Customer Service - NOT

I wanted to tell you about an experience I had recently at the local UPS depot - now it's important to note this was the corporate depot not a franchise!
I had arranged to pick up a package at the depot (rather than having it delivered to our home where we wouldn't be anyway) First problem occurred when I couldn't find a place to park. There was a dedicated customer parking area but it was full. I went into the office after parking in a staff parking spot (in violation of the posted sign...) I go into the dingy little cubby and there is only one person at the counter. (Why is the parking area full?) I wait a few minutes while the person in front of me completes paying for his COD package and I help him through the door.
I speak to the 19 year old kid in the grey sweatshirt and sideways baseball cap - we discuss the parking problem, he commiserates with me, I suggest that maybe towing someone would solve their problem (mostly in jest actually). Baseball cap kid goes in the back for my package leaving the door open to the back area of the loading bay so I can see the five people lounging around, with maybe one or two actually moving packages into trucks. Then a PA announcement comes over from the manager asking employees to move their vehicles out of customer parking. So far so good - while the kid in the sweatshirt and cap looks shoddy - he's done good work, got my package quickly and talked to management about my problem. Then the kicker - the meatheads in the back yell back at the PA to "Shut Up". I'm still standing in the dingy little entry way and can see and hear all of this - I almost yelled at them - I was angry. I left the place and placed a twenty minute complaint call to the UPS 1-800 number (asked for a supervisor first.)
What a colossal customer service failure - I can't park, I'm served by a kid who looks like he should be out on his skateboard not behind a business counter, the counter itself looks like something out of the 70's. Then the rampant disrespect shown by the employees to the management.
Why on earth would I ever do business with UPS? Now they have an annoyed customer who is blogging on their faults...it's easy to think that 10+ people will read this ... a PR disaster. (The standard PR rule I was taught in school was that a happy customer tells 1 person unhappy customers tell 10)

Here's what should have happened:
1) The customer parking area should have been open to park in.
2) The kid should have been in uniform - (not that he did a bad job really)
3) The gentleman in front of me should have been helped by UPS staff out to his vehicle with his large box - easy and cheap improvement in customer experience.
4) The counter space should have been clean, modern, well painted in corporate colours with corporate logo
5) The door to the shipping area should have automatically been closed as my package was retrieved.

It's the year 2007, thousands of customer service books have been written and published in the last decade - and companies still can't get the basics right???

Evan

Photo Credit: wok http://www.flickr.com/photos/mworrell/266180687/

Spring Thaw - St. Vital Park, Winnipeg

Spring Thaw - St. Vital Park, Winnipeg
Originally uploaded by Tuktoyaktuk.

I almost feel as if the world is waking up, with only a few warm days it's amazing how much the snow has melted. I can now go to work without my boots!

I can see many of the plants in our garden, and my mind is increasingly turning to our yard tasks ahead - sod and retaining stone to purchase, path to repair and cleanup, seeds to start (they're in the kitchen greenhouse) There might even be compost to pull out and get ready for the garden (it's had 2 years now)

The basement, though 'DONE' needs a good cleaning (as does the rest of the house - can you say 'Spring Cleaning'! Maybe we can start that this weekend...

I'm finally sleeping better and 'House Management' (the just living each day stuff - remember we have a 21 month old ) has been much easier recently. I've been trying to really move myself actively toward the 8 - action vs. my tendency toward a built in delay to 'gather more information' . I'm beginning to 'live' (not just know) the fact that the delays actually make things worse. It's still not all right (I missed processing some forms for a Scouting issue and also missed a phone call to another Scouting contact that I should have done last week. But it's not so much of a panic each morning as it once was.

I'm looking forward to spring this year. Much to do and clean and grow, maybe even myself!

Take Care!

CBC DRM Junk

Tod Maffin indicates on the Inside the CBC Blog that CBC intends to post clips of some of their shows online, which is great! Problem is that they are going to encode them in the DivX format and shackle them with DRM.

If they don't want people to share their videos then they shouldn't make them available! To believe that anything that is web posted can be contained or controlled is simply silly these days. The only thing the DRM does is make it more difficult for legitimate users to use. Those who want the images bad enough will grab them anyway - and will repost them onto better formats like YouTube.

I for one will NOT use or buy ANY web content in any form that has been infected with DRM it’s just too risky after the viral software distributed on SONY music CDs in 2005.

A number of high profile Canadian artists have come out against DRM (Sarah McLachlan, Avril Lavigne, Barenaked Ladies amongst others) see http://www.musiccreators.ca/wp These are the performers and industry that CBC purports to promote!

