Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Curmudgeon Rants

Cardiac Christmas

Damsel told me on the chatroom a while ago that Christmas season is a prime time for cardiac arrest. I understood that very well when I stopped at the ATM next door during my lunchtime walk; the damn thing ate my bank card! And I have some Christmas shopping to do!

We're sorry; your card has been retained.
Please contact your financial institution

Now what? I called my credit union, and after wading through several layers of pushbutton menus, I was in touch with the all-important “your call is important to us” message, this time interlaced with credit union ads, which was marginally less irritating than the starved-bandwidth elevator music one usually gets.

Finally, I was in touch with an actual person who advised me that there was a network glitch, and the card was retained as invalid; she could order me a new card which would be “rushed” to me within five business days. “That’s no good,” I said, “I have no cash and shopping season is upon me!” “Well,” was the reply, “You can go to the institution that retained the card and ask them to return it to you; sometimes they will return them if you have proper ID.”

To make a long rant shorter, I went back next door to the customer service representative who cheerfully returned the card to me after checking my driver’s license. Now, why wouldn’t the ATM just regurgitate the card and advise me to check with my bank? I can see why some people become technophobes.

05 Dec 2005 by Curmudgeon Rants Money and Business

Thanks Amazon, No Thanks USPS

A package with some DVDs we ordered from Amazon.Com failed to show up at our house. I tracked the package using the USPS on-line tracking tool. What? They claim to have delivered it? What Now?

I called USPS to inquire about the missing package. After wading through the menu (don’t you just hate those?) and 5-minutes of tinny elevator music, with the always useful “your call is important to us” intermittently interrupting the music , I got connected to an actual person. Another 15 minutes of occasional dialog and long silences (the computer and/or its operator was slow that day), I had a case number and a promise that I would be contacted by an investigator by close of business the following day.

Absolutely nothing heard the next day. On the day after that, I got a call around noontime. The person identified himself as an inspector (Clouseau?) and that he had investigated my case. His conclusion was that the package had been left on the porch and the destination tag had been scanned as delivered. This is strange, since Damsel is almost always home at postal delivery time to answer the doorbell. In fact, we were both home at the purported delivery scan time. I said that we did not receive the package and asked about the procedure for reimbursement. “There is nothing the Post Office can do. You will have to contact the sender and ask them to file a claim.” was his reply. I left him with some parting thoughts about the USPS passing the buck, being ultimately responsible for delivery and could I please speak with his supervisor? “I’ll have to have him call you back since there is no supervisor here.” “Forget it,” I said, “I’ll file another complaint on-line.” And I did. So much for the USPS being accountable for package deliveries. The response to my latest complaint was a flop as well – “You have been instructed to contact the seller – blah blah blah blah blah.”

Now, for the redeeming part of this rant; when I contacted Amazon to report the delivery failure, they replied with an email within a couple of hours. I went back on-line and filled in a form with details of the lost package, and within 15 minutes, I got another email advising that the replacement order had been shipped (via UPS this time).

This illustrated to me the classic contrast between customer service and civil service. The former serves the customer, and the latter serves itself.

10 Nov 2005 by Curmudgeon Rants

Nobel Prize Committee Upstages it’s Own Stupidity

In an effort to perpetuate it’s own stupidity and far-left political bias, the Nobel Prize Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Mohammed el-Baradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

This year’s Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the UN nuclear watchdog and its director-general Mohamed El Baradei. The committee that made the announcement in Oslo said it was honouring efforts to stop the spread of nuclear arms. This is the year of the 60th anniversary of the US bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency and El Baradei will share a prize worth 1.1 million euros.

The agency has been investigating Iran’s nuclear programme for the last few years. It is trying to find out whether the programme is peaceful, as Tehran maintains, or aimed at producing weapons, a claim made by Washington.

Despite strong U.S. opposition over his differing views with Washington on Iran and Iraq, Egyptian-born El Baradei was re-elected this year to a third four-year term.

I thought they had reached the pinnacle of their stupidity when they awarded the prize to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2001. But noooooooo! They awarded it to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter for his mindless rants the following year.

Under the less-than-watchful eyes of el-Baradei and his agency, North Korea and Iran continue to proliferate their nuclear weapons programs. Armed with letters of reprimand and inconsequential warnings, the IAEA has allowed these insane nations to merely kick the ankle-biting agency away and continue with their programs as they please.

The fact that the Nobel Committee consistently awards this now-demeaned prize to entities within the United Nations underscores the insignificance of this once-revered prize.

07 Oct 2005 by Curmudgeon Rants Degenerates United Nations Whacko Politics

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