Customer Service Review: Rogers

Two words.  IN - CREDIBLE.  Yes that's right.  Incredible.  In a good way.  A positive customer service review.  It's about time.   It's so much more enjoyable to write about good happenings rather than bad.

I had noticed earlier in the day when try to stream some radio on my Blackberry that I had a very slow connection.  I had presumed that it was because I was outside the house and not in good range of the wireless modem.

A couple hours later after our garage sale I came in to check in to Facebook and see what was up with the world.  After booting up the computer, my "Weather Eye" program wasn't displaying the current weather info.  This only means one thing.  No connectivity.  The network was still working because I could connect via wifi, but there was no internet access.  First step, unplug modem, wait a few second, plug modem back in and cross fingers. 

No Luck.

Second step.  Go online on phone and ask Facebook friends if anyone else was having any issues.

Nobody was.  Not even my parents that only live a block away.

Hrm... I don't like it when we're the only one having issues.

So I call Rogers - 1.888.ROGERS.1

Rather than follow all the prompts I just hit "0" to get a customer service agent right away.

She asked for my info, asked what the problem was, asked if I had tried rebooting the modem and then claimed that she would try resetting it from her end. 

No Luck.  She had been very helpful but had done all she could do.  She then transferred me to Tech Support.  After a brief couple minutes of "we are currently experiencing a higher than normal call volume"** and "your call is important to us", I got a friendly female Tech Support Rep.  Again she asked for my info, and again she asked if I had reset the modem, and again suggested she would reset (kick start) the modem on her end.  When she tried to 'kick start' the modem from her end she quickly realised that she couldn't even connect to the modem.   Ding Ding Ding.   We have a problem.

CSR - "Well, it appears I'm going to have to send a technician out"

Me - "What are the odds of having an available technician on the Saturday afternoon of a long weekend?

CSR - "Let's just see what I can do here"

Pause

CSR - "Darn I'm good.  I have a technician in your area with an opening between 4pm and 6pm"  (It was currently about 3:20pm)

Me - "Set it up"

CSR - (I'm paraphrasing slightly here)  "Okay sir, I just have to let you know that if the problem is our equipment or our lines there will be no charge.  However if the problem is your equipment or you've somehow managed to bugger up our equipment, you will be charged for the service call and the cost to replace the equipment"

Me - "Yup, send the Technician"

At this point I'm not expecting to receive a call from the technician till almost 6pm.  So I figured I had time to hop in the shower and go grab a bite with Kelly.  Neither of us had eaten anything significant yet and were both rather hungry.

Before hopping in the shower I left my phone with Kelly on the off chance the technician called whilst I was washing.

I shower and head to the bedroom to dry and dress.

Before I even have a chance to dry off my phone starts ringing (3:52pm).

It's a number I don't recognise.  Geez, could it be the tech already?

"Hi, this is Barry from Rogers.  I'm just heading over and want to confirm that someone is home"

I confirmed that we were indeed home and he said he would be here in 5 - 10 minutes.  Well I had no sooner hung up the phone and dried my right foot and I hear a vehicle pull up.  A Rogers van.  That was a quick 5 - 10 minutes.

Luckily he decided to start his diagnosis at the pole, so I had time to finish drying and dressing.

As I was heading outside to say hi he was already at the demarcation point (the box on the side of the house) and was opening it up to check the connections.  He told me there was good signal and the pole and there's good signal in the box.  Time to check inside.

I bring him inside our thoroughly messy house (all the leftovers from the garage sale had just been tossed inside), and show him to the office.  As we walk into the office I notice all the proper lights are lit on the modem and they're the right colours.  I said "I don't know what you did, but it's working now"  I tried to hop onto Facebook and we saw the modem go down again.  He disconnected the cable from the modem... perfect signal strength.  He re-attached the cable and the modem came back online.  As soon as we tried surfing it went down again.

His suggestion was to replace the modem.  Luckily he had a new one in his truck.  As he was disconnecting it he noticed that I had been given the wrong power supply.  Well, this unit came from the Rogers store in Midland and was sealed and packaged as if new.  It seems it was not a new unit, it was a refurbished unit that had been packaged with the wrong power supply.  So although it worked for a couple months it seems the slightly different amperage slowly fried the modems circuitry.  Kind of like a smoker slowly frying their lungs.

After he grabbed the new one from his truck I could clearly see the difference in the power supply and have no idea how the wrong one could have been put in the package I had original receive.  The differences in the two were like night and day.

Once the modem was online we tried surfing the net.  Ba-da-bing, we have internet.

LESS THAN AN HOUR FROM MY ORIGINAL CALL TO CUSTOMER SUPPORT I HAD A NEW MODEM AND WORKING INTERNET. 

The kind of customer service is unheard of.  Kudos to Rogers.  (Shame on the Rogers store for giving me the incorrect power supply)

I have to give props to Rogers, it really seems that over the past few years they have completely rewritten what customer service should be.  They seem to be trying now.

Thanks Barry


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** in 95% of the phone calls that I get put on hold I hear "we are currently experiencing a higher than normal call volume".   Well, if this is always the case then doesn't that higher volume of calls become the new norm?  I think it should be an honest statement, "we know that for a few hours a day we have a spike in calls, but it just doesn't make logical sense to bring in extra staff for the few hours of more calls.  Please be patient and wait your turn.  Thank you"   At least that'd be an honest statement.

Really GM??? *shakes head*

A little back story.  A couple years ago my trustworthy van died.  I replaced it with another van.  New van came with an aftermarket Sony stereo.  I like most Sony products, but not their car audio equipment.  After putting up with this unit for a couple years, the time came that I put my old Pioneer deck in place of the Sony. 

My intentions were to sell the Sony at a garage sale, and install the higher quality Pioneer deck that would function properly.

After removing the Sony I learned that the previous owner who may have considered himself to be an electrician, was most certainly not.  What a hack job.  Rather than spend a few buck (no more than $20) to buy the proper wiring harness to install a Sony head unit into a Chevrolet van, he cut everything.  To save a couple bucks he made a lot of work for himself, and now even more work for me.

So my decision was to order a new OEM harness (plug) from GM and install it in my van, so that I could install my Pioneer deck.  This would also allow me to easily swap out the old Pioneer for something newer should I decide to do so.

