Continue reading »]]> Apparently, the gay blogosphere has erupted in another faux scandal because some ‘actor’, Logan McCree, just came out as bi instead of full on gay. My first thought is ‘why is this news?’ Then I think on how much money the porn industry makes. lolol

I didn’t know who he was so did a quick google search.¹ Let me just say, if he is bi, mercy-me he must be one-fine actor! The few clips I saw showed someone who was definitely into his work. lol Whether he is really bi or not is a pointless argument IMHO. Kinsey pretty much proved sexuality runs the gambit from polar straight on one end to polar gay on the other. Why must we (on both sides of the fence) continually try to label everyone as one or the other.

Looking beyond that we get to the why of it. In one camp, you have the folks who insist he is lying for some ulterior reason. We’ll probably never know for sure because the only person who’ll ever know is Logan. That said, the only reason I could really see for lying would be the whole “gay for pay” idea that keeps getting rammed down our throats these days. It seems like he is getting plenty (of work) so not too sure there. But as nauseating as it sounds, maybe he thinks he’ll be able to demand more money. A sad testament if that’s his reason.²

Then you have the whole “I can’t believe it, I feel so betrayed.” folks. Let me get this straight, you feel betrayed because the image you built up in your mind of said person has been shattered? An image created of someone you only see in completely contrived scenarios? Really? My response is get over it. The reality is almost never the same as the image. Living in SF, I can tell you from experience they are almost never like the ‘purdy moving pictures.’ And referring back to the whole gay for pay crap, maybe its so prevalent in the industry now he didn’t see the harm in admitting his big secret? Are you seriously going to stop watching him now because he likes a little V with his P&A?

Frankly, I could care less as long as he isn’t running around being hypocritical or hurting others. Being as I don’t know the nitty gritty, I’ll save my moral indignation for more important subjects. In the end, I’ve always been a big proponent of honesty. If he is coming clean, so to speak, good for him. If not, then it will catch up to him sooner or later.

1. with the safety filter turned off
2. I seem to remember reading recently about some other porny boy who “went straight” but I got the impression he was lying to save face in the new town where he was moving.

Continue reading »]]> **Update** ~ Apparently, they do pay attention to blogs and cyber “stuff”.  I got an email and a phone call from the corporate office. The guy was nice and very apologetic. He gave me a credit, which at this point I don’t care about but I appreciated the offer. The part I did care about was his genuine concern. He made a real effort to understand my problem and listen. He also gave me his personal work email for future problems.

Don’t get me wrong, all is not forgiven but at least someone is finally paying attention. The face I had to bad mouth the company in a public forum to finally get a response hasn’t escaped my notice either.

I discovered Zipcar when I first moved to SF. For those not in the know, the concept is simple. Instead of having to rent a car by the day or week, you rent by the hour. Your hourly rate includes the cost of the car, insurance, and gas. The process is also very simple. With registration, you get a card with a digital chip in it. You log online via the web or various mobile apps, sign up for an available car of your choice, show up, slide your card over the scanner, start the car and drive away.  Great idea right? It used to be.

Zipcar started out as a bright, fun, spunky little company with a novel approach to renting cars. A niche market for sure, but in a city as dense as SF one would think there is virtually no way to fail.

Where do I start with my frustration? I don’t know if its because they’ve grown too big or just plain greedy. Either way, this fun little company is ranking one step below AT&T for all time worst customer service right now in my mind. Oh yeah, you begin to feel my pain.

It all started about 2 years ago with a car that had a flat tire. I didn’t notice the flat until I hopped in the car to drive away. I made it less than a block, turned around, drove back to the spot and notified the company. Imagine my surprise when 2 weeks later I got a bill for the repair. I called, got a credit, and went on my merry way. A month later I find a suspicious charge on my bank statement. Turns out I got re-billed for the flat. Even though I went out of my way to help, because I physically drove the car before noticing the flat I got tagged with the bill. As disappointing it was, I accepted my part in the process and ate the cost. I figured one hiccup along the way was acceptable.

Sadly, things have gone from bad to worse. I’ve experienced so much frustration since then I’ve lost all faith in the company. Granted, no business model is perfect and one that depends as much on its customers as it does its employees is bound to have problems. I totally understand that. But when I do have problems, the outright lack of concern and open disdain from the employees is not acceptable. More often than not, the line employees seem more intent on putting me in my place and citing policy vs actually listening. Out of the last 10 reservations, 4 have gone smoothly.

