Bad Customer Service

I shop on the Internet.  A lot.  I don't know how I survived before it.  Shopping is not a social event for me--I want to get stuff quickly, quietly, and without complication.  I don't particularly like wandering around from store to store aimlessly looking without purpose to try things on in a space where 10 other women are doing the same thing while having private conversations with their "girlfriends" in the stall next to them.  I don't want to hear about your husband's foot fetish porn addiction.  Whatever happened to keeping certain things private?

The one downside to this otherwise glorious method of avoiding human interaction is returns. Unless I want to pay to have it shipped back (thank you Zappos for being the exception), I must still visit the brick and mortar store to handle most returns.

 There are two traits that I absolutely cannot stand in another person--stupid and lazy.  And lazy has permeated the local store that I happen to frequent most.

It started out innocently enough, I walk up to the counter with my bag of rejects and ask to return them.  The girl immediately informs me that I can make returns anywhere in the store.  I politely say thanks, even though I already knew this but I come to the customer service department because its what I prefer.  I walk through the store on my way to the "customer service" department--I rarely see someone on the floor who's not already helping someone else.

I get this routine from 2-3 girls at the counter of the next couple of months.  Finally, I push back a little.  Immediately trying to send this return to the floor, I tell her that she's told me this three times now and that I prefer coming to this counter.  I thought maybe if I pointed it out to her politely, she'd figure out that part of customer service is handling this stuff?  I'm not entirely sure, but if someone did that to me I would step back and remember that is part of my job and be a little bit embarrassed I'd represented the company I worked for so poorly.  This was not the case for these girls.

The past two visits, I've been told by girls who were on the phone (one might have actually been helping someone, the other was very obviously having a bitch-fest with a coworker in another department) that if I wanted to return something I'd need to see a sales associate.  The first time, I was a little shocked and just stood there and stared at her for a moment before leaving.  The second time, you would have had to been a complete moron to not notice I was perturbed--this was the bitch fest.  Ironically, the same floor sales associate handled the returns for me on the floor both times.  She was incredibly polite, very helpful, and even stopped the restocking she was doing once to help me out.  So the second time, I asked her what the deal was with their customer service department employees turning people away with returns?

I know it was a little unfair, but she handled it brilliantly.  She apologized, didn't throw them under the bus, and even tried to offer an excuse for them to make sure the company's reputation wasn't tarnished.  If she was having a bad day, I would never know it.  If she ever wants out of retail, I would hire her on that basis alone.

So, why am I writing what was is basically a long-winded whine session?  Well, this particular company is world renowned for its eagerness to help and please a customer.  In most cases they live up to that reputation.  And I have some returns that I've been putting off because I really don't want to deal with the chance of getting one of these lazy girls.  If I have to deal with one of them, my politeness has run out and I know I'm going to say something tacky and crass.  I'll ask specifically for her name, write it down in front of her so she knows I won't forget, and then I'll write a letter to the store manager letting him/her know how poorly this person represents their brand.

I've hit that point where social decorum no longer matters to me and I'm going to be the bitch that gets them in trouble.  I strongly dislike people who work in a job with "customer service" in the description and decide it's at best an afterthought.  I realize it's probably not their dream career, and that's fine.  I know it's not the only thing they do all day.  I'm not expecting them to jump over the moon and kiss my ass, just that they not make me feel like I'm inconveniencing them by walking up.  I'm merely asking that these ladies not be employees who put more effort into getting out of work than it would take to do their job decently.

What's the saying--for every good experience you have, you tell three people and for every bad you tell ten?  Tomorrow, to balance things out I think I'll discuss the people who've gone above and beyond when they didn't have to, and how it's impacted my business relationship with them.  I can't be a bitch all the time, right?  (Please don't answer that.)

I Wrote Haikus

So weird things happen in email sometimes that lead to hilarious things--and yesterday my coworkers and I got off on a random tangent of haiku writing.  Then I posted it to Twitter and said I'd take requests.  I got four.

On Baby Feet:
Scamper about you
Little toes curled and happy
Covered in vomit

On Elephant Ears:
Giant, round and grey
They hear the roars of lions
But can't run away

On Staples:
My Swingline is best
Binding makes me quite angry
I could burn this place

On Malbec:
French grapes make great wine
Argentina found this true
Nazis drink it up

I was quite amused writing them.  I managed to make a great Mike Judge reference, WWII escapee reference through wine of all things, and even one that was intentionally a little profound.  You want me to write for you now.  I can tell.  I promise I'll only be offensive if given expressed permission. 

