Tag Archives: online

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. The value of time. In the final episode of the HBO series The Tudors, an aging King Henry advised his closest friend that time was the most tragic of all losses, because it “is the most irrecuperable for it can never be redeemed.” So it is… and it would serve as a solid reminder for the great and the good to be mindful to start – and stop – their proceedings in a timely manner. While they may be lord high shits in their own collective minds, you can stake your last greenback dollar that I don’t value their time any more highly than I value my own.

2. Automatic Tire Pressure Sensors. I started driving back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and the only way to know the pressure of the air in your tires was to check it manually – which I mostly did consistently each month unless one appeared to be low or otherwise in need of attention. Flash forward to 2014 and I’ve got a handy little sensor in each tire now that blinks a bothersome orange warning light whenever one of the tires has fallen out of standard. To put more of a fine point on it, this event only seems to happen precisely at 6:32AM, in the dark, when it’s 6 degrees with the wind chill making it feel -10. I’m sure that three extra pounds of air I put in the tires this morning was important, but I’m just now starting to feel my fingers again. All things considered, the damned sensors are more trouble than they’re worth.

3. Online Ordering. For the second time in as many weeks I’ve called to check on orders with two separate companies only to find that “oh, there was a problem processing the payment.” That’s not a huge deal, of course, but it would have been useful if they had at least made an effort to contact me and let me know the thing I was expecting to show up wasn’t on the move to its destination. No email. No phone call. Not a word until I went sniffing around wondering why shipping a package out suddenly took almost a week. A little basic customer service is all I expect. Just a touch. The tiniest show of interest would be appreciated… but that’s clearly a bridge too far.

I got mine the hard way…

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So I was sitting in a meeting a few days ago (because that seems to be my professional raison d’être). I won’t go into the specifics of the discussion, but the general topic was the virtue of in person training versus “virtual” training delivered online. As I was only tangentially involved in the discussion, I quickly found myself engrossed in whatever notes I had previously scribbled onto my yellow legal pad.

What pulled my attention back into the conversation was a crack out of nowhere about not really thinking of academic excellence from people who get online degrees. Now what you should do when someone five steps above you on the org chart says something that ruffles your sensibilities is sit quietly and do absolutely nothing, lest in responding you incur their wrath. Sadly, as many of you know, sitting quietly and keeping my mouth shut is something I tend to struggle with on an almost daily basis.

I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t go to Harvard, or Columbia, or the Wharton School of Business. I took my classes one at a time in the evenings and on weekends, while working full time, and traveling 2-3 weeks each month because that’s what Uncle said he needed me to do… so if you want to talk to me about academic excellence, I’ll be happy to go a few rounds with you on the virtue of an online education. Now I can be as elitist as anyone else, but as far as I’m concerned, I’m the one who got mine the hard way and if that doesn’t satisfy your century old notion about what constitutes “real” education, well that’s ok because I’ll be around long after your Paleolithic point of view is consigned to the pages of history.

I could have said more on the issue. That part of me that likes a good fight desperately wanted to go a dozen rounds, but I had to satisfy myself with looking an individual in the eye and telling them that as the holder of one of these online degrees, I didn’t feel educationally slighted in the least. I scored my point, but it wasn’t particularly satisfying. I didn’t want an apology or even a “present company excluded.” I simply wanted to provide a gentle reminder than no matter how high and mighty, it’s always best to know your audience before firing off at the mouth and losing credibility in the eyes of those who you would lead.

The happy customer…

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As much as I know they’re just another example of Big Data distilling me down to bits and bits based on my shopping, I generally like the service they provide. Having been a Prime member longer than I can remember, I’ve gotten use to my deliveries showing up amazon-prime-logono more than two days after I click the “buy it now” button.

My latest order was an exception. It’s guaranteed delivery date was yesterday, but the package was a no show. It wasn’t anything particularly important, but a guarantee is a guarantee in my simple mind. Mostly, I logged in to Amazon’s customer support chat feature this morning to let them know that I’m watching them while they’re busy watching me. I wanted to at least let them know that I was paying attention.

