Category Archives: Deep Thoughts

I think…therefore I’m dangerous.

Three Charities You Can Help by Helping Yourself

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It’s the time of year for giving, so give!

At the end of the year, many non-profit organizations make their year-end plea for funds. They know the same thing deduction-savvy taxpayers know: a donation before year-end can get you a write-off on April 15th.

In general, I prefer educational charities over other types. (For obvious reasons, I don’t give to religious charities, although I did donate to Non-Believers Giving Aid right after the disaster in Haiti.) I think it’s important to keep quality information flowing from the folks who can create it to the folks who can benefit from it. That’s why I suggest the following three charitable organizations if you’re interested in making year-end contributions to charities that directly benefit you and your family:

  • NPR LogoNPR (National Public Radio) had its semiannual pledge drive last week. I caught the tail end of it while driving to do errands, but never got around to picking up the phone. That’s a shame because they often have matching funds during fund drives, so my $50 donation can get my local NPR affiliate $100. Still, I’ll send my contribution by visiting the Support Public Radio page on its Web site. NPR, if you’re not aware, airs a wide variety of radio programming, from talk shows about current events and science to comedy and music. Even if you don’t listen in on the radio, you can subscribe to podcasts for most shows. And if you listen in more than one listening area — for example, I listen in Washington State during the summer months and Phoenix in the winter months — consider splitting your contribution between both of the radio stations you listen to.
  • PBS LogoPBS (Public Broadcasting Service) is similar to NPR in that it airs a lot of educational and thought-provoking content. From Sesame Street to NOVA, from FRONTLINE to Masterpiece, these are the folks who teach and entertain us with something more substantial than the latest incarnation of CSI and Dancing with the Stars. Although you can donate during a pledge drive and receive a “gift,” you don’t need to wait for a pledge drive to donate. (Seriously: do you really need another tote bag?)
  • Wikipedia LogoWikipedia is the online encyclopedia. Say what you will about its accuracy, but you can’t deny that it’s one of the best free sources around for general information about any subject at all. These days, you can’t visit a Wikipedia page without seeing “an urgent appeal” from Jimmy Wales. That’s because it costs a ton of money to run those Web servers. If you use Wikipedia — and who doesn’t? — why not send a little cash their way? Yes, it is tax-deductible in the U.S.

These are the ones on my list. If you think about it, you’ll probably come up with others that might be more meaningful to you and your family. These are organizations that enhance your life and help round out your knowledge. Don’t they deserve your support?

Take a moment and send a little cash their way. It doesn’t matter how much or how little — even $20 can help, especially when hundreds of people just like you send the same.

And remember the added bonus of a tax deduction in April.

Shop Green this Christmas

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Shop locally or online, reuse, recycle.

Wrapped GiftChristmas can be one of the most wasteful times of the year. For most people, it involves a lot of driving around from store to store; getting stuck in traffic; cruising parking lots for the best spot at the mall; buying gifts recipients probably won’t like (and hence, have to return with even more mall visits); covering gifts in rolls of colored paper with ribbons and bows that will soon be discarded; driving to parties here, there, and everywhere; cooking more food than what can be eaten before it goes bad; etc., etc. And let’s not even get started on the light shows that too many people erect. Seriously: Is it that important for your house to be seen from space?

I know: it’s all part of the tradition of Christmas. I wouldn’t dream of making substantial changes in it — I really don’t need to add the receipt of hate mail to my working day.

But I do want to suggest looking at with the thought of reducing wastefulness related to shopping. And that’s what this post, prompted in part by “I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas” by Siân Berry in The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas, is all about.

If You Can, Shop Locally

In a perfect world, you’d be able to walk “downtown” in your city with a bunch of canvas shopping bags, visit a handful of shops where the owners or clerks knew you by name, and leave with all your shopping done.

I remember that perfect world from when I was a kid. My sister and I would do most of our Christmas shopping in Cresskill’s local pharmacy — Scofield’s — which also sold perfumes and other small gift items. (I distinctly remember buying my father a tie there once.) They knew us, we knew them. It was a bike ride away and we could bring home the goods in our bike baskets. Later, when we got older, we’d ride our bikes to Bergenfield, where they had a lot more shops and options.

Those days are just about gone. Downtowns have been mostly killed off by malls and superstores like Walmart. Gift recipients in this high tech age expect the kind of merchandise not available at the local Hallmark shop. But if you live somewhere with a vibrant downtown area, try hard to shop there. Not only will you be supporting local merchants and the economic viability of your town, but you’ll keep your carbon footprint a lot lower than if you started driving around to the malls.

