Customer Service

My family returned from a (much needed) vacation on Saturday, and no sooner had we crossed the threshold of our home - the hard drive on my laptop crashed. 

This wasn't a "Please Restart" kind of crash... This was the blue screen of death kind of crash - for which there is no quick fix.  The computer is just over a year old and had been working great - right up until my baby (who is now pulling up on everything) pulled up using my laptop cord and brought the whole thing crashing to the kitchen floor.  Thankfully he was unhurt.  The computer also seemed fine at first, but within a week I started having issues with random crashes (the minor kind).  I am the kind of person who ignores problems until they can't be ignored any longer.  I assumed the problems I was having wouldn't get any worse.

I was wrong.

So, on Sunday night I broke down and called customer service for my computer company (let's call them "Pewlett Hackard").  I was expecting the extraordinarily long hold time that seems to go hand in hand with most customer service phone lines (cable tv and the phone company are notoriously bad at this).  Imagine my surprise when my call was answered within the first few rings!  A soft spoken voice with an Indian accent answered.  I couldn't spell his name if I tried, so we'll call him "Sam".  I explained my problem to Sam, and he asked several questions.  We chatted for a while, and he put me on hold.  After a few minutes of hold time, he came back with the news I'd expected - I needed a new hard drive.  ugh.  Still, this wasn't his fault so I stayed positive, asking what my next steps would be.  He reviewed my options with me, quoting a price that I wasn't thrilled with - but accepted.  After a little while he said, "You've been so patient.  Let me check on something for you."  I was again put on hold, but he came back on the line within a couple minutes.  "I found the same hard drive for $100 less.  Would that work for you?"  "Why yes it certainly would!" I replied.  He went on to say I'd also need a set of recovery disks which would run an additional fee.  I said that was fine, and was connected to a second customer service representative who was in charge of finalizing orders.  We'll call her Betty. She briefly reviewed everything with me again and then she said, "Sam mentioned you were very patient and kind.  I want to see if I can do something for you."  There was silence as I was once again put on hold.  Then she returned to the line and said she could order my hard drive from a vendor that often includes the recovery disks for free!  Eureka!  I was thrilled.  I told her as much and she laughed.  I got the distinct impression that she doesn't deal with nice people 100% of the time.

Maybe I would have gotten these special deals no matter what, or maybe I got the "Wow - there are still nice people in the world!" discount.  I'm not sure.  What I am sure of is that I received excellent customer service and that always makes my day.  I'm sure looking forward to getting that hard drive and getting my laptop back in working order.  I hope I never have to call customer service again, but if I do... I sure hope I can talk to "Sam" and "Betty" again.

Book Sale Success: Joy Wilt Books

Hubby, the boys and I went to our local Book Sale.  We love book sales like this one... great books at great prices.  You really can't go wrong!
As I've mentioned before, I collect children's books - so that's always the section I head to first.  Little Guy was quickly on the hunt for train books, while I looked for whatever might catch my eye.  I found some great Little Golden books, a Jackie Robinson picture book, a stack of vintage Tell a Tale books, some workbooks (art and puzzle activities), two little Bible books for Baby Boy as well as several board books and some awesome puzzles.

But, the best find of the night?  A stack (seventeen, to be precise) of Joy Wilt books from her "Ready-Set-Grow!" Weekly Reader series (1978 copyright).

This series of books is awesome!  Each volume deals with an important aspect of growing up: personal care, sibling rivalry, money management, making friends, diversity, family issues, etc.  They are great.

I had one as a kid.  It was "Saying What You Mean", and I remember liking it a lot.  A year or so ago, I found a copy at a garage sale and snatched it up. 



The funny thing is that until tonight I didn't even notice it was part of a series.  The full series includes 24 volumes, so I still have six I'll have to find eventually to have the full set. 

I sure am glad that we went tonight and that I came across this awesome stack of books!  Oh!!  I almost forgot - these were only 50 cents each, so a total bargain too!  Woo Hoo!

