Angie’s list; Here is a bad review!

You know, there are a host of websites out there where you can review services around you and read other people’s reviews; Google, Yelp, Yahoo, etc. Most of them are free.

“Angie’s List” charges you to be a member.

In a world full of free reviews sites why would you pay to be on “Angie’s List”?   Well they advertise quite heavily that they do not accept advertising so they are unbiased! That appealed to me so I signed up.

Well like Subway’s Foot long sub it turns out Angie’s list is misleading the public as well! ! Ever since I signed up I get one or two spam e-mails from Angie’s List per week advertising specials from companies providing services I searched on recently. Hmmmmm.

So is Angie’s List spamming me with local vendors out of the goodness of their hearts? They are offering targeted advertising to local companies as a charity service or do you think maybe those companies are paying Angie’s list advertising?

I suppose there may be some legal distinction between spamming and ‘advertising’ so Angie’s list can legally get away with this but since I am not a lawyer I will just call it what it is- Angie’s List is a lie. They do advertise vendors services so there is no reason to pay them to read their reviews. Stick with the free reviews. They take advertiser money too but at least they are honest about it!

So I give Angie’s list an F. They are engaging in deceptive advertising and spamming their customers. I mean if you want to pay to get spam while getting nothing else you can’t get for free elsewhere Then Angie’s list is for you!

Management Think #9

Recently I had to change my e-mail address and I do all on-line bill pay so I go to all my vendors, ya know, phone, cable, credit card, etc. and change my e-mail address.

Logically they all sent me an e-mail notifying that someone had changed my e-mail address online and if it was not me alert them to the security breach immediately.

However, two, count them TWO vendors sent that e-mail the the NEW e-mail account.   So if I had been hacked I would never know it. Since sending the e-mail to the new address defeats the entire point of even sending an e-mail you gotta wonder just what were they thinking?

Oh stupid question, hell I have been in this business long enough to "hear" the design meeting...

DBA: "Well the Idiots Guide to Website Design says to send a notification to the the old address for security"
"But how am I to be sending it to the old address when they just changed the address? I am not having the old address anymore"
DBA: Well we should have an audit table where we track changes and we can pull from there, OR in the change address screen you can hold the new address in memory, send a note to the old address THEN change the address in the database OR,...{three other ways to skin the cat}"
"I am not knowing about these things. Let me get back to you."

47 meetings and 1,487 excuses about why they just can't do it right the manager says "This is taking too much time, just send it to the new address, what the hells the difference. Gah DBA's are such a pain in the ass"

Management Think #8

OK, I refuse to fly commercial on Thanksgiving and Christmas weekends. The crowds are unreal and weather usually leaves 10’s if not 100’s of thousands people stranded at airports each year spending their holidays sleeping on the airport floor eating vending machine food.

However, I thought I would be safe flying home for New Years.

I cashed in frequent flyer miles so the times you get to fly are a little weird. I had to come back north Sunday morning which makes sense as LOTS of biz travelers head out Sunday evening so planes are generally full then. I figured at 8:00 AM Sunday morning the place would be deserted.

Wrong!



(sorry, it's not a good picture)

Oh, you can only see about 65% of the line from here it trails off a ways to the right.. When I first walked in the door I thought, “WOW, Cinnabon is doing a roaring trade this morning!” As I came around the corner and got a better angle my heart sank as I realized no, this is MY line!

Click on the picture to enlarge it then look carefully under the arrow. That long line just leads to the beginning of the “rats maze” look inside their alcove, there are at least 100 people in the “maze”.

Of course, if I could just print out my boarding pass I would not need to be in this line but reference last weeks post about the evil cabal of Rob Johnson’s in this world so I had to stand in this line.

Now, since I knew I was going to have “TSA Issues” I got there 1 ½ before my flight left.

It took an hour and 40 minutes to get through this line.

So why is this post called “Management Think”? I would like to point out to Southwest Airlines managers everywhere that nowadays they have these things called “Computers” It is VERY easy for you to know you sold a shit load of tickets this Sunday morning and your normal complement of 2 people working the ticket counter was probably not going to cut it this Sunday Morning.

Management Think #7

Ok so I was in Wally world and I spy these cute little chairs. They fold flat, they look comfy and they are only $20. Hmmmmm.