I'll write a few more if I get another topic suggestion in the comments.  The more obscure the topic, the more fun it will be.

Writing Groove

I typically write these the night before I post them, give them a final once over the next day, and then click publish for my adoring fan.  I have only a limited time to devote to writing each day, after my daughter goes to sleep but before I have to at least attempt to sleep so I'm not a worthless zombie at my paying gig.  But I'm making time for it on a daily basis and I know that's important to evolve as a writer.

Tonight I used most of that time working on a short story for a competition. The deadline is August 31st and I got into a groove.  I have a plot outline, character introductions, and even a pretty good idea of how I want to end the story to give the feeling I really want to impart with my potential audience.  I really enjoy writing like that, but I know it's worth more to force yourself through the moments when the words just don't flow.

I wanted to stay up and keep going--one of the things I like most about writing. It doesn't matter what time/day/place you're at, you can write. That bodes well for me when I wake up at 2 am and can't go back to sleep. I think it might be a better outlet for me than watching replays of WRC on Speed Channel.  I'm not one of those people who can just "shut it off" at a designated time, and I've always found the traditional business career limiting in that regard.  I know many people prefer such an arrangement and I understand the appeal of it--I'm just not wired that way.

I'm really looking forward to this submission. Whether I win anything or get published, I'll get some genuine feedback from editors. This will be my first opportunity to take something I've worked hard on and see if it's worth a sh*t.  It makes me a little anxious, but excited at the same time.  While I'm incredibly grateful to the support and encouragement I've received thus far (and the understanding I'm given when I commit just a little bit more time to something other than my little family), having someone read my work who has no emotional attachment to me, and doesn't have to deal with the repercussions of hurting my feelings will teach me far more than anyone I know personally.

Now to get the first draft done, so I can move on to the part that always makes me craziest: editing my own work.

My Own Contradictions

An old "version" of my closet--the clothes have changed but the order has not.

I'm sure I have many, but the one that I'm most acutely aware of after this past weekend is my compulsive need to have a neat and sparkling house--but I absolutely loathe the act of cleaning.  If there were ever something I wish I could afford to pay someone else to do, it would be this.  Despite more than one person comparing me to Monica from "Friends," cleaning does nothing to soothe my soul. 

But I can't NOT do it.  When I see clothes lying all over the floor or dishes piled up in the sink, my left eyelid starts involuntarily twitching.  I see a ring in a bath tub and I start to cringe.  I see water splash on a bathroom mirror and my upper lip begins to curl in disgust.  Clutter of any kind makes me want to grab a trash can and just start chucking things into it.  This makes things a little tense when I have a husband, a toddler, and a dog with a shedding issue.  I volunteered for each of them, and I wouldn't trade them for anything.  It's just a difficult adjustment for me.  I'll admit, there are things I still won't "adjust" on.

Clean rooms make me happy.  Patrick Bateman's apartment described in "American Psycho" makes me happy.  A gift card to The Container Store and two days with nothing to do but re-organize drawers make me happy.  My closet is a beautiful site to behold and I could be blindfolded to pick out a specific article of clothing.  My CDs (the ones I have left over from a world before iTunes) are alphabetized. 

I just don't want to have anything to do with scrubbing toilets, baseboards, mopping, or sanitizing the shower.  I hate that so many things stain a white porcelain sink.  I do, however, go back to that eyeball twitching thing if they're not done.  But once I start, it almost becomes an exercise in futility--I meticulously start doing one thing but while doing it, I notice at least two other things that really need to get done so I put those on my list.  By the time I've finished a basic clean, it's turned into me wearing a HAZMAT suit walking around with Q-Tips and peroxide to get every dirty nook and cranny.  I move furniture to vacuum under it.  I lift up electronics to dust between or under them.  I've vacuumed the dog.  She still runs from the Dyson.  Human beings were not meant to spend their time this way!

And being lenient on or understanding of those who don't put things back in their designated spot immediately after use does not come naturally to me.  It's so blatant that my not-even-22-month-old daughter has gotten in the habit of closing doors all the way that were not.  She brings me shoes that someone has left out.  She puts clothes in the laundry basket that were on the floor.  She's really good at picking up all her blocks and putting them in the bag when I tell her it's time to clean up.  She thinks it's fun to carry around the microfiber dusting tool and clean stuff with it.

