Human Microcosm: Jury Duty

Posted by random olio

I spent yesterday in Jury Duty. It is such an interesting human experiment to see the different types of individuals that live in your county. You witness a mixture of age ranges, ethnic backgrounds, socio-economic ranges, not to mention differing degrees of education. Somehow I have been to jury duty at least four times in the last ten years, yet my husband has been once. How is that even possible? They told us yesterday that selection is completely random, and that you can only serve every two years. I feel like they summon me the day after my two-year mark renews.

Jury Duty fascinates me for a few reasons. First, I love to people watch, and am always curious how individuals are going to react in different situations. During college I debated about going to law school, and while that never happened, jury duty is my closest connection to a courtroom. Lastly, I believe that as Americans there are very few things we are asked to do as citizens, and jury duty is one of them. If I was ever in a trial by jury, I would want to know that I was having a fair trial, and so I feel that it is my responsibility to do the same if I was ever selected for a jury panel.

The verdict from my day at jury duty? After many hours of sitting, plus a horrible video about the judicial system in my county, I was selected as the third individual on a panel for a criminal theft case. I was sitting front row, center. Each lawyer asked us quite a few questions, and based on the answers it showed clearly that many of us had a vague understanding of law, probable cause, etc. In the end, I was the third juror to be allowed to go home. We never find out why we are not selected, but my assumption is that my passionate answer to one of their questions threw me out of the running. Many times people try to get out of jury duty, but due to my increased curiosity that was not my intent.

The jury room coordinator was right when she told us that you start the day with the extreme desire to leave and go about your life, but that once you are in a courtroom that desire vanishes and you find that you want to know more. It was bittersweet for me. It was nice to know I would not have to stay late into the evening (they warned us this case would either go late, or resume again today), but once you are engaged in the process there is a craving to know more. In the end, I can only hope they found the right jurors for the case.

I am free of my civic duty for another two years, so if my streak continues I will be back at the courthouse on April 13, 2015.

Do you have any jury duty experiences to share?

Have you heard of “City Target?”

Posted by random olio

On Sunday we were driving in downtown Portland and I saw a sign for a “City Target.” Have you heard of them? Upon researching further, it looks like there are City Targets in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle, that opened in 2012. The store in Portland is set to open in July 2013. At the moment the windows are wrapped with “City” and the Target bullseye logo.

I know many people have mixed opinions when big box stores come into urban areas (even if it is with a smaller footprint). I am not a huge fan of Walmart, so I am part of that mixed bag of differing ideas. I do, however, have a spot in my heart for Target. Maybe it was because I grew up going to Target. I try not to go often because it is too easy for me to leave with too many items. Their specifically designed furniture, housewares, and sometimes even clothes are more my taste than a comparable item at Walmart.

I do not live in downtown Portland, so going to City Target will not be a big deal to me, but when I lived near downtown Portland, I would have been thrilled to see it open up. It means for so many that they do not have to find transportation, use their gas and drive out to the suburbs just to stock up on items. Take a peek online and see if one is opening up in your area.

#excitedforurbanPDXers

Random Olio Snippets: 1

Posted by random olio

I am trying something new. Once a week (on no specific day of the week) I want to share snippets of a few “random olios” or ideas from my week. Often I have random thoughts I want to share, but they are short and so in 2013 I have decided to share small snippets together in one post each week. We’ll see!

More books for me! – Thank you to a work colleague, I just found out that I can check out books from libraries in another county. She made my day. Call me a dork, but it gives me the ability to find books that never make it to my county library locations. For those of you in the Portland area, there is the Metropolitan Interlibrary Exchange (MIX) and they have a reciprocal borrowing agreement with libraries in neighboring counties (I can explain more if anyone has questions). If you are not in Portland, maybe you have a similar consortium in your town or local area.

Facebook Graph Search – Not sure what I think about this yet. It is a beta version, and I have not signed up for this feature. 2012 was the year that I put myself out there in the online community, and this online world is starting to feel limitless. In some ways, as online search capabilities grow, so does the potential of someone’s community to grow. Yet, I wonder if there is point where it all goes to far? There is connection and community, and there is TMI. Too much information exposed to the whole world. I have at times wanted to find something on my own page on Facebook and not been able to find it, but separate from that, what do we really need to search and know more about our Facebook friends? I would love to hear different opinions on this topic!

Social Security – Starting February 15, $61 billion in Social Security benefits are due, but the federal government might only be able to cover 60% of that. Yikes. Yet, CNN Money was the only place I found that was talking about this massive oversight? Why are other news outlets not talking about this? This should be front and center. It would be important to me if I was in the age range to collect benefits. This does continue to remind me that while I am paying into Social Security, I should not expect it to be there for me when I retire. Food for thought.

IRAs – we can now contribute $5500 a year (up $500 from 2012), $6500 for those over 50 years old, into IRAs for 2013.

All random I know, but hey, that is why this blog is called Random Olio – you never know what will inspire, bring me to tears, or piss me off!

Want to keep me as your customer?