Without being asked anything more than the order number, the CSR immediately apologized for the inconvenience on behalf of the company and credited my account with a free month of Prime. No questions asked, they addressed the issue by providing compensation that I felt was more than fair. They didn’t make me chase my tail to feel satisfied with the experience.

By giving me something that effectively is no cost to them, Amazon left this customer happy. Other retailers, both online and brick and mortar, would be well served to take a lesson. Even if they are Big Data bent on controlling the universe, I’m once again a happy Amazon customer. Job well done.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Paid subscription to online “newspapers”. Um. No. I’m not paying for content that’s free elsewhere. If I were to pay for access, I would expect the content to be advertisement free, but since you’re not going to do that, I’ll keep my cash right where it is. I don’t mind paying for pay-wallservices and I don’t mind targeted advertising, but I’m not generally going to be willing to pay for the privilege. There’s nothing in the Cumberland Times-News, Baltimore Sun, or Washington Post that I really need to read, so instead of paying them for the service, I end up using news aggregator sites, blogs, and alternative media, which further reduces ad revenue for the newspapers, which further harms their business model. It’s some death spiral they’ve tucked themselves into.

2. Small talk. Not surprising for a guy who writes as a hobby/inspirational career, I don’t consider myself much of a talker. Most things I have to say tend to come across better in writing anyway, although that’s not really the point. Maybe it’s a social failing on my part, but I don’t like small talk. I don’t want to engage in it. If I’m not showing the least interest in your monolog about the week you’ve had, please take the hint that I legitimately don’t have any interest in the conversation. That should be your cue to back away slowly and let me get back to doing something that’s nominally productive. I’m happy to talk when something needs to be said, but idle chatter just for the purpose of having something to say isn’t my style. It’s never going to be my style. And if you force it on me repeatedly, I’ll consider you an irredeemable asshat and proceed to ignore you as much as possible, while seething silently inside because it’s considered bad form to punch you in the throat.

3. The New Friday. It’s finally New Friday here, which roughly translated means on this first week of furlough, it’s officially furlough eve. While I usually await time off with great anticipation, I’ve been sitting here ticking off the list of things I wouldn’t mind getting done around here. That’s good. I like having lists and like checking things off of them even more. Then, of course, the practical implication of why I have this abundant free time occurred to me and made most of the checklist a moot point. Since getting productive things done generally seems to cost money, well, let’s just say I’m sitting here looking at the first of what will probably be eleven remarkably unproductive weekends. Maybe it’s time to sit down and start the editorial and design work on the 2013 edition of the What Annoys Jeff this Week eBook. At least that’s more or less free entertainment.

Penny wise…

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I’m usually a fan of doing things online whenever possible. The internet frees us from the bounds of 9-5 and lets people engage when and as their schedule permits. With that said, how you “do” something online needs to be considered before the powers that be decide to make the leap from real world to electrons. It’s been my experience that unless an online class is really very well designed and engaging, it quickly becomes an exercise in clicking the “next” button until the machine rewards you with a certificate of completion. In many things this is good enough in that at least people will know where to go get information even if they don’t know exactly what information they need. That’s well and good most of the time.

When it comes to training the next generation of supervisors, I have a hard time swallowing the idea that a week-long class on the dos and don’ts of labor law, equal employment opportunity, and dealing with unions can be quite so nicely condensed. Training the people who are supposed to enforce the standards by letting them click through a set of slides on their own is a terrible idea. There are enough piss poor supervisors already and we really, really need to get this one right. Expecting the new guy to “learn on the fly” is pretty much your standard recipe for disaster. Look, I know funds are tight, but this is a pay me now or pay me later situation. By doing it right from the beginning, how much cost avoidance will you realize by preventing the inevitable increase in EEO, prohibited personnel practice, and fair labor standards settlements?

Can we please, just this once, look more than 15 feet down the road when deciding how to save budget dollars?

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.