Today, I show up to pick up my car and its not their.¹ My time slot arrives, still no car. I call in to find out what’s going on. I’m already feeling annoying expecting the worst. The rep couldn’t find the car or a previous reservation. After some digging he discovers the car was taken out of service for repair and returned. Apparently not as the car is missing. After some more searching with no luck, he offers to move my reservation. Keep in mind my start time has already come and gone. He ends up moving me to another car 4 blocks away. To be fair, he did adjust my slot and gave me an hour credit. However, at this point neither of which was any consolation. I’m just plain tired of crappy to non-existent service.

I show up at the new location to find my 2nd car parked and ready. While I’m picking it up, I notice the car I was supposed to have is parked 2 slots away. Stupid me, I was considerate enough to call back and let them know where the first car was. The 2nd rep didn’t seem to comprehend. Mind you, I am pretty angry at this point and I’m being none too polite. Her stupidity only made it worse. I finally got her to understand what I was saying or at least I thought I did. As I’m preparing to end the call, she says, “ok sir, I have changed her reservation and your new drop off time is all set.”

Excuse me? No ma’am. One, I was already in my new reservation so she was flat out lying to me. Two, my slot was already adjusted so double whammy. I finally lose my temper, let loose a string of obscenities about her stupidity and hung up. I’d had it.

I’m at the point now where I’d dump them all together if there was a easier alternative.² City Car share has a footprint here but they are much smaller and don’t anywhere near the number of cars or pickup spots.

Customer service is a dying art in most companies these days and to see a company with so much potential fall so far in such a short period of time is extremely disappointing.

1. If the car isn’t in use you can pick it up up to 14 minutes early with no extra charge.
2. Of course, if they keep this up, someone better will eventually replace them.

Continue reading »]]> So my blue beast¹ up and died the other day on the way to work. I’m driving along and everything just suddenly went dead. No juice, no electronics, no power, nothing. Luckily enough, I was right next to a gas station when it occurred. I pushed my baby up into the lot and started the arduous process of calling the tow, notifying work, blah blah blah.

It was a busy day so I waited over an hour for the tow. My buddy William was kind enough to drop by the bike shop and give me a ride to work. On top of it all, work was short staffed so I had to flex my hours and work till 0100 since I was late. Even worse, work was busy as all hell so my day went from shitty to shitty with a side of pooh.

Anyway, turns out the voltage regulator burned out. It controls pretty much every aspect of power flow for the bike. No voltage regulator, no vroom vroom. *sigh* The part is on order and hopefully I should have my baby back in about a week. I have an extended warranty so its all covered, thankfully. Money is tight right now so a costly repair would have been problematic.

It could have been worse. Had I been on a long ride and it died, the process would have been increasingly more problematic. Had I been on a freeway when it happened lawd only knows what might have happened. I’m just grateful my baby is alright and will be up and running soon. *whew*

1. my motorcycle

Continue reading »]]> Its been an interesting past week, to say the least.

Apparently, I live like a bachelor, or so Apple guy tells me. Ok, ok, its true, I do tend to live a bit sparse. Growing up the way I did, I never had a lot of things and it just isn’t natural for me to focus on such things. I don’t apply myself that way often and the skill set has grown weak. This is not to imply Apple guy is shallow, just the distinction between us. If anything, he is very hands-on and tackles challenges with a determined zest. In the last few years, I’ve gotten sort of complacent on doing stuff myself.¹  He has taken to converting my sparse boring pad into a warm inviting home. Even better, he is the king of bargain shopping! lol The man has easily saved us over a grand in expenses with his efforts.

Sadly, Apple guy and the roomie have decided they hate each other. Oh yes, its not going well at all. I thought they would overcome eventually and settle down but its obvious now, that ain’t happening. The last few days have been interesting to say the least. This has also put me in an awkward position and I’m not faring it well. No matter how I approach it, someone is gonna end up hurt.

This has also caused some friction between Apple guy and myself. Besides his expected stress at being in a new place and struggling to gain his self-reliance, the bickering between him an the roomie has made him very uneasy about the move.

The upside is he and I are still able to talk things out. Time will tell but I’m not doubting my decision so far. I know he gets frustrated with me at times but at the end of the day, he still knows I love him and am willing to work on it.

Say a prayer for me to [insert deity of choice here], would ya?

