Dear Tim... A rant about customer service

It is no secret that I'm basically a whore when it comes to a good cup of coffee.

It is also no secret that I put Tim Hortons at the top of my list when it comes to getting a good cup of good coffee.

If you don't know me well, or are doubting the accuracy of those first two statements, please see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

So, Tim... Why is it that when I walk into your restaurant (and can watch the nice lady behind the counter) and order a bagel double-toasted that you put it through the toaster 2 times, just like I ordered.

BUT, when I go through the drive thru and order a bagel double-toasted that you invariable hand to me out the window a bagel which is not only not double-toasted, but that obviously hasn't been in the toaster long enough to get warm?

Why?

Does it have to do with getting my order out to me quickly? If so, I'm not in a hurry. I am aware when I order said double-toasted bagel that it take twice as long to run it through the toaster twice. I'm happy to wait.

Does it have to do with keeping me from slowing up the line and making other customers wait? I typically go through the drive-through well after the "morning rush", and doubt this is the case... but if that is the reason, please just tell me that if I want my bagel torched I need to come inside.

Or does it have to do with the fact that I'm going through the drive thru and you know that it doesn't really matter what you hand me out the window because I'm not going to go to the trouble to turn around and complain about a bagel which only cost me a buck twenty-five.

I have a deep seated irritation that this might be the case.

Now... before you go accusing me of having "one bad experience" or "just hitting you on a morning that you were off", let me just go ahead and say that this happens to me almost every time I go through the drive-thru and order a bagel at ALL of the Tim Hortons in a 20 mile radius of my house.

IF I

• Walk in. AND
  
• Order a double-toasted bagel.

THEN I

• Receive a bagel which is crunchy and slightly charred
  (just how I like it)

BUT, IF I

• Go through drive-thru. AND
  
• Order a double-toasted bagel.

THEN I

• Receive a bagel which is chewy, and possibly warm.
  (still very edible... just not what I ordered).

Am I going to stop going to Tim Hortons? No, obviously not... Despite the bagel fiasco, they still make the best cup-of-coffee on the block.

Am I going to stop ordering bagels through the drive through? No, probably not. There is nothing wrong with a slightly warm, chewy bagel... It just isn't as good as a slightly charred, crunchy bagel.

Am I actually going to complain to Tim Hortons? Call the manager? Send a nasty email? No, probably not. My frustrations are pretty much worked out now that I've vented.

The coffee was great this morning. The slightly warm, yet chewy bagel will hold me off until lunch.

Rant over.

Back to shaving the yak.

No Comment

So I have one of those tracking things that is supposed to tell me how many people are reading my blog, and how many hits I'm getting and all that good stuff...

The truth is though that I'm such a procrastinator when I do have good ideas, and so busy all the rest of the time that I don't ever go to look at it...

So, I often post blogs, and then wonder ( sometimes for days ) if anyone read it, what people thought, how it came across, should I give up this hobby, etc, etc, etc... ( Yeah, I could go look at the tracking thing, but I've already pointed out that I'm too lazy, and I'm not sure I trust it anyway... )

And then earlier this week something hit me... I was reading one of the many blogs I follow in my RSS reader, and came across a FANTASTIC post! I thought to myself, that I must go on over to the page and see what comments people have made and no one had posted anything!

As I sighed and went back to my RSS reader, I realized something fairly profound
( for me at least ).

I SUCK at leaving comments!

So! ( You were waiting for the point, weren't you?? ) I have decided to be a better commenter. I am making a concerted effort, in the midst of all my blog reading, to leave comments for the other writers who pour themselves into their blogs.

Be it a "Great Post", "Very interesting", "What the heck?!?", or a quick but heart felt response... I want to let the folks who's blogs I'm reading that someone is reading them.

I guess the point to all of this ( does there really have to be a point ) is that if something someone posts on their blog strikes you... ( good, bad, warm fuzzy, what the heck?, whatever ). Let them know!

Last thing.