I struggle with this insanity week after week.  I dread it each time, but spend far more time than I want to completing the tasks.  And I've been thinking all day that I didn't vacuum over the weekend, so I absolutely have to get it done after work tonight.  It's going to cut into my writing time again, but if I don't do it I'll just be annoyed.  Do they make a pill that fixes this yet?

Fab Friday

What the Camaro looked like before it went all Frankenstein's Monster

I think I might have gotten a little carried away with yesterday's post.  Sad part is I cut it down and left out several details in an effort to make it more blog suitable.  Whoops.

So in an effort to not make any one's brain melt today, I'll try to keep it short. Annnnnnd click "publish."  Ha!  Lame joke, but I couldn't resist.  I'm feeling especially Monty Python-ish today; maybe it's all the John Cleese commercials I see during evening Olympic coverage.

Today's a great day for me.  A personal project of mine is entering the final stages of completion, and after almost 7 years I'll finally have an outcome.  It's a car--yes, I know it's not the typical project for a chick but I think I've established by now I'm far from normal... bordering on insane.  I'm okay with that.  More importantly, it's a 1969 Camaro.  I started out with a 15 year old's dream to turn one into something amazing--looking classically restored on the outside, and a modern monster under the shell.  I'd like to think I was able to somewhat stick to that dream, but the monster side may have been more prominent than I originally intended.  The roll cage, 12 gauges, multiple switches, and 5 point harnesses fitted to stock seats will give it away to someone who knows cars, but oh well.  I'll just have to do my best to act like an F1 team and prevent people from looking/photographing under the body or hood to hide the rest.

Everyone has one of those projects, either personally or professionally, that starts off simply enough and then before you know it, it's barely recognizable as the original idea.  This one is mine.  Looking back over it objectively, it would have been a LOT smarter and cost effective to buy a crate motor, drop it in, and be done with it.  But I held on to my idea of having something unique a little too hard.  If this were a business project, the NPV, IRR, and whatever other financial tool one can think of to evaluate the worth of a project would have been dripping with red ink.  I probably would have shut it down, redirected it, or put it aside to revisit later had it been business.  But emotions got the best of me.

Of course I can say all this because it's not 100% complete and I haven't driven it yet.  I'll probably change my mind once I crank the engine for the first time sitting in the driver's seat.  I've sunk more money into this car than I care to admit, my dad has advanced birthday and Christmas presents for me well into the 22nd century, and at least 5 different shops have had their hands in it.  I'm eternally grateful for their help because without them, it'd be at least another 7 years in the making.  Probably several more.  Time and money are precious commodities, and I couldn't be more humbled that so many have shared theirs to help make this absolutely ridiculous dream a reality.

Today, it rolls out of the last performance shop under its own power and heads to the body shop for paint, glass, and seals.  I'll need a pre-flight checklist to go through every time I start it, but there really will be nothing else like it on the road. 

Every once in a while, one of those ideas that shouldn't happen because it doesn't make sense does happen.  And the end result can force even the biggest skeptics to take a step back and wonder if maybe they should try something crazy, too.

Walking Around Upside Down

Me and my partner taking 5th at Nationals for synchronized trampoline

The Olympics' coverage of women's gymnastics is always bittersweet for me.  I enjoy watching it because it's rarely given decent coverage the other 3 years (seriously--I think they only air it on ESPN "the Ocho") and I spent 11 years within its depths.  I see the mistakes that the average viewers miss, I know the proper names of the tricks, who they were named after, and I know the track record and medal count of many of the gymnasts going back to Nadia Comaneci in the 1976 games.

Gymnastics is a unique sport.  It's highly individual, yet they force a team aspect out of it.  It's incredibly repetitious yet constantly asks you to take huge risks.  It's physically brutal yet the mental aspect can cost you more than a failed joint.  It's full of contradictions, snap judgments, and double standards.  Coaches, gymnasts, and judges can play extremely dirty and the stories about children being put through what many might consider a form of torture are rampant (and often not unfounded).  Countless kids have had genuine breakdowns by the age of 12 under the pressure of competition, leaving the sport for good, cursing the lasting emotional torment it's left in their lives.

And yet, for 11 years I absolutely loved it and was engrossed in the life.  I didn't leave because of an injury, a mental breakdown, or even because of the time I got screwed out of medalling in my first Nationals.  I left because I somehow lost the favor of my coach--he began taking his personal problems out on me and over the course of 6 months or so I began to seriously question whether or not I was prepared to make the personal sacrifices necessary to get to that next level.  Because that next level was to move into that world of the Elite gymnast--where home schooling is the norm to work around 8 hour a day practices, compete not just around the state and country, but around the world, and compete against girls who could sometimes be 6-8 years older than me with the same extra years experience in competitions.

