March 4, 2010

Mulled mullings.

I have not felt compelled to write lately.  Recent events left me uninspired, but hey!  Here I am writing anyway.  Do you feel that sense of foreboding?

Laundry
Last week, I was introduced to Pediatric Projectile Puking.  Normally, my kids have iron stomachs, this is the first time Arun and Anjali have each done a proper puke. And they went all out for the occasion.  ALL OUT.  It was as horrifying as I had always imagined.  I was then left to plow through a good 7 loads of laundry.  7!  In a normal week, I do 3-4 loads (high-capacity washers rock) and as I HATE doing laundry, that simply added yet another hellish tinge to the week.  Speaking of 3-4 loads a week, I have never understood why folks do so much laundry.  My stuff is a  load, Manoj's stuff is a load.  I buy 2 weeks worth of clothes for the kids (each kid gets about 15 outfits per season) and two weeks' worth of their clothes is a load.  The extra loads are towels, sheets, whatever.  I hate laundry SO MUCH that I am faithful about doing it every Sunday.  Hating laundry is bad enough, but piled up laundry?  Is even worse and physically makes me want to puke.

Hey, wait a goddamned second.

Frauditor, At Your Service.
And the fraud.  Ah, the fraud.  In past lives, I have done such things as data security and auditing.  With those activities comes "on-the-job" training in fraud.  Knowledge that I am now using again.  Except this time, the fraud comes from my own damned pocketbook if it is allowed through. 

If your credit card is stolen, do you think your card company just graciously erases the charges and eats the cost?  Hell, no.  They pass the buck to the merchant.  For example, Snapgifts (*cough*SHILL*cough*) Listen, I understand that to a certain extent, it is completely fair.  Absolutely! As a merchant, we should hold some responsibility for preventing fraud.  Definitely! We are the first line of defense.  Literally!

However.  When I call a credit card company, navigate a veritable jungle of  voice recognition commands,  speak to not 1, not 2, but 3! different people to report possible fraud for one of their clients and I am told the fraud is OUR responsibility and that NO, they would not be contacting their client?  I see credit card companies in a very different light. 

I am not impressed.

We did NOT ship the order out, but there is a person out there with a stolen credit card who has NO idea and his credit card company did not even want to bother to CALL HIS ASS.  What really boggles my mind is that American Express has all these fancy celebrity-laden commercials claiming they care about their customers.  I am here to tell you they really do not.

The best part of these tales of fraud, is how the fraudsters must think we are stupid.  In this most recent case, we received a nonsensical set of emails where the fraudster did not even play the proper character role in his little scheme.  He pretended to be the purchaser of the gift, when he should have pretended to be the recipient (i.e. Uncle Joe gives Nephew Bob a gift card.  Therefore, UNCLE JOE would be the one contacting us to see about the card.  We only have Uncle Joe's "email" on record, after all.  However, all of our communications were from the "voice/standpoint" of Nephew Bob.  It made absolutely NO SENSE in the context of the order.) 

And we are supposed to ship out over $500 based on a set of instructions that made no sense??  I was not born yesterday (or the day before) (actually, it was 1971.)  (which was a great year, come to think of it.)


That's So FLY
You know the story about the little boy whose daddy was a big bad air traffic controller?  And the little boy got to go work with daddy and the daddy let the little boy talk to pilots? Yes, that story.  What is killing me about the story is the outrage from folks that the FAA might be a tad upset over the incident. What's the harm!  He's just kid! The dad was there! The pilots knew!

You think?  Really?

I don't care if it is "take your child to work" day or not.  You still need to act like a goddamned professional.  My dad is a respiratory therapist and you did not see him dragging my ass to the hospital to teach me how to intubate patients.  But he would been there right by my side!  He could have told me exactly how to do it!  And the patients would have obviously KNOWN I was a kid!  Duh! What's the harm??

Listen, when my ass is in a big metal tube, hurtling through space at a squillion miles an hour, a squillion miles above the fucking ground, I damned well expect the air traffic controllers to act all professional-like when they are pushing tin.

I'm a bitch like that. 

7 comments:

Melanie said...

I do way too much laundry, but part of the problem is that I own 3 bra's and 3 pair of jeans, and since both are required for my daily wardrobe, I feel like I am doing laundry ALL THE TIME, at minimum 1 load a day (some of them small ones)....

Regarding the kid in the control tower, yes it was wrong.... HECK YES it was wrong, however, I don't really think lives were at stake, because I don't believe the child was making the decisions to send a plane up or let it land, I believe the child was told to say "403 prepare for departure" because that is what Dad was just about to say, so while I do think it was TERRIBLY bad judgement on the part of the Dad and the manager who allowed it to happen, I do NOT feel that lives were on the line like people are so ready to scream.... should the dad be suspended HECK YA, should he be fired, I honestly don't think so.

Monkey McWearingChaps said...

First of all, I agree on the kid. Second, it's nice that the kid was told *exactly* what to say, but he's a freaking kid! He could have said the wrong thing as a "joke", he could have mumbled, he could have been unclear, he could have done that kid-like thing where he forgot what he was told 40 seconds prior...there are a million possibilities.

I can't believe...I mean, I seriously cannot believe that people think this was okay or no big deal or didn't show a crazy lapse of judgment on the part of the father.

Hey, Cagey, can my sister borrow Anjali to dole out prescriptions for lithium and other hardcore anti-psychotics on Fridays?? No big deal, right? Wouldn't it be awfully cute if your psychiatrist or surgeon had their kid working on you in a controlled setting?

Cagey (Kelli Oliver George) said...

I do NOT think the guy should be fired. No, not at all. No, I do not think lives were at stake. But I do believe the behavior was unprofessional and a reprimand was in order.

When I worked at the Federal Reserve, I do seem to remember the kids being allowed to "process checks" in our testing area, but not in the production area. I understand the concept behind teaching kids what their parents do at work, but really do not think a "hands-on" experience is crucial.

Olivia said...

I don't even have a high-capacity washer and laundry doesn't overwhelm me. I do 5 loads per week (the bulk on Sunday) and that includes diapers. One of those is a half load for the baby's clothes, and it drops to 4 loads during the summer when we aren't wearing bulky sweaters and layers.

I think it can seem like a never-ending mountain if you do a load here and there instead of getting it all done in one day. Having to go to the laundromat for years taught me to do in one day. Now, putting away the clean clothes? I'm not so good about getting that done.

I agree with you on the kid thing.

elizasmom said...

I hate flying enough already without now having to ponder the odds that some little kid is control of my damn plane. THANK YOU very much JFK Airport.

I find your comments on fraud very interesting — and eye-opening. Thank goodness you're on the ball or your business would be hurting right now.

Cara said...

Mastercard, on the other hand, calls us so often to make sure we really authorized charges that we joke they have nothing else to do in this economy. (Seriously, two cardholders on one account. Is it really that shocking that we sometimes get gas on the same day?)

And the child as air controller thing? WTF. I don't care if Dad was right there. What if the kid screwed up repeating the instructions? Or decided to be silly. Or got distracted. Or any of the other things kids do every day that would make that incredibly dangerous. Not cool.

Christine said...

GAH! You got me totally riled up on that free range thing. Do people really think the only way I could have learned to be a vet is if someone let me spay dogs when I was 8?