Weekend, Sam’s shit, McJerk, ramblings
Since we were away last weekend I had a 7 or 8 item list to nail down. I got it all done but one item and that was because we had an unexpected trip to Lowe’s to pick up and install a new fridge for my mom on Sunday. Her’s was 20-25 years old and was on it’s last legs. No Eagles football this past Sunday so it worked out well timing-wise.
Originally we went to Sam’s club for the fridge. We stopped in and found one that we thought was priced well. My mom paid for it and then we were told we had to go to the customer service desk to have them call to bring it out. The woman behind the desk said the computer showed they had two on hand. She called over the radio for someone to bring it out and a guy replied replied back saying it would be a “few minutes” until it would come out. When I heard a few minutes, I knew we would be waiting awhile so I told my Mom and Ali to go walk around as I waited for him to show up. So I stood there for 10-15 minutes, patiently waiting. I passed the time watching the crush of humanity wedging through checkout lines, taking notice of the annoyed or distressed look on most of their faces as they muddled through the checkout process and then had to wait in the backlog at the door because of the ridiculous receipt checking practice at the exit. Of course then I quickly took notice of how almost every single person I saw was a physical wreck. Most were either old and broken down or had rolls of fat and double chins adorning their physique. Moments like that are part of what help motivate me at the gym, I don’t want to be one of the countless herd that have given up or are just too lazy to take care of themselves.
Well after 15 minutes, my mom and Ali came back and were surprised to see me in the same spot as when they left. Around that time the lady behind the counter got a call over the radio that sounded like I heard the line “don’t have it” jumbled in there. She got the call while she was in the middle of helping the same woman as she had for the past 10 minutes. During that time the line had become quite long and I found it ironic and aggravating that they had 3 people behind the desk and 2 of 3 were dedicated to signing up new people and 1 for helping exisiting customers. It was a pretty accurate representation of Sam’s attitude, sign up the masses and once you are in, tough shit. We had to wait another 5 to ten minutes for this annoying woman to get done with her issue. Then finally the customer service woman came back to us to the dismay of the long line already waiting. We initiated a refund and pointed out how annoying it was to spend 30-45 minutes buying something that didn’t exist. Her only retort was the inventory system is inaccurate. We asked why there were numerous tags on the display to purchase the item if none were available. Of course there was no explanation. It wasn’t her fault, it is just the way it is at big time chains.
So we headed to Lowe’s and found a large selection and wound up buying a bigger fridge for less money and had someone right there that could help us. I just assumed that Sam’s would have a better price, it’s an assumption I will not make again.
We also had yet another poor customer service experience on the way to pick up my mom. Ali and I both were very thirsty from the outside work we did and decided to drive thru McDonald’s for a drink. We were greeted by what sounded like a mature, pleasant woman asking us to take our order. I spoke out my order which showed up on the confirmation screen and was waiting for the nice lady to ask if that was all, which never came. Nothing else was said and I said whatever, and pulled through. When I pulled to the window it became clear that McDonald’s has adopted using a recording to greet you. The money/order taker was a young, fat black girl with blue contacts and hand made looking tattoos all over her hands and knuckles. She opened the window and said nothing and held out her hand with a miserable look on her face. I give her the bills and she returns the change without saying a word. I scoffed at the latest McDonald’s innovation. Is it that difficult to put someone with a heartbeat on the windows, and hopefully have them be pleasant enough to uttter 3 or 4 sentences to the customers? Ugh, there are far too many people in this world that serve absolutely no purpose.
Early in the weekend Ali pointed out how it was a full moon weekend and how it will make me grumpy. I proclaimed I was fine at the time, which I was, but yesterday and again today I have the underlying negativity creeping into me. It causes me to be generally dissatisfied with most aspects of my life.
WoW has been an up and down thing for me recently. Last week I hardly played at all because I had RL (real life for Wow’rs) things to do. However I joined a new large guild (GUILD – a collection of WOW players grouped in order to accomplish larger tasks in game) Most of my friends were already in this guild and joining it could allow me to do some of the real high end content in the game which is impossible to do solo. I can’t believe it has been 9 months of nothing but WoW. I still enjoy the game a bunch and there are countless things I haven’t done or seen in the game yet, it’s hard to believe. The problem is much of the high end content requires many consecutive hours of play to tackle which is something I am not often able to dedicate.
I do at times still have thoughts about pulling the plug in WoW, it’s a scary idea. When you have invested this much time in building something whether it be IRL or virtual, the prospect of throwing it in the dumper is a difficult thing to imagine. That situation has presented itself to me various times throughout my life and more often than not, I chose to stick with whatever I invested so much effort in, sometimes to my detriment.
Tomorrow I get the skin cancer cut out. I am hoping they don’t have to cut much, I have a mini-crater there as is. If they go much deeper, I’ll get to see what my skull looks like.