Customer Service Costs Money!

     All I wanted was a cut up chicken for supper. I had to work today, and I'm tired. Too much trouble to thaw out the whole chickens I have in the freezer. Let's just go to Whole Food and buy a fresh one? They're on sale, only 99 cents a pound.

     When I got to the butcher chop at Whole Food, there was a cooler bin full of the sale price chickens, and some that were already cut up, for $1.49 lb.  I assume the added cost was for the convenience of being pre-cut, but thought I had nothing to lose by asking the clerk if it would cost more to cut my chicken up.  I handed it to him, and he asked how I wanted it cut, then gave it to the meat cutter and he asked me more questions. I wanted six pieces, with the wing attached to the breast.

     The next thing I know, I get a bundle of chicken, I look at the price per pound, and it's $1.49! So, I tell the both of them, "I specifically asked if this would cost more if you cut it. I asked for a reason- I can't afford it if it's $1.49 a pound, I only have so much cash on me. You'll have to take it back. Sorry you had to cut it up for nothing."  "Oh, that's no problem." he said, as he took it back.

     What ever happened to customer service? This was their opportunity to give me the price break because they didn't answer my question, and I made an assumption based on their non-response.  They don't charge more to cut it up when it's not on sale.  Why charge more if it's on sale? 

      They don't call it "Whole Paycheck" for nothing. Come to think of it, there have many times recently when the meat counter clerk at this store put a higher price on the meat, and I was lucky to catch the mistake. There must be a lot of people who pay no attention to the price per pound, and pay the wrong amount and never know the difference. Maybe those people can afford it. I can't, and even if I was rich, this carelessness or intentional rip-off tactics aren't acceptable. True, you shouldn't HAVE TO watch these people like hawks. But you do. And when you show them the mistake, they don't even apologize.

    So, even though I was tired, I picked out a better chicken, brought it home, cut it myself, and saved 3-4 dollars.  It's cooking now, and it smells great! Moral of story? Do it yourself, even if it's a pain in the neck.

     Speaking of necks, I decided to go to even more trouble to cook the innards for Cindy. There were extra livers and hearts in there! And don't ask me how, but my whole chicken appeared to be missing a wing!!! I don't know how it could've happened, but I noticed it while I was cutting the legs. I don't think you can lose a wing-tip while cutting up the chicken, it has to go somewhere. But I only found one! I may never figure that one out, unless my chicken was related to the one-armed man on "The Fugitive"!  I'll be more careful next time!

     My Dad plans on complaining to the manager soon. He didn't go in the store, he waited in the car with the dog. 

    Have a great remainder of the weekend!

Lots of Thoughts this Weekend

     Well, another weekend down the drain. Here in New England, it was a beautiful; sunny and warm. Here's how it went for me.

      I went shopping yesterday, and bought a 20 lb bag of regular birdseed, and another feeder. It turns out the new feeder was designed for the thistle seed, and the old one was for regular seed. No wonder the birds were eating it like it was going out of style! So I transferred the thistle seed into the new feeder and filled old one with the new seed. Now the birds have more options, though they aren't picky! I took a short movie I'll try to upload. I'm still disappointed the goldfinches never came, but there have been doves, mockingbirds and cardinals visiting daily. I love watching the birds. They barely even fly away anymore. Maybe someday I'll try to get one to land in my hand.

     I also got a neat all stainless rake, with an adjustable slide that narrows and widens the tines of the rake. I love it, and it was only $5.50!

cute little birdie waiting for his turn!

A sparrow in the old pear tree

This is the old feeder with the wide openings, so the birds have been pigging out on the thistle seed!

One of the few bright trees in my neighborhood

A vine climbing up my old pine tree

      I had a real scare with my computer this weekend, I even considered a post entitled "If I throw my laptop out the window, be sure to let it crash!" For some reason, I wasn't able to access my documents. It said they couldn't be open because my "side by side configuration" was messed up. I don't know how or why it happened. I tried a system restore to no avail, and did some research online and it said to download some Microsoft application. By this time I was sceptical, but thank the Lord it worked! Now I have to get back to work on my writing assignments.

     Halloween is coming, and as much as I don't care for it, I wasted far too much time watching stupid "Friday the 13th" movies yesterday! What was I thinking? They were so stupid they were funny.  I put in for Halloween off this year, so I won't have to worry about a costume!

     I finally got around to buying new memory cards for my cameras, so I've been busy taking pictures of the fall foliage, what little there is of it.  Hopefully, I'll post some  of the better ones soon.  See a few photos of the birds and trees above!

   There might be good news about the Chinese restaurant I was lamenting the loss of recently. The staff is trying to get it back up and running again. To learn more about "South Pacific", which I think was one of the first Chinese restaurants in Newton, Google it. I guess they have a memory page on Facebook, but I haven't seen it.

     Well, gotta go, the weekend's over! Enjoy the coming week!

     

My Desk is a Time Capsule!

     Today I spent about a half hour going through my desk. My desk is basically useless as practical piece of furniture. As a time capsule, it's perfect, and that's what it is!