A more progressive and community supportive stance would have been for the CBC to license their material under a Creative Commons license so that fans like me could share and promote their material freely but they would retain the right to prevent commercial use and disallow modification of it’s content. (see http://creativecommons.org/ )

Evan Young

Winter Is Almost Over

Winter Is Almost Over
Originally uploaded by Big Grey Mare.

I was searching for a photo for a 'winter is still hanging on' blog but this was a nice picture...We've had a little more snow in the last couple of days but the temps have been nice.

Winter is almost over, you can almost hear people chanting it over and over to themselves like a mantra.

Need to go out and shovel some more snow...maybe not - my bed warmer is on and it's time to go back to bed and hide for the night!

Have a good Sleep!

Evan

100 Years

Some of you may know that this is the 100th anniversary year of Scouting - here's a great video that tells you a little about the founder of the worlds largest and most successful youth movement.

Morning Drive

Ever have one of those morning drives?

Today was one of those, the garbage truck came early (I usually take the garbage out to the curb just as I'm leaving for work but since the city contracted out the garbage service to a private company they've gotten all efficient on me and consistently come early) So I'm getting kiddo dressed inside and...garbage truck goes buy - oh well it's winter and the garbage will keep, got the recyclables out anyway. On the way to the office after dropping off Kiddo and I come very quickly to a halt - that's when the traffic report comes on saying that the street I'm on is all backed up...OK quick turn around, and take my alternate route. That's jammed up as well so a 15 minute drive became a 40 minute one. Then I get to the office and the strap on my pack gets itself wedged in the door as I come in stopping me like a dog on a leash. Not a problem you say just reach down and open the door and let the strap out...well it's a security door - magnetic lock...I'm trapped, had to undo my pack and reach over and hit the 'exit button' to get myself out - thank goodness there were no witnesses.

Now it's only noon and I'm waiting for the next shoe...

Evan

Postscript: actually survived the day - no second shoe - yet...

Photo Credit: Sheila Steele

Winter 'blahs'

The winter 'blahs' have got me - I've been exhausted, bored and 1/2 sick since the middle of January. I go to bed at ten and sleep hard for eight hours until I get up at six. I wake up groggy and it takes me half an hour to finish waking up, and even when I do I'm still not what I would call 'rested'.

In past years I haven't had this problem but it's been -40c (with windchill) for the last couple of weeks and spending any time outside without a serious amount of clothing isn't really viable. I've been stuck inside in 'routine mode' <you can skip to the next para if you want it's just my daily routine> up, breakfast, get kiddo up, feed kiddo, wake up S, Shave/Shower/Dress, say goodbye to S., Dress Kiddo, Pack up my pack and kiddo's bag, dress kiddo for outside, load kiddo, drop kiddo off, go to work, park in parkade, walk to work, work, lunch, work, drive home, clean up, have dinner made by S., read email, put kiddo to bed, clean up basement/other volunteer work, bed - repeat.

Not that I'm complaining, lots of people wish they had it so good, I guess I just have some 'work to do' over the next few weeks. Funny thing is that when I begin to try and do somethings different, people get all weird, like I was 'changing on them'. I had a candle lit by the computer the other day (after kiddo was in bed), just trying to 'center' a little bit I guess. And all I heard from my friends / S. was; 'what's the candle for? you never do that' or 'you know you need to burn that for three hours right?' (it was 9pm, bed is at 10 remember...).

I guess I haven't had much 'recharge time' - today's the first Saturday I've had to myself in a long time, and I need that break - S. just goes to bed when she needs to recharge. I need quiet time with myself - I don't even mind if S. an kiddo are around doing their own thing just so long as I can do mine.

Ah well, best to make the best of Kiddo's nap time - got to connect the power lines I was working on the other day and see if the lights blow up - Take care!

Evan

Photo Credit: hansi linderoth

Shared Items

I've added a new feature! On the right side of this page is a Google Widget called 'Evan's Shared Items' it lists some news stories, downloads and other goodies that I spot while reading the news in Google Reader. As I read my RSS feeds daily this should be updating almost every day!

No guarantees what these will be, if you find what I add use full I'd like to know!

Evan

Photo Credit: cyberslayer

No More Plastic

Picture taken by Flickr user Sembazuru

I think I've come to the conclusion that I don't want to buy anything more made out of plastic. As part of my 'year in review' (see 28 Dec 07 ) I made note of the junk that has been accumulated at our house and much of the junk is made of plastic. I/we have purchased many things over the years from Wall-Mart and other 'regular consumer stores' and they are made of various sorts of plastic, or particle board with laminate (plastic) vernier with fake metal handles etc. In the end all of these things seem to fail or we stop using them because they never quite worked in the first place. They are not really something we can repair or 'maintain' they are designed to meet the 'bare minimum' and no more.

