Archive for "News"
Want to Earn Some Money!
Posted on August 16, 2007 by Ching under Life, News, Sponsored Post, Web.
I am always searching for new ways to earn a little extra cash. Nothing that I can retire on or anything like that but you know a place where I can earn a little fun money. Well I finally found one. You all know that I love to write about my experiences and events that happen in my every day life and I know that you all like reading about it. So what makes this site so perfect you ask? well let me tell you! First I don’t have to change anything about the way I write. If I am going to write about credit cards or the fact that I just paid them all off then I can write about that. I simply go to the site and find a relevant advertiser that wants to put what they call a blog ad on my site. this is an unobtrusive link that a guest will see and click on. nothing more nothing less. It will take you to the advertisers site and if you find it interesting then you stay and look around, if not then you come back to my site and read some more. If you are a blogger like I am then this is a great way to earn a little extra cash. they pay you to simply write. Already, I have found several very interesting sites that I never knew existed and have visited them repeatedly. This is something that you must look into if you are interested in improving your web traffic, building your site popularity or just want some extra green. I am and avid movie watcher and plan on using the extra money to build my movie collection. You will also meet some excellent people here, they have a whole community built around this site and new poeple are joining every day. Check it out, I think you will like it.
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The Death of your Satisfaction!
Posted on June 28, 2007 by Brian under Life, News.
Customer Care is dead. That’s right; Customer Care and Customer Satisfaction are dead. They have ceased to be an important part of today’s corporate philosophy and are quickly being replaced with a “we don’t care what you think, give us your money, you have no choice” attitude. Let me detail for you the events that have happened in the last few months that have given me my current perspective on Customer Care.
First there are the Fast Food, Movie Theater, Gas Station Attendant, Grocery Store, Bank Teller, type of reps. We’ll call them “Standersâ€! These “Standers†have never been trained in Customer Service, never been trained on how to make a customer happy or deal with an escalated situation or even how to present them selves to the customer on a face to face basis. No, they are simply given a uniform and told to stand in one place and do Job-A or Job-B, nothing more! I understand the difficulty of providing the people that come in with, what I would consider as Adequate Customer Service Training, due to the increasing amount of turnover with the young people of today. However, the supervisors of these establishments should be taking more pride in where they work (weather they like where they work or not). This means that they should be giving there new employees a simple run through on Customer Service Skills, Ways of Communicating, proper Presentation of One’s Self in a public atmosphere and above all, How to handle a difficult customer. Some other points that should be trained are Appearance and Pride in your Work-Place. All of these skills are being pushed to the wayside. As I see it the only reason is that the corporations are more interested in making the all-mighty dollar instead of building solid relationships with its customer base. What they are failing to realize is that if you build that customer relationship up you will gain more revenue. This is because the happier the customer is to come to the establishment the more they will come and the more money they will be willing to spend. You may have to make a few short term sacrifices to gain long term goals but so what. So you have to give a few tickets away to a few customers, comp a few meals or return a few over draft fees. If this is handled correctly the customer will walk away feeling refreshed that his concern was met, his situation was resolved and he was compensated for the inconvenience. What is happening instead is that the customer is walking away more aggravated and more irritated than when he first filed the complaint! This is in part due to the supervisors thinking that if they make this persons experience unpleasant they will A.) Never return and they wont have to face them again or B.) If they return, they will never complain because they will not want to re-live the previous unpleasant experience. Sooner or later these companies are going to experience a decrease in there customer base, this will be directly due to the customers that they have driven away. With Blogs and personal websites becoming more and more popular and Pod-casts becoming the next generation in evolving news and gossip, you run into a situation where you get a disgruntled customer that voices his opinion over the web and it is relayed to several others that have had similar experiences, then they voice there opinions and so on and so on. Then you have Forums telling people where to go and where not to go. This is all something that Corporate America is overlooking. If anything with the ease of Web base complaints and the flow of information from the customer base these corporations should be ramping up there Customer Service Training and trying harder to gain that customer base and keep the flow of customers coming. But, enough on the “Standers†for now! Lets move to the worst Customer Service industry of all and the one that will be the most difficult to train. That would be the Medical profession. We’ll call these folks “Sittersâ€! These people have nothing to loose because we are always in need of Doctors, Optometrist and Dental professionals. They can treat you like crap because they know that they will continue to have a customer base regardless of the amount of people that they piss off. The worst part is you can’t train these people. Most of them have been doing this for so long that they will refuse to be trained no matter how hard you try. And to make matters worse, they will train a whole new generation of people that will be taking over there job to handle customers in the same way. These “Sitters†have no fear of you not returning and in some cases are happy if you choose to never visit them again. There employment is not based on customer satisfaction, they don’t hand out surveys that say “How am I doing†and allow you to drop it in a box for there management to see. They simply exist to process the information for the Office’s and Insurance companies. The thought of calling a patient to tell them that there appointment was canceled over a week ago never crosses there mind. They will let you take time off of work, drive all the way out there and then tell you at that point your appointment has been canceled. The people have been conditioned by the years of service in this industry to have no remorse for there actions. They are devoid of any and all emotion when they encounter an upset patient. I really feel for some of the older or more handicapped individuals that plan for these appointments. They have a hard enough time getting around there own home much less driving across town to a doctors office. To be told at the last second as you walk in that your appointment has been canceled is just outrageous. However, you will not see any change in this field. They will continue to treat each and every person like crap because that’s all they know how to do.