To this day, I often wonder if things would have worked out differently had my coach not found a new "favorite" on the team.  Would I have questioned how much farther I could realistically go?  Would I have started wondering what a "normal" life would be like?  Would I have lost my passion and dedication?  Would I have to wait for that career ending injury and following surgeries to make my decision for me?  I'll never know, but these questions still linger.  Unfinished business.  Possible life altering mistakes that I have lived with for almost 20 years.  No, the questions don't fade with time.

I do know that I put all my medals and ribbons in a shoe box and didn't look at them for a couple years.  They're still in that same shoe box today.  I took down all my posters of other gymnasts I idolized.  I put every reference to the sport out of my room, and I refused to watch it on TV for a while.  The decision to leave tore me up inside, the way very few things in life can do. I defined myself as a gymnast and now suddenly had to start from scratch on figuring out who I was as an individual.  I was 14 years old and didn't know what it was like to not immediately go to the gym almost every day after school.  I had only a handful of friends who weren't gymnasts.  I had very little to relate to my peers with because I was behind on movies, music, cute boys, and even the cool stuff to wear because all of my focus was dedicated to gymnastics or getting good enough grades so I could keep doing gymnastics.

The kind of gymnastics I flourished in wasn't your traditional all around with beam, bars, vault and floor.  Although that's where I started at the age of 3 in a program called Kinder-lites with my first coach Mrs. B.  My parents were looking for an outlet for my energy--and I found sanctuary.  We moved three years later and found a local gym--the head coach had been a former assistant to Bella Karolyi.  I was star struck--a real link to Mary Lou?  How could I not be?  I still remember try outs to make the competitive team at 6 years old.  I made it--and the prize was my very own "belt" with my name in purple, the color of the mighty Titans to which I now belonged.  I cherished it and wore it proudly EVERYWHERE.  I remember various coaches--Cheryl, Ed, Kelly, and Raymond, the team head coach.    One of them was not so nice in their coaching style and made some of those torture rumors ring a little bit too true.  But that coach got results and quickly ruled out the mentally weak--so it's difficult to say it wasn't effective.

I competed, I placed, and I got to a point where I wasn't going to advance anymore in that gym.  So, not being too emotionally attached at that point, I left for a year and started playing soccer.  Turns out I wasn't very good at it.  I didn't have the natural ability like I did in gymnastics.  So fate intervened a little--I attended a soccer friend's birthday party at a gymnastics center.  But this was something called Power Tumbling and sanctioned through the ATTA (American Trampoline and Tumbling Association--and now seems to have become a part of the USGA).  Instead of a square floor, there was a bouncy strip you tumbled all the way down--no dance moves.  Instead of bars and beam, there was a trampoline you did a routine one instead of tested new tricks.  The coaches hosting the party were coaxing me to do some of my old tricks and I was like a duck in water.  They asked me to join their team that day.  How could I refuse?  I was reinvigorated.  I was a mediocre soccer player at best, and I knew I had the chance to be truly great at this.

In the span of two competition seasons, I managed to move from Novice to Advanced.  I was having fun.  I had learned more new tricks in two years than I had in 6 years of all around.  This was where I belonged.  My mom diligently took me to fabulous destinations like Lawton, OK for meets.  And then, in 1992, I qualified for my first Nationals.  There I lived a gymnast's worst nightmare.  I fell on my face in my first event, killing any hopes of being on the podium.  But I still had two more events to go and I had to pull it together for those.  I pulled off my routines, but they weren't good enough to medal... or so I thought.

When I went to check my posted scores to see how I did, my mom noticed the math didn't look right on one of my events.  She pulled out a calculator to double check, and yes, they had shorted me two full points and the correct score would have put me in 2nd place and qualified me to go to the World Competition in that event.  She went to the judges, argued, was denied, argued some more, found the people running the event, argued with them--and all of her effort went in vain.  The math error cost me a medal at my first Nationals and a chance to compete representing Team USA.  I was devastated, angry, and determined to not let it happen again.  I felt cheated--so much more so than I ever did in all around where they would deduct points if your hair got out of place during your floor routine.  Because some idiots couldn't double check their math, I missed out on the opportunity of a lifetime.  It was my equivalent of an Olympics and I'd been robbed.  Now I'd have to wait two years for a chance to make Worlds again.