The Joy Wilt books I got tonight:

• Mine & Yours
• You Can Do It
• A Kid's Guide to Managing Money
• Handling Your Ups and Downs
• A Consumer's Guide for Kids
• May I? Please? Thank You!
• Checking 'Em Out and Sizing 'Em Up
• Danger!
• The Nitty Gritty of Family Life
• A Kid's TV Guide
• Keeping Your Body Alive and Well
• A Kid's Guide to Managing Time
• A Kid's Guide to Making Friends
• Making Up Your Own Mind
• Surviving Fights With Your Brothers and Sisters
• You're Either One or the Other
• You're All Right

Mis-Adventures in Grocery Shopping

We shop for groceries twice a month.  Yes, there is the occasional quick trip for milk or baby food that happens on an off day, but our big cart-filling grocery run comes around every two weeks.

I adore grocery shopping.  Hubby likes it too.  He typically does the bulk of the shopping but at the end of January I said I’d like to do it.  He agreed.  I went.  I came home with many reusable bags filled with all the stuff that we typically buy.

Last night (armed with the knowledge of what had filled those bags only one week ago), I initiated the following conversation:

Me: “What would you like for dinner?”

Little Guy: “chicken nuggets.”

Me: “You just had chicken nuggets, how about a hot dog?”

Little Guy: “Okay.”

Hubby (from the other room): “We don’t have any hot dogs.”

Me: “Yes we do.  I bought them last week.  Buns too.”

Hubby: “Yes, we have buns.  No hot dogs though.”

I began to search the refrigerator, but sure enough no hot dogs were to be found.  I was racking my brain, trying to remember if I’d changed my mind at the store, and put them back?  Surely not.

Meanwhile, Hubby had retrieved the receipt.  Yes, I had purchased hotdogs.  Eureka! I was elated (for a moment) because this proved I hadn’t been imagining things.  I truly had purchased hot dogs, but where were they?  I continued to dig through the contents of our refrigerator and freezer while he began to scan the rest of the receipt.  “What’s this?” he asked, pointing to another item he didn't think we had.  “Ham steaks” I replied.  “And this?”, he indicated another entry.  Slowly I closed the open doors.  “Pork chops.” I said as realization dawned.

“Maybe I left them in the car?” 

He went out to check my car, and quickly returned with the missing bag.  A bag full of MEAT purchased over a week ago.  Of all the bags I brought home, of COURSE it was this one that never made it into the house.  Bags of pasta and canned goods – check.  Dry breakfast cereal and granola bars – check.  Pudding cups and peanut butter – check.  Bread and crackers…well, you get the idea.  I only had three bags of items that wouldn’t have survived outside, and I had left one of them behind in the car.

Normally I would have noticed sooner, but that particular day was a fussy one for Baby Boy and when I was maybe half done with putting away the groceries, I stopped to relieve Hubby of baby duty.  He then, took over for me in the kitchen.   Had I been the one to put everything away, I surely would have noticed and headed out to the car that very afternoon.

Hindsight and all that.  **sigh**

I looked it up, in case you are wondering…the “danger zone” for meat is any temp between 40 – 140 degrees.  If it sits out for a mere twenty minutes in those temps, bacteria begins to multiply. 

If we were having a normal winter, we might have gotten away with the meat being outside (okay, maybe not for a week).  But instead of the sub-zero temperatures we usually have in January/February, we’ve enjoyed three different days of 40 or above (two days reached 60 degrees) in the last week.  That “danger zone” was definitely in play. 

Yuck.

Though the frugal gal inside me was screaming, "NOOOO!" ...into the trash it all went.  I’m just thanking my lucky stars there weren’t any big meat sales.  I’d only picked up a few items since nothing was all that great of a bargain on that particular day.  Another thing to be thankful for (look at me living on the bright side!) is that this didn't happen in summer!  Can you imagine the stench that would come with meat left in a HOT car?  I shudder at the thought.  Yuck again.

