coffee « mytvdinner

April 17, 2012 • 11:49 am 0

list of important information, rendered in part with letter salutations, concerning my lenovo r61i thinkpad laptop and the customer service provided by an ibm worker located in atlanta, georgia, at around 10:53am

1. so sorry i bought this machine where ‘so’ is inadequate to capture the ‘sorry’
2. should have bought mac. well, yeah.
3. with lenovo, one gets what one pays for. bumper stickery, no?
4. customer service agent: surly, fail, world-class d-bag
5. fone number: 1-800-426-7378 , option #1
6. dear ibm, still think your future is rosy?
7. dear ibm, when i called the number noted in number five above, i was told something like, “we really care about making customers happy.’ it appears that you have not succeeded in operationalizing this desire. also, i find it hard to believe that this is a genuine desire. more like a narcissistic desire: that is, to the extent i want you to give me stuff, i will do what i can to induce a state in you that facilitates me getting what i want.
8. dear ibm, of course i can’t always get what i want with a product or a service. i can accept that, but this is not my chief complaint. the chief complaint is: respect me whether you can say yes or no to my request. do not repeat the rationale behind ‘no’ and then, while i am still talking, say “therefore i am disconnecting this call.”
9. regarding number eight above, “therefore i am disconnecting this call” must be part of a script the agent has before him. which means that this communication is a planned part of ibm’s strategy of providing customer “happiness.” only when one anticipates leaving the customer fuming and unsatisfied does one provide a “and therefore i am disconnecting this call” script to workers.
10. dear ibm, it is my personal opinion that the customer service i received in regard to my lenovo thinkpad r61i laptop, lenovo being a brand owned by ibm, is among the worst. see number eleven below.
11. the only customer service experience i can recall being worst was in the early 2000s, on the phone with aol. there was a time when the pay service had thought it would get away with being brutishly mean to customers who wished to terminate the service. i was required to provide extensive reasons and justifications for discontinuing my service. the agent would not connect me to his supervisor, and he would not discontinue my service THAT I WAS PAYING FOR. i filed a complaint with tne new york attorney general’s office. there was an investigation. i received an apology letter. years later someone who worked for aol found my blog and apologized. CRAZY. see number twelve below.
12. dear ibm, it is 2012. you cannot treat customers badly and get away with it anymore. you can do this for a while, but eventually, you will stop because you will realize that it is harder to make money this way, or your more savvy competitors will run circles around you.
13. dear ibm, don’t let the door hit you, LENOVO IBM.

Filed under: coffee, lists

April 6, 2012 • 1:19 pm 0

perfect cup of sumatra

there is a new $12,000 coffee apparatus at starbucks. it is intelligent. it thinks, weighs, measures, pushes and pulls out water. it, along with my friendly and knowledgeable barista, produced a “perfect” cup of 2/3 caf and 1/3 decaf sumatra. at almost $3 for a short cup, it inspires guilt. i am a good person. i really am.

Filed under: 2nd cup of the day, appreciation, barista, coffee, enjoyment, follow-up cup, hand-crafted, starbucks, coffee

April 5, 2012 • 11:08 pm 0

first list, composed after the huge hole was blasted through my very being, of questions with an existential flavor

1. why?
2. where is my mother now?
3. is this constant background nausea the way my body responds to tragedy, shock and/or grief, or could it be the ham and pita bread i eat every single solitary day?
4. will i ever exercise again?
5. does god really _get_ where i have been coming from with this as with all things, and is this important to god or is god’s happiness entirely based on the specific and concrete actions i took or didn’t take, or is it way more complex than all of that?
6. will i ever send a copy of the photograph i took in the vermont supermarket of the nice french lady and her dog to the nice french lady?
7. will ceiling fans ever become installed in our ceiling?
8. would it be horribly wrong to dump this stack of prayer booklets out the window?
9. is it wrong to have in our possession large packages of styrofoam plates and cups?
10. will i ever make time to buy socks and other needed garments particularly those that would add to my confidence as a professional?
11. will i remember to buy those patent leather clogs already?

Filed under: coffee, lists

February 7, 2012 • 12:35 pm 0