As we all know looks can be deceiving so I want to see if they really are comfy before I buy. So I went to take one of the displays models off the shelf so I can sit in it and check it out.

What the heck? They have the display models screwed to the shelf.

Yet, YET, there are two big stacks setting right under the displays loose and free. Why in the hell would you screw two of them down when you have a bunch more sitting right there in a loose stack? Do people not think things through anymore? Gah!

Anyway, they were NOT comfortable so I did not buy any.

Owww, my brain hurts!

Being a nerd I naturally see things logically and yeah I do tend to be a bit analytical. And as already noted I find things funny others do not.

So this one cracked me up! We went to the movies last weekend. Here is the ticket "window"...
(Click photo to enlarge if needed)



If you will notice they have totally isolated the money changers from the customers. They have sheets of heavy glass floor to cieling. In fact the commincations is done through the speaker system and cashiers have to wear headsets so they can talk to customers.

Ok, we all know crime happens and it makes sense to protect the cashiers (and the companies money) from robbers but here is the part that totally cracks me up....

They have gone to a lot of effort to "harden" the cashiers. They have spent a lot of money and they have impossed a lot of inconvience on customners and workers simply to prevent robberies. Now look at this photo...



After all that effort to prevent crime all you have to do is take 10 steps around to the WIDE OPEN backside and yell "Stick 'em up!"

Yeah, that cracks me up. All that money and effort just totally wasted.

The sad part is they allow the people who put all this together to breed, vote and even drive cars. Sad huh?

Humor is Unprofessional.

I was reading a post on Michelle’s blog last night reading about her recent interview and it got me to thinking.

I love to have fun in everything I do. I grew up watching M*A*S*H where Hawkeye and BJ were the very best surgeons around and yet they were always cutting up and having fun even though they did the very best work that could be done.

I think that had a lasting impact on me because I have tried to live my life that way. Be the best I can be but don’t be one of those people who are oh so serious all the time.

Once I worked at an oil company. Most of the people in IT there were like my M*A*S*H model- We had a hell of a lot of fun but did very good work. We had an internal forum set up so instead of having a lot of memo’s floating around we would post them on the forum. You know, important stuff like “Someone left a ring in the 30th floor ladies room, please see Janie if it is yours” kind of stuff. :)

There was also a jokes thread on the forum that was by far the majority of the posts out there.

The old Director retired and we had a youngish new director come in. We all thought he was going to be good at first but he turned out to be a stuffed suit. Before long he was onto me for using humor in the work place. He repeatedly explained to me that there was no room for humor in business and it was very unprofessional and that every time I sent out an e-mail or injected humor in a presentation I made myself look bad and by extension made him look bad which made the whole company look bad.

So I really did try to suck all of life out of anything I typed or said and I did get much more ”professional” and yet I just could not get all of ‘me’ out of my communications. He always found room to criticize my lack of professionalism. Needless to say I was pretty miserable.

Then one day at our weekly staff meeting he said, “Were you people aware that there is a jokes thread on the company forum?” We did not know if that was a trick question or not because all of our names were on many posts. Thankfully he went on, “I want that joke thread off line by close of business today! There is no room in business for that kind of unprofessional behavior; it makes all of us look bad!”

Now Peter Parker, name changed to protect the guilty, was a guy that was VERY proud of being the CFO and Vice President. He enjoyed his power immensely. He liked to see people jump when he barked. However, he did have a good sense of humor and he was on the joke thread quite a bit!

He was our new director’s boss. I thought I ought to warn our new director even though I really did not like him, “Have you mentioned this to Mr. Parker? You know he is pretty active on the joke thread.” Well since he and I had “history” about humor he just tuned me out and pretended he did not even hear me even though we were two foot apart. I shrugged my shoulders. Several of us exchanged meaningful glances in the meeting because we knew it was going to be trouble!

Now, exactly one week to the hour later we were in our next staff meeting again. Mr. Parker stuck his head in the door and said, “Sorry to disturb your meeting but I thought this would be a good time to catch you, I did not want to put in a help desk ticket because it is so minor but for some reason the joke thread disappeared off of the company forum.”

The director replied with just a trace of venom in his voice, “Yes sir, I had that taken down because humor on the job is unprofessional and it makes all of look bad.”

There was a collective gasp in the room because we all knew Parker was pretty active out there. Basically, a priest just called the Cardinal a child molester right out in public! Oh it was GREAT!