Upon searching the internet, I find that there's a few different versions of this OEM harness.  I could take a shot in the dark and hope that I get the right one, or I could call the local GM dealer and order the part as long as the price was reasonable (normally this dealer is exceptionally highly priced).

I called the dealer to get a price and potentially order the harness.

Dealer: Tom Smith's how may I help you?

Me: Parts department please

Dealer: One moment please *on hold with advertisements playing*

Parts Department: Parts Department, this is Laurie speaking, how may I help you?

Me: Laurie, how are you today?

Laurie: I'm good, and yourself?

Me: I'm good, I'm calling because I'm looking for a rather obscure part.

Laurie: Uh huh....

Me: I need a wiring harness for a stereo for a 1993 Chevrolet Astro.

Laurie: I can't get that for you.

Me: Why not?  I know they're still available, I've seen them online.

Laurie: It's stereo related.  All stereo equipment is contracted to a different company.  We're not even able to look it up.

Me: But it has a GM part number.

Laurie: That doesn't matter, under the contract we're not allowed to look it up because it's part of the stereo.

Me: But it's not part of the stereo, it's part of the vehicle's wiring.

Laurie: It's has to do with the stereo,  I can't help you.

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So let me get this straight here.  I cannot buy a part for my General Motors vehicle from a General Motors dealer?  What kind of a world do we live in?  I've never heard of something so ludicrous.

I guess I will just head to the scrap yard and salvage a harness from a van that would love to feel useful one last time before being melted down.

Follow Up: General Mills Customer Service

Read the original blog post here:
http://bigbobsreviews.blogspot.ca/2013/07/customer-service-review-general-mills.html

I stopped and checked the mail yesterday.  Aside from the usual admail and such, there was an envelope with the General Mills logo on it.  Hmm... this must have something to do with the human hair I almost ingested when eating their Honey Nut Cheerios.

I was quite curious to find out what the standard 'apology' was for a situation such as this.

At home I opened the envelope and found 2 pieces of paper.  The first of which had an apology letter printed on it.  "We're sorry"  "We take great efforts towards food safety" etc...Maybe I'll scan and post the letter later.

The second page had on it 4 printed coupons - each for a free General Mills product.   Each coupon has a silver holographic strip on it so they can't be reproduced.

I didn't report the hair issue for personal gain.  Had that been my intention I would have spoken to a lawyer.  But this was a bit of a slap in the face.  "Hey, you just chewed on the hair from one of our employees heads... have a few coupons".  I could have consumed another human being's hair and they send me 4 coupons for product that will probably not cost them more than a few bucks total.

You can bet I'm going to milk these coupons for all they're worth.

The State of Society: Semi-Live Blog

I'm going to start this blog with a little info about me.

I work at a not for profit Aboriginal organisation in Midland, Ontario.  I've signed several forms relating to confidentiality so I won't give any more detail than that.

Our organisation has many programs that we offer to both share our culture and assist others with daily living.  We have a lot of government partnerships and rely on information sharing to continue our operation.  Every once in a while we will have someone that wishes to tour our facilities to understand better what we do here.  Sometimes that person is a rather high ranking individual.

Today we're having a Deputy Minister from a certain branch of the government that could greatly aide our organisation in the future.  A partnership with us could also be beneficial to this particular government branch.  So we've been planning a large presentation for this visit.  Historic re-enactments and food, presentations by all our different departments, fiddling music, etc.  It's been a right pleasant day, other than the 40+C heat outside.  It seems that every one has been having a good time.  Learning, listening, eating.  Fun, fun, fun.

Literally just a few minutes ago, a couple clients that were here to use our services, were standing in the front foyer.  They were done what they needed to do and now needed to call a taxi.  They then proceeded to have a small argument about a missing icon one of their cellphones.  The young lady then called a friend to chat.  They talked about the heat, and her air conditioner, which her father had bought and then gave to her because she was pregnant.  This air conditioner must have been gold plated because her father apparently spent $1800 on it.  What a generous man. 

Now, I didn't catch all of the conversation, but from what I gather she is living in a house or apartment that her father or another family member owns.  It seems that because they own it, they feel they can have control over what she does and when she does it.  This is where the conversation started to bother me.  A caring mother could have gone through a few bars of soap washing this mouth out.  F-this, F-that.  Now I'm starting to pay closer attention to this because this is MY workplace and we have families and children here plus today we have dignitaries.  "I'M GOING TO F***ING TELL HIM, THAT I F***ING PAY F***ING RENT, AND I DON'T HAVE TO F***ING DO WHAT HE F***ING SAYS.  I'M GONNA F***ING TAKE MY F***ING BABY AND F***ING FIND A NEW F***ING PLACE WHERE YOU HAVE NO F***ING SAY".

Well, that made my ears bleed.  Me: "HEY"  ** silence ** "Can you please watch your language while you're here?"  Her: "Oh, sorry"

The conversation continued until their taxi arrived and I didn't hear a single swear word come from her mouth.  After my experience the other day at Pizza Hut, and then today's experience, I am starting to really feel unpleasant about today's youth.  Will they grow out of the foul language phase, or are "fuck" and "shit" going to become as commonplace as "and & "the"?  I fear what is becoming of today's society.   :(

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There's a little known movie that was released in 1996 called Idiocracy.  It was written by Mike Judge and stars Luke Wilson, Dax Shepard, and Maya Rudolph.  The basic premise of the movie is that in current day, intelligent humans are too busy working to procreate, while the less intelligent sit at home collecting welfare and popping out babies.  By the time the intelligent people decide to have kids, their bodies are physically unable.  Due to several generations of the intelligent people not having children; and the 'stupid' people popping them out like Pez; the world now has a record low average IQ.  The movie shows a drastic decline in society's ability to manage life in general.

Is this what's happening to us in real life?  I sure hope not.  Is there any hope for the human race, or will we continue to get dumber and dumber?  My plea to the smart people out there, START MAKING BABIES.  We need to win this genetic war.  Less drains on society and more useful contributors!


IMDb link to Idiocracy - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/?ref_=sr_1

I just remembered what first got me upset today.  My default home page is canoe.ca - I like to see what's happening with the world (I don't know why, it's never good news).  This article was on the main page - http://www.torontosun.com/2013/07/15/parents-need-to-start-using-common-sense
Open the article in a new window or tab and then come back to my blog

Go ahead, I'll wait.