Marko posted this a while back, and it seems to fit along with this rant so well that I couldn't help but borrow it.


(click for larger)

[ht to lee's things, via marko ]

Roogles out.

NYWC Atlanta - Day 3 - In Review

Well... After two hours of constant typing to get the blogs up to speed, the battery finally died...
I headed over to the LW booth to check the score and plug up for some power. With the Buck's ahead 14-3 I decided it was safe to leave my laptop on the charger in the booth and look for some lunch.

Alan joined Jenn and I for a walk over to HSUS chinese restaurant, which came highly recommended... A short snafu on the way over ( wild goose chase, by someone we wouldn't give cash to ) caused us to get a little lost, but we did end up finding it only about a block away from the HRC where we ate last night...

Unfortunately, despite our intel to the contrary, Hsus wasn't open for lunch... Bearing that in mind we decided to do Mexican at Mama Ninfa's, across the street from Hsus, in the Peachtree Center. It was good. Great tortilla chips and salsa, and Jenn and I split a monster nachos for lunch.

After lunch Alan had to head back to the booth, so Jenn and I took a couple of hours to wander around the city. We checked out the PeachTree Center, the MARTA, and the Atlanta Underground. Interesting sights... I've never seen anything quite like the Underground.

Check out Jenn's take on the MARTA and the Underground here.

Going down the escalator at the MARTA station at PeachTree Center reminded us both of descending to the subway's in Budapest and brought back happy memories... Except, of course, these escalators weren't moving at 20 miles-per-hour... Still, happy memories...

We headed back over to the Conference around six and set up camp in the "line" waiting to get seats for the evening general session.

Thanks to Jenn's mad running skillz, we got some excellent seats right near the center square stage. A prime location to see the talent, and Loui Giglio. Brent Longnecker is a really talented guy.

Family Force 5 was... well... wow... they weren't quite describable...



One amazing thing though... The lady who signing during the Family Force 5 concert was absolutely amazing. We hadn't been sitting where we could see the ASL interpreters up until this session, so I'm not sure if this particular lady had been there all weekend or not, but she was incredible! (side note: watching her, was also the only way I could understand the words to the songs...)



Then we had some stand up comedy. I think that Bill Arnold is hilarious. Subtle, but very funny. A new comedian I've never seen by the name of Jeff Allen was really funny as well... Jenn laughed very hard as his sketch, which was a little edgy I thought, but indeed very funny.

There was a really excellent presentation next about Compassion International, which included a (now grown up) Compassion girl sharing the story of how Compassion impacted her life. Marko got all choked up as she was sharing. We ( as a family ) have two Compassion kids... We decided right after Ellie was born that we would sponsor a child who's birthday was the same day as Ellie's, and then did the same thing again when Silas was born... Currently we send our money and Jenn sends them letters, but our hope is that when they are old enough Ellie & Silas will want to contribute to the communication for our "other kids" who share their birthdays...

I gotta say this about Louie Giglio... I have really really liked Louie when I've seem him in the past. I still remember, have notes, and use some of the teaching he shared at Icthus clear back in 1998 or 99 when I was there with a crowd from Rio...

[edit] I had a really long thing typed up about why I didn't like Louie's message, and why it really didn't connect with me, but before I posted this blog I actually got to talk to someone this morning who thought my issues were just me, being grouchy and argumentative...

So... I'll leave it to say that I really didn't like Louie's message. If you want to talk about why, or know any more than that email me or let's get together... From where I was sitting it was obviously very powerful for some people, and that it what's really important...

Anyhoo... Enough of that sort of thing... If you would like to share what you thought of Louie's session, I'd love to hear your thoughts.



The Comedy Late night with Jeff Allen, Bill Arnold, and Dave & Brian was hilarious!

We picked up a couple of Dave & Brian Cd's before heading back over to the hotel...



By the time we headed back we decided it was too late to find something to eat... so I worked on this and then crashed about 2 AM.

Sunday updates coming today as I get time...

