What Happened to my Right to Privacy?

I don’t know what’s worse – the heat wave we’re having this week in NY or the rampant, intolerably low customer service standards of the new millennium. Or maybe I’m just having a bad year.

Not long after I moved into this NY apartment I started receiving tons of junk mail – so many different retail catalogs and flyers that I couldn’t keep up. I recycled them. I assumed that my landlord must have sold my information but never got around to asking.

As the months have gone by, the catalogs clogging my mailbox have grown exponentially. I think they even multiplied in there while I was away on vacation. So a couple weeks ago I decided to start calling each company that sends me a catalog, and ask to be removed from their list. This has become an almost daily ritual after checking the mail. (Some days I don't even check the mail because it's become such a chore.)

Yesterday I finally asked one of these companies – “Solutions” – where they got my name and address. I honestly didn’t think for a minute they’d tell me that. But I got lucky. The woman asked me to read off the special code in the yellow box on the back of the catalog, and I did. Then she said, “Have you ever ordered from SharperImage?” I told her yes, once. “Well, they sold us your name and address.”

I was livid. How dare they. I could not believe that a company I respected and trusted would do this without my permission. Especially after I paid them hundreds of dollars too much for an ionizing air cleaner - a necessity for us city dwellers who are bothered by black snot on our Kleenexes.

Amazon.com would never do a slimy, sneaky thing like sell my personal private information. I trust them. If Amazon.com ever sold my name and address, I would jump off a NY skyscraper because then there’d be no one left to trust in the retail world. That would be the end of online shopping and therefore the end of the world as we know it.

So I called SharperImage customer service to complain. That was a mistake. I bypassed the girl who answered and immediately asked for a manager. The young female twit posing as a “manager” had an attitude and didn’t really care that I was outraged, as I had calmly informed her. Her responses were monotone, canned, and totally without compassion. "I can't confirm that we sold your address." I tried to explain to her how I knew that they sold my address, but she interrupted. That only made me more outraged. It got worse when she started talking over me saying, “Can I FINISH talking?”

When I told her I was done talking with her and asked her to transfer me to her boss, her response was, “I AM the floor supervisor.” The rest of the conversation went something like this:

“I don’t want to talk to a floor supervisor, I want to speak with YOUR manager.”
“I AM the floor supervisor.”
“You must have a manager. You report to someone, don’t you?”
“I can’t give you that information.”
“Just transfer me to your supervisor.”
“I AM the supervisor.”
“But you report to SOMEONE.”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Yes you can. I want to file a complaint about your attitude now. I'm done with you.”
“You can’t talk to me that way.”
“What way?”
"You're insulting me."
Etc.

This went on until she gave me a phone number to her corporate office and I hung up. When I called that number, O.J. answered, and it turns out he was just another customer service rep at another call center. He said there was nothing he could do because the evil customer service rep “is in another call center.” I thanked him and gave up.

To get some satisfaction, I wrote a nasty email to every email alias at SharperImage.com that I could find on their Web site and vowed to tell all my friends to avoid ordering from SharperImage. I’m done with them. I won’t even LOOK at a SharperImage catalog in the seat pocket in front of me on any future flights.

You really can’t find good service anymore. My next job is going to be lighthouse operator. Think of all the books you could read on a job like that – and no idiots to deal with.

Mom, Dad, and Jacqui 

Dave 

Matt (the Thinker) 

Jacqui ("No more pictures!!") 

Connor 

Zoe 

Jason 

Judy, Maddie, and Dave 

Pete 

Lisa 

Maddie 

Back in New York

It’s good to be home. Martin certainly agrees. I’ve never appreci-ated air condi-tioning more in my life. When we stepped out of the rental car onto a NY sidewalk Friday, the 80-something-degree weather seemed cool and breezy compared to the week of “relentless humidity” we survived in Virginia. I’ve never been so hot in all my life. The outdoors was one big steam room. I found myself changing into dry clothes or jumping into the pool several times a day.

Grandview Manor was really something. It’s an expanded 1930’s farm house on 160 acres. The property sits on a peninsula and comes complete with dock and swimming pool. The five-bedroom house was well-stocked with just about everything imaginable, although we did have to run out and buy ant spray. There were a hundred ants for every crumb dropped on the floor by my 2-1/2 year old niece Maddie, who was adorable, I might add. Her main concern Saturday night as we celebrated my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary was that my mom “please cut the cake.” And soon!

The ants didn’t bother me. Neither did the bees and wasps. If you leave them alone, they don’t bother you. It was the gargantuan, dive-bombing, malicious horseflies that had me running for my life on more than one occasion. They attacked everyone in the pool. Having grown up in Virginia, I’m surprised I’d forgotten about the dreaded horseflies. I really hate them. It all came back to me - there is truly no escaping horseflies when you’re out by the pool. I don’t know why swimming pools attract horseflies. The buggers certainly didn’t come after us on the steamy tennis court.

