And...God Bless us, Everyone!

Scrooge was better than his word.  He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father.  He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.  Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter at the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it was quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms.  His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.

He had no further intercourse with spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwords; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.  May that truly be said of us, and all of us!  And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!"

From A Christmas Carol
By:
Charles Dickens

Still a Christmas Favorite

Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small.  Was singing!  Without any presents at all!  He hadn't stopped Christmas from coming!  It came!  Somehow or other, it came just the same!

And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?  It came without ribbons!  It came without tags!  It came without packages, boxes or bags!"  And he puzzled three hours, till hos puzzler was sore.  Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!  "Maybe Christmas,"  he thought, "doesn't come from a store."  "Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!"

And what happened then?  Well, in Who-ville they say That the Grinch small heart grew three sizes that day!

From How the Grinch Stole Christmas
By: Dr. Suess

The early bird catches the worm

For the past few weekends I have been working from 6:00 am until 12:00 in the afternoon on Saturday and/or Sunday. I like this and I hate this. Having to be at work at 6:00 in the morning isn't that bad until you consider that is the time you actually have to be there! There is still the time it takes to get up, get ready, get dressed and drive to work. So when my alarm goes off around 4:30 in the morning (and it's still pitch black outside) I hit the snooze repeatedly with a lot of hostility. But that is pretty much the worse part of it. There are actually a lot of things I like about working those hours. When I leave in the morning there's absolutely no traffic and there's a certain tranquility and stillness driving to work at 5:30(ish) in the morning before almost anyone else is up and around and all the houses are still dark. I get to work and look out the window and see the sunrise and the sky turning beautiful shades of pinks and purples and blues with wispy white clouds as the sun comes up over the horizon. And finally the weekends are normally pretty busy so the shift goes fast and is relatively painless (well as painless as it can be). Before I know it, it's 12:00 and I'm out of there and have the rest of the day to do whatever I want or do any of my errands that I have been putting off all week. The biggest downside of working that early is that to get a full nights sleep you would probably have to go to bed around 8:00 or 9:00 (which is crazy early)and that never happens for me. In fact around 1:00 in the morning I'm often still awake and staring at the clock thinking to myself, "Damn it! I only have 3 1/2 more hours until I have to get up for work." And the more I think about that the harder it is for me to fall asleep. And since I haven't gotten a good night sleep the night before I usually take a (looonngg) nap to recharge my batteries when I get home from work-so I feel like I waste a good chunk of time in the afternoon. Also in the winter I have to get out of a nice warm bed and leave the house around 5:30 in the morning, it's dark and really cold and I often have to scrap ice (or sometime snow) off the car. Overall, I think the positives outweigh the negatives and it's nice to get an early start to the day and have work out the way.

I'm never shopping here again!

We all say things we don't mean out of frustration. And how many times have we made idle threats that we know we don't mean. Like a parent saying to their kids in the backseat, "If you two don't behave I will turn this car around and we will go back home right now!" There is a customer who comes into the store--all the time--and every time he comes in if someone does something that upsets him, he says, "I'm never shopping here again." Oh, how I wish he meant that...and at first I believed him, but now it's just an empty threat and I know I will see him again next week. I have actually talked about this customer before. Steve is the guy who complained to me that the deli case was out of cheese and he said that he was never coming back into this store again because he was sick of us always being out of the things he was looking for. He came into the store last night. He came through my line, I asked how he was. He grunted at me in his typical caveman way, I rang up his order, he paid, he left--nothing extraordinary (except I did notice that he had cheese from the deli). Carrie, one of the people who works at the customer service counter came up to me and said, "Last week that guy said we were out of and he was never coming back in here again." "I know, he's said that to me before, too." I said laughing. As Carrie put it, and I was thinking it, too. "It just makes him look like an asshole. Especially when it's a small store and you know when you say that to someone they will recognize you when you come back in here again." The other thing is that our store is in the shopping center where Steve's gym is so I imagine it's just really convenient for him to run over to the store after he leaves the gym. So convenience wins out over frustration. Although in Steve's defense we do seem to be out of stuff alot. Anyway, I guess the point is when your shopping or dealing with someone in customer service try not to say things out of frustration or make empty threats because you may have to eat your words later on. Take care and happy shopping!

A holiday tradition clarified...

"Mistletoe is not an excuse for sexual assault."

                                    Andy Bernard from The Office

The bad and the ugly...

Here is my list of the places with the worst customer service (at least in my opinion):

1. Planet Fitness-I pay $10 a month for my gym membership at Planet Fitness and let me tell you--I am getting ripped off! I belonged to a small, local gym for years. It was a nice gym. It was the perfect size with basic exercise equipment, never too busy and they offered great fitness classes--but right around the time my nice little local gym raised their membership rates I saw a commercial for Planet Fitness advertising that you could sign up for $10 a month. I had been paying $20 a month at my old gym and it was about to go up to $29.95 so $10 sounded like a pretty sweet deal to me. I went in to get some information and check out the gym and right away I noticed a problem with the customer service. I stood at the desk waiting for someone to help me for what felt like forever (it was actually probably closer to a minute or two but when your standing there waiting for someone it feels like a lot longer then it actually is and for god sake why am I standing there waiting to hand you my money?) and the guy who ended up helping me was rude. I was in the middle of asking him a question when the phone rang and as I was speaking he cut me off and walked off to answer the phone. Now, in his defense he was the only one behind the counter at the time and I'm sure he wasn't trying to be rude, he was just multitasking--but as a new customer the whole experience just created a bad impression. He told me he was the only one behind the desk so he couldn't leave to give me a tour but I was welcome to walk around. I mostly just checked out the treadmills (because that's pretty much all I use). My old gym offered great fitness classes like spin classes, zumba and yoga and I noticed right away that Planet Fitness didn't offer anything like that. Compared to my other gym where there were windows and nice lighting, Planet Fitness was dimly lit. I checked out the locker rooms--they were dark and the lockers were tall but very, very narrow. So I definitely had some initial hesitations but I ended up signing up anyway. I have been going there ever since and I have to say I don't have a problem with the actual gym equipment because it seems modern and well-maintained. But the trash cans throughout the gym and in the locker room are always overflowing. The locker room and the showers always seem dirty. The staff always seems impatient and grumpy (but I guess I would be too if I had to be there all day). I guess I am (slowly) getting used to Planet Fitness but I like my old gym and the people there a lot better! I tell myself I am only paying $10 a month so I guess you get what you pay for.

