Author: Tom

Adventures in Customer Service

Posted on By Tom 5 Comments on Adventures in Customer Service
Rants

Two different stories of breakdowns in customer service.  One had a very simple solution, but one was most difficult to resolve.  Both resulted in ill-will on the part of the customer (us.)  Both of these prove the old saying my former boss used, “It takes ten ‘atta-boys’ to make up for one ‘Oh Sh*t!'”

The Lazy Goat

This was the simplest to resolve, but that didn’t happen.  The customer service faux pas could have been fixed with just one simple phrase, but the offending parties didn’t.

Laura and I celebrated our 21st anniversary last week.  However, we decided to wait until we got home from Florida to have a celebratory dinner at The Lazy Goat.  I made reservations, and specifically requested a table at the windows overlooking the Reedy River.  When we arrived, we were seated in the middle of the restaurant, our request notwithstanding.  The window tables had been taken.

Here’s where things broke down…

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2010 Calendar

Posted on By Tom 3 Comments on 2010 Calendar
Miscellaneous, Photography

hood ornament with texture

The past couple of years I haven’t been very successful with my photo calendars. In 2007 the company I used made misprints, and replaced all of the calendars I ordered. Some folks thought the calendars looked OK even with the faulty printing, and took them anyway. Last year I didn’t even get around to making a calendar. I couldn’t decide on which photos to use and the time slipped by. This year I had a theme, but once again time was a factor.

I order my calendars through Qoop.com from photos that I’ve posted to my Flickr account.  Since I’ve been doing so much with antiquing and adding texture, I thought it might be nice to create a collection of processed photographs.  Specifically, I was including old and vanishing structures and objects from the South.  I placed the order on December 6, which should have been plenty of time for the order to be processed.  However, the calendars didn’t arrive until after we had already left for Florida for Christmas – too late to be used as Christmas presents as intended.  I complained to Qoop, and they were gracious enough to refund my shipping fees and give me a coupon for future purchases, but this is two orders that they have messed up.

As for the calendars themselves, they were waiting when we got back home.  I may still use them as Epiphany presents, but the overall effect of the calendars wasn’t exactly what I expected.  They turned out a bit darker, and a bit more Gothic than I had thought.  Here’s a brief month-by-month rundown…

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Teachers and Facebook

Posted on By Tom 2 Comments on Teachers and Facebook
EdTech, Internet

Yesterday there was an article in the Greenville News about development of a policy for teacher use of Facebook. The article stated that the board was holding off on approval of the policy because some members had raised “ethical, legal and technical questions.”    The new policy would put into place a procedure for dismissing teachers … Read More “Teachers and Facebook” »

Weekend Update

Posted on By Tom 1 Comment on Weekend Update
Uncategorized

Cosmo in the Tree

It’s that time of year. Between concert schedules, Christmas parties, and a frantic work schedule I haven’t been able to post much. I’m looking forward to a couple of weeks off for winter break to catch my breath a bit. Here’s a quick update on what’s been happening, though…

Greenville Chorale

We did our Christmas Concert this year at McAlister Auditorium on the Furman campus. The concert last Friday night was well-attended. The music was more challenging than we had anticipated. We did Paul Patterson’s Magnificat, in addition to our standard fare of carols, etc. The Magnificat had difficult rhythms and strange jazz harmonies that didn’t resolve as expected. However, we made it through, and I’m sure the audience had no indication of the difficulties we had.

The Chamber Ensemble was asked to promote the concert on the local Fox TV station. We appeared on air Friday morning as part of the Fox Rocks segment. An octect from the group recorded in a fantastic new studio on Augusta Road, and we got some great audio tracks. Even though we recorded four songs, only about fifteen seconds actually aired. Here’s a link to a full song that they put on their website.

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DARPA Challenge Update

Posted on By Tom 1 Comment on DARPA Challenge Update
Geocaching and Maps, Internet

Well, that didn’t take long. By 5:00 PM DARPA had already announced a winner in their 2009 Challenge. The challenge was supposed to last through December 14, but it was obvious from early on that it wouldn’t take that much time. As shown on the map above, the balloons were located in places where it would have been hard to miss them (although there is a large wedge of the Midwest with no ballooons.) The winner was the team from MIT.

I didn’t participate in the challenge as I thought I might. However, I did check in on the progress from time-to-time on Twitter. It was interesting to watch the competition progress. Most of the Twitter traffic seemed to be from those involved in the hunt, and I saw only one from someone that seemed to have honestly stumbled upon one (…sort of, but more on that in a bit.)

As I saw reports of balloons I wondered if I shouldn’t try to find the location and report them as my own. However, I figured that if the reports were THAT public, then others would have reported them. I just decided to watch the spectacle.

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