I shared this articles earlier because people need to read it.  People need to understand the amount of sheer studpidity in our world today.  Who the hell can do such a thing to a child? 

I also had my wife and co-worker tell me about a child that was buckled in to a child seat, BUT the seat was not buckled into the vehicle.  Somehow the child managed to open the door while the car was travelling on the Don Valley Parkway.  "and down will fall baby... carseat and all".   This is clearly a case of laziness.  I'm sure the parent said to themselves.  Oh, little (insert baby name) is strapped in to their car sear, they're safe.  Stupidity, laziness, argh!!

The article I listed earlier suggests that we should license parents.  How about we license poeple in general.  If you offer nothing meaningful to society, no license, life revoked - now you can do no harm to others.  Period. 



PS: Yes I know there are those out there that would like to help where they can but are just unable to because of life circumstances.  Those people get a 'bye'.  Of course if your license to live was going to be revoked it would be because you had the ability to be a better human, you just chose not to.

The Weekend That Was - Day 2 (JULY 14, 2013)

As mentioned in a previous blog entry, every single weekday morning I have a bowl of cereal for breakfast before work.  This routine gets boring, so I like to try and mix it up on the weekends. 

Since I had fallen asleep so early I was also up early.  Like 4:30am early.  Carpe diem, SIEZE THE DAY.   So rather than go back to bed for a couple more hours sleep, I got up and started my day.  I got up and sat in front of the computer to start my ebay listings.  I decided to do this so early while Kelly was in bed so that my ebay time wouldn't interfere with time that Kelly and I could spend with each other.  Ebay killed a few hours of my day so hopefully a few of my 400+ items sell.

Kelly's stirring now and it's time to make her a treat.  (Yes, I got off the topic of breakfast for a paragraph, but I'm back now).  Breakfast time... what can I make???  (Looks in fridge)  Bacon... eggs... ugh, eggs are old... What can I serve with this bacon.   BAM!  Kelly bought fresh raspberries and blueberries at Johnson's Market yesterday.  Time for bacon with blueberry pancakes for me, and raspberry pancakes for Kelly.  All with my astoundingly tasty homemade maple syrup. 

Holy fricken GEEEEEEEEE-SUS.  Pancakes are so much better with fresh fruit as opposed to frozen.  What a revelation.  Mmmmm... Mmmm.. Mmm.  Yummmmmy. 

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Several months ago Josh had expressed an interested in geology.  I suggested that come summer Kelly and I take Josh to Craigleith Provincial Park to look for fossils in the shale.  While trying to prepare breakfast and while eating breakfast there were several phone calls and messages with other family members trying to plan the trip to Craigleith, plus some other activities.  Too much planning, and too many phone calls, lead to too many delays.  A couple hours after I had hoped to leave we were just finishing getting ready.  Off to my parents place to pick up Josh and away we went.

After stopping for gas and cold beverages for the ride we decide to take the back roads for our journey.  It's more scenic and in my mind a more enjoyable drive.  As we head south on Crossland Road, nearing the drive-in, I slow to the recommended speed for the "S" in the road.  Taken too fast this can be a dangerous corner.  Not so much in the summer, but certainly in the winter.  There have been fatal accidents here.  Once back on the straight-away we could see a little confusion and a cluster of cars a few hundred yards up ahead.   Shortly thereafter a few of the cars cleared our view.  Somehow a car had ended up in the ditch.  It was quite obvious he hadn't just hit the shoulder and got pulled in.  He was almost perfectly perpendicular to the roadway.  The car was sitting at about a 45 degree angle facing into the ditch.  Time to be a good samaritan and help this bad driver out of a bad situation.

I pulled over, turned on my hazard lights on hopped out.  As I was heading over the driver hopped out and had his wife climb in the back the car out as we lifted and pushed.  I think he neglected to explain one thing to her though.  (We'll get to that)  So as I'm walking over, a couple other northbound vehicles stop and come to assist us.  I asked the guy "How in the heck did you end up like this".  His only excuse was that he misjudged the corner.  Misjudged the corner my ass.  My guess is that we was doing at leave 40kph over the speed limit because he was quite a piece away from the bend.   I'm certain he took the corner way too hot, lost control coming out of it, and the over corrected a few times until totally going out of control and ended up in the ditch.  Because of the hot weather the road was way busier than normal and I have no idea how he avoided hitting any other cars.  It all must've been perfectly timed.

Back to us getting the car out.  Including myself there were 4 guys lift and push.  So we lift the car as high as we can and try and push it back onto the road.  Now here's the part where the woman's blondeness kicked in and the husband forgot to explain the process to her.

GIVE IT SOME GAS!!!!

Yes darlin' that's right.  In order for us to get the car out, you'll have to take your foot OFF THE BRAKE PEDAL, AND GIVE IT SOME GAS.  Vrrrrroooom.  Thanks darlin' you're a peach.  The driver thanked us, I replied with "Drive carefully and enjoy your weekend".  I as well thanked the other two gentlemen for stopping and hopped back in the van.

Since nobody was hurt I'm kind of glad this happened.  It allowed my to show my nephew Joshua about being a good samaritan.  When you have the ability to help out your fellow man (woman), you do.  You don't asked for anything in return, you just help however you can, say have a good day and feel good about yourself for helping someone in need.

(Note that a photo of this car in the ditch would have been cool to have in this post, the only thing on my mind was getting this guy safely out of the ditch, and Kelly's camera wasn't ready to shoot before we got the car out).

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Nothing interesting happened between the car in the ditch and Craigleith.  I did however find it odd that my nephew, who is 10, was extremely quiet during the car ride.  I came to find out later than he was told not too talk too much, which he interpreted as 'do not talk at all'.  I would have preferred some feedback from him, I was beginning to think that he wasn't enjoying hanging out with his favourite aunt and uncle.

At the Craigleith Provincial Park and paid the fourteen-ish dollars for parking and proceeded to the parking lot.  We unload all our gear from the van and head to the shale beach.  I remember about 30 years ago when I was last at the beach as a child, finding all the fossils was pretty damn neat.  Although totally unnecessary my father had given Josh a hammer and chisel to break off pieces of the shale (for those that don't know, shale fractures very easily).  I show Josh that you could just pick up the pieces laying around or snap off a piece that was already fractured.  Picking up pieces that are laying around can get boring pretty fast, so can picking up loose pieces, so out come the tools.  Tap tap tap, tap tap tap.  The kid was finding fossils faster than I thought he would.  At one point he asked me to come help him.  So I came out and chiseled off some nice thick big pieces, until I reached to grab a chunk and ended up with a very sharp piece of shale embedded in my finger.  OUCH!  Out comes the knife to try and pick out pieces.  This normally wouldn't have been a problem, but since shale fractures easily it was quite difficult to get a hold of anything to pull out the piece.  Each and every time I got a hold of it, SNAP.  I came home with pieces still in my finger and even after digging more at night with tweezers and a pin I'm pretty sure that I still have some of mother earth in my finger.

