Tuesday, March 6, 2007

I must be getting old. That's the only possible reason I can think of for my muscles hurting this much two days after using a rope swing over a pool. My abs hurt whenever I sneeze, my arms are like Jell-O, and my neck is stiff. Maybe I should actually get out and do some physical activity more often.

Oh wait, I would if winter would ever end. Gosh. It might have made it up to -10 today. Maybe. Probably not. Oh, but never fear: in typical Environment Canada fashion, it's going to be 18 degrees and sunny. On Wednesday. Seriously, this time it's going to happen. I wonder when they're going to stop screwing with us and getting our hopes up.

You know, someone (a proud Albertan) told me this week that central Alberta has more sunny days per year than Hawaii or Palm Springs or some place like that. Yeah, okay. We've had maybe three this past month. I'm no meteorologist (although I check the weather enough that they might as well give me the certification, already), but I have a strange feeling that Palm Springs or Hawaii had a little more sun than three days in February. Just sayin'.

Anyway. I was reminded that something significant did happen on Friday: date night with Slurpees and candy. Oh yeah. Cheapest date ever, and the only one we can have when there's no babysitting. In fact, it was so good that we did it again last night. At least there's a Mac's in town to buy flavoured ice in a cup. Because, you know, we don't have enough of it sitting on the ground. Sorry, I'm not bitter. And I suppose that the Slurpee is technically a trademark of 7-11, and since we got ours at Mac's, they're called Frosters or something. But by far the most original name for the frozen carbonated beverage was at the cafeteria at SFU. Are you ready for this? They were called "Frozen Carbonated Beverages." Wow.

Other than that, my recounting of the weekend was accurate, so no worries there. Let's see how I do on today.

Monday is the only weekday where I don't have to be at school for anything, which is really nice. Of course, I still go to school (I have a standing appointment with a bunch of guys I oversee, although they never show up, so it's pretty useless). Lots of homework was completed, including the end of my presentation prep for Friday. So far the handout is 7 single-spaced pages, which is also roughly how long my term paper has to be, so I think I'm pretty set. Oh wait, almost three of those pages are bibliography, so I guess I'm not as close as I thought. Should be good, though--I'm really looking forward to presenting.

Other than that, nothing much to note. Theo decided that he'd skip his morning nap today, which was a little surprising, but it worked out alright. He usually goes down between 9:30 and 10:30 for about 90 minutes or so. Today, though, he just wasn't interested. No problem, though: when he sleeps in the morning, he often gets tired again in the afternoon, but it's too late in the day to nap. So he just took his nap in the afternoon, which works better all around.

Three meals, lots of school work, playing with the boy (not "Playing with the Boys" from the Top Gun soundtrack, mind you), Studio 60 (which I really hope they bring back next season, but I have a feeling that hope is misguided--I'm sure there are any number of reality TV shows waiting to fill the gap and play to the lowest common denominator of viewer--if you watch the show, you'll see the irony in that comment), blog, and soon, bed.

But first. We ran into a situation in Aridrie this weekend that I wanted to talk about. As you all know from reading this blog, the service here in Alberta, well, it sucks. With the economy being so hot, there's generally always a glut of lower-paying (if you call making over $10/hour working at Tim Horton's "low-paying") service industry jobs that go unfilled by the people with any customer service skills whatsoever, considering they're all in a job farther up the food chain. This weekend's excursion to the Pita Pit was no different. You know, all I ask of my food servers is that they at least look like they comprehend the basic standards of food service sanitation--like, say, tying one's hair back when serving food. I'm extra happy if they actually make the effort to engage me, or if they know the answer to a question I pose to them (for example: "What's in your 'assorted' pita" got the response, "Huh?" as if we had just said "wirhs'r woich rosich whi wprchi?").

These particular servers, well, they did nothing of the sort. That's fine--I'm used to it. What I really hate is when a server explains something to you that is absolutely a bald-faced lie and expects you to believe it. For example, like many people in the modern mark-of-the-beast world, we don't usually carry cash. Who does nowadays? I usually have a few dollars on me, but not on this particular day. No problem, right? We'll just pay with our debit cards (which, coincidentally, are called Interac, not Interact, but I digress).

Out came the debit card. Then something that drives me up the wall: "If you're paying with debit, there's a fee." Wha?! You're going to charge me a fee for paying? I have to pay you to pay? How does that work?

As if that wasn't enough (I absolutely will not pay to pay--we almost walked out with our pitas on the grill--you want to charge me to pay? How about you swallow the cost of that pita you just made. Does that make your Interac fee seem reasonable--ooh, I'm so mean) here's the explanation they gave: "The machine we have just charges you to pay with Interac." Excuse me? It's the machine's fault? The evil programmers of this particular debit machine inserted a line of code that none can extract, save the one with the magical key, that ensures a fee is charged for all debit transactions? I think not.

Instead, how about the real explanation: "Every time a customer pays with plastic, the bank we use charges us a processing fee. Although most purveyors of food and retail items accept this as the cost of doing business, our manager/owner, in his or her infinite wisdom, has decided that charging you $6 for a pita isn't enough, and he must now recoup the cost of your transaction through charging you an idiotic fee for paying in a way that 90% of the world uses"? I can understand that there might be a fee if I asked to pay with, say, livestock or perhaps body parts. But for using a debit card? Come on!

The story didn't have a bad ending, however. We discovered that there's no fee if you pay with a credit card (which makes how much sense? None), so we just did that and avoided leaving. I, however, expressed my displeasure to the person behind the counter (who seemed to have some sort of supervisory role) in no uncertain terms.

Okay, time out. I have to stop and allay any fears you might have about what that looks like (especially you, mom). I have worked for far too long in the customer service industry. I know what it's like to take the abuse of customers for many reasons, none of which usually involve me. I know that sometimes on the front line you have to take the heat for an unpopular management decision, and I have sometimes been that unpopular manager myself. There is never any reason to lose it on anyone behind the counter. Now that I'm a dad, I think of how I would feel if that was Theo standing back there, and I was some random guy off the street. I will not yell and scream at the help. It's just not right.

For me, expressing my displeasure involves telling them that I think their policy is stupid and useless, in a polite way (it's hard to explain). The thing is that I don't need to get mad to express that I am an unhappy customer--it becomes abundantly clear.

This person, being a supervisor, picked up on my displeasure. As we were waiting for our pitas to be grilled (and dealing with the inefficient pita-makers, who apparently thought that we had ESP regarding pita toppings), she came up to me and offered me two coupons for our next visit. There won't be one, but if there was, that would be a good step. Service recovery is a lost art, and I'm glad to see that she at least tried. As I said, I'm still not going back, but at least my last memory isn't a sour one.

I think I probably should re-read and edit that, but I'm not going to bother because it's time for bed. I was correct--the 24 update will have to be tomorrow (it's only about 1/3 through downloading), but that'll give you something to look forward to. Also, it's apparently "exit survey" day tomorrow at school. I have no idea what that entails, but I'll give you a full report in tomorrow's blog. Until then, well, make up your own witty sign-off. See you tomorrow.