Saturday, January 05, 2008
Happy New Year!!!
Sunday, August 12, 2007
How may I help you?
Life
I just got off the phone with a customer rep for a major office solutions company, local store. Their name rhymes with Bimbo’s. I called the main 800 number to get a quote for a printing job I need to do and the very polite, cheery operator told me she would have to transfer me to a local store, because prices vary depending on location. Fair enough. I gave her my zip code and within a few seconds, someone picked up the line. She sounded as if she had just awoken. Hey, I’m not a morning person, so I can understand that. However, things went down from there. I explained what I needed to know and she told me to hold, that she was going to transfer me to someone. She didn’t wait for my answer. Ok, I waited. After a bit, a different woman’s voice came on the line, yelled something I didn’t understand, something about my calling the store and hung up. Huh? I called the 800 number again and said they hung up on me, could I please be connected again? The very nice operator said certainly. The same initial sleepy voice picked up. I told her what had just happened. In a moment of clarity, she said, “Oh, that’s ‘cause you was playing music. Loud. We couldn’t ‘nnerstand what you was saying.” These were her words. I told her politely, but firmly that I was not playing any music. “Oh, I don’t know. We couldn’t ‘nnerstand you.” Okay. I wasn’t playing music on the phone, but even if I had been, this is how you deal with your potential clients????? Yell at them and hang up on them???
I have noticed a decline in service in the Long Island region, lately. There has always been the random rude customer rep. In their defense, it is not easy to work with the public. I’ve done it and I feel for every person behind a counter or telephone. However, I am not talking about rude customers, or people asking for extra services. I am talking about your everyday, run of the mill and expected service, requested in a polite, non-condescending way. It was 8 minutes and 40 seconds before I actually got a quote from the sleepy voice. She asked me if I wanted her to put in the order. I told her no. She sounded surprised. I should’ve told her that their combined lack of customer support made up my mind for me. Even if they offered me 50% off, I would still not accept it. But I didn’t. I was too shocked. Why did that shock me? Because I still expect to be treated as I treat people. The whole call lasted 8:59 seconds. It took two calls and over 9 minutes to find out I don’t want to do business with Bimbo’s. At least, not this branch.
Knitting
Here are a couple of pictures of the socks I've knitted since mid-winter. When classes are on, I have very little time for knitting. Most were done in the summer.
The pattern, I got when I bought the first Regia something or other (in the picture below) from The Yarn Shop at Geneva. I have adapted it to suit the different yarns. The Tofutsies sock is my own pattern and the Regia 4fadig is the Poseidon Socks (adapted).
The yarns are, from left to right, Regia something or other, Sockotta, Trekking XXL, Merino 4ply "Orchid" and Regia Cotton, I think. The colors are not accurate in this pic...
... pretty true colors in this shot...
Here the yarns are merino cashmere sock yarn - "Orange Blossoms", Tofutsies, Regia 4fadig, Wildfoote. Again, the colors are not true here...
... but they are here.
Current sock on the needles - I Love Ganseys, from the yahoo group six_socks_knitalong . The yarn is Jawoll.
And a close up of the orange...
I just got off the phone with a customer rep for a major office solutions company, local store. Their name rhymes with Bimbo’s. I called the main 800 number to get a quote for a printing job I need to do and the very polite, cheery operator told me she would have to transfer me to a local store, because prices vary depending on location. Fair enough. I gave her my zip code and within a few seconds, someone picked up the line. She sounded as if she had just awoken. Hey, I’m not a morning person, so I can understand that. However, things went down from there. I explained what I needed to know and she told me to hold, that she was going to transfer me to someone. She didn’t wait for my answer. Ok, I waited. After a bit, a different woman’s voice came on the line, yelled something I didn’t understand, something about my calling the store and hung up. Huh? I called the 800 number again and said they hung up on me, could I please be connected again? The very nice operator said certainly. The same initial sleepy voice picked up. I told her what had just happened. In a moment of clarity, she said, “Oh, that’s ‘cause you was playing music. Loud. We couldn’t ‘nnerstand what you was saying.” These were her words. I told her politely, but firmly that I was not playing any music. “Oh, I don’t know. We couldn’t ‘nnerstand you.” Okay. I wasn’t playing music on the phone, but even if I had been, this is how you deal with your potential clients????? Yell at them and hang up on them???