While I was tending to my wound and Kelly was away at the van, a strange woman approached Josh.  This caught my attention rather quickly.  Even though she had just arrived, it seemed that she was annoyed with Josh's use of the tools.  She told him not to use them and that he should just be picking up some of the millions of pieces already laying on the beach to look for fossils.  She later told him to sneak some pieces into his backpack, but to make sure that nobody saw him because taking any shale from the park is a crime.  Great advice lady.  Anyway, Kelly went and got Josh away from this woman while I was still digging pieces out of my finger.  Soon after this we packed up and left.  Next stop, BLUE MOUNTAIN.

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Oh so I thought.  Looking at the map it was very hard to tell if Blue Mountain Road was a right hand turn from the park, or a left hand turn.  I hadn't recalled passing a road by that name so I turned right.  I had a full tank of gas, it wasn't a problem going exploring.  Once we ended up in Thornbury I knew we had gone the wrong way and would need to turn around. 

Ten minutes later and were on Blue Mountain Road.  Now we just need to find the adventure park.  Way easier said than done.  Many possible spots where this could be, but no actually signs saying "HEY DUMBASS, THE EXCITING STUFF HAPPENS HERE".  We did pass a place with a very large, very full parking lot, but again no signage.  Screw it!  We're all hungry and Kelly had another surprise in store for Josh.

Rather than tell Josh where we'd be having lunch, I decided to let him decide.  Wendy's... McDoodle's... Pizza Hut... and before I could rhyme off any other establishments he cut me off and said "Pizza Hut, yup Pizza Hut".  Good to know that my nephew has excellent choice in dining.  Unfortunately now that it was approaching 3pm, we had missed the lunch buffet.  Life goes on, Pizza Hut is still a treat, buffet or not.  Josh ordered Stuffed Pizza Rollers, Kelly had a Veggie Lovers Stuffed Crust, and I had a Super Supreme Stuffed Crust and donated the olives to Kelly's pizza.  The restaurant was rather empty due to the time of day, but about 3-4 tables away from us there was a group of young adult males.  They were generally well behaved so we had no issue.  No issues until one of them decided to get a little excited and start talking loudly.  Some how he managed to use the "F" word 4... count 'em FOUR times in one sentence.

HEY!

Young Punk: "Yes"
Me: (Pointing towards Josh) "Would you mind watching your language a little"
YP: "Oh, sorry"

Being that I generally try to see the good in people, I'm sure it was a mistake and he simply got caught up in a story and didn't think about his surroundings, but I still had to interject when I did.  They all seemed to respect the presence of a youth once I made his presence known.

The food eventually came, and it was excellent.  Josh methodically dissected his Pizza Rollers and ate them in a way only a child could.  Kelly enjoyed the fact that there was no dead animal product on her pizza, and I revelled in the fact that there was on my pizza.  We ate until full and packed up the remainder to bring home for lunches.  We paid and left, heading towards Kelly's big surprise.

Yup - GO KARTS!!!  What could make a 10 year old child happier than 'racing' around a track, feeling the breeze in his face?  Holy crap.  $6 per lap or five laps for $25 !!  Wow, Go-Karting ain't cheap.  Heck, this is quite literally the first time that Kelly and I have had Josh to ourselves so money is no object.  Josh gets his tickets and a helmet and we head for the track.  Car #33. 

As Josh took off it appeared as if he was a natural.  For his first time he was doing darn good.  Nearing the end of the track there is a slow down zone so that you can choose a lane according to your needs.  Continue driving, or exit the track.  Josh knew he had four tickets remaining so he chose the left hand lane.  WHAM!!! he runs into a pylon whilst trying to dig another ticket out of his pocket.  Nothing was hurt except his pride.  Poor guy.  At least he had fun.  Although Kelly wanted to stay and play some mini-golf, it was just too damn hot.  It a good thing we didn't stick around because we got called for dinner as soon as we arrived back in Penetanguishene.

Immediately after walking into the house Josh ran to his mother and excitedly told her that he had gone Go-Carting.  Thank god she wasn't upset, Kelly had not informed her that this event was on the agenda.

Dinner was roast beef with potatoes and green beans.  Yum yum.  Too bad we had only eaten lunch 2 hours prior.  We socialised for a while after dinner and then came home because Kelly still had to do her laundry so she would have clean clothes to wear to work. 

We both hit the sack early because we were exhausted from spending all day outdoors in the heat.




PS: Yes, I know I that earlier I used " ain't " - it was used for effect.  I still remember the old adage - ain't ain't a word because it ain't in the dictionary.

The Weekend That Was - Day 1 (JULY 13, 2013)

Oh sure, I write a blog about how boring of a life I lead and the next day I'm doing all kinds of stuff.

Kelly and I had both planned on getting up early so we could get going with our Saturday.  Yeah... we both slept a little longer than planned.  Instead of leaving the house around 8am, we didn't get out till 10ish.  Item #1 on the day was to attack a bunch of garage/yard sales.  We browsed the first one, then did a low speed drive-by of a couple more which we quickly decided weren't worth stopping at.

We had planned on browsing a bunch in Midland but figured we should stop for food first.  It was quickly approaching 11am and we wanted to order from Burger King's breakfast menu.  Kelly ordered a bacon and egg croissan'wich combo (she chose bacon because she's not a fan of breakfast sausage).  I ordered my usual double croissan'wich combo which comes with both sausage and bacon.  Plus we each ordered a 5 pack of french toast sticks, which comes with a little container of table syrup.

We pull up to the window and I pay and wait...
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.......
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We're finally handed our coffees, which, even though they each had two cream in them, were still hotter than the surface of the sun.  Unfortunately Burger King does not believe in double cupping or using cardboard sleeves, they prefer customers scald every bit of skin that comes in contact with their cups.

More waiting......
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.....
.........