One evening we played tennis for maybe 30 minutes. In just 10 minutes I was dripping sweat. My sister, nephew, and I are all equally bad at tennis, so we spent most of our time chasing fence balls. But it felt like exercising in a sauna. I didn’t make it past the pool on my way into the house to put my bathing suit on. I tore off my sneakers and jumped into the water fully clothed, horseflies or not.

I grew up in the South. I don’t recall the heat ever bothering me. But I haven’t quite adapted to the extreme humidity we’re experiencing on the east coast this summer. My mom told me I’m not “acclimated” after my seven years in the mild Pacific Northwest where the only humidity comes in the form of rain. Seattle spoiled me. I gotta admit I miss the weather there.

It’s over 90 degrees in NYC today, and after going out one time, I refuse to travel more than a city block outdoors in this city oven. I tried to go see a movie yesterday at Union Square. Five minutes on the subway platform had me as sweaty as 10 minutes on the tennis court. Then, after standing in line for tickets in a miserable, un-air-conditioned lobby, I found out that the next two showings of “Wedding Crashers” was sold out. I wasn’t about to sit around in that heat waiting, so I did some grocery shopping at a crowded Whole Foods and went home. That was a waste of $4.00 in subway passes.

That’s one nice thing about using a car instead of public transportation – you get to remain cool throughout your commute. Not so using the subway in NY. I sure did enjoy driving a car last week for the first time in eight months. You don’t realize what a privilege driving is until you go without it for a while. And driving in the city was awesome! I’m so glad I faced that fear head on. I did so well driving alongside the insane cabbies that I felt like a native New Yorker. I fit right in and managed to avoid hitting any idiot jaywalkers.

There is one neat thing the east coast has that Seattle doesn’t – thunderstorms. We had maybe one thunderstorm per year in Puget Sound. I love a good thunderstorm. I just don’t love a thunderstorm that starts at midnight and ends at 7:00AM. On Tuesday night, all of eastern Virginia lay awake in bed for the unexpected seven-hour light show hosted by Mother Nature. The loud thunder cracks felt like they were directly overhead at Grandview Manor estate. I lay in bed awake, counting seconds between lightening and thunder claps all night long, as the storm approached, receded, and approached again. None of us slept.

Well, tomorrow it’s back to work. How sad that all vacations must come to an end. I dread going back to work and wading through the hundreds of emails sitting in my Inbox. I plan to set aside my entire first day back just handling email and catching up on the multiple Severity A incidents (and higher, even though that doesn’t seem possible) that my customer opened up with support while I was out. Sigh.

This job just never ends.

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Mom and Dad in 1950-something and today (Hawaii-bound!)

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N!

Tomorrow afternoon I will walk over to 54th Street and 6th Avenue to rent a car from Avis. For the first time in exactly eight months I will drive a motorized vehicle. It’s about a 16-block ride from Midtown to the Lincoln Tunnel that will get me out of Manhattan and on my way to Vacation. And I’m petrified.

In a couple of months I have to undergo total disc replacement surgery in my back. That doesn’t worry me. Driving a vehicle 16 blocks in Manhattan worries me. I just know that some angry Yellow Cab driver is going to rear-end me for yielding to a pedestrian (Seattle style), or cut me off and make me drive into a fire hydrant or something. Ack! Driving in NYC - something I was hoping to avoid. (Some car-less residents actually take public transportation out of the city to pick up a rental car.)

Martin the cat is in for a surprise tomorrow. Today I worked from home, and he drove me nuts, crying by the front door the entire day. That’s the first time he’s whined non-stop for an entire day since we moved into this apartment about five and a half months ago. He has ants in his furry pants. It’s quite clear that he is sick of 770 square feet. I knew this day would come.

I’ve gotten used to the small space. Martin is bored with it. It breaks my heart to say “No you can’t go out,” as he cries by the front door. But today I tried to explain to him that he gets a major reprieve tomorrow – sort of. I assured him, “You just wait, my sweetest boy in the whole wide world, tomorrow you’ll have a whole new place to explore!” . . . . after spending about three hours in a 22" cat carrier on a car seat. (I failed to tell him the second part of the story. Oops.)

We’re driving only as far as Dover, Delaware, tomorrow after work. I cut the trip into two legs to make it easier on Martin. The next day we’ll spend the night in Chesapeake, Virginia, with my brother and his family, where Martin will stay for another week. Then Saturday I’ll join the whole family in a beautiful, waterfront “luxury estate” near the Chesapeake Bay for a whole week of fun in the sun. (See www.vrbo.com/25725.)

This wonderful vacation is a gift from my parents to all of us kids. We’re celebrating 50 years together as a family – starting on the day of my parents’ wedding on May 28, 1955. Hard to believe. And yet very impressive. I know I couldn’t do it. :)

This is my first vacation in years. I’m so used to spending my vacation time moving that I don’t know how it’s going to feel to not work on vacation. I honestly can’t wait. Just one more day of work, one last presentation to my customer, and one harried trip out of the city - and we’re on our way to some much needed R&R! See you on the 19th.