So, I've come to the conclusion that I'd like to purchase things, when they are needed, from 'real' materials. I.e. furniture should be made from real wood, cases, backpacks etc. should be heavy duty man made or leather. I need desk drawer dividers for my new desk and I've decided they should be wood not plastic. It's simply too easy to go to some regular consumer store and pay $129 for a chair that is going to last for 4 years when I could pay $350-$550 and have it for most of the rest of my working life. What that means is I'll have to do without some things while I save up for better quality - maybe that's a good thing.

This Epiphany was echoed by some other items on the Lifehacker blog (I think): I use a Moleskine notebook for my 'analog pda' it's my 'everything but work items' notebook, for all my meetings (I volunteer with Scouts, the Church, etc.) and I prefer to use a fountain pen with the notebook. Turns out that I am not alone in this, there are others in the world that use this setup (good notebook and expensive pen) and it too costs a little bit more (small moleskine notebooks are about $14 rather than $7 for a cheap Hilroy). My moleskine is built better, comes with an elastic band to hold it shut and a place marker. Best of all it will 'lie flat' for writing, making the entire page more useful, so for those few extra dollars I get a much better experience overall, I'm going to try and apply this philosophy to everything I buy, we'll see how it comes out.

Evan

P.s. I wonder if my moleskine/pen thing is particularly five-ish?

EOS Amon Hen

EOS Amon Hen
Originally uploaded by roger_taylor_85.

Another Flickr pick...found by doing a search for 'shire' as in Tolkien.
For those that have read the books...doesn't this one just make you want to walk up the steps to see if there is a seat at the top of the hill (or look around worried about Orks?)

Evan

Happy New Year

Happy New Year, Taipei 101
Originally uploaded by Coolmitch.

Hope it's a fun time where you're at, Winnipeg got 30+cm of fresh new snow today so it's been a 'fun' day today.

God's blessings on all of us - around the world - in Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi 2007

(I know Anno Domini... it's not politically correct it's supposed to be CE but ... sheesh)

Evan

End of the Year Review and Ideas for Next Year

Classic Cheescake@Secret Recipe Originally uploaded by Jasemaine.

Well Christmas is over, we had a great family dinner made most of our items from scratch (as opposed to prepackaged). We made an absolutely sin-full new-york style cheesecake. We had Fillet Minion instead of 'Traditional Turkey' and it appeared to be very much enjoyed by everyone.

Santa gave us the 5-6 player expansions for Settlers of Catan and Cities and Nights of Catan so we played a game of that after dinner. Now, this is in contrast to what my family did when we were growing up - apparently at some time in the past 50 years mom had a bad experience with board games so had sworn off of them forever so she didn't play and dad thought the whole thing looked very complex. This is one of those 'family differences' S's family frequently would have dinner at 2 or 3 in the afternoon followed by an afternoon of games then a light supper at 7-8 before everyone left. My family would have 'Formal English Turkey-Carved-At-The-Table-by-Dad, Veggies-Served-by-Mom-at-the-Other-End' dinner. Needless to say there has been some 'style friction over the years'

Didn't Work
Outside / Yard Construction

This continues to take us 'FOREVER' just can't get the cycles together to get what is now just a little work to be done NEED to GET THIS FINISHED!

Garage / Craft Room Organization

We have way too much junk, and desperately need to dump stuff and paper, right now our garage is full of crap that isn't in the basement (because we were working on that) and the craft room is full of the junk that we couldn't move outside.

Personal Organization / Tasks

While I'm not missing meetings, I'm not getting to them prepared, i.e. having read the minutes from the previous meeting just as the new meeting starts (if at all) and catching the 'To Do's' that I might have for the meeting by the skin of my teeth. I use Gmail for email but I think I'm in desperate need of an organizer system.

Did Work
Basement

Surprisingly, the basement came together quite quickly once we hired a friend to help us out with the drywalling, we were able to get the ceiling up fairly easily and we're just about done the 'finish electrical'

Work - Programming

My skills at programming are slowly improving, I'm able to not only 'get the work done' but to do it a little faster and it's not so much a struggle, I made good progress learning ASP.net 2.0

Kiddo

Being a dad has been more fun than I had ever hoped it would be - I actually was not looking forward to the first couple of years (what I had previously though of as the 'the poop factory phase i.e. food in poop out not much else going on), K. is terrific fun to be around, he's a happy kid, busy learning and exploring his world and taking me with him on his journey - great fun

To Do
Improve Personal Organization

I've read in Lifehacker about the Getting Things Done system and may check that out next year

Personal Studies

I need to 'pick a topic' with a goal and devote some time to it - another certification from Microsoft or a Programming field of interest or something.