(Note to self - at least the food will be served hot and fresh)

......
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...

Drive Thru Girl: "Here you go sir" (she hands me our order in two separate bags)

Me: "Thank you.   Could we have a couple extra syrup please" (one packet just isn't enough)

DTG: "There's already one in each bag"

Now bear with me here.  I asked the nice young lady for EXTRA syrup.  If each order comes with a package of syrup then having put one in each bag is NOT EXTRA, is it?

Me: "We would like two extra please" (so walk your lazy ass over to the other side of the counter and get them)  

For some reason, syrup seems to be the only condiment they don't have near the drive thru window, and the staff always seem so put out that they have to walk the 10 feet just to get syrup.

-----  Time to eat -----  We drove to the back of the Mountainview Mall to park in the shade.  It was shortly after 11am now and it was already a scorcher of a day.

We open the bags.

Two orders of French Toast Sticks - check
Two orders of little hash brown discs - check
A double croissan'wich - check
A bacon and egg croissan'wich - NEGATIVE - a G.D. sausage and egg croissan'wich - FRICK!

So rather than drive back over and get the proper sandwich, Kelly gave me her sausage and I gave her my bacon.  Although my taste buds enjoyed having a croissan'wich with double sausage, I'm sure my arteries weren't as excited about it.

Of course, as if the drive thru girl had put a curse on me, I dribbled syrup on my shirt.  A syrup that quickly became tar-like when combined with fabric.  I tried wiping it off with a napkin which only made it worse.  Having no water available to me I thought that using my molten lava java might loosen up the tar that was quickly hardening into my shirt.  Woohoo, syrup gone, but now I have a coffee stain that I need to get out somehow.   Hmmm... what could I use to get the coffee out???   Eureka!!  Hand sanitiser!!!   This worked like a charm.   Now to get on with our day.

Although we had planned on going to several more garage sales we decided against going to any more so that we could complete the next item on our agenda.   A trip to Waubaushene for the "Waubaushene & District Lions Club 2nd Annual Family Fishing Derby".

On the way to the fishing derby I had noticed a sign on the highway for a garage sale in a nice neighbourhood in Victoria Harbour.  Sometimes nice neighbourhoods have decent garage sales.  Not this one.  Nearing the address we could not see any tables set up.  Once we got closer it became apparent why we could not see tables.  This was not a garage sale.  This was someone trying to hock all their baby and toddler clothing.  It was strewn all over their driveway.  We have no kids, so we have no reason to stop.

Onward to the derby!

We had both entered last year's derby simply because we enjoy fishing, the entry fee was reasonable and most importantly you don't need a boat to compete.  Last year Kelly won a door prize.  She won a personal pizza combo at Boston Pizza, which is worth well over her $5 entry fee.  I didn't win anything last year  :(

When we arrived at the dock there were already a couple dozen people fishing.  I paid the $10 for both our entries and we each got a little badge with a number on it.  I was 37 and Kelly was 39.  We found ourselves a little space on the dock and planted ourselves for the next couple hours. 

For those of you that have never been to the government dock in Waubaushene, I will let you know now that it is completely unshaded at the water.  Kelly started slathering on the sunscreen and asked if I wanted some.  Regrettably I only asked to have my arms done, not all exposed skin (neck, face, ears)  Time to fish. 

It wasn't too long before we each had our first catch.  A sunfish for each of us.  Yay.  Fast forward to a couple hours later and we had each caught a number of sunfish, one perch each, and a rock bass for me (which I gave away to a nice young kid so that he could enter it under his name).  The fishing wrapped up at 2:30pm, we packed away our gear and went and stood in the sun for the announcements of the winners and for the door prize draws.

And the winners are:
Child - Largest Fish: Some kid
Child - Smallest Fish: Some other kid
Most Gobies -  A different kid (he was the only person to catch a goby)
Adult - Largest Fish - ?
Adult - Smallest Fish -  KELLY CONTOIS! - 4.5"

Now generally, you'd think the prize for catching the smallest fish would be some kind of a joke... it wasn't.  The prize Kelly won was an Abu Garcia fishing combo (Rod & Reel).   These can be a little pricey.  I haven't looked up the value yet, but you can be sure it's way more than the $5 entry fee. 

I didn't win any prizes for the fish I had caught, but there were still the draws left.  There had been enough prizes donated that all entrants would win a little something.   My number was drawn and I won a nice art-deco two shelf unit from Waubaushene Heritage.  Made from steel and painted grey this fits nicely in the bathroom as 2 weeks ago Kelly painted the room grey.  Kelly's name still hadn't been called by the time they got to the last number in the coffee can so I knew she was going to win the last prize.  The final prize, which Kelly did win was a Marine Safety Kit.  The kit includes a 15m heaving line with float, a sound signalling device (a whistle), a waterproof flashlight, and it comes in a watertight container that doubles as a bailing bucket.  Kelly stated that winning the $10 kit was a good excuse to buy a boat.  Nice try honey.

I almost forgot, Kelly also won a year's subscription to Ontario Out of Doors magazine (a $26 value).

We pack up all our loot, grab our participation certificates and head for home... kind of.

Kelly didn't know it, but I had planned on stopping at an estate sale in Port McNicoll.  When we arrived there was a pickup truck taking up the whole driveway.  They had obviously got some good deals on stuff because they were quite overloaded by the time they left.  There wasn't much left to look at, but there was a bunch of Christmas lights and other miscellaneous Christmas junk.  We both like decorating for the holidays but I dislike paying the price for new lights, they're so darn expensive nowadays.  So I was able to secure a van load of lights, a couple trees, some garland, and some more miscellaneous stuff for $15. 

Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up, there's a roof rake over there on the lawn.

I already own a roof rake but I've been looking for extra sections of pole to make my 18' rake a 30' rake.  Although it would make sense for the retailers to sell additional poles, they do not.  If you want extra, you have to buy another complete kit.  Anyway, I bought this one for five bucks.  Worst case scenario the poles don't work with what I already have.  If that happens, oh well, then I've got a second roof rake that Kelly can use and it only cost me $5.  Before we left the sale Kelly had found a box full of decorative ribbon.  I believe she said there was 17 rolls (or 22) and that five of them hadn't even been opened yet.  She got the whole box for $5.  Considering that each roll retailed for about three bucks plus tax, $5 was a decent price.