2. My grandmother's eye doctor--Recently my grandmother had to have eye surgery and she (obviously) couldn't drive home afterward so I went with her, brought a book and hung out in the lobby until her surgery was over. She went up to the reception desk, said she had an appointment and they gave her all of the necessary paperwork to fill out. I have to say, everyone there was very friendly and helpful when she asked questions about the forms she was filling out. So we're waiting for just a few minutes and a nurse came out and called my grandmother back to the doctor's office. She went with the nurse and I was waiting in the waiting room (it's not just a clever name). While I was there someone (I'm assuming she was a nurse or some sort of assistant because she was in scrubs) came up and started talking to the receptionist. It was a Monday and they were talking about what they had done over the weekend. The receptionist was making small talk and then the nurse/assistant started talking about her weekend. Apparently she has a son but her son wasn't with her that weekend so she went out to a party. I don't remember all the specific details (but she did tell specific details) but the overall point was that she had been partying all weekend, drank way too much and had been hungover. I was just sitting there thinking, "You do know I can hear you, right?" I will just say the nurse/medical assistant coming in hungover after partying all weekend is not generally the sort of image you want to put out there while you have patients being operated on in the office and their family members are waiting for them out in the waiting room. I'm just left there in the waiting room hearing about all of her partying over the weekend and hoping she is not going anywhere near my grandmother! And as I said I don't know what this person does in the office and I'm certainly not implying that she was operating on anyone or that she was in anyway not able to do her job on Monday morning after a weekend of partying. I guess I use this example more as a word of caution to those in customer service in general. So just remember--You can never tell when a customer can hear you when you are talking and sometimes you are talking louder then you think you are. Of course, if you're friendly with your coworkers talk to them about your wild weekend or the fight with your boyfriend--but maybe just wait until your lunch break or on your way out to the car.

The Good...

It seems to me that really good and really bad customer service have one thing in common--listening! When customer service is good it is generally because someone has listened to the customer. So here (just in time for holiday shopping) is my list of the top 5 places for the best customer service (in no particular order)

1) Payless. As I was thinking of this list I have to say this one suprised me. I didn't realize how impressed I was with their customer service until recently. I love, love, love shoes and when shoes are cheap I love them even more. So I am in Payless kind of often (probably way more then I should be). There are 3 Payless stores that are in my area and at each of these three stores the people who work there are friendly, helpful and hard working. They personally greet each customer as they come into the store and ask if they can help you find anything. I was in one the other day looking at a really cute pair of shoes but I couldn't find them in my size (the story of my life). The store was pretty busy but the lady working there was climbing up ladders to see if they had my size and when she couldn't find them she offered to call around to other stores in the area to see if they were there.

2) Starbucks--Now of course Starbucks is so ubiquitous and every one is different but overall I like going into Starbucks. I have to admit I may be a bit biased because I have been writing there lately so I pay for a small drink and then sip on it for the rest of the afternoon and use their free wireless internet--they have to be losing money on me as a customer. Anyway, the barristas are well-trained, energetic and have a lot of personality. Most of them are very outgoing and they genuinely seem to enjoy talking to customers. They almost always recognize "regular" customers and make suggestions about what other types of drinks they might like based on what they have ordered before. All the barristas don't seem to just be serving coffee--they all actually seem pretty knowledgeable about the types of coffee they have (the flavors and how strong each is) and the other products they sell as well. I am also impressed by how efficiently it is run. They have a steady stream of people going in and out throughout the day but they never seem to have really long lines or a long wait. They sort of operate as an assembly line and each person works quickly and efficiently.

3. State Farm--I think I included this one because I know most people hate dealing with their insurance company because of all the red tape and because the only time you really need to talk to your insurance company is when something has gone wrong but my State Farm rep. has always tried to make things as painless as possible. I have had State Farm as my car insurance carrier since I first started driving. I have to admit I don't exactly have a spotless driving record. Each time I have called my agents office I get through to a person right away--no automated system--no press 1 if you want to file a claim today--I talk to an actual person. She is always friendly and professional and answers each question I have. When I got into a small fender bender in a shopping center parking lot they were quick and efficient. She was sympathetic (it was totally my fault--how I could hit a parked car I will never understand) as she took my statement and I had to explain what happened. Then State Farm paid the claim and that was it. Years ago I got into an actual traffic accident. This was the first accident I had ever had involving another vehicle on the road and I was a little shaken up. My agent explained the process to me and answered each question I had. Both insurance companies took our statements reviewed the police report and investigated the accident. I feel I should mention they found it wasn't my fault--that's not just me saying it wasn't my fault--that was the finding of the offical investigation based on the police accident report. Even though it was found not to be my fault his insurance company wouldn't pay the claim and my agent actually called his insurance company in an attempt to get everything sorted out. It seemed my agent was in my corner and went above and beyond to help me out.  So they have a track record of promptly paying out when it is my fault and trying to help me sort things out and get payment from the other insurance company when it is not fault.