a photo

Tossed a chicken I had grilled Sunday into the oven and went out and weed whacked for 45 minutes.  Came in a watched and listened to one of the loudest thunderstorms I’ve heard in years.  The dogs quietly skulked off to safe hiding spots.

Supper.  Down to local grocery to buy eggs for breakfast.

Up to studio to record three radio commercials, edit and mix them.

At the end of the day: two things on my list accomplished.

I may watch Family Guy tonight.

Looking back on the results of the first day of my Vacation Experiment, I need to make some radical alterations.

First, I slept til 9:30.  It felt really good.  I had an internal battle with myself whether to get up early or enjoy sleeping late.  The beauty of internal battles with yourself is that you always win.

Leigh had to go to the chiropracter at 10 so I harvested coriander off my five-foot high cilantro bush.  Nathan didn’t have to go to work until noon so when he got up we had coffee and conversation on the deck overlooking the flagstone patio and flower gardens.

Played with the dogs until they gave up in the heat.  By 10:30 it was 80 degrees.

Leigh returned.  I fixed breakfast of sausage and eggs.  By the time we finished and had coffee on the deck it was 11:30.

THe day was already half over.

We’re laying a new sidewalk of patterned concrete blocks in the meditation garden and two had to be trimmed.  I had put off the trimming until today.  While laying some last night I dropped one of the 30 pound blocks on my finger.  I little vitamin E took the swelling down and healed the cut but it took a few shots of medicine last night to make it feel like a normal finger again.

I approached the blocks with equal amounts of caution, measuring tape, hammer and chisel.  They cut very nicely and I left the project in relief that it worked.  By now it was 1:30 p.m. and 90 degrees.

Gathered up the garbage, loaded the dogs into the Jeep and headed for the transfer station where I pay $3 for a bag to put everything in and throw away, except the recyclable stuff.

Talked to Frank, a retired engineer, whose wife died four years ago.  He sits in a trailer in the transfer station and sells the official county trash bags. It is this and his garden that continually shade some meaning into his life.

He loved his wife deeply and when she died he lost his will to live.  His children brought him back around.  He loves to talk to his customers.  We talk about the art and luck of growing tomatoes, kids, weather, work and occasionally life and death.

The few minutes each week we talk means a lot to both of us.

By the time we returned home it was around 95 degrees so I decided not to mow the law.  Went back to the deck and read a New Yorker article about the Kindle, asking myself every paragraph if this was a waste of time since I will never buy borrow or even look at a Kindle. I have no interest.

Changed my sweat soaked t-shirt and hopped in the Nissan, drove to Corning for my chiropractic appointment, and listened to the latest episode of On The Media on my iPod Touch.

Back home, fixed supper of grilled steaks, mashed potatoes and spinach, lettuce and tomatoes from the garden.

Cleaned  up after supper, ran to the local grocery for some things, came home, watered plants and gardens, played with the dogs and came in to catch up on emails, Facebook, Twitter, Huffington Post.

I look back on my list.  I accomplished one part of the sidewalk.

That was it.  Nothing more.

Okay, let’s see if Tuesday is any more fruitful.

This is nothing new except for writing it down.  I’m on vacation this week.  So I’m going to write a list of all the things I want to accomplish.  At the end,   I’ll do a post on what I actually did do and what I did that I didn’t plan on.  Here it is:

-Seal the north deck

-Finish the walkway in the meditation garden

-dry mint, basil, peppers and catnip

-mow the lawn and weedwhack around the property (a couple acres; sometimes I feel like a groundskeeper)

-read PC World, Wired, New Yorker, one work-related book and one novel

-cook supper for us every night to give Linda a week off

-write two reports for work (not a legit vacation activity but necessary; this is America)

-Watch at least two episodes of Mad Men

-Clean my office

-haul out the chainsaw and knock down some trees in the woods

-replace some siding on the storage shed

-clean the cellar to make room for 8 tons of wood pellets

-clean the dog kennel and put in fresh straw which gives the three dogs (our boys) no end of joy

Clean and wash the Nissan and Jeep

Take Linda out to lunch or dinner

All of this is in between making breakfast, sitting on the deck and appreciating our gardens, the wonders of God and nature, playing with the dogs and making short runs to get groceries and other supplies.

Life has a wonderful and frustrating habit of getting the way of planned lists, but I’m going to see how it works out.