So as you see, the world of Customer care and Customer Satisfaction are truly dead. At least from my perspective! Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that EVERY place on the planet is like this. I have run into some very friendly places and when I do I take a moment and let them know how good of a job they did. Then I make sure to tell as many people as I know how good the Customer Service was at that place. I do the same for the bad places. This way word of mouth spreads the information like it has for years and the customer base hopefully goes to the correct (good) places and away from those that do not deserve it. I hope that the people from Corporate America read this, and feel free to give me your comments about your feelings toward the Customer Service of today. I have a feeling that I will find several people that have the same thoughts as me.
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Warren Theaters Pisses me off AGAIN!
Posted on June 27, 2007 by Brian under Family, Life, Movies, News.
Warren Theaters has a knack of pissing me off. Below is an e-mail I sent to there coperate office. I think the e-mail explains everything.
Just for the record this will be the third time that the event that I will lay out to you has happened and the 2nd time that I have filed a complaint about it.Â
I am very disappointed in the way that your theater is currently conducting business. As I stated before this is the third time that I have had this problem. I’ll start by telling you that I am an avid movie watcher and probably visit your theater about 5 to 6 times a month, and most of that is balcony seating. Each time I call and ask your customer service when the tickets will be on sale. Lately I call several times a week because each time I call I get a different answer. The first time I called it was about the last “Pirates of the Caribbeanâ€. I stopped by after work on Wednesday the week before the movie was to start and was told that the tickets would be on sale the following Tuesday. I show up on Tuesday and find out that Tickets had been on sale since the previous Thursday, the day AFTER I came up and inquired about when the tickets would be sold. Needless to say I was very upset and almost did not get any seats. The second time was with the second “Fantastic 4â€. Again, I called on Wednesday and asked when the tickets will be sold. They advised me on the phone that it would be on Tuesday. This time I stop by the next day and see if the tickets are on sale (Just in case they are sold in advance again). And I was told Tuesday again by the man at the counter. So I figure that Tuesday is good and show up after work on Tuesday and ask for tickets. This time I’m told that tickets would not be sold until Wednesday or Thursday. Again, I was frustrated at the misinformation that I was told. My wife was frustrated enough that she filed a complaint on this web site and provided my number for the contact. I was called by a very rude supervisor that told me that they have never sold tickets on a Tuesday (Which is incorrect because I have been coming to this theater for years and have purchased tickets on ranging from the week before to the Tuesday of) and that I was mistaken in the information that I heard. Not that I was misinformed but that I heard the information incorrectly. This infuriated me that this supervisor would treat me in this manor. Now the current issue, I had called On Thursday again and asked when the tickets would be on Sale for the 4th of July. They stated on the phone that it would be Wednesday. So I call today before I get off work and was told by a lady that the tickets for “Transformers†were on sale. I specifically asked if they were on sale for the 4th of July and was told yes. I looked at your website and saw that the show times were available for the 3rd, 4th and 5th of July for “Transformersâ€. So I go to the 13th ave Warren (this is where all this happens if I didn’t mention it before) and go to the counter and ask for tickets. This time I am told that the tickets are not on sale until Friday, maybe Thursday “If I’m Luckyâ€. At this point I think maybe he was not aware of the web site displaying the tickets being on sale and pointed that out. He said that it didn’t matter what the web site said, he could only sell tickets for the 2nd (a special showing). I immediately asked for a Supervisor. About 10 minutes later a Supervisor showed up and I explained that I had called today 15 min before I drove up there and asked if they were selling tickets specifically for the 4th of July and was told yes and that when I got here I was told no. She tried to tell me that it’s not in the system and they didn’t have any Showtime’s available. I explained to her that the web site showed all times for the 3rd 4th and 5th. She had to take a min and go downstairs and check the computer for herself. She then came back up with a series of printouts and could not explain why the Showtime’s were there and not available in the system. She just told me that they didn’t know what they were going to drop yet and that this was the proposed times for the movie. She took my name and number and stated that she would call me when the tickets became available for sale (I’m not holding my breath for a return call).
