Last week I came across this Doritos Super Bowl Contest, where fans can make their own ads. The Fast Company article was specifically discussing a video that had a goat screaming. It was good, but then I started looking at the other finalists in the competition. That is when I found this one:
That is one clever little girl. Check out the four other finalists and vote too!
Who are you rooting for on Super Bowl Sunday?
Have you heard the song: “There is more than corn in Indiana?” They were wrong. Growing up in Indiana, the only vegetable I remember having fresh was corn. It took me to the age of 25 to truly adopt vegetables into my diet. Looking back, if I had the experience of truly understanding in a hands on way how our food is grown, and then had the opportunity to bite into that tomato knowing how much work it took to grow it, well my food consuming days might have been different.
I am passionate about the issue of childhood obesity in our country. Last week, I wrote about a show on Our America (on OWN) that airs this week. The episode is called “Generation XXL” and is about health for youths. One of the ways that we can begin to have an impact on childhood obesity is in our local communities. A friend of mine lives in Ojai, CA and is partnering with PACT (an underwear company) and Whole Kids Foundation to raise money for an urban garden at Topa Topa Elementary School. You can watch a bit more about this initiative here:
Hooked? I am! It makes me want to see if there are schools doing this initiative in my area. If you want to start by helping Topa Topa Elementary School with their urban garden you can donate on Indiegogo. Just like the kids in the video say, you can donate $200, or $500, or if more people get involved then $10. We need to start in our schools and teach kids where their food comes from, what it takes to create it, what it tastes like when it is real and natural, and to care what they put in their bodies.
Are you in?
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!
I am not yet a data whore, but will I be soon? I just found this article from Fast Company that made my day. Since the article is about floppy disks and data storage, you might think: “Seriously, Tami?” but have patience with me. Chris and I found a few diskettes from college and a few zip drives from the first few years of our working careers. He would rather throw them away, but I have been looking for a while to find a way to retrieve the data on these disks.
We have looked all over town to see if there is a place, like a Kinkos, where you can go in and use their disk and zip drives that will read both Mac and PC disks. Nil, Nothing, Zippo, Nada. We thought about buying a drive on eBay or Craigslist and then trying to resell after we got the data off the disks, but thought that most likely our Macs will not even connect to the drives themselves. What do folks do when they clean out a closet or garage and find disks they can no longer retrieve the data on? Do they just keep in a box for their children, like old relics? Is it like keeping your Barbies or GI Joes for your kids?
I am partly sentimental. A few years ago, our laptop died and we found out only Chris’ profile had been backed up. I lost quite a few emails from my business and all the emails from the days when Chris and I were dating. That is why there is a small (okay more than small) part of me that is curious if I saved any other writing or emails on those diskettes that would reveal a part of my past I had forgotten. It might be just boring papers about books I hated to read, or projects from my first job that I might cringe when I see my right out of college work. Yet, still I am curious.
I think I might be nostalgic enough to send my stack away to floppydisk.com (see above article) to see what they can do for me. They probably have a wall of laughs where they print out all the random lost files of dead diskettes and zip disks (or soon to be once the last breath is taken from them). They state that they charge you whether they are able to pull content off each disk. It is definitely worth it as I can only imagine how slow the computer is that they must use to open these disks.
I can still see that bar going back and forth across the screen as the computer read your disk, while making odd noises, that sometimes met the threat of doom. Yes, those of you that are old enough to remember, randomly and usually when you needed it most, the computer would decide whether it wanted to read your disk that day and open your files. Or, when you finally finished the file with seconds to go and hit save on your hundred page file, it would take the computer minutes to hours to save and close your file. You could not eject or remove that disk and run like hell because you were late. The threat: if you pulled the disk out too soon, you may never see that file again.
Do not even get me started about what data might need to be saved from a Facebook profile, Twitter feed, or a blog. I am sure downloading and accessing that information is a feat in and of itself. I have pretended that my content lives in its own cell in a data center with no visitation rights.
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?
random olio 