I neglected to mention that we were famished after sitting in the sun fishing for a few hours and that we passed a BBQ that smelled ohhhhhh so good as we were coming in to Port McNicoll.  So needless to say, as we were heading out of town my van pulled in to the parking lot where the BBQ was being held.   Kelly got a hot dog, I got two burgers, and we each got a can of pop.  Grand total - a whopping $7.   Mmmm, this little side trip really hit the spot.  I guess we were feeling generous towards the Lions' Clubs today since the BBQ was hosted by the Port McNicoll Lions Club and if you recall, the fishing derby was hosted by the Waubaushene Lions Club.

Okay.  Homeward bound.  Sort of.  It's a 20X the points day at Shoppers Drug Mart.  We discuss our plan of attack on the way to Midland so that we can get in and out of the store as quick as possible.  Kelly would buy the household stuff and frozen lunches while I went and looked at the digital cameras that were on sale (my old Kodak kicked the bucket a few months ago).   After comparing the various makes, models and prices I had decided upon the Fuji S4200.  Not the most powerful, not the latest model, not the highest resolution, but in my mind the best bang for my buck.  I paged an associate and asked him to grab me the camera I had chosen.   Bad news.  They had none left.  I enquired if he could offer me a better price on a different camera as a substitution and was quickly told the prices shown were the prices I was going to pay.  He said if I wanted the S4200 that I would have to take the demo unit.  I asked if he could knock a few bucks of the price of the demo unit and was quickly told that he could not.  Shitty.  Since I didn't want to spend a fortune today, I opted to take the demo model.  The original price was $219.99 and it was on sale for $99.99 + tax and the oh so wonderful ECO-FEE.  So we check out, Kelly gets her bonus points and I get mine (yes, we each have our own Optimum card).  I'm finally back above the top points level with 120,000 points. 

Homeward bound at last.   Once we got home all we wanted to do was relax.  We unloaded the stuff we got at Shoppers Drug Mart and left all the fishing gear and estate sale crap in the van until later.
Inside we did our business, got washed up, and changed so that we didn't stink too bad when we visited family for dinner.  Just as we sit down to relax we get told that dinner is ready.  Ugh.  Back out to the van to head over to my parents.  Spaghetti for dinner, with garlic bread.  It was good.  Thanks mom.

We didn't stay too long after dinner and headed home to try and relax.  Of course I wanted to play with my new toy (the camera).  I pulled it out of the box, got the batteries, strap, and lens cap installed.  Now I just needed install the memory card that I had bought last summer for another use, but had never gotten around to using.  Last place I had seen the card (still in package) was in the kitchen drawer.  That may have been the last place I saw it, but that's not where it was.  After a lot of searching and a little tension, Kelly found the card in the file cabinet in a folder with our Rogers bills.  Who couldn't have known that's where it was.  Anyway, I installed the card and turned on the camera to take some test shots.  MEMORY CARD ERROR -  MEMORY CARD ERROR - MEMORY CARD ERROR - MEMORY CARD ERROR - MEMORY CARD ERROR - MEMORY CARD ERROR - MEMORY CARD ERROR

S.O.B, WTF - Okay, maybe the card just isn't seated properly.  I take the card out and re-seat it. MEMORY CARD ERROR - MEMORY CARD ERROR - MEMORY CARD ERROR - MEMORY CARD ERROR - MEMORY CARD ERROR - MEMORY CARD ERROR - MEMORY CARD ERROR

Hmm, maybe if I format the card.  It can't hurt anything.  Out comes the card into the memory card reader.  FORMAT.   Format done.  Back in the camera MEMORY CARD ERROR - MEMORY CARD ERROR - MEMORY CARD ERROR - MEMORY CARD ERROR - MEMORY CARD ERROR - MEMORY CARD ERROR - MEMORY CARD ERROR

GRRRR!!!!!!!!!

Alright, which piece of electronics is the piece of shit?  The brand new card or the brand new camera.  I grab my old Kodak, take the 4gb card out and place it in the new camera.  Works like a charm.  Thank Jebus.  It's always nice when the problem is the cheaper item.  Luckily I remembered that I had another new-ish high speed 32gb memory card in the dash cam that I bought last summer.

After all of the day's excitement I feel asleep on the new sectional sometime in the early evening (9ish).  I opened my eyes at one point during the night and saw Kelly sleeping on the other end of the sectional.  :D


Zzzzzz........


Wow, that was long-winded.

PS: If you're going to be fishing in direct sunlight, such as we were, make sure you put lotion on ALL exposed skin.  My ears and neck got severely burnt and Kelly got burnt on her arms.

PSS: I neglected to mention that on the way from the BBQ to Shoppers Drug Mart we stopped at Johnson Fruit Market and grabbed some fresh raspberries and blueberries.   These will come into play in the next blog.

Oh Crap... What have I done?

What have I started?  I created this blog because I had some stuff I wanted to get off my chest, and some information that I wanted to share.  I've done those things.

Some people who blog lead interesting lives.  They have lots to blog about.  I don't typically lead an interesting life.  I tend to think that I lead quite a boring life.  So how am I going to keep this thing going?

Well, luckily, there will always be new places and things to experience, and there will always be good or bad things to be said about those experiences.  I should be able to write often.  Probably not daily like I would like to.

I've quite enjoyed the experience so far.  Google has made it very easy to get started and maintains a great deal of information.  The dashboard lets you see the number of page views, the source of those views, and the location on the planet that generated those views.

I will apologize now if I don't generate enough content to keep you interested, but I will do my best.

If you have feelings about what you read, good or bad, please share your thoughts, and please feel free to share my blog with your friends and contacts.

Anyway, it's 2:30am and my wife wants to go to several yard sales in the morning, and we also plan on entering a small local fishing derby in the late morning/early afternoon.   Perhaps those two activities will be my next two blogs.

Have a great night and weekend everyone.

Customer Service Review: Kentucky Fried "Chicken" (KFC)

A couple of weeks ago my wife Kelly and I decided to head to KFC for dinner because she had mentioned that she would like to try the 'Double Down'.  We went to our local restaurant which, unless things have changed very recently, is a corporate location, not a franchise.  One could presume that because of this fact, the staff would be better trained, more courteous, and generally better at their job(s).

So here's what went down.  It was the Canada Day long weekend so there were a lot of tourasses in town.  The restaurant was fairly busy, but it's not like it was lined out the door or anything.  It took about 15 minutes before we were even able to place our take out order.