1. Ok, lazy I admit it.

Continue reading »]]> The irony of my job is most of my stress load comes from my non-work related Union duties. As the Chief Steward for our Chapter, I have become so integrated into the process that several Managers often come to me in advance of employee discipline to avoid mistakes and having to re-do their work. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bragging at all. I’m just tenacious and very methodical when it comes to such things. While I may be technically on one side of the fence, so to speak, I am also very fair-minded and am never deliberately contentious. My work ethic has spilled over onto their side and they trust me. They know I have the employee’s best interest at heart but I’m also not about getting them a free ride. My golden rule is the punishment should fit the incident and the incident should warrant discipline.

Sadly, most of the stress has come from dealing with politics within my own ranks as of late. We recently held Chapter elections and some of the ousted individuals have been deliberately attempting to cause harm.¹  I hate dealing with such things as I am not a deceitful person by nature. It is not my style to confuse and obfuscate the issues thru double talk and back and forth sides. But, I do believe in standing up for those who are being slighted or libeled regardless of who I alienate.

I absolutely hate dealing with such petty crap. A time when we are fighting to keep our jobs and income, we should be focused on common goals. We should not be fighting amongst ourselves with he said/she said crap.

1. On a side note, I ran uncontested primarily because no one wanted to take on the workload. lol

Continue reading »]]> So after 62 hours of down time, my blog is finally back up and running. My ISP’s database server suddenly went offline and has only just gone back up. While I have had decent service from 1and1.com over the years, I can say I am extremely frustrated by their absolute lack of support and follow up.¹  I am currently taking suggestions and recommendations for other ISPs.

My frustration stems from six phone calls and several (completely ignored) emails over the span of 3-days being met with bland indifference and ignorance. Not one single tech I spoke with had any clue of the problem(s) or any idea of when the problem(s) might be corrected. It was abundantly clear they were all just reading off preformatted scripts meant to mollify disgruntled customers. I got sad half-hearted customer service ‘speak’ apologies. Here is a clue you nitwits, spare me the apologies and give me answers!

Even more disturbing, not a single person could even explain how an ISP as large as 1and1.com could function w/o a backup database server. Seriously, IT 101. Hello?

*

Thank you to everyone who checked in on me. Several folks were worried something had happened. I am perfectly fine.²  Your notification and queries were extremely sweet and I continue to be flattered so many of you continue to read my madness.

As I said, I am seriously considering switching ISP’s as well as recommending the 18 other companies I helped setup on 1and1 to switch as well. In an age of volume, companies only respond to one thing, their bottom line. Only when it plunges do the seem to take any real concern and make changes.

\rant

1. A quick search on twitter showed I was one of many people affected.
2. And yes Apple guy is too.

Continue reading »]]> Work has been an absolute torment for me this week. Not my job per se (that I can handle) but stuff influencing not only my day to day operations but my position as a Steward as well. I had enough foresight to see this problem coming months ago and made several attempts to prevent it from happening. Obviously, that didn’t happen.

Without going into details and bad-mouthing a whole slew of people who aren’t here to defend themselves, I basically felt pressured into making a very big deal out of something I feel could have been handled with only a tiny amount of intervention. It is a very big deal to me. The irony is because I’m so incredibly frustrated and angry, I’ve lost my normal sense of composure and ability to make shrewd calculated responses. I pride myself on being able to see the big picture, step back from a situation, size it up, respond accordingly, and work to a successful resolution. That said, realizing I’d lost this detachedness, I called in my big rep for our Union. I felt a little ashamed to bother him with it but he backed me up 110%.

To give you an idea of how out of sorts I am. This new issue has me so wound up and angry not only did I loose my temper yesterday, I actually yelled at several coworkers, which is something I never do. While not making excuse(s), I felt completely isolated and abandoned in the scope of things going on around me at the time.¹

Today, seeing no one above my rank cared or could even be bothered to feign concern, I escalated the issue to a level that involves myself, the department, and the city in general. This of course angered me even more because it made me feel petty. I absolutely detest being made to feel petty about anything!

Afterwards, needing to blow off steam, I confided in some of my friends at work and was surprised to hear how much they supported my efforts. They not only supported me but encouraged me to carry my fight to the very end. Its funny how just a little nod of approval can give one a sense of validation and conviction.

And while it may still come across as petty to some, I am feeling much more my old self again and am confident it will get resolved to my satisfaction.

1. As it turns out, I’m not but it didn’t feel that way.

Continue reading »]]> I guess customer service isn’t dead. Its no secret I tend to whine a lot about lip service most big corps give about customer service.

