The Vent and Rant Thread

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by issybird

Four of my last five Amazon orders have gone wrong and they make it so hard these days to fix issues. I ended up eating two of the problems; one was a damaged item and the other was a wrong item, but I decided I could live with both instead of engaging in the hassle.

I never thought Amazon had such stellar service back in the days when people raved about it, but lately it's a one-two punch; they can't get it right up front and then they make it very difficult to engage in order to fix it. A lot of the "Help" links end up in dead-ends; you're got to persist. And then the script-reading CS (and I don't blame them) eats up a significant portion of your remaining lifespan.

It's hard for me to blame them for the robotic Chat services, either. My company provides customer support--which is mostly me, as my Minions are too busy doing other book-related work--and it's incredibly time-consuming. People have NO idea what it takes, "just" to answer one question or the like. I have customers--not sure when this started, but it's fairly recent--where they all email me in multiple emails, starting in the morning. Not one email thread with multiple replies--MULTIPLE emails with multiple replies. WHY? Why on earth do they do that? And if I try to consolidate, what happens? Yes, I get yet more "new emails" back, over and over. /rant, sorry.

Nobody in a regular gig appreciates what customer service, anywhere, entails. It's why I try very hard not to turn into a total cow, when I'm unhappy with a business--even the six days I was just knocked off the Net, by my ISP/phone company. (Which promised that the repairman would be out" every day" and he wasn't, for six days...) But I cannot imagine, literally, what it's like at Amazon each day.

It must be overwhelming and they must have customer complaints stacked up like a good few cords of dried wood. Boggling.

Hitch

[ApK]

Back in the day, I was quite impressed with Amazon CS. I didn't have too many problems (or I would have stopped using them) but when I did, it was easy to get to a rep, and the rep knew the policies, and had the ability to address the issue, or knew who to refer things to if they didn't. This model grew Amazon into a huge multi-billion dollar success.

At that time, chat-bots were worse than useless. There were just FAQ regurgitators and not good ones at that.

Chat-bots have gotten better. They became decent FAQ regulators, with better than a 50/50 shot of parsing your question in a somewhat relevant way. Probably now, or at least in the very near future, with ChatGPT type technology, they can be as good as a minimally trained and competent human rep.

The problem is, the human reps have degraded so far below minimally trained and competent, with no empowerment, no clear understanding of policy, minimal communication ability, and no empathy, that BY COMPARISON, half the time, chat-bots are better than human reps. **

Last time I call Amazon for a problem (about two weeks ago) I spent an hour, getting passed around FIVE TIMES to solve an issue that could have and should been done in 5 minutes by the lowest level CSR. And I know this is true, because after the hour and 5th transfer, I just started playing CSR roulette for a few minutes, starting from scratch, until I got someone who solved the problem in five minutes.

Amazon and similar large companies could afford to spend millions maintaining a trained and competent CSR staff, investing in the support model that earned them their success. They choose not to.

**ETA, that reminds me of a joke:

Spoiler:

Once there were two wicked brothers who had cheated, swindled, disrespected and mistreated everyone they had ever done business with.

One of the brothers died, and the other was left to arrange his funeral. So the surviving brother told the local preacher he’d donate $10,000 to the church if he would say in the eulogy that his brother was a saint.

The preacher had an ethical dilemma. He and everyone else in town knew how wicked these brothers were, but the church desperately needed the money for repairs.

The preacher agreed, the brother wrote the preacher a check, and they shook hands on the deal.

The funeral was packed with people curious as to whether the preacher would actually follow through. He did so with these words: “As you know, the deceased was an awful man who cheated, swindled, disrespected and mistreated everyone he ever did business with, but, compared to his brother, he was a saint.”

[issybird]

@Hitch: Oh, I know. It's why if they would/could fix something quick, it would be cheaper. Not only is a drawn-out resolution a waste of my time, it costs them more than they'd save by being generous about it early in the process. But I suspect part of the game Amazon is playing (and I give Amazon credit for mostly knowing what it's doing) is to make contacting CS so annoying and unproductive that people don't bother, just as I ate 50% of the problems I had.