This is what we ordered:

2 x Zinger Double Downs
2 x Pepsi
1 x Poutine
1 x Medium Potato Salad

10 to 15 minutes later we received our food and went to our van.

I inspected our order because I thought I had a feeling that things were mixed up.

2 x Zinger Double Downs - check
2 x Pepsi - check
1 x Poutine - check
1 x Medium Potato Salad - NOPE - There were 2 individual salad rather than 1 Medium.  And 2 individuals does not a medium make.

Worse yet, we hadn't been given and utensils, namely forks.  Were we to eat our salad and poutine with our fingers?  This was unacceptable.  I went back into the restaurant to exchange the salads and get forks.  I walked to the counter and got the proper size potato salad for my wife and when I asked for forks I swear the woman behind the counter grew horns and gave me an evil look.  It seemed almost as if she were blaming me for the fact the she didn't put forks in the bag in the first place.

Fast forward to us parked in a municipal parking lot to enjoy our meal and watch traffic drive by.

I grabbed my poutine first because I like to eat it as hot as possible.  The first thing I noticed was that there was plenty of gravy.  I dislike it when they skimp on the gravy and there's not enough to last for the amount of fries provided.  So plenty of gravy... good thing... until I took the lid off the container and realised that this was basically a bowl of gravy flavoured souped with a few fries and cheese curds thrown in.  There was enough gravy for about two and a half orders of poutine.  Ugh.

After I finished the poutine and washed down the graviness with some Pepsi, I grab my Double Down.  (Now let me say that I had a Double Down a couple weeks prior that I was extremely impressed with.  Probably the only time in my life that I had received a take out item that looked exactly as advertised.  It looked good and tasted good).  I had high expectations for tonight's DD.  Ugh.  More disappointment.  There was something different about the chicken.  It didn't have the nice pillowy crispy coating as seen in the ads, it was more of a flat thin batter.  The chicken was dry as if it had been sitting under the heat lamp for too long.  The worst part was the cheese.  The advertised cheese is Pepper Jack.  What was on our 'sandwiches???  PROCESSED CHEDDAR available at any supermarket or convenience store.  What a shitty thing to put on a 'premium' item.  If the restaurant ran out of Pepper Jack, I'm sure they could have found that locally at any store with a decent cheese variety.   But nooooo, they cheaped out and got cheap processed shit.  Had I known of this substitution I would have ordered something different.  Kelly was okay with hers, but she had nothing to compare it to as it was her first.

Since I'm sick and tired of crappy products and poor service I wrote to KFC's customer service when I got home.  It's now been almost 2 weeks since our meal and I have yet to hear back.

No phone call, no email, nothing.

It makes me appreciate my experience with General Mills even more.  At least they responded within the hour with an email stating they received my input and then further followed up with a phone call after they reviewed my case.

Will I go back to KFC?  I'm sure eventually that I will return, I do generally like their product.  I will however be more cautious with what I order and will watch more carefully when they're packing my order.
  

Side note: Google  "fast food ads vs reality"  Some of the differences are quite astonishing.

My Thoughts: The Canadian Economy

As a country, we're in trouble.  Say that we're going backwards or on a downward slide.  However you look at it, we've got a problem.

It wasn't that many years ago that the majority of the jobs in Canada were decent paying manufacturing jobs.  Fast forward to the present and the vast majority of the jobs in our great land are minimum wage retail jobs.

What happened?

Answer: We screwed ourselves.

As a society we wanted more... more possessions... more recognition for the amount of possessions we own.  How do we get more possessions?  We either earn more, or we buy cheaper products.  In most cases, earner more isn't an option.  So if we want more stuff, we buy cheaper stuff.  Where does cheaper stuff come from?  Certainly not from Canada.  Cheaper stuff comes from overseas - namely China.

What happens when we buy a lot of stuff from China?

Answer: We screw ourselves. 

Buy too much from foreign countries and we suffer at home.  Buying products from overseas results in loses of decent paying manufacturing jobs at home.  Lose the decent paying jobs and we're forced to buy the cheaper products from overseas because we can no longer afford the luxury of quality built Canadian made products.  Which results in more manufacturing jobs lost.  It's a snowball effect.  If it continues like this then perhaps one day there won't be any manufacturing jobs in Canada.  We'll all be working our minimum wage retail jobs selling nothing but imported products.

-----

There's an article circulating on Facebook right now titled "Do not eat Tilapia".   This article claims of abhorrent conditions at food production facilities overseas.  Claims such as farmed fish being fed nothing but chicken feces, etc...   This article goes on to point out our dependence on Chinese imports.  It challenges us to check the country of origin on all products we buy, and if it's from China, do not buy it.  It further claims that if we all spent $20 less on imported items, and instead spent that money on Canadian items that it would put "X" number of dollars back in our pockets and not in the pockets of foreign countries that want nothing more from us than our money.

Can you do it?   Can you stick to a regimen of buying nothing made outside of Canada?  Let's make this a little easier.  Can you stick to a program of buying nothing made outside of North America?

It won't be easy.  I'll admit it.  I don't even know if a lot of the products that I consume have a Canadian option.  I know the canned tuna in my cupboard comes from Vietnam or Thailand.  Can I find canned tuna from North America?  Does it exist?

----

Three items on my desk that I can easily check the country of origin.

My travel mug from Tim Hortons.  Does not have "made in" anywhere on it, but does have a company name with a United States address.  If these mugs are manufactured in the USA, kudos to Tim Hortons for finding a North American supplier.

My mouse, branded as Microsoft.  Made in China.

My stapler, branded as Swingline.  Shows the Illinois address of the company, but is stamped "Made in China"

Now I'm on a research mission.

My notepad - Hilroy - Made in USA
Telephone - Toshiba - Made in Indonesia
Scotch Tape - 3M - Made in USA
Scissors - Unbranded - China
Staple Remover - No brand, no country of origin
Paperclip Holder - Unbranded - Taiwan
Golden Delicious Apple - USA

Ugh... it appears that absolutely nothing on my desk is CANADIAN MADE.  At least some of it is made in the USA. 

I think I'm going to start to put more effort into checking the country of origin on the products I buy.  Most of us already check the Nutritional info on food we buy, it's not that much extra effort to flip the box over and see where it came from.  See if there is in fact a domestic alternative.  If there is, I recommend buying it.  Help us regain the economy we once had.  Let's shift the workforce from low paying retail back to decent paying manufacturing jobs.

