Rain

I hate the rain. I mean, I don't hate it hate it, I mean we friends and everything and its great to see rain every once in a while but dayum, this is just way too much togetherness. A real friend would have let me and my Dad get my garden together this weekend and rain didn't let that happen instead  I spent the weekend damp and  playing tourist at a "foreign" Wal-Mart. I got word Friday at work that they had built a new one and I wanted to go check it out.

The newby was nice, well lit and it was bigger than my Wal-Mart. It was a heady experience. I didn't like it that I couldn't find anything and they didn't try very hard to separate the various departments. I was uncomfortable that the cake mix was so close to the rat poison. I was so alarmed that I couldn't find the chips that I almost left without buying anything! I got it together though and left with a pair of slacks and two pints of blueberries.

This Wal-Mart is so new that it was still fully staffed up and they even opened new lines when they saw too may customers waiting. I was shocked, you don't see that level of customer service at Wal-Mart. This of course will change, no Wal-Mart manager worth his salt will ever let the convenience of his customers get in the way of his bottom line. An adequate number of employees  and satisfied customers are bad habits to get into.  It's better to have surly, miserable staff providing sub-standard service to angry, inconvenienced customers - they all hate Wal-Mart and it brings them together. Someday, somewhere, that togetherness is going to burn a Wal-Mart  down.

On Sunday though, Sunday I became part of the Dish TV Family! Woo-Hoo! Its going to run me for the next six months half of what I was being charged, at the end it'll go up, but it's still less then what I was paying which rawks. I am getting fewer channels, which does not rawk. I  had thought when the sales guy reeled me in  that he told me I would be getting more not fewer channels  but, I now have DVR  and I have service for the first time on all four TVs. I can now watch House Hunter's all over my house.

The fewer channels isn't that big a problem, really. I hardly watched about 85% of what I had anyway but I'm going to miss FX and National Geographic, Bravo and a few of the Discovery's and DIY and Fine Living. The $40 a month I'm saving will help sooth me, but I'm going to call Dish TV anyway to see about my channels.

I called Direct TV to tell them the good news and the ass wipe who answered the phone gave me all kinds of grief and genuine rudeness. Really. I mean, Wow. He told me if I was having problems I should have called then and they would have taken $10 off my bill and gave me the DVR upgrade and blah blah blah and then more rudeness and more run around. I kept telling the guy over and over that I just wanted to know what to do with their equipment and he kept up with the many ways I was being disrespectful to Direct TV and No, I can't speak with his supervisor. Asshole. He finally told me that after all this time I own my receivers and dish and I could keep them. Such an asshole.

He was a dick and I didn't need to hear his bull but that if they were willing to take $10 off my bill and give me DVR, why didn't they a long time ago? And why should I call them if I have a customer service issue? Shouldn't they be tending to my needs? Hey Diana, our beloved long term customer, How are things? What can we do for you? How can we do better?  or  Guess what! Surprise! We're going to upgrade you to DVR! Thanks for being such a loyal customer!

Whatever, Dish TV did better.