Posted by random olio

What do you do when you have a good customer service experience? How about a bad one? I am kind of a nut. Okay, Chris would say more than a nut. If I have a bad experience, I can guarantee that I will be alerting the company. If I have a good experience, I can guarantee that I will be alerting the company. Below are two recent – shall I say – adventures!? One was annoying and the other started out annoying and the company eventually tried to fix it.

Late last week Chris and I were dropping his parents off at the airport. We decided to stop by IKEA on the way home to return a comforter cover. (Who knew that IKEA sells covers that are not the same size as regular US comforters. I should have thought of that!) What a bummer of a customer service experience that was for us. We had to wait for 30 minutes. In that time they called 15 numbers. Now you might think that 15 numbers meant 15 customers, but it did not. Many of the individuals with numbers before us left. They had waited too long. Many times during the 30 minutes we were there waiting this is what was happening.

Returns desk at IKEA

As you can see in this photo, there are no customers being helped. There are 4 representatives at the desk, but no customers. It was a frustrating experience to say the least. You might think that I am complaining about just one experience, but I am not. Just a week before we were dropping Chris’ brother off at the airport, and we decided to venture to IKEA with Chris’ parents. Chris stood in line at the Returns area for a similar amount of time (he is patient)!

I will definitely think again before I purchase something at IKEA. I will make sure that it is something we have no desire to return, because I am not sure I can handle going back to the Returns area! Have you had a similar experience with IKEA?

My second experience was with Shoebuy.com. I ordered a pair of slippers just before Christmas. Had I been faster with my purchase, they would have expedited it so I could have it before Christmas. I was not in any rush, so I made the purchase, got free shipping, and 25% off. Always up for getting a deal I made the purchase on December 21. My order arrived today. When I opened the box, and tried on the slipper, it did not fit. I then noticed that the slipper was a different size than the size listed on the box. They were an entire size smaller. Annoyed? You bet I was. I had waited 2 weeks for my order and it was incorrect. Most likely a mistake at the manufacturer, since the paper in the shoe box did not look like it had ever been touched.

I called Shoebuy and asked what they could do for me. Nothing. The only option was for me to print the mailing label they were going to email me, and return the slippers. Once they received them they would proceed to send me a new pair. So all in all I was probably looking at another 3 weeks. That would be the beginning of February. By then, my mind starts to think about flip-flops, not slippers. I continued to push, and explain that it was not my fault. Would they be able to expedite them? No. Could they send them now? Only if they charged me again. The representative was nice, but kept saying there was nothing they could do.

I am a bit of a Zappo’s evangelist. I probably should just have paid full price at Zappos where I know the customer service is creative and top-notch. (Maybe next time I will). In the end, I pushed her to speak to her supervisor and call me back. She called me back within 10 minutes, and said we could start a new order, where she would charge me $10 for expedited shipping and give me 10% more off. I would be charged all this and later the billing department would credit me for the extra $10 shipping charge and give me 10% off. Exhausted and frustrated I decided to take this step. I should have my slippers in a few days, and they will then credit me for the ones I return. Yet, that only happened because I pushed, and allowed them to go ahead and charge me again. Otherwise, you know February and flip-flops on the mind.

My issue is why not empower employees to be able to fix customer service issues quickly and easily? Why does it have to take a 30 minute phone call and a frustrated customer? In the end, I have to return the slippers and watch that I am refunded the money, and I have to watch that I am credited for the shipping and 10% off. This puts the work and follow through on the customer, not the company. I do not really care about the money, it is the principle of what it takes for a customer to have quality service. If Shoebuy empowered their employees to do what they need to do to fix a mistake, they might find quicker call handling times and happier customers. If IKEA noticed how long their customers were waiting, should they maybe hire more individuals? Add more computers for Returns? Or maybe they want you to decide returning their product is not worth the wait.

What do you think?

To pee or not to pee…

Posted by random olio

On Saturday, at about 5 pm and dark out, we were getting out of our car at a store. I hear this strange sound and look over and see a large man peeing in the parking lot. Gross. Luckily, I saw him from behind instead of the front. Still I could not get it out of my mind as we went into the store. So much so that I wanted to make our purchase, leave, and come home. Why did it bother me so much?

I am not completely against the peeing in public thing. I have a friend that will drop and pee if needed, but she is discreet. This was far from discreet. There is also a big difference between a small woman crouching down and hiding behind a car door, and a man standing in the middle of the parking lot, with the sound of his spray similar to a fire hydrant.

What would you have done? I would love to have said something to the man, however, I was not in the safest of neighborhoods, and he was three times my size. I had a hard time finding out if it was against the law in Oregon or in Portland to publicly urinate. I found this, but I am not sure if it is legitimate:

“Any person who urinates upon any public sidewalk, street, parking lot or building, or in any public place, except in receptacles and recognized places provided for those purposes, commits a Class B violation.”

If it is that hard for me to find an answer online, then I wonder if most people know whether it is legal or not. I was thinking about the person that parks in that spot next. When they get out of the car, and they step into a pool of water they might think it is rain (it is Portland), or they might think someone emptied their beverage, not their bladder.

#whatisthisworldcomingto