If You Can’t Shop Locally, Shop Online

Sadly shopping locally is not an option for me. But you couldn’t pay me to step foot in a mall in December.

This year (and most other years), I did 90% of my holiday shopping online and had gifts shipped directly to recipients. I also received 90% of my gifts by USPS and UPS, shipped directly from stores like Amazon.com. In most cases, the gifts I purchased (and assume received; I haven’t opened them yet) are items that I wanted — items that appeared on a personal wish list at the online store in which they were bought.

There are two benefits for shopping online with wish lists:

  • You are absolutely certain to get the recipient exactly what he or she wanted. No disappointments, no pretending to like gifts. Best of all: no returns.
  • Convenience. What could be easier than going online, clicking a few links and buttons, and entering payment information?

What most people might not think about is that shopping online is actually “greener” than making several trips to the mall. Sure, all these items need to be shipped to their recipients, but the shipping services are making the rounds anyway. Face it: UPS is going to visit Wickenburg twice a day on weekdays whether its trucks are filled or not. I’m actually reducing greenhouse gases by helping to fill their trucks instead of by hopping in my car and making the 80-mile round trip trek to the nearest mall by myself. And by having gifts shipped directly to the recipients, I don’t waste time, money, packaging materials, and greenhouse gases to ship them twice.

Shipping BoxHere’s a tip: if you’re flying out to visit family or friends, ship the gifts there with instructions not to open them. Then, when you arrive, sort through the gifts and wrap them for that big moment. Or skip the wrapping; who says “wrapping” can’t be cardboard shipping boxes?

Ordering Online? Recycle those Packing Materials!

I’m sure my family is not the only one to recognize the convenience of shopping online to get gift recipients exactly what they want. As a result, there’s a lot of cardboard boxes, packing peanuts, bubble wrap, and plastic airbags shuffling around.

Depending on where you live, you might not need to throw all that stuff away. I have three choices for dealing with packing materials:

  • Reuse it. I keep a very large plastic bag in my garage which I fill with bubble wrap, foam, and those plastic airbags. I have another smaller bag I use for packing peanuts. I also keep a few select size boxes. Then, when I need to pack something to ship it out, I have all the free packing materials I need. Not only does this save money, but by reusing materials, I’m keeping them out of landfills and recycling centers.
  • Hand it off to someone else who will reuse it. In Wickenburg, one of our shipping centers, Kaley’s, welcomes clean used boxes and packing material. So when my huge bag of bubble wrap or smaller bag of packing peanuts gets full enough to start a new bag, I take the filled bag to Kaley’s and they use it to pack items for their customers. It’s easy to find someone to take these things if they’re clean and neatly packaged up. Heck, I was in Page, AZ for a few weeks this past autumn and wound up with two big bags of packing peanuts — I brought them to the nearest gift shop with a “We Ship” sign on the window and they were thrilled to get them.
  • Recycle. If you don’t have the room to store these materials, know you won’t need them, or have no one to hand them off to, take them to the recycling center. In most cases, they only thing they’ll want are the boxes, which must be broken down. That means you’ll need to discard the other packing materials, filling landfills with material that may take forever to break down. (But have you really tried hard enough to find a home for them?)

And, of course, you should always recycle the wrapping paper and other recyclable materials that are part of Christmas. In my home, we actually recycle more than we throw away.

How Else Can You Make Christmas Greener?

If you’re interested in this, I highly recommend “I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas” by Siân Berry for some really great tips. But I’m sure you can come up with some ideas on your own. Just think about what’s wasteful and reduce that waste. If everyone did just a little, it would make a big difference.

And possibly the best part about all this is that when you reduce waste, you’re likely saving money, too.

Have a great Christmas holiday!

Bank of America Support Chat FAIL

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It’s actually quite fun to torture them.

This chat transcript says it all.

Current Transcript of the Chat Session
In this window hotkeys have been activated to allow for quick navigation between the chat transcript and the chat text edit areas. Alt + Arrow Up will set focus on the last text message in the chat transcript and Alt + Arrow Down will set focus on the chat text edit. An audible alert will be played when a chat agent has posted a new response.

Welcome to an online chat session at Bank of America. Please hold while we connect you to the next available Bank of America Online Banking Specialist. Your chat may be monitored and recorded for quality purposes. Your current wait time is approximately 0 minutes. Thank you for your patience.