Finish Basement

Need to bring this to a conclusion so that we can begin working on sorting through the crap

That's about it, now if I can only get rid of the cold / flu that I've had since the end of Boxing day that would be great

Have a great new year!

Evan

The second candle burns!

the second candle burns!
Originally uploaded by rotraud_17.

It's actually the 3rd week of Advent but I liked this picture...we're in 'quick clean up the house' mode now, we're winding down our shopping, we've decided on what to serve for dinner and I think I know what I'll pick up for S.

Went to take kiddo's picture with Santa last night and he 'freaked' sat there and held his arms out and screamed...'get me away from the big man...' now he's only 18 months and can't actually talk yet but that was what he was saying - no doubt!

Oh well - have a great Christmas - even if you aren't actively Christian, this week offers time in our culture to attempt to relax, re-energise, spend time with family and friends and 're-centre' for the next few months, I'm certainly going to try and take a break!

Ev

loneliness

loneliness
Originally uploaded by requiemm.

I'm not lonely (I have a wonderful wife and an 18 month old, NOT Lonely) but this picture was really good I thought.

Evan

Street...Life?

Man in the Street
Originally uploaded by scribeoflight.

I was driving home from a client site the other day and happened to be in my city's downtown area - right along the main drag when I see someone poking into one of those cement garbage cans. This may be a 'can collector' I remember thinking - they're pretty common. While I'm sad that it's necessary for them to collect cans at least they are doing something active to make a buck, sort of like squeegee kids, not the best but at least it's working. This fellow on the other hand wasn't looking for cans. As it turns out he was looking for something to sit on, and he found a scrap of cardboard. He moved over to the beside the building put the cardboard down and sat down on it, to beg. At this moment I saw that his left hand was missing, the stump covered in recent bandages. Now, it was -23c (that's -10f for you Americans) that's COLD the windchill probably brought it down to -30c or more (-22f).

I don't know his name, I don't know his history, though he was native. I don't know if he would (or could) accept help if it was offered. I don't know if he has mental or other physical issues but quite frankly I almost cried at this site - we live in a fabulously rich country (by comparison to most other people on the planet) and here is a man out in the cold begging for his life. We're debating weather or not to let a pork processing plant that would bring 500 jobs to the city be built. We're debating weather or not to allow a huge housing suburb called Waverly West be built, our federal government is debating same sex marriage again (it was decided last year the Conservatives brought it back) and we can't find time or money to house or feed this man in decency. He deserves a soft bed and a cup of something warm, no not a big handouts. Now, I still believe that you should work for the best in life. But someplace to sleep and rest and heal in safety is only decent, only Christian. Until we can do that, maybe we need to put a moratorium on new development. Maintain what we have sure but you can't build new expensive (in the cash and environmental sense) housing until everyone down in our city's core has a bed. Maybe that would make a difference...maybe.

It's 18 days to Christmas, the 1st week of Advent...where will he be on Christmas Day?

And no, I'm just as guilty as the rest, I went on my way when the light turned green...

Quebec is a 'Nation'

Flag of Quebec
Originally uploaded by van+s.

So the Quebecois are a 'nation', at least our Parliament has said they are. Problem is that what most Canadians and (I believe members of Parliament believe) is that the term Quebecois refers to the 'People of Quebec'. I don't believe that Duceppe and the Block Quebecois hold the same definition - his definition is those people in Quebec that speak French, are catholic, white and come from historical families.
Now it's not that he hates others - he's not actively racist - just that he feels that 'his people' would be best served by separation from 'those people'. If we allow this, we let Canada break up into various ethnic groups, polish, French, German, native we would prove nothing to ourselves, or to the world.

More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebecois

One Laptop Per Child

One Laptop Per Child :

"The mission of this non-profit association is to develop a low-cost laptop—the "$100 Laptop"—a technology that could revolutionize how we educate the world's children. Our goal is to provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment, and express themselves."

What a great idea, see the OLPC Wiki for more info - I hope we'll get the opportunity to purchase these for kids overseas, just as we sponsor them with books we can sponsor the technology that will free them to expand their society into the future

Portage Ave. at Night

Portage Ave.
Originally uploaded by camd.

Here you go, portage at night with all it's lights.

Portage Ave

Portage Ave
Originally uploaded by gnar.vision.

For those that are interested, here's a shot of Portage Ave. in Winnipeg (my home town) recently, see gnar.vision's Flickr page for more!

This weekend they'll light up the Christmas Lights and it looks fantastic at night!

Warning Signs - a photoset on Flickr

OK you've got to see these - I they're great!

BTW: If you haven't browsed Flickr yet it's wonderful fun but a time suck...

Warning Signs - a photoset on Flickr