1993 led me back to Nationals and my first international stage, the Indo Pacific Games.  But that's also the season where it fell apart.  My coach at the time, Chad, started having relationship problems with his girlfriend, pretty serious financial issues (the gym even closed a couple years later), and came to practice frequently taking his frustrations out on the team.  My teammates were no longer my best friends thanks to various changing social structures from joining the world of teen angst and what I can only assume self preservation to stay out of Chad's cross hairs.  If the negative focus was on me, then it wasn't on them.  From all sides, I was an outsider trying to claw my way back in while trying to maintain my focus on my events and routines.  It was exhausting.  I cried after going to bed many nights--I didn't want anyone to see or hear me.  I started dreading going to practice because I knew I'd get yelled at, ignored, or even ridiculed sometimes outright, with the coach joining in.

Somehow I managed to fight through it to end up finishing 5th in one event and 9th in another in Nationals--and 7th overall in one event in the Games.  I was, by definition, one of the top gymnasts in the country, part of Team USA, and the thought of going through all that another year made me physically sick.  Surprising both of my parents, I told them during the off season I wanted out.  They asked me to think about it, asked if I wanted to find a new gym, but I told them I had been miserable for months and that I didn't love it anymore.
Reluctantly, they helped me cut all ties with Chad, the gym, and they put up with my senseless drama about not knowing what to be for a while.  My mom convinced me to go through the certification to become a judge--I had to have been one of the youngest judges ever, but they allowed it because of my years of experience.  I hated it.  If I wasn't out there competing, it just felt wrong to be there at all.  Plus, seeing how subjective other judges were and how open they were about it only made me more angry about my years of being on the other side, wondering if I was being purposefully kept off the podium.

So what did I get to take away from all this once it was all said and done?  I avoided any massive, life altering injuries, which I still consider myself lucky for--it was very common to compete hurt and nothing I ever did turned into something serious.  I came away with one of the biggest competitive drives that still influences me greatly today.  I have a "never quit" attitude--which has helped me push through some tough times and made me better, but I've also stayed a part of things far too long, thinking I'm obligated to finish it simply because I started it.  I have yet to be put in a situation that I've felt was more stressful than competing on the world stage--so I'm either in massive denial or I handle stress really well.  There's good and bad that carry forward--same for the memories when I look back.

Now I'm starting to get asked if I'll get my daughter into gymnastics.  I want to let her try because, honestly, she does show some aptitude for it already.  But I'm not sure I want to let her get as involved as I did.  The one simple reason is that I still can't answer that fundamental question, "Was it all worth it?"

Way to Go!

So I started this thing and posted diligently... and almost immediately took a hiatus for a vacation.  That shows true dedication, right?  And now I'm completely distracted each night by the Olympics.  Who doesn't love watching sports you never pay attention to but once every 4 years?  Sure, I may cheer for *insert non US citizen pro athlete here* on a daily basis, but this is my chance to call them dirty foreign scum, beat my chest for no reason, and chant USA! over and over again.  I can almost hear the eagle cries in the background now.

But I digress. 

The point of this post is to get back in the swing of things and not falter so quickly on this whole writing idea.  I need to do a slight reset before I dive back in (sports pun!).  After reading a couple of the ones I posted, and a lot of what I've been writing and not posting is, unfortunately, quite negative and far too angry for what I'm trying to accomplish.  While it's honest, I don't need to let myself become this snide, bitter bitch on wheels with only mean things to say.  I'm much more capable than that, and I need to do a better job of showing it.  Plus, writing angry only makes me more angry and the whole point of writing is to do something I enjoy and escape from the things in life I can't change but irritate me so.

All it took was a week without a computer, a drop of about 20 degrees in average high temperatures, amazing beaches, and watching my daughter play on said beaches to gain a little perspective.  We'll see how long it lasts.  But for now, I'm working on re-editing a few things, coming up with some new material (that hopefully hasn't reached dead horse status yet), and entering my first short story competition (hopefully I get it finished in time).

Fear not, my almost dozen readers!  I shall carry forth into the fray and bring wit, attitude, and quirk back into your reading lives!  And yes, there will probably be an entire post on gymnastics--even though it's been almost 20 years now, it still took up a major part of my life and influenced the person I've become in SO many ways.  I might even throw out a few hot sports opinions on some of the "famous" gymnasts from years past I had various interactions with.