Thank you for choosing Bank of America. You are now being connected to a Bank of America Online Banking Specialist.

Alfredo: Hello! Thank you for being a valued Bank of America customer! My name is Alfredo. I will be assisting you with your personal accounts today.  

You: Your Web site times out too quickly, requiring me to log in again and again. This is a huge waste of time and very frustrating. How can I adjust the timeout interval?

Alfredo: I certainly understand your concern regarding the Web Site.
Alfredo: May I have your full name and last four digits of the account?

You: It’s not one account. It’s all accounts. And I already entered my full name.

Alfredo: Please provide me the last four digits of one of your account and your full name?

You: I really wish they’d let you people think for yourselves and not read off a script.
You: #### Maria Langer

Alfredo: Thank you, Maria.
Alfredo: Maria, We need this information to verify your account information, It is for the security of your account.
Alfredo: To increase the timeout level I request you to please contact directly to our Online banking department.

You: The question I’m asking has nothing to do with my account. It’s your Web site.

Alfredo: They will be able to do this for you.

You: So you can’t help me.

Alfredo: Yes, I understand you.

You: So you wasted my time, made me provide information you didn’t need.

Alfredo: I really wish I could resolve this for you via chat, however, I really apologize, I do not have necessary tools to do that.

You: Why did you ask for information you didn’t need? You had my question. You could tell immediate that you couldn’t help me.

Alfredo: I request you to call at the number they will assist you with this.

You: Why did you continue a conversation that would go nowhere?
You: And what number? You didn’t provide one.

Alfredo: You can call them at 1.800.933.6262. We are available from 7 a.m. to 10.00 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday Eastern Time.
Alfredo: “Please be assured that we know your time is valuable. We would not direct you to contact us by telephone unless it were absolutely necessary. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

You: Why is it that every time your Web site offers to help with a chat, no help is provided?

Alfredo: ”

You: Nice copy and paste, “Alfredo.”

Alfredo: I really wish that I can resolve this for you, However their is a separate department for this.

You: How long do you expect me to be on hold when I call that number?
You: How many buttons will I need to push?
You: Or will I need to talk to a machine and hope it understands me?

Alfredo: I regret but this is not copy and paste I actually wish I can help you with this.

You: Why is it that Bank of America continues to fail so utterly with Customer Service?

Alfredo: You will get an option to talk with a live person.

You: Is your name really Alfredo?

Alfredo: Yes, My name is Alfredo.

You: Where are you based? India?

Alfredo: I wish I could resolve it for you!
Alfredo: Yes, I am in India.

You: Exactly what I thought. This transcript will make good reading on my blog. Anything else you’d like to add?

Alfredo: I really apologize that I was not able to assist you, I hope you understand that.
Alfredo: I wish your issue would be resolved as soon as possible!

You: What I don’t understand is why BofA has a chat support feature that NEVER seems able to provide any assistance.
You: It’s a complete waste of customer time.
You: Yet so is calling them. I know I’ll be on hold for at least 15-20 minutes AFTER entering all kinds of numbers into my phone.
You: Then they’ll just ask me for the same information — like you did.
You: My time isn’t valuable to the bank.

Alfredo: I really apologies that I am not able to assist you this time but it is not like this every time.
Alfredo: Please be assured that we know your time is valuable.
Alfredo: They will be able to resolve this for you.

You: It’s cheaper to hire overseas “support” personnel in India than to employ Americans who can answer questions without reading a script.
You: Are you happy that you’ve taken away a job from an American?
You: That unemployment here is high because people like you have our jobs?
You: And you can’t even do them very well?

Alfredo: I really apologies if you think so.

You: I really think you should let your supervisor read the transcript for this chat.
You: Maybe someone will understand the frustration of BofA customers in America.
You: Maybe someone will get the idea that we don’t want to participate in time-wasting chats when all we need is someone to pick up the freaking phone and talk to us.

Alfredo: I will provide this chat transcript to my supervisor.

You: I’ll be posting this transcript on my blog. My readers will love it.
You: Anything else you want to say?

Alfredo: I request you to call at the number and they will be able to resolve the issue for you.

You: Sure, I’ll do that.

Alfredo: i apologize that you are not satisfied with our service.
Alfredo: I apologize for the inconvenience caused to you by this.

You: It’s not your fault. You’re just doing one of our jobs. We could do it better.