I have noticed a decline in service in the Long Island region, lately. There has always been the random rude customer rep. In their defense, it is not easy to work with the public. I’ve done it and I feel for every person behind a counter or telephone. However, I am not talking about rude customers, or people asking for extra services. I am talking about your everyday, run of the mill and expected service, requested in a polite, non-condescending way. It was 8 minutes and 40 seconds before I actually got a quote from the sleepy voice. She asked me if I wanted her to put in the order. I told her no. She sounded surprised. I should’ve told her that their combined lack of customer support made up my mind for me. Even if they offered me 50% off, I would still not accept it. But I didn’t. I was too shocked. Why did that shock me? Because I still expect to be treated as I treat people. The whole call lasted 8:59 seconds. It took two calls and over 9 minutes to find out I don’t want to do business with Bimbo’s. At least, not this branch.
Knitting
Here are a couple of pictures of the socks I've knitted since mid-winter. When classes are on, I have very little time for knitting. Most were done in the summer.
The pattern, I got when I bought the first Regia something or other (in the picture below) from The Yarn Shop at Geneva. I have adapted it to suit the different yarns. The Tofutsies sock is my own pattern and the Regia 4fadig is the Poseidon Socks (adapted).
The yarns are, from left to right, Regia something or other, Sockotta, Trekking XXL, Merino 4ply "Orchid" and Regia Cotton, I think. The colors are not accurate in this pic...
... pretty true colors in this shot...
Here the yarns are merino cashmere sock yarn - "Orange Blossoms", Tofutsies, Regia 4fadig, Wildfoote. Again, the colors are not true here...
... but they are here.
Current sock on the needles - I Love Ganseys, from the yahoo group six_socks_knitalong . The yarn is Jawoll.
And a close up of the orange...
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Yarn Waves
Life
My husband often talks about ideas as being waves, currents that flow along one brain to the next. He is usually met with a skeptical look from me, not so much because I disagree with what he is saying, but because it is he who is saying it. The thought could be, my what a blue sky we have today! The look would be pretty much the same. This is what almost 19 years of marriage will do to a person, if separation isn’t involved at some point.
If there are currents of ideas that circulate the creative world, then there might also be currents of disasters circulating above us, picking and choosing those of us unfortunate enough to call any attention to ourselves, for instance, ABM. Of course these waves would not be called by their simple names, they have acronyms. So, ABM stands for Appliances Breakage Movement. Maybe there is a wave of appliances breakage flowing around. It passes by my house. It sees that I haven’t cleaned the refrigerator in a month and … baaam ... my frigde breaks. Not just a light bulb burning, but a full power down event. It must’ve not been that important, the wave probably thought. We’ll fix that. Or unfix, as the case might be.
Another example could be the VUAT, Vehicular Usage Adjustment Trend. Sure, we all love our cars. They take us to where we want to be (except if you have to use the LIE at rush hour, but that’s another post). We, in turn, take care of our cars. We have scheduled maintenance meetings, we clean our cars, wax them, fuss over them, or not. Some of us check the fluid levels regularly and that’s enough. Filters? Must be self changing. Preventive checking? Huh? Belts? See filters. That’s when VUAT touches land and hits the unsuspecting motorist. But it has class. It is more subtle and cunning than ABM. At least, that’s been my experience. Instead of leaving you dead in the water with a, yes, dead automobile, it makes it so that the next time you’re at the gas station filling up, they run out of gas while you’re doing it. They don’t tell you when you’re handing them your money to pay for the gas you’ll be pumping that they are running low, so it might be wise to get just a little to get you home. No. They let you give them a whole lot of money, as if you’re going to fill your tank. Then, the gas runs out. You know all the gunk on the bottom of their tank? It is now inside YOUR tank, so that every time you start up your car, you have to pump so much gas or the car will die. Then, if it dies, you have to wait at least 5 minutes for the sediment to settle so you can start the car again. Do you wonder how I know the number of minutes necessary for a start up? Because the first time this happened it took me half an hour to get the d$%^* car on again, because I kept trying to start it and just made it worse every time.
Anyway, that VUAT is really cunning. It sometimes works in conjunction with other waves, like FUMAD. I forget what the first two letters stand for in FUMAD, but MAD is definitely Modern Automobile Design. Did you know that some fuel filters are actually located inside the fuel tank, and are considered a non-serviceable part? What? Oh, that must mean that it is self-changing (see above paragraph).
It seems that lots of people around the blogosphere are having tough times now. I mostly lurk around blogs and have read quite a few accounts of things gone awry. I haven’t written about mine, but I’ll tell you, I’ve had quite a few this Summer. My only hope is that if any of the above is true, then I sure hope there are also good waves, waves of marshmallow, chocolate pudding, brand new puppies and kittens and butterflies hanging around somewhere. Oh yeah, and silk yarn waves too. They sure ain’t here, but somewhere. Maybe there’s a GW (Good Wave, fer cryin’ out loud) flying around my place sometime and it sees that I just saved two snails* from being stepped on, in the middle of the path, by moving them over to my hydrangea for a snack. Maybe the GW will be all, oh, I must rain showers of goodness in the form of piles of money, or a hiatus from *anything* breaking down, or yeah, silk yarn skeins, on this wonderful person. Wouldn’t that be cool? I’d sure blog about it.