I sent the Apple guy flowers yesterday. Besides the obvious, he got some very sad news and I wanted to put a smile on his face. It might be old-fashioned but I think sending flowers is a very sweet and meaningful gesture.¹ Anyway, I had never used 1800flowers.com before, they were top of the search list for online ordering so I decided to give’em a whirl.

My choice was a small medley of simple but pretty flowers along with a small teddy bear and chocolates; totally the right choice in my mind. They arrived no problem and he seemed to enjoy them.

However, he happened to post a pic online and I was irritated to all hell. Not only was it NOT what I sent, the flowers were already wilting and droopy. No no no, no ma’am, no siree bob, uh-uh, no-no . . .  I fired off a short but direct and honest email to the company.² Being in a customer service oriented industry, I did try to balance my disappointment with constructive feedback. Just being nasty and making threats rarely works. I don’t think it is unreasonable to have an expectation of services promised and feel it is important for consumers to hold companies accountable for shitty service.

To my surprise, they sent him a 2nd round of flowers totally free of charge before they responded to my complaint. I actually had no idea until he texted me at work about the 2nd delivery. I logged into my email³ and sure enough there was an email apology, the notice of the 2nd delivery, and a $20 gift certificate!  Sure enough, the 2nd pic posted was much more in line with what I had originally ordered. Not only that, they were fresh!

You could have sold me for a quarter and got change back I was so surprised! A corporate entity actually went out of its way to make their customer happy! What a ducky idea! lol Seriously though, I was very pleased, as was the Apple guy to get 2 deliveries of flowers! And yes, I will give them another try in the future.

1. As my luck would have it, so did he.
2. I honestly didn’t expect them to do anything but I wanted them to know how displeased I was.
3. I don’t load my junk email account on my PDA

Continue reading »]]> Into every life a little drama must fall. Some very kind and generous person left a snotty comment on my previous post.¹ Here is the kicker though, the comment was directed toward my buddy brettcajun!

Oh yeah, it takes a real man to trash someone behind their back. *sigh* I probably shouldn’t be surprised, jealousy is truly an ugly emotion and it is very clear to me said person is just that. Btw, going out of your way to point out the flaws in others only serves to reveal you own. (And to said individual, kindly take your pissy bitterness elsewhere. This is your only warning.)

I forwarded the comment in its entireity on to Brett and I know he’ll be up in arms. Lol. If he wishes to repost it, its his call. For my part, I’m done with it.

** Update – per Brett, this pathetic person has spammed several blogs related to Brett’s. What a gem of a human being? **

1. Which has been deleted. I do not tolerate personal attacks.

Continue reading »]]> The ride this past weekend was fun albeit a little drama. Even worse, the drama was partly my doing.

It started off well enough. Beautiful day, great weather. We met up as usual. A couple new riders as well as some regulars. No one really wanted to lead so I stepped up to lead the first half of the route. I made it pretty clear I was a tad vague on one section of freeway (or so I thought.) Long convoluted story short, I got confused on one of the exits and my hesitation (and veering across a lane) caused one of the riders to miss the turn and get separated from the group.

We did go back for him but thru a serious of errors, we never found each other. Normally, if a rider gets separated you just continue until the next stopping point to rejoin the group. Why he chose not to do this is unclear but its irrelevant at this point. The point is he got separated in part due to my hesitation. 

Afterwards, the lost rider left a rather biting message on the group message board. I felt it was over the top but having had issues w/group leaders myself, I was willing to look beyond it. Besides, we all say things out of anger we don’t mean at times.  And never being one to back down from controversy or my own behavior, I replied via the group owning my mistake. I explained what happened as well as re-iterating my previous offer to take him to dinner to make up for it. To my surprise, he replied back and apologized for his “snarky” comment, as he put it.¹ I plan to redeem my invitation this weekend if he is around.

The rest of the ride went well. The guys were a tad annoyed w/me whining about leaving a rider but other than that we had fun. We stopped for lunch at a burger/shake place in St Helena and pigged out. OY, was I full afterwards. lol The strip thru Napa Valley and back down thru the petrified forest is great for moto riding. Nice country side with windy roads snaking thru it. The only sucky part was the traffic. Naturally, the holiday weekend had people out in droves.

This weeks ride is fast approaching. The irony is the route starts off the same as the last one. But this time, I don’t take the exit!

1. I also got several personal emails from guys thanking me for being ‘brave enough’ to speak up. Whatever that means.