You could see the anger cloud his face, Parker’s eyes narrowed and his voice got low and gravely. He did this AWESOME but unintentional Clint Eastwood impersonation when he said, “Well, *I* read that thread and *I* post to it all time and I happen to think I am quite professional and I don’t think my jokes make any of us look bad. Put it back... Now.” His Clint Eastwood was so good I swore he was gonna finish by asking the director if he felt lucky, " well, do ya... punk!"

Ah, mister director is now in "oh no" mode. He knows he just committed a major CLM (Career Limiting Move) and is trying to recover, “Ah, yes sir! Sean, put that back on line. Have it done before you leave today.”
Parker, still in Clint Eastwood mode, growling low and quiet, “I said NOW!”
I swear I could hear the director swallow when he said “Yes, sir! Sean, take care of that right now.”
Sean and Mr. Parker walked out together.

Ooooooo the tension was thick!

Mr. Director immediately said, “Why didn’t you people warn me he posted on there!”
I was righteous, “I did warn you! You were in that very same chair when I warned you and you just blew me off!”
“You should have warned me more!”
After a moment of shocked silence and in a very unprofessional manner, I laughed long and loud right then and there! It was a very satisfying laugh too.

Jerk.

Of course, that laughter was my CLM. I started circulating resumes very shortly thereafter.

Management Think II (OR AOL/Time Warner sucks)

Ok, long, long ago when angry and massive 286’s ruled the Earth I was on AOL. Prior to the internet AOL was actually pretty cool stuff and I had a young boy and AOL had gobs of age relevant content. As he aged AOL had very nice tunable parental controls I could inflict on him.

Anyway, I gave up on AOL long ago with the exception of Instant Messaging (IM) which was free so even though I was “off” AOL my account was still active since I used IM a lot. Then they tied a free e-mail account to IM and then I had a spam account! So anytime I would have to give an e-mail account to sign up for something I would use the AOL account.

Case in point, when I signed up with blogger I used my AOL account because I had no idea how much spam they were going to send me. (it turns out none)

I have Time Warner Cable internet at home so my “real” e-mail account is a Time Warner account. Now, Time Warner web-mail SUCKS nards! It is very basic, has a lousy editor and no spam filtering. Then it is SLOW. It is acceptably fast when I am at my house but from outside their “network” it is terribly slow. Since I live on the road it’s mostly real slow.

So, as I started actually reading my blogger mail on AOL I started to realize the free AOL web mail is actually a very good product. So a few months ago I started auto-forwarding my Time Warner mail to my AOL account. Hell AOL runs my Time Warner e-mail through a spam filter to boot! So I got to where I almost exclusively use my AOL account again.

So in short, the Time Warner e-mail that I pay for is terrible and the AOL e-mail that is free is pretty good stuff!

Until yesterday.

Most of you know that comments on your blog posts are e-mailed to you. Yesterday I thought I was getting no comments because I was getting no e-mails. Then I checked last night and I had a slew of comments! Then I got an e-mail from Google saying that AOL was blocking my emails from blogger.com.

So perhaps this e-mail I sent to the AOL post master this morning will sum up nicely:

You are blocking my e-mails from blogger.com. Please stop that.

I just finished a very long and frustrating call with someone who barely speaks English who repeatedly explained to me that *I* can not ask you not to block my e-mail; only the sender of the e-mail that was blocked can ask you not to block my e-mail.

I have to tell you that ranks pretty high on the “stupidest thing I have ever heard” scale. It's my mail and I have NO control over what mail I get? Who came up with that idea?

For example, if I get a newsletter from say Toyota every week and you decide to start blocking it does Toyota care enough to expend the effort to jump through all your hoops including dealing with call reps who can not speak the customer’s language so that I start getting my newsletter again. I don’t think so.

What ever made you decide to start blocking e-mails from large reputable firms anyway? What ever led you to the decision that the account owner should have ZERO input on what e-mails get blocked and what e-mails don't.

No wonder you continue to loose market share.

Then it occurred to me. Who Owns AOL? Time Warner does! DUH!

I recently got a G-mail account. I guess it’s time to start using it now. {Sigh}

Management Think

Remember when that creep Timothy McVey blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City? For a while there everyone assumed it was foreign terrorists that had done it

At that time I worked at an oil company in a large building in downtown Dallas. It was a cool building in that it had lots of underground parking. The building was 25 stories tall and the parking went 6 stories underground. To get into the parking garage you had a badge that you slid into the reader that was just inside and the little wooden arm would lift up out of your way.

