The New Customer Service

The new customer service techniques, as I experienced today at Officemax, are to blame the customer and make righting a mistake by the business as difficult and humiliating on the customer as is humanly possible.

Officemax has these new techniques down pat. I finally get over there. But I misplaced the receipt in the chaos of the flea market. I had called them from there, to tell them of the extreme mix up they caused me in copying the Christmas book.

Their mistake, in copying one side of one original with another side of a second page of original messed me up very badly and caused me to be up half Saturday night trying to make sense of the mess, then to print off the two double sided pages needed to make some complete copies, during which, my printer broke three times. I was able to fix it twice and gave up finally the last time. It sits now, crumpled and dead.

I too feel as broken as that printer after the treatment I received at Officemax. I did get a $3.20 refund for the 20 double sided copies made of the faulty page, but I didn't even get that pittance, without a fight. I thought they'd be eager to make things right. They were not.

In fact, they claimed I could not get any refund if I didn't sort out the one bad page, from all 20 sets of copies (they had collated them) with that bad page in the middle, and then bring them every one of the 20 bad copies. Then, the woman offered, they'd give me my refund. What the fuck?

I said "I live in Albany, you know that, and am wasting time and gas just coming over here, to straighten it out. Now, you want me to sort through every single colation to find the page you messed up, before you'll even give me a refund on the bad pages?"

"Oh, we'll work with you on getting that done." What the fuck?

These fucking assholes. They should have been jumping through hoops after their mistake put me through. But they don't give a fuck anymore. The customer is always wrong now. Not only that, but they want to mock the customer, roll their eyes, and on and on. Every one of them deserve to lose their job.

I left with my $3.20. I only got it after a noodle limp manager came over. "Have a safe drive home," he offered. "Fuck you," I thought.

That was only part of my day. I tried to find a resolution, by e-mailing the city, over the nasty neighbors and got nothing but more limp noodle responses. I can't build a fence out front because they have ordinances against that. The police can't do anything about them parking there or yelling at me unless they commit a crime, oh but please call them every time.

I am really fed up with limp noodles, limp noodle ordinances and assholes everywhere. There is no place for honesty in the world. There is no place for decent behavior either. All rewards go to assholes.

My neighbor gave me a $20 gift card to Animal Crackers she won in a contest, counting candy, in a Safehaven fundraiser. Animal Crackers is extremely expensive. I wandered its aisles today and could not find anything I could get for under $20 that wouldn't be a complete waste of that precious $20. So I sold the card outside the store to a customer and used the money to buy cat food at Winco.

Seeing how they have rebuilt the store to make a huge adoption room for Heartland animals made me feel even more like an outcaste. I once tried to be included there, with just one cage for my own rescued cats, but was turned down by the owner. That has not stopped employees from giving out my number to people with cat problems, however.

I am stupid. People use me and do nothing in return. I get run over, run down, and I have no supporters locally who donate or volunteer routinely. There is no respect locally for the cat the stuff I've done. I am simply here to use. That's how it feels, to see all this support go elsewhere, but still be called so often for help.

I have been stupid to do so much for so many. Stupid. But I don't regret helping the cats. I see their faces, the desperate faces. When no one else was there, to save some of these kittens and cats, I'm glad I was. I need to remember that. It is all that really matters.

I am beat down right now is all--injuries, money issues, clothes, car failing, the neighbor problem, winter coming, adoptions nonexistent, etc. And I want to leave here more than ever before. I can't seem to find a way out. I continue to try. I want to go where I might have friends to laugh with, do things with, have coffee with.

I have all these cats tying me down. How will I move on?