Choke the Chicken

The building I work in has undergone some major renovations. So major, that we're having a "Grand Reopening and Rededication" Ceremony. All the mucky-mucks will be touring so we all have to make sure that our offices our cleaned and our half-naked fireman calendars are out of sight.

Management has hired someone to put "artwork" up on our walls. Some woman poked her head in my office yesterday, and despite the fact that I was on the phone she asked "Do you want a goose or a pelican?" I pointed to the phone. "Oh sorry" she said. Then continued "I just wondered if you wanted a goose or a pelican". This time I covered the phone and said, "I'm on the phone." Good. Now she understands. "Oh. Okay. Just tell me if you want a goose or a pelican."

I swear, I am not making this up.

I asked my called to hold for a moment and I said, "I have absolutely no opinion one way or another. You can do whatever you want." Then I got up and closed my office door.

She put the goose up (the first picture above). That picture is a copy of the actual print that's hanging outside my office door. Everytime I look at it, I think of men masturbating (choking the chicken).

I actually got off easy. A vast majority (at least 98%) of the prints hanging in our building are birds. Of those, probably 80% are birds killing other animals (the second picture above). Most of them are pretty dark and some of them are actually pretty scary for adults.

Keep in mind that I work in an industry and has much contact with children. Children who will walk through our halls. Children who have already witnessed too much in their short lives.


EDITED TO ADD: I just noticed that there is a second goose in the print and he actually appears to be giving "head" to the first goose. For the love of humanity....

Empire Strikes Out

Last night, The Perfect Man and I met with a sales representative from Empire Carpet and Flooring. Those "perfect" sales techniques they insist their reps use are the very reason I will never deal with that company. I'd suggest if you don't like to get the "runaround" and hear incredible stories about other people choosing the very carpet you just pooh-poohed, then don't ever make that 1-800 call.

We told the rep that we were selling the house and wanted cheap, cheap, cheap. The rep absolutely refused to tell us which of his sample books was the cheapest product. I finally had to tell him straight out that our meeting was over unless he told us. He grudgingly pointed to one book. Two seconds later, we had our carpet picked out.

Then came the pricing. Oh my god! I don't need to know what the MRSP is. I don't need to know what private deal your not "authorized" to give me but will anyway and I certainly don't need to know about your friend that doesn't have a car so you had to drive him all the way in from Kitchener. I just want the bottom line.

Finally, we get the his "absolute, I promise you" bottom price. $5,400.00 including tax. We hadn't done any research yet, so we had no idea if that was a good price and we told him so. I actually saw sweat pop out on his forehead. "How much were you thinking of spending?" he asked. I pulled a very low figure out of my head and said, "$4,000.00". "Well, let me make a phone call and see what I can do."

WHAT THE HOLY CHEESE CRACKERS ARE YOU DOING?

He made his phone call and came back with $4,600.00 but he could give us another $350.00 off if we agreed to put a sign up outside out home for seven days. Then he leaned in close like the spies from Alexanian Carpet and Flooring had bugged the place and said, "Don't worry. As soon as the installers leave, you can remove the sign from outside. We'd never know."

HUH???

So, now we're at $4,250.00, down $1,150.00 from his "absolute, I promise you" bottom price. I wanted to try to get him down a little lower just to see if I could. Alas, The Perfect Man was tired and hot. He said, "We're not making any deals tonight. Leave it with us to do some research and we'll get back to you."

Then we got a sob story about how this guy gets a commission (aha, so there is room to go down more -- these are the company offered incentives and we haven't even touched your commission yet - oh but it's late and we're tired) and he drove all the way from Kitchener and he doesn't get any of his expenses back for that.....blah blah blah. So, he asked if we would sign the deal then do our research so he wouldn't have to come back again to do the paperwork "Not that I don't like you nice people, but the gas, you understand." So, we signed the deal to shut him up.

Today, The Perfect Man called and cancelled.

That's another two hours of my life I'll never get back. Between that and Ghost Ship, I'm watching my life float away.....

Well, Bully For Them

I was flipping channels yesterday evening, killing time before I had to go out. I stopped when I got to a local news program and they were discussing three girls who had been arrested on Tuesday in New York after a video of them verbally and physically attacking another girl surfaced.

