Archive: Gripe

I do the vast majority of my Christmas shopping online for a handful of reasons:

1. Parking in crowded lots full of strollers, shopping carts, and oblivious pedestrians makes me want to tear my hair out.
2. I feel more comfortable with an online interface than a recent holiday-season retail hire.
3. I’d rather browse on a laptop than on my feet.
4. I can more easily track my spending and to-get items with my spreadsheet.
5. I get a thrill out of checking tracking numbers and shipping status. (“Out for delivery! YES!”)

However, I am sad to report that the online ordering process did not fare so well for me on one specific occasion. Behold, a timeline of my frustration:

Monday, November 26

• 11am: Stumped for gift ideas for my cousins, I order a $50 gift card from Best Buy so that they can buy accessories or games for their beloved Nintendo Wii.
• 12pm: I receive an e-mail that confirms my order.
• 1pm: I receive an e-mail that informs me that my order has been shipped with the postal service, so I should allow 7-10 business days before receipt. No problem.

Friday, December 7

• Ten business days have passed since my shipment confirmation, and no gift card is in sight. JG suggests giving it a couple of more days, just in case something happened with the mail.

Saturday, December 15

• I have still not received my gift card in the mail, so I call customer service to inquire after it. I sit on hold for 20 minutes. The representative doesn’t quite understand how she sees that my order was shipped, but I haven’t received it. I repeat that I haven’t received it. She still does not understand, because it was shipped, right?
• I adopt my “don’t mess with me” tone and tell her what she’ll do for me. She’ll arrange for the original gift card to be canceled and a replacement card to be shipped to me overnight, since I need it next week.
• The representative says, “Ooh, you need it next week?”
• I snap, “Yes, that’s why I ordered it in November.”
• The representative promises that she’ll have a new gift card shipped to me as soon as possible. Maybe I’ll even get it today, she says. I highly doubt that, as the mail has already arrived.
• I receive a case number for my complaint. The representative says that someone from gift cards should call me to follow up, but I make a note to follow up on my own during the next week.

Tuesday, December 18

• I have not heard from the gift card department.
• Assuming that the request for the replacement gift card should have been processed on Saturday and then shipped overnight on Monday, I call customer service in the evening to ask just what the heck is their problem. JG advises me, “Nothing gets accomplished by yelling.” I say that I won’t start off yelling.
• I wait on hold for 50 minutes, simmering away.
• The customer service representative who finally takes my call is puzzled when she pulls up my order number and case number because there are no additional notes after the ones from Saturday’s call.
• In essence, nothing has been done.
• I am livid.
• The representative says that she will make a note for the gift card people to issue a replacement gift card to be sent out as soon as possible. I respond sharply, “Why should I be confident at all that the notes you’re taking would resolve my issue, since it is clear that the previous notes have had no effect? The fault, here, is not with me, since I ordered this gift card more than three weeks ago.”
• The representative offers to let me speak to a supervisor, which I accept. I sit on hold again. Unsurprisingly, a supervisor is not available.
• The representative says that she will make the notes she mentioned and put me in a queue for a supervisor to give me a call to discuss the issue. The supervisor should call me within 24-48 hours. I receive case numbers for my additional complaint and the supervisor call.

Today, Friday, December 21

• I have not heard from the gift card people.
• I have not received a gift card.
• I have not received a phone call from a supervisor.
• I am set to file a formal complaint with Best Buy.
• I am determined that they will fix the situation for me; I will not simply cancel this order.
• I am telling everyone I can about my experience, and I am never patronizing Best Buy again.

- - - - -

12/28 UPDATE:

Saturday, December 22

• While I am elbow-deep in cookie dough, I receive a phone call from a guy from the “Research department,” whatever that means. He confirms that I have not received my gift card, which should have arrived between December 7-10, according to his records.
• I restrain myself from pointing out that, if I had received it between December 7-10, I would not have spent an hour and a half trying to fix my problem and he would not be calling me on a Saturday.
• Between 25 minutes spent on the phone and no less than three occasions of waiting on hold (I can only speculate that he had no idea what he was doing), the representative is able to cancel the first gift card I ordered and arrange for a replacement to be sent.
• Somehow, all of that sounds very familiar. Oh, yes, I have already heard it twice before.
• I write down the new order number for my records.
• The representative asks me if he can help me with anything else, although I can tell from his tone that he really hopes that he can’t.
• I say cheerily, “Actually, I have one other question. How can I go about filing a formal complaint about my problems in resolving this issue?” I receive instructions on where to go on the Best Buy website.

Thursday, December 27

• I receive the gift card in the mail, at last. One month and one day have elapsed since I received original shipping notification.
• JG and I go to a Best Buy store to spend the gift cards, in a ceremonial fashion, that he received for Christmas, thereby ending our patronage. As icing on the cake, our cashier is completely rude and off-putting.

Friday, December 28

• I write a detailed letter of feedback, employing every rhetorical device I know.
• I submit the letter to Best Buy’s electronic feedback form, prepare it to send to the corporate headquarters via snail mail, and e-mail it (plus a link to this post) to IHateBestBuy.com.

#87

This morning, in that haze between sleep and wakefulness, I heard a muffled cry from JG. I mentally muddled through the two conceivable possibilities: either something had happened with Ted or —

“The tree fell down,” JG said as he burst into our room. “Put some shoes on because there’s broken glass.”

Oh, no.