[Deskisamess]

The problem is, the human reps have degraded so far below minimally trained and competent, with no empowerment, no clear understanding of policy, minimal communication ability, and no empathy, that BY COMPARISON, half the time, chat-bots are better than human reps.

My daughter is in a same sex marriage, and has been for several years. They have a joint bank account. A few months back, there was a weird small charge, like 37 cents, on their debit card, that prompted my daughter-in-law to call the bank's support number. The charge was obviously one of those "test" charges by someone who had their debit card number, placed at a location hundreds of miles from where they live.

The support person on the phone kept asking to "talk to your husband". She didn't seem to grasp the same sex marriage thing, or that both their names were on the account. After several go-rounds, not getting anywhere, they drove to a local branch, where someone helped them. We live in Ohio, the support person was based in West Virginia.

Had this support person been living under a rock the last few years? And why insist on talking to "the husband"? Why not "the wife"? Why the need to talk to the other account holder at all?

It was bizarre.

[mlewis78]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

Up until now I managed to keep my hay fever under control with Ceterizine pills, Loratadine works better but it makes my hair fall out.

At home it doesn't bother me too much, just a light cough, but when I go to an area with lots of trees my eyes start watering and my nose gets itchy and starts running.

The pills used to work for at home, so I don't have the itchy throat. When out in the woods I would need to use a nasal spray on top of that. But the last two weeks I've had the itchy throat off and on. So it looks like the Cetirizine doesn't work anymore. It's only a slight itch, but enough for me to keep regularly keep coughing and clearing my throat. Which is tiring and I'll often end up with a headache.

I've looked for throat spray for hay fever, but that doesn't seem to be available in the Netherlands (nasal spray does not work for the itchy throat). So I'll have to call my doctor's office and see if I can my a (telephone) appointment to get something stronger. Although it wouldn't surprise me if they diagnose it as stress/anxiety, that seems to be their favourite diagnosis for women.

I take Cetirizine every day, all year around. It doesn't seem to keep my nose from running (when I'm not sick), but I stopped using it for a few days last November when I ran out of it, and my hands started itching. The next day other areas on my legs were itching. It was driving me crazy. The itch went away when I took Cetirizine again.

I was feeling on the mend on Saturday. My coughs felt better and productive, as they say. It wasn't good during the night though. At noon today I started taking the antibiotic that the doctor at City MD prescribed. He said if I wasn't better (from last Monday), I should start taking it. I've had some sinus infections in the long past, so that may be what this is, but I am not sure. I made chicken noodle soup tonight that was so good. I made enough to have for a few days.

[Rumpelteazer]

Originally Posted by mlewis78

I take Cetirizine every day, all year around. It doesn't seem to keep my nose from running (when I'm not sick), but I stopped using it for a few days last November when I ran out of it, and my hands started itching. The next day other areas on my legs were itching. It was driving me crazy. The itch went away when I took Cetirizine again.

I suspect that I didn't take my Cetirizine yesterday, but a vitamin D pill. I woke up at 5am feeling crappy; very itchy and dry throat, fuzzy head (like I'm getting a cold), I took a Cetirizine and within 30 minutes I only have a slightly itchy throat. I'm going to get some nasal spray and see if that works. Otherwise I'll have to call my doctor.

Originally Posted by mlewis78

I was feeling on the mend on Saturday. My coughs felt better and productive, as they say. It wasn't good during the night though. At noon today I started taking the antibiotic that the doctor at City MD prescribed. He said if I wasn't better (from last Monday), I should start taking it. I've had some sinus infections in the long past, so that may be what this is, but I am not sure. I made chicken noodle soup tonight that was so good. I made enough to have for a few days.

That sucks. I hope you get better soon.

[John F]

Originally Posted by issybird

Four of my last five Amazon orders have gone wrong and they make it so hard these days to fix issues. I ended up eating two of the problems; one was a damaged item and the other was a wrong item, but I decided I could live with both instead of engaging in the hassle.