If you forgot your badge there was a call button and a speaker. You push the button and the old guard up in the lobby would ask your name and department, look you up to make sure you were legit then raise the arm and let you in.

Being a large building, at 8:00 am there was always a solid stream of cars heading into the parking structure. Conversely at 5:00 PM there was always a solid stream of cars heading out so they had built concrete medians to channel the traffic and keep it separated.

So, a few days after the Oklahoma City tragedy I had forgotten my badge. I pushed the call button and the guard told me over the speaker that if you did not have your badge you could not get into parking anymore. I would have to either go home to get my badge or park somewhere else.

What?

There are about 50 cars behind me bumper to bumper lined up all the way back to the main road. There are concrete medians on both sides of me- Just where in the hell am I supposed go? So I put my truck in reverse, waited until the guy behind me saw my backup lights, figured it out and put his car in reverse, wait for the guy behind him to notice his lights, etc. This is NOT going to work. Now people are starting to honk at me since I am the moron holding things up!

I drive a pick up and I grew up on a farm. Why do I suddenly care about a little concrete median? I backed up just a little to get an angle then I went up and over the curb beside the little padded arm and went down to my normal parking spot right around the little arm.

When I got to the lobby I asked the old guard what the hell that was all about!?

He says that since we are an oil company and in light of the OK City bombing the decision was made to tighten security and not let anyone without a badge into the parking area under the building.

My mouth fell open in shock at the DEPTHS of stupidity that little decision required. So I asked to see his boss.

When he came out of his office and we reviewed my little adventure in the bowels of the building and I said to him with sarcasm mode fully engaged, "So, let me see if I have this straight, Akmed and Mohammad had to go back to their Ayatollah and report that even though they were in a huge U-Haul truck filled to the gills with eight freaking TONS of explosives and even though they had a couple of AK-47 machine guns on the seat between them that they failed in their holy mission to bring down the great Satan oil company because Ernie, the retired Wal-Mart greeter who now passed as “Security” would not raise the flimsy little wooden arm and let them into the parking lot. Is that about right?"
"Uh… yeah."
"What, you think they are worried about getting the deposit back if they scratch the truck going through that flimsy little wooden arm?"
"Well, it does sound stupid when you say it."

Bureaucracy

On a pilot’s forum a friend of mine, Judy P. was really having a hard time understanding some of the federal regulations and why she had to do certain useless paperwork. Even though this particular exchange is about the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) in particular it really does apply to all government  bureaucracies.

In her exasperation she ended one of her posts with the following line:

“I'm sorry but my PhD is doing me no good understanding this.”

My answer:

Judy, Judy, Judy,

That is to be expected. Unless your PhD is in "Liberal Arts" there was probably some extended stream of logical thought required to receive it.

A bureaucracy abhors logical thought. Logic is the anathema of bureaucratic design. Logic is an abomination before the gods of bureaucracy.

A bureau is where people incapable of logical thought end up when they can't get a job anywhere else and the welfare runs out. Thus we achieve a fully equalitarian society where the least capable members of a society suddenly get to make the rules thereby achieving a society of perfectly equal inefficiency.

If for some odd reason you really want to understand the process may I recommend large doses of LSD? About the time the curtains start to melt and drip and you are wondering if Martha Stewart knows how to get curtain stain out of the carpet you can achieve a moment of infinite clarity where the inner workings of government agencies will suddenly snap into focus! (This is also a good time to look at your income tax return. Suddenly Schedule C makes perfect sense! Far out man!)

Now if harsh mind altering chemicals are not your style I understand. Please be aware that similar results can be obtained in a purely organic, environmentally friendly way by suspending yourself in the air by ropes attached to hooks inserted under the skin of your back. If you can get some friends to sit around and play bongos I understand that helps too. After about 12 hours or so of dangling by your skin you will be able to ask the spirits to explain the inner workings of modern government to you.

I personally prefer the time tested methodology of simply muttering "freaking gummint morons" under my breath and filling out my forms like a good little sheep. Yes, it is the coward’s way and I'm not proud but I do maintain a semblance of sanity that way. One must pick one's battles.

No, I'm not bitter. Why do you ask?