     I hope you're curious as to what I found in my wonderful roll top. First, a little history. I paid $800.00 for my desk back in the 80's. Maybe it was 1984 or '85.  I was in high school, and I made about $30 a week working in the school library. We saw the desks one day window shopping in Newton Centre. I don't remember the details, I just remember when they were delivered. My Dad got one, too.  As it turned out, they weren't overly sturdy, with a couple of the drawer fronts falling apart within a couple of years. But I still love my desk, even though I never even pull down the top!
      Getting back to what I found.  The are lots of nice collectibles, mainly Dover Publications books of clip art, old advertising, animal and holiday postcards, and stuff like that. Neat stuff. I was smart to put them in the desk to protect them.  
      There was a container full of cancelled stamps. Back in the 90's, I had a fun hobby of making little magnets out of my cancelled stamps. I had a lot of pen pals at the time, so I got lots of mail from all over the country and the world. I even asked my pen pals to send me their unwanted stamps. In addition to the magnets, I used the stamps for decoupage on boxes, and gave them as gifts. Fun!
      I found a tin lunchbox that was housing lots of photos from the 90's as well. I was delighted to see three nice shots of my kitties Blackie and Bootsie. They weren't exactly friends, but on the day the photos were taken, they sat and posed for me on a kitchen chair.  Most of the other photos were of my iris', and the front yard.
      Are you dozing off yet with this story? I guess the point is, desks are kind of like the junk drawer everybody has in the kitchen. Lots of neat stuff too good to throw out, but not really anything you need, or use everyday.  Like my high school diploma, for example.
The reason I was ransacking my desk in the first place was because I needed my diploma for proof of graduation, to send to the certification board.  I found the cap I wore on graduation day, but not the diploma. Oh well. 
     I called my Alma mater and inquired if they had proof of my graduation in 1986. Lucky for me, they have my transcripts. I was surprised that they keep records for 60 years! For $3.00, they'll send my records directly to the certification board. I e-mailed them to make sure transcripts were acceptable, and they are. I should be getting this done this week.
     More discoveries: My Rubik's cube, circa 1981. I never got very far with mine; I was only smart enough to solve one side at a time.  Now I can't even do that, and I don't want to waste my time re-learning.
  I found two boxes full of comic strips I collected from the newspaper in the 80's. "Robotman" was a great strip back then, before it became "Monty". I have some of them in scrapbooks, but now if I feel inspired, I can continue the job.
   Am I the only one with a time-capsule desk? I must say I love all the stuff I found. But I just might re-organize my stuff to make room for my contemporary stuff!

      

MY BLOG IS A YEAR OLD ALREADY!

     It's hard to believe, but "Life is what you make it", is a year old. The actual anniversary was yesterday, October 1st.  How much has changed in the past year, and am I a different or better person?  I'm not really sure.

     As hard as I've tried, I don't think I've made too much progress. My biggest accomplishment in the past year was to complete my certification classes for activity director.  But I'm still filling out paperwork and applications, and then it could take up to 12 weeks before I can take the test.   Once I get the certification, I won't be using it right away unless I leave my current job.  And I won't do that unless the situation is right for me.  Still, I'm happy that the process is almost complete.

       My writing class is moving right along, and I'm pleased about that because I need the college credits.  I guess I'm a little surprised about how much work my writing needs in order to be ready to submit for publication. I never had to think about my writing, I just did it. My writing is one of the few things I am satisfied with, even if it's not perfect. It turns out that my two biggest flaws as a writer are NOT using contractions, and using a passive voice, which makes for a boring piece of writing.

      I'm working on correcting these flaws by proofreading, editing, and rewriting.  It's a real effort, though.  That's one reason I like my blog, and writing in my various journals. I can just write what's on my mind without thinking too much about it.

    Getting back to the blog itself, to date I've had 1,393 page views, though many of them were me. Still, I feel lucky that I've had views from many countries, even one I've never heard of until recently- Qatar! I can't help but wonder who is reading my blog, and if they like what I'm doing. I need better "stats", and I started to set up another stat analysis page, one which is much more detailed than what I have now. I wish I had more feedback from my readers, I really don't know if I'm getting repeat "customers".

If you read this blog regularly, please send me an email or become a follower! I'd like to know more about you.

     My challenge in the coming year will be to come up with more original posts, that don't repeat what I've already said. As you know, things run in cycles, and I tend to think about the same things every year as they happen. For example, the changing seasons are on my mind again, but I already talked about that last year. So I probably won't say much about it this time around.

     What have I lost in the past year? Many wonderful friends who've passed away. But they live on in my memories.  

     We lost our oldies radio station that I complained about when they kept on playing Christmas songs starting in late October--but who knows, they may still do that. They play "contemporary hits" now.  They should call it contemporary (re-arrange the letters of "hits"; put the S at the beginning of the word!)

    Our local Chinese restaurant closed down unexpectedly, and it's forever. That made me sad that I can't go there one last time.  We also lost Friendly's, though I liked even if I never went in there. I hope another restaurant opens in it's place soon.

    Well, I guess I'd better go. I hope the next year will be a healthy and happy one for you!