After several stressful attempts, we managed to coerce the tree to stand upright again. JG tied the top of the tree to a kitchen cabinet to prevent another fall, and we stepped back to survey the damage. Only two soggy presents had to be re-wrapped, and we had a few ornament casualties, so it wasn’t too bad, all things considered. JG raced to get dressed for work and jet out the door as I picked up glass fragments and vacuumed up pine needles. The tree had stood up on its own for a whole ten days! What happened? It was hard to stomach the thought of re-composing the tree with only a week left before Christmas, and something about broken ornaments hit me right in pit of my stomach.

As if that weren’t enough for one day, today was the department’s annual Holiday Colloquium, which is smart-person code for Christmas luncheon. Apparently, we’re not allowed to book public meeting space for parties, so we have a colloquium instead. In my rush to leave in the morning, I had almost forgotten the peppermint patty cookies I had made for the occasion (the cheater “recipe” exposes me as a baking fraud with my illicit use of pre-packaged cookie dough), but I walked the platter down to the room amid meaty, slow-cooker smells along the way. I don’t know what I was expecting at this blessed event, but it was rather depressing. The pot-luck food was adequate, but everyone clumped up into their own groups, which gave the whole set-up an adolescent feel. I brought a camera so that I could try to document the lunch for our newsletter, but everyone looked at me askance when I drew near. It was a complete change from my old job, which had a separate Pictures folder on the shared drive for fun photos. I have to keep reminding myself that I work in a department full of lab rats, which doesn’t make for a very festive party atmosphere. After I had eaten and snapped some obligatory pictures, I retreated back to my office as soon as I could.

I’m not exactly stressed out, but I feel as though my allotted store of sparkling, festive Christmas spirit has already been drained. Maybe I expended too much of it prematurely with Secret Blogger Santa. Maybe the inherent strain of Family Time is finally rearing its ugly head. Maybe I don’t want to hang those ornaments back up on the tree. Or maybe I just need a nap.

Bah.

About a month ago, Alynda mentioned that she had been included in a crude list of blogger girls that the author fancied, to put it lightly. The idea disgusted me, and I took solace in the assumption that I would never be on such a list, harsh blow to my ego though it was.

Over the weekend, thanks to my handy Incoming Links section on my WordPress dashboard, I saw that I had, indeed, been one of the lucky five girls for December. I was repulsed. My stomach turned as I read the brief, lewd blurb. I shuddered to think that the author had done his research about me to form the innuendo, and I had a strong urge to take a shower right away, as though a heckler had spat on me.

I hesitate to contact the author with my objections simply because I do not wish to be in direct correspondence. According to the terms of service of his blogging service, content that is not clearly illegal will not be removed without a court order, so I do not intend to start a private conversation toward that end. I would also like to avoid accusations that I do not have a sense of humor, that I take myself too seriously, that I need to loosen up, that I need to get over it because that’s just how the Internet works. I understand that I have made my image and biographical information available for public consumption, and perhaps misuse and satire with those materials simply comes with the territory.

However, this list is nauseating and infuriating, not only because of blatant misuse of a photograph that is my property without my consent or knowledge, but also because it represents unabashed disrespect for women and promotes the ribald entertainment derived therein. There is no humor to be found in the minimization of women into mere sexual objections. The author’s practice of including women he does not know in this list without their knowledge or permission is cowardly and of poor taste. I am insulted to be a topic of this author’s research and regret that I may have assisted in the composition of this list.

At the very least, as JG pointed out, the author has stolen an image from this site without my consent, so I have flagged the site as objectionable and filed a complaint with the blogging service. I am frustrated that I am not able to pursue much else, and that this weak action will do little or nothing to stop this flow of ignorance and condescension.

I have said my piece; I am entitled to it. That’s how the Internet works.

The weather is actually not gray, at all. The air is clean and crisp, and the blue sky shows off the clean, leafless tree branches, but I am feeling dull and gray today. I am not pleased to be at work and not out weaving through the frenzied masses, spending my hard-earned pennies on discounted flats and scarves. I had to turn on all of the lights on my floor because there is only one other person here. Lest I get stuck in an unattractive, “woe is me” turn of the mind, I am trying to counteract my negative grumblings with other, more positive viewpoints.

I am kicking myself for forgetting my camera this morning, so I can’t upload any pictures from yesterday’s food fest. However, one of the aunts brought a green bean casserole, of which I took several commemorative photos, and I am so relieved that popular demand indicates that it will make a return appearance for the foreseeable future. Hooray!

My Blue Hens are playing in the first round of the 1-AA Championship play-offs, which is all very exciting, but I can’t go, because the game is today at 1:30pm. JG is going with a co-worker, but I am so disappointed that I can’t brave the cold alongside him. To say that I hope we win today is an understatement. I am not a fan of the team we are playing; I hope we crush them so that there is no doubt who has the upper hand. At least I can stream the local radio commentary at game time, and the announcers are very good at describing the plays. Even better, the game is being televised on ESPN, and JG has set it to record. We’ll skim through it after the game and see how our boys show up in high definition.

We came home to an empty fridge last night, so pickings were slim for my lunch today and I missed out on my beloved leftovers to heat up. Fortunately, when I mentioned this to JG, Mimi’s ears perked up, and she packed me a lunch with a turkey sandwich, chips and dip, cookies, and crackers. Cold though it may be, I think I can handle that for lunch.

Being alone in my end of the hallway is unnerving. There are strange noises and echoes in the walls, and the tap-tap-tap of my keyboard sounds eerily hollow in the empty space. I’m taking advantage of the emptiness by wearing jeans (gasp!) and listening to the first strains of my Christmas music playlist. “Linus and Lucy,” I love you.