Meanwhile, I’ll continue to try and look on the bright side of things, at the risk of being cliché. I do have a lot of things to be grateful for. I know that. I’ll continue trying to dwell on them. Sometimes, it’s harder to do than others. But how great will it be when I come home to find everything that was broken, fixed, everything that was in disarray, ordered, things that hurt, not hurting anymore, my husband in a good mood – for the whole night – and yeah, piles of silk yarn on the back stoop?
*I will revisit the snails story next time.
Knitting
Here is one of the current projects on my needles. It is a snood, wimple, hood, whatever, knitted out of a yummy alpaca yarn from a local breader, Jennifer Clements. The pattern is from here.
Aaaand, a little bit closer:
My husband often talks about ideas as being waves, currents that flow along one brain to the next. He is usually met with a skeptical look from me, not so much because I disagree with what he is saying, but because it is he who is saying it. The thought could be, my what a blue sky we have today! The look would be pretty much the same. This is what almost 19 years of marriage will do to a person, if separation isn’t involved at some point.
If there are currents of ideas that circulate the creative world, then there might also be currents of disasters circulating above us, picking and choosing those of us unfortunate enough to call any attention to ourselves, for instance, ABM. Of course these waves would not be called by their simple names, they have acronyms. So, ABM stands for Appliances Breakage Movement. Maybe there is a wave of appliances breakage flowing around. It passes by my house. It sees that I haven’t cleaned the refrigerator in a month and … baaam ... my frigde breaks. Not just a light bulb burning, but a full power down event. It must’ve not been that important, the wave probably thought. We’ll fix that. Or unfix, as the case might be.
Another example could be the VUAT, Vehicular Usage Adjustment Trend. Sure, we all love our cars. They take us to where we want to be (except if you have to use the LIE at rush hour, but that’s another post). We, in turn, take care of our cars. We have scheduled maintenance meetings, we clean our cars, wax them, fuss over them, or not. Some of us check the fluid levels regularly and that’s enough. Filters? Must be self changing. Preventive checking? Huh? Belts? See filters. That’s when VUAT touches land and hits the unsuspecting motorist. But it has class. It is more subtle and cunning than ABM. At least, that’s been my experience. Instead of leaving you dead in the water with a, yes, dead automobile, it makes it so that the next time you’re at the gas station filling up, they run out of gas while you’re doing it. They don’t tell you when you’re handing them your money to pay for the gas you’ll be pumping that they are running low, so it might be wise to get just a little to get you home. No. They let you give them a whole lot of money, as if you’re going to fill your tank. Then, the gas runs out. You know all the gunk on the bottom of their tank? It is now inside YOUR tank, so that every time you start up your car, you have to pump so much gas or the car will die. Then, if it dies, you have to wait at least 5 minutes for the sediment to settle so you can start the car again. Do you wonder how I know the number of minutes necessary for a start up? Because the first time this happened it took me half an hour to get the d$%^* car on again, because I kept trying to start it and just made it worse every time.
Anyway, that VUAT is really cunning. It sometimes works in conjunction with other waves, like FUMAD. I forget what the first two letters stand for in FUMAD, but MAD is definitely Modern Automobile Design. Did you know that some fuel filters are actually located inside the fuel tank, and are considered a non-serviceable part? What? Oh, that must mean that it is self-changing (see above paragraph).
It seems that lots of people around the blogosphere are having tough times now. I mostly lurk around blogs and have read quite a few accounts of things gone awry. I haven’t written about mine, but I’ll tell you, I’ve had quite a few this Summer. My only hope is that if any of the above is true, then I sure hope there are also good waves, waves of marshmallow, chocolate pudding, brand new puppies and kittens and butterflies hanging around somewhere. Oh yeah, and silk yarn waves too. They sure ain’t here, but somewhere. Maybe there’s a GW (Good Wave, fer cryin’ out loud) flying around my place sometime and it sees that I just saved two snails* from being stepped on, in the middle of the path, by moving them over to my hydrangea for a snack. Maybe the GW will be all, oh, I must rain showers of goodness in the form of piles of money, or a hiatus from *anything* breaking down, or yeah, silk yarn skeins, on this wonderful person. Wouldn’t that be cool? I’d sure blog about it.
Meanwhile, I’ll continue to try and look on the bright side of things, at the risk of being cliché. I do have a lot of things to be grateful for. I know that. I’ll continue trying to dwell on them. Sometimes, it’s harder to do than others. But how great will it be when I come home to find everything that was broken, fixed, everything that was in disarray, ordered, things that hurt, not hurting anymore, my husband in a good mood – for the whole night – and yeah, piles of silk yarn on the back stoop?
