I have heard of Lojack for your car, motorcycle, your tractor trailer and your laptop but now they are putting GPS on Jesus. The baby Jesus in a nativity in Bal Harbour, Florida has been stolen enough times that he was bolted down… and still stolen… so now they are adding GPS to Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
Congrats to my Buddy Lukie the Salukie, ESQ and Little Buddy Laura on the birth of their daughter.
Adelyn Joy Crater was born Tuesday 12/11 at 6:23 PM weighing 7.5 Oz. and 21.5 inches long.
Recently around the CITRT (Church IT RoundTable) there has been some disappointment and frustration expressed about customer service so I feel obligated to share a really positive customer service experience.
While catching up on my TIVOed episodes of Chuck (i am just getting into the show… I love the nerd herd cars) I received a dreaded phone call from my wonderful wife,Natalie. She called rather, calmly I most note, asking me to come an pick her up. She had been at an early evening meeting at work and was on her drive home. She told me she had blown a tire on the car and was sitting along side the highway. So I changed into some old jeans and headed out the door…. Calling Jeremie, my network admin, to ask where the closest turn around on the interstate near Natalie’s disabled car would be.
Side note: when we hired Jeremie he commuted 45 minutes each way to work for 2-3 months so he was quite familiar with the highway Natalie was on.
So I change the tire, which has a hole in the sidewall as big as 3 of my fingers, and head home for the night. I wasn’t terribly worried about replacing the tire since we purchased road hazard on the tires when we purchased them two years ago.
Wednesday AM I called the Goodyear location in Springfield, IL where we had purchased the tires before we moved. They told me I could go to any Goodyear location. So I drive to our local Goodyear location and show them the receipt from the Purcell Goodyear store in Springfield and they say they can’t honor it. For those who don’t frequent Goodyear, some locations are company stores others are partner locations. Well the location is Springfield is a partner location… Hence the store here can’t help.
So we call the store in Springfield and they tell me their road hazard program is the same as the corperate Goodyear stores… but I should have a set of stamps for the road hazard… I don’t. In fact I notice the invoice says the customer needs to sign the bottom indicating they have receieved the stamps… well I there is no signature on the bottom of the invoice… so well… you draw the conclusion.
So Glen at the Peoria Goodyear says they will sort it out and he will call me. So I head back to the office. A little later Glen calls and tells me the Springfield store has no record of my purchase and they aren’t able to do anything…. No record of my purchase I have the original invoice in hand… they didn’t keep a copy are you kidding me?
So decide as a last ditch effort to call Goodyear corporate customer service. I explain the whole story to the customer service agent and he puts me on hold. (Calling Glen in Peoria) A few minutes later the customer service person comes back on and explains Glen has ‘more options’ and will be able to assist me. Long story short, the customer service person approved replacing my tire even-though there wasn’t any record of my purchase of the tires or of the road Hazard…. That’s really cool. A company who does something to say ‘yes one of our affiliates screwed up but we value our customers and will make it right.’
2 hours later Glen calls and my car is ready to pick up… Now I just need to call Purcell in Springfield, IL and get them to refund my illegitimate, non-existant road hazard that no one has record of…
Now I have to be thankful for a couple things, 1. my wife wasn’t hurt when the tire blew out, 2. i didn’t have to buy a new tire… 3. the tire didn’t blow when we had a full trunk of stuff traveling back from Thanksgiving in Ohio and it was pouring down rain…
While we were spending some time with my parents over the Thanksgiving holiday my wife, Natalie, came across this website. While we were watching the football game Natalie was sitting on the couch laughing so hard she was crying… after about 10 minutes of saying “just wait its funny” and tears streaming down her face she showed us this page….While I didn’t find it as humours as my mom, dad and wife it is fairly cute. So maybe you will cry laughing… or maybe just say that’s nice… but I’ll share the ‘hilarity’ with you.
I do have to say this is one the more creative Internet advertising campaigns I have recently seen. Just beware, its a pretty broad fair use clause attached to uploading your photos.. So you can’t sue OfficeMax when your photo appears on their commercials like the girl with the cellular telephone company.
Well its a sad day… Not because I have decided not to blog anymore…
No, it’s a sad day because it marks the end of boating season. The boat is all covered up, been to the marina to be winterized and now back in the garage…. Another season has come to a close. Dreams of tubing and slalom skiing will have to hibernate for another six months…
Hey by the way… Anyone have any inexpensive storage for a boat in central Illinois?
So is something still over priced when you get it free? Cold Stone Creamery has a birthday club where you get a normally over priced $5.00 ice cream for free when you print out your birthday coupon… so hmm.. Is it still over priced?
So for months I have been taking heat from the likes of J.P., Tony and J. Kilgore for not having a blog. I have even taken heat in the the coments of other blogs and on the Church IT Podcast… but today is the end of a era… I have fallen to the pressure of my peers.
But why the reluctance to start my blog… I think part of the reason is not having that earth shattering first post… So I have decided no one is going to read the first post, so it doesn’t really matter anyways…
So why start on 10/30, it was a good start for me so it can’t be a bad day to start the blog… today is the birth of a new blog… So with that I say ‘Hello World’.
In this blog you can expect to hear the thoughts, comments, and critiques from the perspective of a guy serving in Church I.T. You might even get to be the audience of an occasional vendor rant… oh those can be fun. (being one of my vendors automatically makes you a possible rant subject by yours truly) And I am sure there will be the occasional post about my wonderful wife, family or THE Ohio State University football.. So with that welcome to the blog, and I hope you enjoy.
This blog reflects my personal views, and while I am a staff member of Northwoods Community Church most of the views expressed will be aligned with the values of Northwoods but should not be considered the official view of Northwoods Community Church. In-fact, if your view is different, post a comment push-backs are good… they make one think critically about what is said or believed.
Now for the record, its not my 29th or 30th birthdays…. for some reason my co-workers seem to think this is the case but its not… so I am setting the record straight.