Late. Random.

11:10 PM. I'm sitting in the recliner. Woody is running on the hamster wheel. Buzz is sleeping in the dome. Jenn, Ellie, and Silas are all in bed. The dryer is running. My suitcase is packed, except for two pair of shorts, which are in the dryer. I cleaned the hamster cage tonight. Woody & Buzz seem much happier. Halloween starts in 48 minutes. It hasn't even felt like October yet. We have had frost two mornings in a row. I like frost. I like cold mornings. I like walking in frost covered grass in my bare feet. On Thursday it will be November. The leaves have been changing. The weather today was perfect. I wonder how the weather in St. Louis compares to here? I want to go tent camping. Tent camping in the fall is the best. I like to sit around the fire when it is cold enough that you need the fire to keep you warm. I shaved my head this evening. I hate my hair. I'm so tired, but not sleepy. I am very stressed. If my days had 25 hours in them, and I didn't need sleep, I might feel more organized. I'd love a cup of coffee. Coffee is also better when it is cold. The weather, not the coffee. The coffee is much better when it is very very hot. Hot coffee. Cold weather. 11:25 PM. Surprising how noisy hamsters can be when the house is quiet. Dryer is still running. I think woody is on crack. He's the mean one. 39 degrees outside. Wonder if it will frost again tonight. Did I mention that I like frost? 11:36 PM. Distracted. Should be asleep. I don't get enough sleep. Lots of people on IM at this hour. Strange. Maybe not strange. Who am I to say. My toes are getting cold. 67 degrees in the house. May need to turn on the heater. Been very cold in the mornings. In the house I mean. I'm Too stubborn to turn the furnace on. Maybe in November. Silas is crying. Probably afraid of the dark. Or cold. Ellie is afraid of the dark. Sleeps with a light on. He stopped now. Must have found his binky or been rescued by Jenn. 11:52 PM. Headache. Took my glasses off when I shaved my head. Didn't put them back on. Eyes are tired. I'm grouchy. I Let too many small things get to me. It is dumb. I need to take a deep breath. Maybe get away. Maybe move away. Maybe just take a break. 12:01 AM. Happy Halloween. Alarm will go off in five-and-a-half hours. *Sigh. Still a lot of people online. Definitively will be wanting a good cup of coffee in the morning. I should go to bed. Dryer is still running. Should go check on it. I think I will. 12:04 AM. Roogles out.

Irritation

Geek warning.   If you aren't a geek, or don't care about geek things skip this post.

Back in February, I decided to take the plunge and switch from Safari to Firefox as my primary web browser.   You probably already know that I am a mac user ( read "fanatic" ).   If you didn't already know that, who are you and why are you reading my blog?

My main reason for switching to FireFox, although the reasons became many more over time is that when I started blogging ( on a regular basis ) using blogger, it just didn't work in Safari.  It's been long enough ago now that I don't even remember what didn't work, only that it didn't.  I had been frustrated with Safari for a couple of other reasons so I took the plunge and went Firefox hard core.

Well...   Now, six months down the line, I'm finding myself more than a little frustrated about how flakey FireFox has been working for me.    The browser takes a long time to load, crashes frequently, and ( way more frustrating than any of the above! ) it has recently stopped working well with blogger!

Aaaauggghhhhh!

The menus don't display right, the browser crashes when I try to leave comments, etc, etc, etc.

I've looked on Google, and the other "normal" places but can't seem to find anything that has a resolution to the problems I'm seeing.    

So, what do to now...    I'm posting this blog from Safri 3.03 and it seems to be liking blogger just fine.    I don't have any of my bookmarks saved in Safari ( which should be trivial to port over ) or any of my password stuff cached in Safari ( more painful, but not really difficult to remedy ).  

I'm just frustrated.    Or maybe I'm grouchy.    Or quite possibly all of the above.

*sigh.   

Maybe I will just go back to lynx.

...

( ht to this post on NoHeat.com, which is where I borrowed the image for this post. )