The topic of discussion was whether or not girls were getting more violent today and why. The participants said that the problem was that children in general were getting desensitized because of all the violence they see on television, at the movies and in video games.

I'm not going to comment on that theory because I have no idea if that's the problem or not. What I will say is that the director of this particular news program chose to play the violent video over and over and over again while the host was espousing his position that violence shown on television was one of the reasons our kids were desensitized enough to commit said violent acts.

The hypocrisy of it actually made me want to go out and punch someone, so I guess they were right.

Billing in the Afterlife

Subject: Your Bell e-bill is ready
From: bill.presentment@bell.ca
Date: Mon, January 15, 2007 4:20 am
To: Me

Name: K STAFFLEITNER

Date: January 12, 2007

Amount Due: 0.00

Hello K STAFFLEITNER,
Your e-bill is now available online.Thank you for choosing Bell.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I kid you not. I cancelled my telephone service as of December 1, 2006. I received a final bill on December 12, 2006.

Today, I received notification that I had a bill from Bell Canada dated January 12, 2007 with a zero balance. I went online and checked -- There is a bill posted dated January 12, 2007 with a zero balance.

And they wonder why they're failing as a business.

Fark 'N Ply

The Perfect Man and I used a well-known company to park our car while we were on vacation. They're great. For about double the price, they'll actually park the car for you and then bring it back from the parking lot when you get back from vacation. It's safe and secure because they have a "well-lit, fenced-in compound".

Of course we still took precautions. We removed any valuables from our car. We only had our cell phones with us so we could each call our children once we got back home. Those we hid from view so that our car wouldn't be broken into. The Perfect Man hid his cell phone in the centre console. I hid mine in the pocket on the door.

So, the compound is well-lot and fenced in. We hid our only valuables from view. Everything is perfect. Right? Would I be positing about it if it were?

When you use valet parking, "Fark 'N Ply" has this policy: They bring your car to the check-out area, they leave the keys in it and the engine running, they leave all the doors unlocked and then they walk away from it. That's right. No security personnel to watch over your car while you're still enroute on the shuttle bus. Not even a security camera, monitored or otherwise.

The Perfect Man's cell phone was missing from the car. We tore that car apart for about 15 minutes looking for it. I should note for the record that, while the Perfect Man and I were tearing the car apart, emptying compartments, moving seats, and searching the trunk, no one tried to stop us or questioned us to see if we were the proper owners of the car.

I kept reassuring the Perfect Man that this was a reputable company and they would stand behind their service. We met with their manager and she told us no less than seven times that they have a "no liability" policy and she showed us where that was printed on their exit receipt and on their claim form. She showed us that at least three times. Then she offered us a "good faith" offer of $100.00 toward the replacement of the cell phone. The cell phone that's about three months old. The Perfect Man and I said we were not agreeing to anything and we left and said we'd be in touch.

We cancelled the cell phone service and the phone company confirmed that no charges had been made on the cell phone, which confirmed to us that the cell phone had just been taken from the car.

We replaced the cell phone and sent the bill to the manager and told her that our position is that we did not sign a waiver and if we did inadvertantly sign a waiver - we had no knowledge of the waiver or what it meant. Also, their employee acted negligently when they left the car open and running. We said we would not accept less than replacement value for the phone.

I'll let you all know the outcome.

A Vision of Cable on the Mounain

I recently moved from the west mountain to the east mountain. I was happy to learn that I was going to be in the service area of the cable and internet company I had been dealing with on the west mountain. I had been with them for 15 years and I thought there would be some warm, fuzzy customer appreication coming my way for staying with them.

I called and spoke to one of their front-desk drones and was told that it would cost me $64.00 to transfer my service from one residence to the other. I reminded her that I had been a customer for 15 years and that they were giving new customers free installation and incentives. Her response was a condescending, "I'm sure you got something free when you joined."

CHOKE!!!

"It was so long ago, I can't remember."

I called the manager. I told her I wasn't looking for any of the incentives they were offering new customers, but I didn't want to pay the $64.00 to transfer. She said, "Oh, you've been with us a long time. That counts for something." Ah sweet blessed satisfaction. Then she said, "We can let you transfer for $35.00."

BLINK

The Perfect Man then called the cable company because his name and mine are different. "Hi. I'm a new customer and I want to set up cable and internet........"

Free installation and three months free internet and digital cable.

Idiots!