Millennium Madness – Part II

I want to go back in time. Life has gotten way to complex. Everything you buy now requires poring through exhaustive manuals, configuring, programming, assembling, wiring. You can’t even buy preassembled furniture anymore. And email runs our lives. All we do is work, work, work. I miss the 80’s.

If it was the 80’s now, there would be only one remote control in the living room instead of four. There would be only four food groups. My haircut would be in style. If you wanted to make an airline reservation, you’d make one phone call and be done with it instead of spending hours on the Internet trying to nail down the best deal on the shortest flight from the nearest airport with the least number of stop-overs at the most convenient time of day on a plane having the window or aisle seat you want.

In the 80’s, computers (and therefore email) didn’t run your life. There was no sitting at a computer at home and at work and at home again all day every day, letting electronic communication rule your life. You didn’t sit on the subway and read emails on your smart phone. It’s become too all-encompassing, too much of a drag, too much time spent away from life. It’s like television – if you spend too much time in front of it, you’re missing out on the real thing.

And when you’re not on email, someone is instant-messaging you on your computer. Or calling you on your cell phone. If it was the 80’s, you’d wear a pager on your hip and return the call (or not) whenever convenient for you. You could escape. You were free.

Free, I tell you!

Today we are too accessible. But why is this necessary? We aren’t all brain surgeons or firefighters. We don’t have to be on call 24x7. Heck, even brain surgeons get to rotate out of on-call duty. Face it - as long as your wireless device is turned on and within reach, your entire existence is on call.

What happened to privacy and R&R? What happened to going home at the end of a long workday and not feeling guilty for not reading your work email at least once (if not perpetually) before you fall into bed exhausted from information overload? In the 80’s, your most expensive home appliances didn’t have to be upgraded or replaced every 5 years like that computer that you spend too much time on today. You didn’t have to spend days or weeks shopping around for the right computer or cell phone with the right connectivity plan and all the right features for your job. You didn’t have to get locked in to a phone contract or count the number of minutes you talked.

Because your “computer” consisted of an IBM Selectric typewriter, you didn’t have to spend an entire weekend setting it up, installing applications, moving data, waiting on the cable guy, wiring it to the Internet and – god forbid – wasting countless hours on the phone with lousy technical support getting it to work as expected. You basically plugged it in, popped in the ribbon cartridge, and turned it on. (My friend Vonceil calls the modern equivalent an "Apple.")

In the 80’s you didn’t have 280 different passwords to memorize and re-memorize with each password expiration. You knew the PIN number for your ATM card and the combination for the lock on your YMCA locker, and that was it.

Technology is great, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that it’s become too time-consuming. It’s too complicated for the average person. It’s even becoming too complicated for the computer-savvy. And when it fails you, getting to a resolution is too frustrating and time-consuming (and expensive! – after all, time is money). Technology companies would be smart to invest massive R&D dollars into simplifying their technology solutions. I’m telling you, that’s the ticket. Not everyone out there is a computer programmer – if electronics manufacturers could make devices that are truly “plug and play,” they’d sell more devices and have more happy customers.

The Internet is a technology revolution in its own right. It’s a fantastic source of information and a great communication vehicle. But, is it possible that - (dare I say?) – there is too much information out there? Are our queries returning too many hits? Are wea ll suffering from information overload?

I want the simple life back – if only for a few days. I want to be zipping around Charlotte in my ’76 Datsun 280Z on a warm summer night with the windows cranked down, a Bon Jovi cassette in the deck, and a stack of Domino’s pizzas on the passenger seat awaiting delivery to a hungry customer. Hard to believe I did that for nearly six years of my young life. But it was good, honest work and kept me in tip-top shape.

That was a job that entailed a lot of energy (i.e., running constantly to meet 30-minute deadlines), manual work (scrubbing down the pizza joint at 2:00am), multi-tasking (answering phones, taking orders, making pies, tending ovens, folding boxes, doing inventory….), and a penchant for good customer service. I loved it, and I was good at it. And I have the “employee of the month” trophies to prove it. Ha!

Of course, Domino’s Pizza is where I learned the basic work ethic and customer service skills that are keeping me afloat in the technology industry today. Yet…I sure miss those days when stress amounted to whether the next traffic light would be red or green. And when I left work after a long hectic shift, my shift was over. I didn’t have to go home, unload a roving office, plug in a laptop, boot it up, and “catch up” on work I missed on the ride home in an attempt to make tomorrow’s work day a little less insane. I miss that ability to let go of work after work. I miss "After Hours." (Excellent movie, by the way.)

So just shut down your browser and go sit with your spouse or kid or pet on the back porch for a bit. You’ll be glad you did. Your Inbox will still be full in the morning. Trust me.