*I will revisit the snails story next time.
Knitting
Here is one of the current projects on my needles. It is a snood, wimple, hood, whatever, knitted out of a yummy alpaca yarn from a local breader, Jennifer Clements. The pattern is from here.
Aaaand, a little bit closer:
Monday, August 06, 2007
LOLCATS?1??!!!
As seen on Miss Libby , via Rabbitch :
Your Score: Lion Warning Cat
72% Affectionate, 68% Excitable, 40% Hungry
You are the good Samaritan of the lolcat world. Protecting others from danger by shouting observations and guidance in cases of imminent threat, you believe in the well-being of everyone.
To see all possible results, checka dis.
| Link: The Which Lolcat Are You? Test written by GumOtaku on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test |
Friday, July 27, 2007
Quarterly Update
I've been knitting socks since about January or February. We went upstate and ended up driving around Geneva, NY. There is a very nice yarn store there, of which I was not aware, called Yarn Shop of Geneva. Of course I stopped in. It was the day before we were coming back home (Long Island). It was cold. I was feelling a little blue, so I bought some sock yarn and a set of dpns. Started the sock right away and have been knitting socks off and on ever since.
I make it a point to get a skein of sock yarn when I go somewhere new, or even somewhere old. It's a nice souvenir, affordable, memorable and fun. I now have Skaneateles socks (Yarn Bin), a couple of Geneva socks, Philadelphia socks (Rosie's Yarn Cellar), and Long Island socks (Granny's Yarns, The Knitting Corner, I forget). Who knows how long the sock kick will last? I ought to have lots of Long Island socks, if it continues...
I make it a point to get a skein of sock yarn when I go somewhere new, or even somewhere old. It's a nice souvenir, affordable, memorable and fun. I now have Skaneateles socks (Yarn Bin), a couple of Geneva socks, Philadelphia socks (Rosie's Yarn Cellar), and Long Island socks (Granny's Yarns, The Knitting Corner, I forget). Who knows how long the sock kick will last? I ought to have lots of Long Island socks, if it continues...
Friday, April 20, 2007
Spring is finally here!!!
Yay.
The weather is so gorgeous today, I need to celebrate with a flower picture.
Rosane.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Due to some extra financial commitments, I have been trying very hard not to indulge in serious yarn additions to the household lately. I've slipped a couple of times. Once was with a friend, who was destashing. How can I not help a friend in need (of space)? So I bought a shopping bag full of cones of yarn, about 5 different yarns, extremely resonably priced. I rationalized. The mystery shawl 6 is being knitted out of one of those cones. See, I'm knitting from the stash...
Then, someone wrote on their blog (I think it was Cara, don't recall) about a purchase they had made from a seller in Australia, The Knittery. Naturally, I went to look at their site and WOW! fell in love with their colors. Yes, I bought some. Received the yarns in about 5 or 6 days, which amazed me no end. Very nice service. Gorgeous yarn. Here they are.
This is the most delicious, happiest, smiley-est color combination (and so soft).
2 skeins of merino cashmere sock yarn - "Orange Blossoms" - pretty accurate color.
1 skein of Merino 4ply "Orchid" - the color on this one disappointed me a little. It is very beautiful, don't get me wrong. But I expected it to be more muted from the picture on their web site. I'm still happy though.
2 skeins of silk merino 2ply "Lakeside Flora" - the green on this is a little warmer, a little yellower, in real life.
1 skein of merino 4ply "Passionfruit" - pretty accurate color.
1 skein of merino 4ply "Earth" - this is a lot greener in real life (darkish green)
Now, for the time to knit!
Then, someone wrote on their blog (I think it was Cara, don't recall) about a purchase they had made from a seller in Australia, The Knittery. Naturally, I went to look at their site and WOW! fell in love with their colors. Yes, I bought some. Received the yarns in about 5 or 6 days, which amazed me no end. Very nice service. Gorgeous yarn. Here they are.
This is the most delicious, happiest, smiley-est color combination (and so soft).
2 skeins of merino cashmere sock yarn - "Orange Blossoms" - pretty accurate color.
1 skein of Merino 4ply "Orchid" - the color on this one disappointed me a little. It is very beautiful, don't get me wrong. But I expected it to be more muted from the picture on their web site. I'm still happy though.
2 skeins of silk merino 2ply "Lakeside Flora" - the green on this is a little warmer, a little yellower, in real life.
1 skein of merino 4ply "Passionfruit" - pretty accurate color.
1 skein of merino 4ply "Earth" - this is a lot greener in real life (darkish green)
Now, for the time to knit!
