Annoyances

Insurance to cover what they won’t cover

This is fucked up. My insurance company wants me to pay them gap insurance for a gap in the insurance they are selling me.

What is gap insurance you ask?

Gap insurance is insurance that covers you if your car breaks down soon after you buy it. Your car insurance won’t cover your expenses if your brand new car gets totaled immediately after you buy it. You won’t be able to buy the same car again because they won’t give you the amount of money that you spent on the car.

Mark and I got a Christmas box from a relative who can’t be bothered to remember our last name. We’ve been married for 18+ years, and we both changed our name when we married. We combined the letters of both our last names into a new last name because we wanted to represent the blending of our lives in a more tangible way than just merging the linens and sharing the bills.

I was watching this TEDx video: Margaret Heffernan “Dare to Disagree” and it really made me think.

https://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_heffernan_dare_to_disagree

One of the reasons I suspect I was laid off from About.com was because I had the temerity to disagree with staff. I would point out bugs and flaws in their code or design. I had discussions with both editors and senior executives about how the site could be improved and what I thought was going wrong and right.

My son and I love Legos. He loves to build them, and I love to help. Plus I love the different scenes you can build and I’m especially impressed with the Hobbit and LoTR sets. We just bought the Smaug set and had a blast putting it together. Now Smaug can fight the Indominus Rex from Jurassic World and we’ll finally know which is more powerful—dragons or dinosaurs. When we bought the Smaug set, we were sent a survey asking us what we thought of the purchase process. So I filled it out. Our local Lego store is in a mall, and is like what I imagine most Lego stores are like—crowded and a lot of fun. So I gave them, primarily, 4 and 5 star ratings. But one of the questions asked what I thought of the store’s online promotions. I had to honestly give that a low rating (1 or 2 stars, I forget now) because the promotions have always been a source of frustration for our family. This low rating got me a reply from the store manager asking me what my specific issue was. I replied:

I get a lot of PR requests in email. Most of them I delete, periodically I consider doing a review or article about it, and every once in a while some PR person sends me something so stupid I just have to respond. This week I got a request to review a new “app for Moms.” This is stupid mostly because they sent it to me at my About.com address—where I write about web design and HTML. If you must send me PR pitches, at least spend two minutes determining if I write in your niche. Now, to be fair, I do sometimes write “mommy blogger” type stuff here, but the PR guy didn’t make any indication that he realized that. But this PR person lucked out. I wrote about their product and got it promoted as a guest post on My Happy SAHD Life. Of course, I suspect the PR person won’t feel lucky. It’s not a review, and if it were a review it wouldn’t be a positive one. Read the article here: It’s 2014, Why Don’t PR People Know?

I know, I know, they need more money, the stamps cost more, they are offering more services, Saturday delivery is going away, no it’s not, yes it is.

But seriously! What is UP with them?

I was very excited when they announced more tracking. It’s great to think that I might get a notice when a package is coming. When I do tracking with UPS and FedEx, I get a listing of where my package is almost up to the minute. I can practically watch the box as it moves from the sender, to the hub, out to a nearby city, then “on a truck for delivery.” That last bit can be the most frustrating as packages can get put on a truck at 5am only a couple miles from my house and then have no update to their tracking until after 9pm when they’ve been delivered to my house. But while I might be chewing my nails down to the quick waiting for my latest batch of Scharffenberger chocolate to arrive, at least I know that the box is out there coming. I have one package that was sent to me “with tracking” via the USPS back on April 26th. This is what has been tracked so far: [caption id=“attachment_816” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] Tracking where nothing is tracked[/caption] Okay, I realize that this could mean that the company that sent this to me printed out a mailing label and then dumped all of it in the trash. In other words, the USPS never got anything. And neither did I. So I now have another package that I know has been mailed, because I mailed it. I printed out the mailing label on May 12th but then didn’t get a chance to mail it until today. Here’s the package: [caption id=“attachment_817” align=“aligncenter” width=“225”] the package[/caption] And here’s the tracking page: [caption id=“attachment_818” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] on USPS.com[/caption] What’s upsetting to me is how it was received at the post office. I walked into our local branch and stood in the line (2 people in front of me). When I got to the front of the line I handed the package to the postal worker and asked for her to scan it and give me a receipt. She replied “you already have one, you just go online and type in the number and it’ll show you the tracking.” Then, and this is the worst part, she takes the package, and tosses it over on another public counter. Then she smiles and asks to help the next person in line. She didn’t scan it, didn’t put it in a box, did nothing with it beyond putting it on a counter. And of course, three hours later as I write this post, it hasn’t been scanned. For all I know it’s still sitting on that counter. What is UP with the USPS? How is this considered “tracking?” When I have a box for FedEx or UPS, I take it to the shipping counter and they scan it into their system right then! Then when it’s moved off the counter and onto a truck it’s scanned again_!_ And so on until it is “on a truck for delivery.” And did you notice the other flaw? On the package it states that it’s being sent “Priority Mail 2-Day” but on the website it says that the postal product is “Priority Mail 1-Day.” Which is it USPS? 

[caption id=“attachment_771” align=“alignleft” width=“150”] This site displayed in a minimalist theme - very different from my last theme - and probably from my next theme. Click to view larger.[/caption] I’ve been trying out a bunch of new themes and frameworks lately, in an effort to determine what would be easiest for both me and my clients to use. In fact, this site is demonstrating that right now. Although I suspect as soon as I get some free time, I’m going to be changing it, probably drastically. Which is why I included the screen shot.

Our fence was crushed in several places today when one of the big trees next door decided to end its vertical existence. No animals, children, or adults were harmed in the creation of these photos. But there was a lot of adrenaline spewing about. [caption id=“attachment_704” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”] fence #1 taken out by the base of the tree[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_706” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”] middle of the tree took out the fence on the other side of the pasture[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_705” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”] The top of the tree takes out the playset[/caption]

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of answering a survey about health care. Normally, when I get those types of robo-dialed call-center calls, I wait for the person on the line to say “Hello,” but for whatever reason, I said hello first. And then, when asked if I’d be willing to do a survey, I uncharacteristically said “yes.” It was interesting to take the survey both because of what I know about health care and my opinions on it. But what was more interesting was how the questions were phrased. I’d often wondered how one company could do a survey claiming that 87% of Americans love chocolate. And then another company could do a survey the next day claiming that 87% of Americans hate chocolate. After taking yesterday’s survey, I understand how this can happen. The questions (and supplied answers) can rig the results. For example, several of the questions had this format: