Dear Telus

Well, it's been quite a while since I've ranted, so here we go! Below is a letter I sent to Telus outlining my dissatisfaction.

Dear Telus,

I would like to voice my extreme dissatisfaction with the customer service I have been receiving from Telus. There is a huge disconnect between the in-store representatives and the telephone representatives. I understand that in BC, the stores are independently run, an inherent flaw in the manner in which you do business. I regularly get conflicting information from these two sources, and neither seem willing to cooperate with one another.

Here is my background.

One year ago, I bought the Blackberry Storm from a location in Ontario. I was told that it was comparable to the iphone, which soon became clear that it was not. In addition to massive weaknesses in Blackberry software, the touch screen has been unreliable and problematic. With my increasing dissatisfaction, I have made it clear that I wanted to change my handset to an iPhone.

I was told there were two options:

1) Buy out of my contract and upgrade at the 3 year pricing. At 20$/month, I could not afford this option.

2) Send my phone in for servicing 3 times and Telus would make me an offer for upgrading my handset.

This is the option I chose.

Since everything was under warranty, this should have not been a problem, and should - in theory- have been free.

Since I had moved to BC, I couldn't return my phone to the original location. I used the swap program, but had to pay a 50$ charge from the Telus retailer for some type of shelving fee. I was happy with the swap program, the phone was slightly more responsive, but not much better. I was encouraged to install the 5.0 software, which I did and gave the phone an honest chance. It was slightly better, but not enough to rectify my dissatisfaction

When I next went to swap my phone, I was informed that the swap program was cancelled - the reasons have been explained to me multiple times in full; I understand, but am sincerely disappointed in this decision.

As a result, sending my phone in for repairs cost me 60$ each time for a loaner phone, in addition to a credit card deposit. The first of the two times, I was even charged 35$ to cover the location's mailing costs!

To date, I have paid (50+60+60+35) $205 JUST to have my warranty honoured. This is unacceptable; Telus needs to rethink how their locations deal with their customers.

Recently, I was informed that my phone had come back from 'being serviced', without any paper or electronic trail of having been serviced. As the retailer knew that I needed it to be registered as serviced, they informed me that the were sending the phone back with a note indicating that there needed to be registered. Wondering what possibly could have happened to my phone in 3 weeks with no trace, I called Telus to inquire and express my concerns.

I was not willing to be pacified on this phone call, and as a result, I was made an offer which made me happy, until today when I realized that Telus does not honour their promises.

I was offered a discounted buy-out which would allow me to buy my choice of phone at the 3-year contract rate. While the representative couldn't tell me the pricing for the iPhone 4, I was told that I could get it when it was released on Friday, July 30th - today.

This seems like a clear agreement. An offer. A promise.

I looked into my phone options and decided on the iPhone 4. I registered my intention to buy it with a Telus location and they called me this morning with a phone set aside for me.

I left my apartment this morning happy, feeling like today was the day that Telus would make everything right - I would feel like a valued customer.

Before I continue with the twist, I currently feel like a second-rate customer, Telus Client Care made it clear that they have done wonderful things for me in the past and that I am being ungrateful for asking them to honour the promise I was made.

Long story short, when I went in to buy my phone, I was informed that my offer did not apply to the iPhone 4. There was nothing the location could do unless I wanted to pay full price. I spoke with 3 telephone representatives in each of the Client Care and Loyalty departments, each of which explained that there was nothing they could do - I simply had to wait. When I asked how long, I was told a variety of things: 1) just not on the release date (today), 2) on the second shipment (they couldn't specify a date or confirm that I could get it on Tuesday, when the location receives its second shipment), or 3) 4-6 weeks.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not simply impatient. I've waited about 9 months for a new phone, I can wait a little while longer. It's the principle - I was made a promise and not only is Telus ignoring that promise, but they belittled me in the process.

It was explained that, due to small shipments, they needed to prioritize. They told me how wonderful I should feel that they are allowing me to upgrade my handset before my contract is over, but that people in my situation (early hardware upgrade) could only get the iPhone 4 if they have less than 6 months left on their contract, whereas I have 24. I understand fairness, but people who are at the end of their contract were likely satisfied with their handset. In my case, I may have been happy with it for a month, but my dissatisfaction has been growing for about 11 months, that's over a 90% dissatisfaction rate!

I mentioned that I understand the general principle, but I am extremely dissatisfied and asked them to make an exception. At this point, the representative got on his high horse and pointed out that my discounted buy out was an exception, so I should not be entitled to another exception!

I do not think that I am being unreasonable in my expectations and I don't think that I should be disadvantaged because Telus cannot supply the demand for their product.

The Telus location I am dealing with was happy to reserve an iPhone for me, not because I put down a deposit and am just a dollar sign in their eyes; rather, they realize the importance of customer satisfaction and making up for the previous disappointments I have incurred, This independent retailer is currently the only thing that I remotely respect about Telus currently.

This retailer made the offer to hold the phone for me for as long as I wanted, making me a priority - something Telus as a company seems to have no interest in. While the lure of spite is strong (I would be responsible for that store only selling 80% of their initial shipment), I am putting my hand forward as a friendly gesture. I have asked them to sell that phone and hold one for me from the second shipment, which comes in on Tuesday, Aug 3rd. I am happily making that phone available to one of Telus's much more valuable customers.

What I am asking in return is simple:

I want them to make it easy for me to walk into the retailer on Tuesday and buy the iPhone which will be reserved for me. A simple override of their system's self-imposed limits should make this possible.

I thank you for taking the time to read my lengthy email. There is little-to-no new information here, I have said it all before to telephone representatives and heard any number of explanations. I am beyond the point of being placated by a scripted explanation of why you cannot do what I need to be satisfied - I am waiting for action.

Sincerely,

Michael Park

Combining my favourite things is one of my favourite things! Wine and knitting are a great combination whether it be drinking and knitting, or using a knitted product to care for your favourite wine before you get around to drinking it.

To the left, you can see my latest knitting project which did exactly that. I had originally thought of making a bag, but opted for a cozy on account of the stretch of anything knitted.

I knit it on straight needles and just joined the seam at the back. I left a space near the bottom (see the next picture) so the bottle can be inserted. I thought about different ways of securing it closed, but they all seemed more labour intensive than they would be effective. I'm rather pleased with the way it turned out.

I'm still not sure how I feel about the yarn. I like the colours and they would be perfect for a nice German Riesling. I also like that the slow variegation creates large sections of colour, but the imperfect shift between the different-coloured sections drives me crazy.

In conclusion, I'm not quite sure about the benefits of a wine cozy... Wine doesn't need to be kept warm and it makes your wine a mystery! Either way, it's fun!

Comedic Saturation

As some of you may know, I have a rather refined, characteristic sense of humour. I love pretending not to get jokes and mispronouncing words.

Normal jokes don't suit me; I can never remember the right order of things, and often screw up punchlines.

Amongst my friends in Vancouver, it's reached the point where everyone I know understands and expects my 'punchlines'. When this happened in Winnipeg, my favourite punchline was "I don't understand, can I get a diagram?" When people realized they were setting me up, they would pre-emptively ask if I needed a diagram. Unfortunately, things are different here in Vancouver.

My Vancouver friends make a habit of ruining the joke for any new people I meet, and it pisses me right off!

It's caused me to think a fair bit about my sense of humour; they always do it to save the new person the bother of being fooled. Long story short, it shows that they're missing the whole point of my 'jokes' - it's not like I do it out of malice! I do this to evoke a magical moment, that look of 'you can't possibly really be that naive, can you?!?'

In conclusion, it's not just that my Vancouver friends are robbing me of my glorious punchline (that, I could handle), rather, they are robbing new people of that sense of innocence!

Don't worry. I will continue to make every effort to bring joy and delight to the whole world with my laugh and witticisms.

In completely unrelated news, I am worried about some potential legal liabilities.

Somehow, I've gotten myself onto a mailing list of secret insider trading opportunities. I get these emails with information about companies and stock rankings, letting me know that I can strike it rich if I invest in them.

I am at a crossroads - I know that insider trading is illegal, but I could really use the extra income.

Any thoughts, advice?

Time to get the gears in motion...

I haven't been blogging, I haven't really been composing, I tried starting a knitting project, but that's been moved to the back burner...

I've fallen into the slump of summer.

I've been reading, ish... not as much as I thought I would when I bought those books, but little bits help - baby steps.

This has already been a very social weekend for me, and the sun hasn't even risen on Saturday, yet. On Thursday, I went to a friend of a friend's going away shin-dig at an irish pub - it was cozy and fun. Contrast that with this evening's adventure to a dance club... too many people, too many loud noises, skanks, punks, ugh... I'm old, but I've always been this crotchety - I hadn't drank nearly enough to have enjoyed the bar tonight, but it was ok... the free drinks made it worthwhile.

I would be happy to never go to another loud-music-style bar ever again. Take me to a pub, a dive, a martini bar, or any similar place and I'm happy. Conversation and table service are the name of the game.

Also, thanks to a group of my friends, I've rediscovered an old favourite game - Asshole!

My, how we used to play it in the high-school cafeteria...

I like nostalgia.

Wordle

I'm sure you've all heard of these, but if you haven't, Wordle is a thingy that generates a word cloud based on whatever text or website you give it. It presents the words that are used most commonly in the text and ranks them in sizes according to their frequency. I didn't really think the Golden Girls theme that was prominent on my main page was representative of my blog so I plugged in the text for all entries with the word 'mumbly' in them, and this is what I got:

I really like it and I think it captures the essence of my blog. My name, words like 'posted' and 'comments' appear so large because of the footers on each blog entry, but it does make for an interesting collection - I didn't know that Tuesday had such a prominence in my life!

A Palace Made of Gold

As requested, this post will be a review of The Golden Palace.

Almost every aspect of the show I wish to talk about is related to the issue of continuity. The premise is to take as much as possible from a previous series and just plunk it down into a new location.

On the one hand, the show is big on a community-style sense of continuity. Some characters, like the girls' children, only appear in a few episodes, but the show gives a sense that their storyline continues outside of our view. Stan, is around a fair bit, but his continuity is still greater than his actual presence on the show.

On the other hand, there are the men/dates. For the most part, dating is a within-the-episode event. Because of this, the original series is plagued with in-congruencies. Characters often say things that conflict with events that have happened in the past.

On Rose's hand, Miles occupies a special place between the other hands. At some points, they're madly in love, then they're just friends, then they almost get married a few times, and are seemingly unaffected when they go back to just dating the next episode. Because Miles's presence is sporadic, the viewer is forced to assume that he occupies that first sense of continuity - that he and Rose are close and exclusive, but there are so many problems with this continuity. Anyway, I don't want to waste too much time discussing this.

Anyway, everything I've said this far applies to both series.

I love both series and thoroughly enjoyed watching them this year.

The Golden Girls was a fabulous series that was and is timeless. When ratings took a dive in the 6th and 7th seasons, everything that happened was understandable: Bea jumped ship, realizing that the show was falling out of fashion. Everyone else wanted to keep it going and thought a change of scenery would help.

Now, I'll go through the characters to outline my thoughts about both shows, and the Palace in particular.

Perhaps an unpopular opinion among Golden Girls fans and gay culture, I never really liked Dorothy. Granted, she was a vital part of the mechanics of the original series, but we all have our favourites, and she just wasn't on my list.

[Bottom line, I think Golden Girls was a perfect comedic entity. It dropped in ratings because that's just what happens eventually. They should have just ended it, but with a much better finale - Gosh that was sappy!]

In theory, I was excited to be rid of her voice and better-than-thou attitude, but it fell short. Sophia's one-liners, which were once beautiful escalations, seemed out of place. Their tag-teaming was sorely missed in terms of Blanche mocking. St. Olaf stories lost that je ne sais quoi that came with waiting for Dorothy to explode with impatience.

I have a certain fondness for Blanche, likely because she reminds me of a dear friend. In the Palace, she became one of the biggest victims of continuity. Basically, she only has 2 or 3 dates in the whole season, yet the new characters jump right into the slut-casting. I also didn't like the control-freak part of her character that was prominent at the hotel. I know it started in the GG, but it just caused more frustration than anything plot related.

Chuy - HA! Cheech... need I say more?

Roland tried to be the straight man replacement for Dorothy, but he wasn't severe enough to really be effective. I would liked to have gotten to know more about him, but there wasn't room for that.

It's obvious that GG spent the first few seasons making sure that each character was solidly backgrounded and their characters were developed. After that, it went on autopilot and no one ever really needed to venture out of the house. By adding these new characters, they were incomplete pieces in the puzzle, but the show couldn't spend the time it needed developing those characters to the point of the girls.

I LOVE SOPHIA!!!

Through her, we see the stark change in action between the series. In GG, all the action was either sitting at the table in the Kitchen (with one character standing), or sitting in the living room (the Linai was a direct substitute for occasional variety).

In the Palace, there were more scenes and they were used less regularly. Also, the type of action was greatly increased. The kitchen, which was almost exclusively the table in GG, was divided into the table (rarely used), the work area by the stove, and the area near the door. The replacement for the living room would likely be the front desk. Additionally, there was the lobby area and the dining room. I might be making too much of this, but it changed from a static show, where the dialogue was the motivator, to one that was more driven by action.