Needless to say I found that this is a form of false advertising. You are claiming that you have something for sale that is truly not for sale. I will purchase tickets for “Transformersâ€, to be exact I will be purchasing 8 balcony tickets (this is pretty standard, I have several family and friends that go to the movies with me). However, this will be the last time I purchase tickets from your theater. The turnaround time from theater to DVD is fast enough now that I can patiently wait for it to come out on DVD and enjoy it in my home with out the hassle and frustration that I am currently going through. If you want to call me about this then I would be happy to discuss it with a member of your corporate office. If you are going to have one of your supervisors from the 13th ave Warren call me then save it. I have already talked to them and it has yet to be a pleasant experience.
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A Dream of Better Art.
Posted on June 8, 2007 by Brian under News, Toys, Wishlist.
For the longest time I have dreamed of owning a Cintiq 21UX, its got to be one of the coolest Digital Tablets on the market to date. It boast an interactive pen display that combines the advantages of an LCD monitor with the control, comfort, and productivity of Wacom’s most sophisticated patented cordless, battery-free tablet technology. By using a pen directly on the screen, I can work much more quickly and naturally.
The Cintiq 21UX has an 21.3″ high-resolution display and a dynamically adjustable stand that allows the display to be rotated, inclined, and even quickly removed for in-lap use. To further enhance your comfort, the Cintiq 21UX comes with a cushioned Grip Pen for use directly on the screen allowing you to create in the most natural way possible.
If you know who I am then you know that i am an artist at heart and will draw anything that i feel if I have the time to sit and do it. I think with this I would probably do more and would eventually improve on what i consider to be a really good resume. However, with a jaw dropping price of $2400 big ones, it puts it a little out of my scope of purchase. At this point in time I just have too much else that needs attention. It makes me sad but I know that if i am patient then good will come of it. Just think, in the next 2 years technology could improve to the point that all new computers will have this feature and will automatically come this way. If thats the case then i will be glad that i waited so that i could just upgrade to something new all around and then start my art again from that point.
For know I am content with drawing my art the old school way and scanning it into the computer. I will eventually get caught up technologically and then i will surprise the world with my flavor of art and style. Till then, you will just have to find me, befriend me and ask to see my many portfolios.
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Advocate for Unaccountability
Posted on April 17, 2007 by Brian under Family, Games, Life, News.
OK, I know I don’t Blog much but every now and then I come across something that I just can’t keep my mouth shut about.
If you have been under a rock I’ll fill you in on the latest happenings so that my rant will make since. The other day a Student of the Virginia Tech School woke up and decided that it would be ok to shoot 33 students. That’s the short and skinny of it and that’s all you really need to know for my rant to make since. So here’s my rant!
Jack Thompson one of the largest protestors of video game violence and video game sex is claiming that this incident in Virginia is caused by video game violence. That this grown man (I consider anyone 18 or older grown enough to know right from wrong) played some video game like “GTA”, “Bully” or “The Warriors” (yes this was modeled after the 70’s film of the same name) and then went insane and shot up all of these people. Here is one point that good-ol Jack seems to forget! If the shooter seriously was affected by video games then he wouldn’t have shot himself. That’s right; you can’t commit suicide in video games. Instead he would have run out of the building in front of all the cops and started shooting at them thinking that he still has the ability to start the level over again, only to realize in the last minutes of his life that he is not in a video game. But these thoughts do not come to Jack, no! Instead Jack blames the video game industries and the distributors of the video games for contributing to the violence that he feels is caused by video games.
On Jacks web site he posts that he has tried to sue video game companies (and other various companies that he feels is offensive) for too much violence and too much sex. He admits in his site that he had sued Rappers; video game companies like RockStar Games and has yet to win a case. He goes on to show that other cases that he has fought for like the Columbine High School and Washington Sniper Shootings have been dismissed as well. He even goes as far as stating that the “God Mode” cheats available in some games that make you invincible lead to extreme aggression and violence. He even states that he uses a “Games Made Me Do It” defense when defending violent murders. Here is a direct quote from his site.
   “Jack is also one of the foremost proponents of the “Video Games Made Me do it” defense, which has so far failed to convince any judges. This defense is employed in an attempt to lessen the sentence of violent murderers, shifting the blame over to video game makers and distributors.”
How messed up do you have to be to try to get Violent Murders off and free by blaming video game companies. Why are we not blaming the murders for the events that they caused, what happened to taking responsibility for your actions? What happened to accountability for ones own mistakes? What happened to blaming the parents for the improper upbringing or telling the world that he was a good kid but fell into the wrong crowd. (more…)
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