So after we’d figured it all out and $15 of our hard earned money was sitting in the trash can…we ate some hamburger steaks with veggies and cornbread.  Little Guy ended up having a good dinner (in truth much healthier than the first one I’d suggested), and we enjoyed our dinner too.  Hubby didn’t say anything at all about my screw-up (he’s awesome like that), but I have a feeling he’ll do the grocery shopping again for a while. 

And that’s okay with me.

Note: Yes, we eat hot dogs (on occasion), and yes I know what they are made of.  :)

A 50 Pound Bargain

What we came home with....

Everyone has their weakness.  Maybe yours is chocolate  or shoe shopping or Facebook. 

Mine is bargain hunting, and recently Hubby and I hit the bargain jackpot.  Our city boasts a “Goodwill Outlet Store”, which we visited for the first time on Monday (we both had the day off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the boys were in daycare).  To say we were a little bit leery would be an understatement, but we’ll try anything once – so off we went.

Don’t be put off by the idea of an outlet for second hand items.  We don’t know what criteria they used to determine what goes to this outlet versus what goes to the traditional stores, but we know that we are definitely going back again!  The quality was surprisingly good.  The store was clean.  The employees friendly and helpful. 

The set up is much different than any other store you will ever visit.  Rows of long tables (which are really more tubs than tables) stretch across a warehouse of a room.  Each of the tables is full of stuff.  Everything is mixed together willy-nilly.  Toys, books, movies, dishes, holiday decorations etc all jumbled together.  You have to dig for the good stuff.

And dig, we did.  By the time we were ready to check out, we each had a cart full.

Instead of being priced by the item, shoppers are charged by weight.  There are price breakpoints, so the more you buy the less your per pound price is.  The first time we went to the check-out, the (very nice) cashier suggested that we might go back and get a little more as we’d end up saving several dollars by collecting enough to reach the next break point (our loot was just shy of 50 pounds at that point!)

We did indeed go back to the tables and found enough to put us over that 50 pound mark.  Don’t quote me on this, but I think we ended up paying 59 cents per pound (before tax).

Are you curious about what we found?  Well, here’s a partial list of our take for the day:

Roaster pan

Pyrex bread pan

Projector Lullaby toy

Thomas the Train Wooden Railway pieces: 2 engines, 2 cars, & 18 pieces of track

Fire truck (with lights, sounds, extending ladder and hose that really shoots water)

Toy Fireman bullhorn (siren noises)

Toy Fire extinguisher

Toy Ambulance (w/ lights and sounds)

Fire truck floor puzzle

John Deere tractor floor puzzle

Six children’s books

Two purses

Melissa & Doug cardboard blocks 

Fisher Price Monkey toy

Child’s Pumpkin Halloween costume

Christmas ornamental train (lights up – still in original box – never opened)

Christmas tree ornament

Vintage Peanuts Christmas wrapping paper in original package

Bag of embroidery floss in many different colors, all in original paper bands – never opened

"Santa Collector" sign

Baby Bib

Baby keys

Three photo albums

Buzz Lightyear

brown pitcher (pottery – simply lovely)

Bugs themed magnetic book with magnets

Brain Quest: America set

Rubber Brontosaurus

Winter hat for Hubby

So, what are we going to do with all this stuff?  Well, we have two little boy birthdays coming this summer, and some of the better stuff is going to be held till then.  Other items are going to serve as Potty Training and other Good Behavior reward items.  Others may end up on eBay.  Some of the items are for us, and we will use them soon (Pyrex bread pan -I'm talking to you).  Even if a lot of these items end up in the garage sale we're planning to have this Spring, we'll more than get our money back.

If you live near one of these outlets, I'd highly recommend checking it out.  If your experience is like ours at all, you will not be sorry!

Note: The puzzles had all their pieces.  Everything that needed batteries, had them and all worked!  Every item was in good to excellent condition, many items brand new.