Sophia seems to be the biggest victim of the change. They basically reduced her to a trouble-making one-line spouter, ignoring the wisdom, and old-country stories that I loved so much

Finally, Rose - my favourite! Back to the loss of the static quality of the GG - sitting around and gabbing, Rose's St. Olaf stories suffered. On GG, there was always a sense that Rose could be telling the story for hours without thinking twice about it (or once, even), but on the Palace, she was almost always standing, giving the sense that she was going somewhere. The roles were reversed, people would stop when she told a story, and it just wasn't the same. I also felt that they dumbed up her character a bit much, to the point that it became almost insincere.

In the end, The Golden Palace had me laughing a lot. I'd long been attached to the characters and was happy to have a little longer with my favs.

Without the Golden Girls, the Palace wouldn't, couldn't, and shouldn't have existed. I would only recommend it for people who watched the entirety of the Golden Girls.

I'm disappointed in the lack of finality. GG had a strong, though cheesy conclusion, but the Palace didn't even make the effort for a season finale, much less a series finale. Surely, they must have realized that they wouldn't be coming back for a second season...

Oh well, thus ends the Golden Girls portion of my life. It's been about 9 or 10 months over which I watched 8 seasons of marvelous comedy. I would happily recommend any and all of it to anyone and everyone!

Back to the Books!

I'm not really a reader. I read articles for seminars and I read blogs and various things on the interwebs, but that's about it. I can't remember the last time I read a book from start to finish for fun. I've tried many times, but I get side-tracked and lose interest.

Today, I went to a bookstore that was having a 50% off sale. I got a nice selection of things that piqued my interest and I'm looking forward to getting around to all of them. I really need to get myself back into reading because I have loads of books coming here in about a month. When my parents visit in August, they're bringing my library of books and music. I'm excited, but realize that it might be a complete waste unless I actually start reading the books.

One of the books I bought was John Gay's The Beggar's Opera. At only 65 pages, I managed to read it in one day, though not in one sitting. I sat in a park and read for a while, I read while walking for a bit, and then I finished it off curled up on a chair in my living room.

I finished the Golden Girls series the other day, and I'm more than halfway through the Golden Palace... I don't think I should get caught up in another series this summer, so I'll replace internet t.v. with books!

Hiking and Vlogging

So, I went hiking today and it was super fun. In order to show you, I vlogged!

It was a long hike - 18k (9 up, 9 down). It was basically a steady rise the entire way up which was nice; nothing too intense, but it kept us on our toes.

This was the first really scenic thing we came across, after about 5 kilometers. It's called Barrier Lake, you'll see more of The Barrier later on.

So, there were three lakes that we saw today: Barrier Lake, Lesser Garibaldi Lake, and Garibaldi Lake (the non-lesser). In addition to the lakes, there were creeks and streams galore, for example...

Aside from a black bear we saw on the drive home, the only wildlife we saw were chipmunks (so tiny and cute) and these birds called Gray Jays. Both were extremely good scavengers. Earlier on the hike, we fed the jays out of our hands - the flew onto us and ate, until we got in trouble from the Ranger. She was actually very nice about it, so we stopped immediately.

When we got to the top and were eating lunch around Lake Garibaldi, these creatures were a nuisance.

As we left to come back down after lunch, we hiked back through the snow. It was actually quite treacherous, but that didn't stop me from doing an action vlog. My roommate suggested it, knowing there'd likely be a scream involved.

A few minutes later, we decided to go over these logs instead of taking the bridge again:

I stopped the vlog early cause I didn't want to drop my phone, but this was a LOT of fun!

I tried to get my roommate to recreate the Log Driver's Waltz, but she didn't know the video, and I didn't know nearly enough of the words. Oh, Tote-bag...

I talked about lakes and rapids and creeks earlier, but what water phenomena could be more exciting than....

Barrier Lake was one of the first scenic things on the hike, but the Barrier was quite a bit higher. Basically, it's a huge rock formation - very steep. The view was spectacular and I felt like I was on top of the world! Because a lot of the boulders we were sitting on were at awesome angles, we had a lot of fun taking pictures that looked like we were falling off the mountain. When my friend posts her pics, I'll share it on here, but for now, here's my final vlog entry!

Why is it so hard to spell my own name?!?

Of all the things that you type all the time, your name should be one that just rolls off your fingers, but it doesn't for me.

Every time I write an email and sign it at the bottom, it turns out something like this:

-MIchael

or

-Miachel

or

-Micahel

etc.

For a while, I tried using the signature thingy on gmail, but I like to change things up. I also don't like that it puts it in a different colour so you can tell it was a thoughtlessly added electronic signature.

There's really no point to my blog post today, you're welcome!