Let's do this together.  Please feel free to share your thoughts on this subject.

Customer Service Review: General Mills Canada / Cheerios

So every weekday morning I have a bowl of cereal for breakfast before work.  90% of the time the cereal of choice is Cheerios.  I like the fact that Cheerios comes in several flavours. 

Some of my favourites include:
Multigrain Cheerios
Honey Nut Cheerios
Chocolate Cheerios
Banana Nut Cheerios

I enjoy most of their varieties.  A bowl a day keeps the doctor away (not necessarily).  As far as cereal's go, Cheerios are kind of middle of the road in the health aspect.  There are healthier choices and there are far worse choices.

Anyway, this isn't a review of the product.  It's a review of the customer service provided by General Mills Canada, Cheerios' parent company.

One lovely morning I had poured a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and sat there watching Breakfast Television enjoying my cereal and coffee.

But wait, what is that in my mouth???  Let's try to retrieve this.  Hmm... this appears to be a human hair.  Ugh...  yup, a hair, about 7-8" in length.  Way too long to be mine.  Certainly not a cat hair, and not my wife's either, she was still in bed.  Plus it seemed to have a Cheerio pressed/baked around it.

Later that same day I decided to report this find to General Mills.  I didn't expect anything to come of it.  It's not like they'd issue a recall of thousands of boxes just because I found a hair.  I just wanted to let them know so they could review their manufacturing/packaging process.

So off I go to their website looking for the contact information.  I filled out the customer service form detailing what had happened.  WITHIN THE HOUR they were calling me to apologize and ask for more details about their tainted product.  They could not have been more apologetic.

OVERALL: Although I was not excited to find a hair in my cereal, I was very impressed with how they dealt with the situation.  I was left feeling that they were truly concerned and that they would review some of their processes.  I will certainly continue to purchase their products and have no ill will toward them.  Sometimes things slip through the cracks. 


Read the follow up to this blog here:
http://bigbobsreviews.blogspot.ca/2013/07/follow-up-general-mills-customer-service.html

Restaurant Review: The Simcoe Yardhouse at Casino Rama

For our second anniversary my wife Kelly and I went to Casino Rama to catch the Collective Soul show and stay in their hotel for the night.

Part of our agenda was to try the new Simcoe Yardhouse restaurant that had just opened a day or two prior to our visit.

We checked in to the hotel, picked up our show tickets at the box office and headed to the restaurant.  Upon our arrival we were greeting by several smiling faces anxiously awaiting to assist us.  Althought it was just the two of us, we were seated in a large round booth that could likely accommodate five or six adults.  Being that the booth was on a raised platform, and in the front corner of the seating area, we had a good view of the entire restaurant, the casino floor, and of course the large video screens showing sporting events.

Our server was Holly B.   If by chance Holly B. ever reads this blog, let it be known that you were a fantastic server and both my wife and I would be pleased to be served by you again.

The menu has many unique items on it, as well as some classics, all with their own unique twists.

Since we don't often drink alcohol, Kelly drank Coke and I had iced tea with our meal.

For our starters we ordered the Crispy Pork Bellies and an order of Poutine, which we shared.

For her main, Kelly had the Burger of the Day which was a Philly Cheese Steak Burger.

For my main I had the Steak and Mushroom Pie.

Our desserts were a Molten Turtle Cake and a Warm Apple Betty.

When ordering I asked Holly B. to ensure that no more food got served until we were done the current course.  I absolutely despise when I'm one or two bites into my appetizer and my main course shows up.  Holly did a great job with delivery times, which only added to a good experience.

Now for the food reviews:

Cripsy Pork Bellies ($9.95): These came with 3 different dipping sauces.  The first being a hot sauce, second a lemon cream sauce, and the third was a beer mustard.   The pork bellies were nice and crispy, and surprisingly not overly greasy like one might think they would be.  The hot sauce was our favourite of the three.  The lemon cream sauce seemed more appropriate for a fish dish, and the beer mustard just seemed awkward and unpleasant to both Kelly and I.

Poutine ($8.50): This was basically supposed to be a standard poutine.  Fries, gravy, smoked cheese curds, and maple candied bacon.  The serving size was quite reasonable for 1 or 2 people.  Unfortunately they neglected to put the bacon on.  The gravy had excellent flavour, but was slighly lacking in quantity.  The cheese curds were plump and yummy.

Guinness Steak and Mushroom 'Pie' ($13.25): Traditionally, when I think of a steak and mushroom pie, I think of a pie crust stuffed with steak, mushrooms, possibly onions, in a thick gravy.  This isn't what this menu item is.  The 'pie' was served in a small earthenware pot and consisted of tender beef chunk, a couple whole mushrooms, and a whole lot of runny gravy.  The taste was good, but the dish wasn't what I expected.  No pastry.  However, it was served with a tea biscuit which came with an absolutely incredible honey butter.

Burger of the Day ($12.95): Today's burger was the Philly Cheese Steak burger.  A standard burger topped with swiss cheese and mixed peppers (red, green, yellow, orange).  The burger was cooked well and had decent flavour, but didn't knock my socks off.  Then again, I've never had a burger do this.  I see TV shows where the hosts make such a huge deal about a burger.  Some of them appear close to, or just past a foodgasm.  I'm still waiting for a burger to one day cause me to spontaneously foodgasm.

Turtle Molten Cake ($7.95): This is a warm chocolate cake served with caramel and pecans.  Similar to almost all lava cakes served in any restaurant.  Good, but common.

Warm Apple Betty ($7.95): For a dessert, this is quite a large portion.  I don't remember the exact cost of this item, but it's very much worth it compared to most desserts.  It's served hot in a large glass tumbler with ice cream on top.  This was the perfect end to a good meal.  I can't say enough about this dish.  It was bursting with flavour and played on many senses.  It had warm and cold, crunchy and smooth.  Mmmmmmmmm.  We will have this again.   Who knows, we might skip dinner and go straight to this dessert.

Total Cost of Meal was just under $75

Overall: Although it may appear there are some negative aspects to this review (missing bacon, etc) we must all remember that this restaurant just opened.  There will be a learning curve and some hurdles they need to overcome.  Kelly and I will certainly go back (probably often).