twodoebs

The Extra Point: Another Week - Another Controversy: "I really wish the Steelers would go back to just being the team that quietly won football games while everyone else was busy talking about t..."

The Extra Point: Another Week - Another Controversy

The Extra Point: On Violence . . .: "Ok - so this post has been days in coming . . .you'll learn good Extra Point readers that I have a job so getting to the posts isn't really ..."

The Extra Point: On Violence . . .

I might FREAK out. I can't wait for the next two weeks to pass so this wretched season of political ads can end. I found myself this year even MORE turned off than any other year. Why?
The ads are more biting - divisive and ultimately pointless. As in - they make no REAL point. There's lots of "JOE BLOW is not for you" . . ."A vote for JOE BLOW will cause us all to be attacked by a terrorist" . . ."JOE BLOW is only out for him/herself" - blah blah blah.

Here's what's even weirder - if you asked me RIGHT now, I am not entirely sure I could tell you who is running against whom and for what office. The landscape is SO cluttered with noise it's impossible to find information.

Why is this you ask? Because the Supreme Court said it could. Back in January, the Supreme Court gave corporations and unions the ability to spend freely in endorsing candidates and putting out political ads. The best is they don't have to really identify themselves either. So the 'message' you're getting is as biased as it comes brought to you by "Americans for BLAHBLAH" but it's really a company or union - who has an agenda, but YOU, John Q. Citizen don't know that. This first major election season of this total horsecrap is just the TIP of the iceberg I fear for what the next presidential election will look like. It makes my brain melt. I thought I hated political ads before - but this makes me want to turn off the TV and run screaming from the polling place because I just can't TAKE it anymore. I'm quite sure there are companies hoping I might do just that. Or that crazy woman in Nevada who actually DID tell hispanic voters not to vote (see, her opponent had been leading in the hispanic market, so by all means - tell them not to vote.)


If you are looking for actual INFORMATION and not rhetoric - my esteemed co-blogger found this site this morning and it might help you make some decisions about the major races in your state.
http://votesmart.org/voteeasy/

Hopefully you will find it useful and better than poking your ears and eyes out with a spork by having to watch a single ad for the rest of this god forsaken campaign season.

Oh - and from my buddy Jon . . .

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Supreme Corp
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

Regular twodoebs readers will know that one of my favorite sources of material is airing my gripes with customer service.

Today, though, I'm happy to share a very positive customer service experience. Over the weekend, we visited the Giant Eagle supermarket at Camp Horn road. As we stood in a very long checkout line, we decided to take advantage of the down-time and send a message about our dissatisfaction with the constant waiting to pay for our groceries. We filled out a web form and pressed send, assuming the message would disappear into the abyss of un-acknowledged customer service complaints.

This morning, though, before either of us were even at our desks, we received a message from Brandon Miller, the Guest Service Group Leader for that store. His message said--in its entirety:

Greetings Matthew:
I wanted to shoot a quick thank you for your patronage and also bringing the issue of lines and baggers to our attention. The checkout situation at this store has been a constant area of focus for our management team with staffing and scheduling. The store has been a huge success and has greatly exceeded the projected volume at it's construction back in 1998. Unfortunately, the initial layout of the store left the front-end with "scan-and-bag" registers, and not enough of them to boot. Despite the pleasant surprise of the volume of this store, we have unfortunately inconvenienced our customers in lines. These registers are the reason that we do not have baggers scheduled. The layout of this type of register makes it safer and easier for the cashier to bag, but they are only able to accommodate a bagger for short periods of times during emergency situations. Part of the remedy for this was to try and add some self-scan registers to offer a "pressure relief valve" in case of staffing issues, like call-offs or back-to-school times. The Self-Scan experiment has been met with modest success.

The good news is that the store is scheduled to undergo a major remodeling project in the early months of 2011. Though this will temporarily disrupt some of the flow of our store, it will ultimately provide an additional 4 check-out registers to help alleviate the long lines. I have not yet heard if the remodel is to include the removal of our "scan-and-bag" registers and replace them with registers that are set up to safely accommodate baggers. As the hollidays approach, I anticipate that we will be made more aware of exactly what is in store for the Camp Horne Giant Eagle.

Thank you again for your understanding. We are working to try to find a solution in the mean time. If I can be of any further assistance, please don't hesitate to contact me.

First, this was a very prompt response, which was impressive. B, it was nice to get a message from somebody who actually had some connection to the store, rather than just a flunky at a call center. Finally, I appreciated their honest, fact-based response. No marketing-speak, company-line, there's-nothing-wrong mumbo-jumbo.

Does his response mean that Sweet Kati will avoid a 20 minute line when she's back there this Sunday picking up our weekly allotment of groceries?--probably not. But at least she'll know why the problem exists, that there are people out there who are actually trying to do something about it, and that the renovations in early 2011 bring new hope for a permanent resolution.

Giant Eagle, we salute you. Brandon Miller, thank you for your message--job well done.

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I just found out a newcomer that makes ME super-excited: 5 Guys Burgers is coming to the food court!

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