Posts filed under 'Businesses that Suck'
Consolidated Edison, the power company in New York City, is planning to deploy a superconducting cable through Manhattan.
The headline for the article? “Attack-proof power line to be installed under NY”
Inside the article?
Superconducting cable must be cooled with liquid nitrogen to -382 degrees Fahrenheit (-230 Celsius). At that point, conductivity resistance falls, allowing the cables to carry the extra power.
Last July, ConEd left parts of Queens without power for over a week from overloading of feeder circuits. (see: wikipedia, Public Service Commission case study) There’s plenty to see about the chaos surrounding even figuring out what happened, and apparently ConEd came quite close to shutting off power for 100,000 more people.
Yeah… so I don’t have confidence in their ability to keep their cable at -382F. And how does something that has to be kept at -382F get labeled attack-proof? And when ConEd screws this one up, will they be sent to Guantanamo?
May 21st, 2007
Well, despite the fact that Time Warner Cable billed me $400 more than they should have, they did an OK job fixing up the situation when I called.
I moved on March 22nd, and the week before I moved, I called Time Warner to let them know that I would be moving, to please disconnect my service at the old place on the 22nd, and schedule an install on the 23rd in the new place. They said I could just move the cable boxes I had, and the technician would set them up at the new place, do the wiring, etc.
I have digital cable, the boxes have electronic serial numbers which can be used for remote management by the cable company, etc. The service doesn’t do doo-doo without them, and an installation by a technician always results in the serial numbers being recorded and entered into their systems.
So… you’d think it might be impossible to be billed for the same service with the same cable boxes for the same time period, wouldn’t you? Even if I thought that the possibility for the same service at two locations with only one set of equipment is a possible oversight… since I get billed for the cable boxes themselves, you’d think that I couldn’t be billed on two different bills for the rental fee for the exact same device with the exact same serial number, would you?
Well, as an IT lackey, I could ramble on about “business logic” that’s missing from their system, but I’ll stop there for that bit of it.
It also happened to be the case that the installation of the cable was scheduled for an 8AM to Noon window. The tech arrived at 2. Sure, things happen. Yes, it really sucks to not hop in the shower in the morning because the cable guy might come, and before things are done it’s been 6 hours where you didn’t get done anything that involved making yourself unavailable for more than a few minutes. Since I went to work and Amy waited, gotta give her props for her patience. As compensation for being so late, Amy was told that the first month’s service would be free.
…but I was billed for that, too.
The billing schedules aren’t exactly synchronized, so it’s a little funky getting everything straight, but the customer service rep was quite helpful.
One of the biggest problems I’ve seen with customer service representatives is getting them to see that there is a problem.
I wish I’d gotten his name so I could pass along kudos, but I didn’t.
He saw the problems overall, addressed things in a logical manner, checked into things with his supervisor a few times to figure out how to handle it, and got things all straightened out.
He apologized several times about how long it was taking, but I kept insisting that I was fine with waiting, since he was doing such a good job with it.
By the end of the call, about $400 of credits were applied to my account. Some of the credits were for things that should never have been billed, some which should have been applied without my intervention, but at least everything got straightened out to my satisfaction.
I’m not ready to call Time Warner good, but there’s at least someone there who “gets it”.
April 25th, 2007
Well, I found this in my inbox this morning…
Dear Amazon.com Customer,
As someone who has purchased Christian books and music from Amazon.com, you might like to know that we have created a brand-new Christian Books Store.
I can’t, for the life of me, imagine what I bought that would have been construed as Christian. I wonder if it was one of those “stealth-God” things… where there’s imagery about something good or something beautiful, and you learn later that it was supposed to be about God when you’d have thought it was about nature, or a relationship with another person.
It’s probably more likely that it was something I purchased for someone because of my Amazon Prime membership…
But at what point is Amazon playing with fire? I’m an atheist, but I’m a little intrigued about the algorithm. Had I been in some other way inclined, isn’t Amazon likely to piss people off with this kind of thing?
Some day, will there be
Dear Amazon.com Customer,
Since you’ve ordered a box of nails and a bag of fertilizer, we thought you might be interested in Terrorism for Dummies.
April 2nd, 2007
I made a stop at Bed Bath and Beyond yesterday to pick up a blanket, and I was reminded yet again why my initial thoughts of it being a fun trip always end up in disappointment.
BB&B is certainly not a discount store. While they send out plenty of large-postcard coupons for 20% off a single item, most of the merchandise there is nowhere near competitive with discount retailers.
I’m fine with that. A store can be what it wants. But BB&B isn’t really what I want.
Why?
Manhattan is a crowded enough place. Bed Bath and Beyond in Chelsea is a pretty big store (two floors), but there are consistently crowding issues. The store places goods in the middle of traffic paths. I understand that they are highlighting items of interest by displaying them in high-traffic areas, but my experience yesterday involved customers having to, on the spur of the moment, come up with a traffic control plan just to get around the store. I’m actually rather impressed by the way people came together to organize a bit, but quite upset with the store for making it that way. Aisles are obviously selected to give a path for traffic flow. When they’re not sufficient, the merchant is to blame.
As well, there must have been about 200 people in the checkout area waiting to pay and leave. While Amy was a bit upset that I was pissed off at the lines, I think that it’s justifiable to expect that when you’re paying a more-than-fair price for something that you should not have to have a subpar experience while in the store.
Amy said something about it just being busy, and that it wasn’t that bad.
I still contend that on a Sunday in late January (as opposed to November or December, or even early January), the store should be able to operationally scale its checkout system such that there isn’t a sea of humanity trying to spontaneously form the proper queuing structure to get everyone through in a reasonable amount of time. Management of BB&B bears the responsibility of the portions of my visit that they control, and… well… they failed.
I’ll be trying to remind myself just how bad it sucks next time I’m tempted to go there.
Oh, and Target, when the hell are you going to open up a Manhattan store?!?!?!
January 29th, 2007
I got an e-mail from Orbitz this morning, alerting me to a United Airlines fare sale, so I clicked on over and started searching flights to London this spring.
I’ve flown a bit on Virgin Atlantic between New York and London, liked their service, and they had the lowest fare. But wait a minute, what’s that?
(click to see the idiocy with your own eyes)
Yes, $192 in fare, $298 in fees, for a total of $490.
Higher fees than the damn fare?
Wow, must be a lot of security fees. Or are they fuel surcharges? $298 in taxes and fees must buy me a lot. Jet fuel, maybe airport fees… gotta pay those people who make me take off my shoes. Hmm… it should cost about the same in taxes and fees for different airlines, right? And since taxes are usually calculated on a percentage basis, the higher the fare, the higher the taxes and fees, right?
Oh, maybe not.
(click to see the idiocy with your own eyes)
Same total cost, lower taxes and fees. $130 lower. Is American Airlines getting a deal on x-ray machine usage?
The complete lack of transparency on what the fee components are is quite disturbing. I wonder which of these “fees” might be service fees imposed by Orbitz. I’m more than open to explanations.
December 27th, 2006
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