Alfredo: I hope you understand that it is not me to do so.
Alfredo: I regret I was not able to resolve the issue for you.

You: Well, I’ve wasted enough time with you. Now I’ll waste some on the phone. You’re free to go.

When it became apparent that he would never end the chat, I did.

I need to be clear about something here: I have no problem with Indian people. I do, however, have a problem with companies like Bank of America sending support jobs overseas to places like India just to save money. (I also have a problem with pop-up chat support offers that waste time, but we won’t go there.) This kind of policy has fed our unemployment problem.

My sister, who was in banking at CitiGroup, was a victim of this twice in the span of three years when her job was sent to India. The first time, CitiGroup found another job for her; the second time, they didn’t and she was unemployed for six months. She’s underemployed now after losing another banking job to the financial crisis two years ago.

If all the jobs we sent to India and Pakistan and god knows where else were to come back to the United States, we would have no unemployment problem and no financial crisis. We’d have no deficit, either, because all these people would be earning money, spending money, and paying taxes.

Instead, we have a crisis fed, in part, by big business maximizing profits by sending American jobs overseas.

What’s even worse, however, is the quality of the work done by these people. They often have little understanding of our language and rely on computer scripts to answer questions. The above transcript makes this very clear. My initial question could have been answered in seconds by someone familiar with the language and not required to follow a script. (I almost always get better customer service on the phone when the customer service representative is US-based. I say almost because sometimes even the Americans in the job aren’t very good; it depends on how strictly they’re required to follow a script.)

So, as a result of practices like Bank of America’s we get inferior customer service and fewer jobs for Americans.

Who wins?

What Makes You Think You can Change My Political Views?

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Don’t waste your time.

The other day, I got an extremely long e-mail message from someone I don’t know. I read the first paragraph and gathered that he read my blog, liked my articles about flying, but didn’t like my political views. A quick skim of the rest showed a lengthy discourse intended to correct my political viewpoint.

Although I was tempted to reply to his message, I knew it would only encourage him to try again.

So I deleted the message and got on with my day.

He likely spent at least an hour or composing his discourse on why my political views were so wrong. I spent less than 60 seconds deciding it wasn’t worth my time to read what he’d written.

The purpose of this post is to discourage other readers from similarly wasting their time. Seriously — you won’t change my mind, so why waste your time trying? Chances are, I won’t even read your message. If you get offensive, I’ll likely choose bits and pieces of it to ridicule publicly in this blog — as I’ve done in the past with other folks who get nasty with me. Is that what you want?

Aren’t there better ways to spend your time? Like perhaps educating yourself about the reality of today’s political environment? Or just spending time with your family and friends? Or maybe getting your ass off the sofa, turning off FoxNews, and going outside to breathe a little fresh air?

Don’t try to waste my time. You’ll just waste yours.

And if you don’t like what I have to say in this blog, don’t read it.

You Want Permission to Do WHAT?

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When sharing information from Facebook gets out of control.

I’m trying to streamline my photo sharing process. I’d like to be able to upload a photo to Zenfolio, which is where my photo gallery resides, and then, with a few clicks, put it on Facebook and Twitter. It seems to me that since Flickr can upload to Facebook and Twitter, those few clicks might be to put photos on Flickr and have Flickr do the heavy lifting. With that end in mind, I made the first step to connect Flickr to Facebook. Here’s the dialog that appeared after logging in:

Yahoo Permissions for Facebook

I’m displaying this image in almost full size on purpose — so you can read it. That’s what I did — and I’m pretty sure that most people don’t. Read it and you’ll learn that Yahoo! not only wants permission to post Flickr photos to my Facebook account, but it basically wants access to every single piece of information I have on Facebook, as well as information from my friends’ accounts.

Why does it need this information? Answer: It doesn’t.

What will it do with this information? Answer: Who knows? Set up direct marketing to me and my friends? Sell it? Put information about what I like or don’t like anywhere it wants on to Yahoo!? Extract information to store on its servers where I can’t see, modify, or delete it?

Who in their right mind would agree to this?

Likely, some of my Facebook friends. So now I need to go back into my Facebook account and lock down information sharing even more — just so click-happy friends don’t give MY information to Yahoo! Or other companies wanting access to everything.

Facebook should NOT allow this kind of access. There’s no reason for it. They are betraying their user’s trust.

Now I can’t take advantage of Flickr/Facebook linking because I know how to read and don’t want to share my information with another huge conglomerate. Who benefits? No one.