I never thought Amazon had such stellar service back in the days when people raved about it, but lately it's a one-two punch; they can't get it right up front and then they make it very difficult to engage in order to fix it. A lot of the "Help" links end up in dead-ends; you're got to persist. And then the script-reading CS (and I don't blame them) eats up a significant portion of your remaining lifespan.

I agree completely that it is frustrating and tedious to contact them, and even after you contact them, the customer service doesn't know how to solve the problem.

When something I purchased goes wrong, it is either very easy or very difficult to return/exchange it. Either you can do it quickly on the orders website page, but if you want to talk to someone to confirm the reason/process, good luck.

[John F]

I received a letter for my parents about a data breach. To paraphrase the letter, on Jan 30, a data breach occurred due to 3rd party software. They learned about the breach on Feb 7. They immediately took steps to secure the system and launch an investigation by an experienced outside law firm...

The tone of the letter is that they did everything they could, and yet, we didn't receive a letter until yesterday, 3 months later.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

Why the need to talk to the other account holder at all?

It was bizarre.

I can certainly see reasons why they might need to check with both account holders for somethings, but now that you mention it, even though my wife and I have traditionally masculine and feminine first names with the same last name, on those occasions when our bank did need to speak to the other one of us, they have always asked for "the other account holder." Seems they were ahead of their time.

[Hitch]

Here's a question and a ponderment:

Should someone that does not understand the difference between an index (subject matter index, back of book, not a TOC) and a concordance actually be writing a non-fiction book? I mean...if you don't understand that indices are curated, and you think that you can just slap some subject matter word list to a bookmaker somewhere, to compile a concordance for you, why have an index at all?????

GRUMBLE.

Spoiler:

I've got not one, not two but THREE, three men who don't understand indices versus concordances and seem to think that they can just slap a word list on us and voila, out pops a perfectly designed, ready to go index.
Which is not what happens. Of course, they naturally don't want to pay for commercial indexing. Heavens forfend.

Nope, they think that by wishing and clicking, sure 'nuff, they'll get the equivalent "this other way."

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. My hands are coming off this week from explaining it, over and over. WHAT is so hard to understand? I keep asking if they are going to do the manual marking of the index entries, (in Word or the like), or if they're going to give us a word list and then REMOVE Those entries that they don't want, after the "index-cum-concordance" is built, or...? And it's like that whole deer-in-the-headlights thing. But I strongly suspect that part of the deer thing is that core unwillingness to just do the work.

And of course, at least two of them ran out and found "magic" software that what--yup, you guessed it--builds a concordance form a Word list. I sometimes wonder WHY I SPEAK AT ALL

Hitch

[Rumpelteazer]

In Dutch we say that buying something cheap can turn out expensive (goedkoop is duurkoop). Which turned out to be true this morning. I have a bunch of embroidery hoops, most of them bought when I started out cross stitching I bought a bunch of them in different sizes. But all of them were the cheaper bamboo ones, because I didn't want to spend too much on a new hobby I didn't know I would like this much.

This morning I needed to move the fabric and went to unscrew the hoop and the screw got stuck. Luckily it was loose enough for me to pop the fabric out. I'm now using a smaller hoop (more move of fabric) which is obviously a better quality wood. There are also no gaps like with the broken hoop, so hopefully the fabric tension will last longer.

So I'm now dumping my cheap hoops and I'll need to replace them with better ones. Added bonus is that if I want to frame a cross stitch in a hoop the expensive ones look a lot better, too. They are twice as expensive (€7.80-€9.50 instead of €3.60-€4.75), but really not that expensive.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

In Dutch we say that buying something cheap can turn out expensive (goedkoop is duurkoop). Which turned out to be true this morning. I have a bunch of embroidery hoops, most of them bought when I started out cross stitching I bought a bunch of them in different sizes. But all of them were the cheaper bamboo ones, because I didn't want to spend too much on a new hobby I didn't know I would like this much.

