Posted in complaint department, Real Life, stuff, writing

Forgot To Press the Magic Button

I wrote a post a while back and it was sitting in draft mode. I may publish it with a previous date. I just might do that, don’t you try to stop me!

I have really ignored my site and that’s a shame because next year is the 20th anniversary of bigdumptruck.com and maybe I’ll have to fire things up and offer prizes to people who actually read my posts and can answer questions. Or people who send me money or diamonds. They could get a prize as well. Amazon has a whole thing now where you can offer items as prizes, which makes me laugh when I’m looking at something particularly expensive. I think I get seven visitors a day (probably because I update so infrequently, what with Twitter taking up the ten minutes a day I used to devote to writing here.

If I offer a prize, it will likely be something incredibly useless. I think those are the best prizes of all, don’t you?

Share
Posted in complaint department, Real Life, Shopping

A Staples Death Rattle

Did you ever encounter a situation that was so unbelievably silly that you can’t even really get mad as it’s happening, but you get more and more angry about it later? Let me tell you a little story about my Staples adventure!

 

I had been thinking about getting an external keyboard for my iPad mini. Because my printer is low on black ink I ran to Staples and thought I’d see what they had. I’m kind of a Goldilocks when it comes to keyboards so I like to try them out.

 

I found the section with iPad keyboards pretty quickly. All the boxes had “Display Unit” on them (one box per brand/style) so I walked around looking for the display, which didn’t appear to be anywhere in the store.

 

Sales guy approached and I asked to see the keyboards.

 

“We used to have them on display but they took it away.” (Who is they, and why would they do that? And how is this a valid explanation for anything?)

 

“Oh, because the boxes all say ‘Display unit.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“…so there aren’t any in the boxes.”

 

“No.”

 

I wait a moment, because surely he’s going to help me, right? I’m pretty sure it’s his turn to offer up information.

 

But no.

 

“So I can’t even take one out of the box to try it because you literally don’t have any on the shelves.”

 

“Right.”

 

“Just empty boxes.”

 
“Sorry.”

 

Okay, Staples? How is this even remotely acceptable? Aren’t you in the business of selling things?  What is this nonsense of filling shelves with empty display boxes? Watch me walk out the door and not come back the next time I need something tablet or computer related. Because “Display only” boxes with no display is one of the most stupid things I’ve run into in months. And I can go to Target or Walmart or Best Buy and get a damned keyboard and I’ll bet the boxes aren’t empty.

 

Also, train your sales “people” to anticipate my follow-up questions and not give a one word answer to a reasonable line of questions if you want us to bother driving to your store instead of just ordering things online.

Share
Posted in complaint department

The Owner

I just got a telemarketing phone call from an uptight-sounding woman. These people call often, according to my missed calls list, so I wanted to answer to get on their do-not-call list.

Me: Hello?
Them: May I speak to the owner?
Me: Excuse me?
Them: The owner.

What would possess anyone to call ANYBODY and start a conversation that way? No identifying who you are at ALL?

You get nothing but a “Please Add me to your Do Not Call list.” We are through here. Thank you for playing. Goodbye.

Share
Posted in complaint department, Real Life

The Trauma of “New”

I love new gadgets, but I detest change. So the excitement of having something shiny and new is offset by the pain of the unfamiliar, the disappointment that things are different, or worse than the old. Eventually, I will get used to the new and there will be no more trauma, so I have hope.

Given the above information, you can imagine the horror I am enduring right now as I deal with not one, but four new major appliances. For 19 years I’ve had the same stove and fridge, and my washer and dryer were in the 14 year range. Now they are all new. They are all different. I don’t know how to use 3 of them (the fridge is the one joy in all of this, because really, how difficult can it be to “learn” a new fridge.)

The washing machine, while a lovely machine, is very different from my old front-loading Maytag. The cycles take longer, for one thing. And I think it uses more water. (Is this just the difference between a top loader and a front loader? Maybe I bought the wrong style?  Too late now.) I really disliked the “bad” things about the front loader, but I wish the washing was faster. Or maybe it took just as long, but I didn’t have a countdown clock telling me how long it would take to wash a load of towels (over an hour). On the other hand, there’s a lot to love, and some day I’ll finish reading the manual and understand all the settings. Maybe by the end of the summer. The good news? It plays an ice cream man-like song at the end of every cycle. I can barely hear it in the other room, but it’s so happy the load is done it sings!

The stove has a lot of new bells and whistles and I had to finish getting it unwrapped and prepped for use before I could boil water last night. Slight panic over the “new”. I also have to check all my pots and pans to make sure I can use them all (the difference between a piece of crap electric and a nice electric? You have to be careful on the nice one).

All of this bitching is probably making you hate me. I can live with that. I probably won’t even notice you hating on me as I try to memorize all the features and functions of my new toys, just to do a simple load of laundry and cook french fries. Priorities, people.

 

Four went in, four came out. They met in the middle of the street.
Four went in, four came out. They met in the middle of the street.

 

Share
Posted in complaint department

Honey, I Blew Up the Website

Wow, did I make a mistake this morning. I updated my WordPress themes, which were woefully out of date. I then remembered that I had customized the code a bit for my site. I think that is the reason why the entire thing blew sky high after the update. I had created THE UGLIEST WEB PAGE ON THE INTERNET! And that is saying something.
I think it’s fixed. I don’t know if everything works, to be honest. As you can see, it’s been a long, long time since I’ve updated this page. When the domain came up for renewal, I did renew it, but I seriously wondered for a moment if I should. I think I did it to keep the email addresses I’ve had for 17 years. I’m sort of attached.

Share