This morning I needed to move the fabric and went to unscrew the hoop and the screw got stuck. Luckily it was loose enough for me to pop the fabric out. I'm now using a smaller hoop (more move of fabric) which is obviously a better quality wood. There are also no gaps like with the broken hoop, so hopefully the fabric tension will last longer.

So I'm now dumping my cheap hoops and I'll need to replace them with better ones. Added bonus is that if I want to frame a cross stitch in a hoop the expensive ones look a lot better, too. They are twice as expensive (€7.80-€9.50 instead of €3.60-€4.75), but really not that expensive.

I find that if you try to go the cheap route hurriedly, this is ALWAYS true. Sometimes, yes, you can score a real deal, but if you rush to buy (cheap) this over (pricier) that, it almost always bites you in the ass. :-)

Hitch

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I find that if you try to go the cheap route hurriedly, this is ALWAYS true. Sometimes, yes, you can score a real deal, but if you rush to buy (cheap) this over (pricier) that, it almost always bites you in the ass. :-)

Hitch

My father always said "If it's worth having, it's worth having the best."
I've usually had to modify that to "...the best you can afford."

But I don't always agree. Rumpelteazer, didn't you accomplish your goal? You didn't have a large initial spend, decided you liked it, then were willing to spend more, and also you learned what the failings of the cheap stuff are, so you could better determine what makes the better stuff worth the money.

Adam Savage espouses the idea of buying cheap tools, see if it really serves you, and then when you understand how it works, and what you really need, THEN buy the best you can afford. Maybe the cheap one is a waste, but if so, it was at least a cheap waste, and if it's serviceable at all, you can have spare or pass it on to someone else to learn with.

I usually agree with that, particularly when it's something new to you, and maybe you don't know how to judge quality and value yet.

ApK

[Rumpelteazer]

Originally Posted by ApK

My father always said "If it's worth having, it's worth having the best."
I've usually had to modify that to "...the best you can afford."

But I don't always agree. Rumpelteazer, didn't you accomplish your goal? You didn't have a large initial spend, decided you liked it, then were willing to spend more, and also you learned what the failings of the cheap stuff are, so you could better determine what makes the better stuff worth the money.

Adam Savage espouses the idea of buying cheap tools, see if it really serves you, and then when you understand how it works, and what you really need, THEN buy the best you can afford. Maybe the cheap one is a waste, but if so, it was at least a cheap waste, and if it's serviceable at all, you can have spare or pass it on to someone else to learn with.

I usually agree with that, particularly when it's something new to you, and maybe you don't know how to judge quality and value yet.

ApK

When I started cross stitching I didn't know better. But cheap hoops can damage you project. If I hadn't been unable to unscrew the screw a couple of turns before it locked it would have been difficult to get my project out without damaging it. When I started this project I just grabbed the first hoop I found and didn't think about it. I know I have some other hoops somewhere so when I find them I'll have to see if they're quality or not.

With cheap tools I generally agree. For cross stitching just use cheap needles or the ones that come with a kit. Those are fine (I now use more expensive better ones). I don't use the most expensive watercolour paper or the most expensive brushes (though I do try to get synthetic, animal cruelty free ones nowadays). My father, a licensed electrician loves Parkside tools, sold exclusively by the supermarket chain Lidl.

But with this hoop I should have known better. Even if it's just a simple project to take a break from my big project, I wouldn't want it to be damaged.

[CRussel]

To a certain extent, ApK, I agree with you. But I'd add in that the _really_ cheap and obviously poorly made/designed will not ever give you an accurate indication of how well you might actually like the type of item just because it's lack of quality inhibits evaluation. Take, for example, a tennis racquet. If you buy one that is $25, it will not let you play well enough to actually let you decide if you want to play. OTOH, there's absolutely no point at all in buying a $250 carbon fibre one until you actually know what you are going to enjoy playing tennis and that you're good enough to actually handle a really expensive racquet. So something in the $50-75 range is probably closer to where you should start.