Not For Sissies

I used to have a copy of a small poster, a post card really, of a skinny, well-muscled guy over 70 years old. He was holding some free weights looking like he was well versed in their use. The caption was simple: Growing Old is Not For Sissies! There was another card with the same caption featuring a woman fresh from doing pool laps.

Know what? The caption is exactly right.

Sissies need not apply to grow old.

Look, growing old is really easy. One just retires, sits, and grows old without any effort what so ever.

Growing old gracefully, now that requires courage.

Fighting growing old is futile. Fighting to not go into a sudden downward slope is much better than doing nothing so long as one understands that the end result is going to be just the same.

But that doesn’t mean one has to surrender without providing resistance. After all, resistance is how we grow, change, mature.

To face the oncoming coldness of what follows life without fear demands courage. Not the being dead part; it is the dying part that we fear. Being dead is unknowable to us in spite of all the egocentric speculation we sentient creatures have done over the millennia.

Rational thought would tell us that we, our minds, just stop. That is hard to imaging since we are so used to having our mind do close at hand all our lives. We have a hard time perceiving and conceiving nothing.

Buddhists talk about the “Good Death,” an easy surrender to pass over to some other side, state of being, dimension, universe, or nothingness. This culture rails against being artificially supported by ventilators, pacemakers, IVs, heart-lung machines “living” in a sort of twilight of not dead, not alive. We all want a good death.

After passing into “the next room” things are easy.

It’s the grace of dying we need to perfect. It is the effort needed to stay alive without killing yourself trying to stay alive. It is taking care of oneself, but not necessarily spending a lot of time in the gym nor just sitting on one’s butt. Get exercise, but it is not necessary to participate in Iron Man events.

And don’t dwell on the past. It will only drive you nuts. The what-could-have-beens and if-only-I-hads never were and never will be. Fantasies, all of them.

Keep busy. Do things one likes and loves. Continue to grow and explore and wonder in the face of what is coming.

Now that takes courage.

Government Shutdown

I am trying very hard to not take a shot at the current government shutdown. It would be too easy. I will say that I liked the New York Daily News cover yesterday and their take on the poster for “House of Cards.” Enough said.

My Fellow Frogs

As we sit in our warming pot content with our warmer environment, there are some new signs of hope.

There seem to be some movement in the press to educate and motivate us to do something to stop the warming before we cook ourselves out of civilization.

Unfortunately, these efforts are not enough.

Our so-called leaders, the ones that supposedly reflect our needs and desires, don’t.

The truth is that unless they feel threatened with the loss of their jobs, they will not belly up to the counter and try to turn down the burners around us. The truth is the problem is the way our political system is funded.

So long as politicians would rather suck the groins of their corporate masters, they will never get serious about doing the people’s work.

There needs to be several changes, not necessarily in this order:

1)      End officially the notion that corporations have legal rights a people. I don’t care if it is a law passed by Congress or a constitutional amendment passed by Congress and ratified by the states. It has to be done.

2)      Create a system of public financing of campaigns. Ban the notion that money is speech. Ban private contributions to campaigns. Provide a public fund for financing elections.

3)      Limit the amount a candidate can spend so that the voter can see who really has the best message and can communicate it with a limited budget. That is called management.

4)      Limit campaigning to a set time period like they do in England and Canada so the voter will be less likely to burn out on things political.

Until we get representatives that work for us and not corporations and lobbyists, we will continue to have a political system that would rather let us cook than help us solve our problems.

A Generational Observation

I had the pleasure of helping my oldest son move his household across the United States, from western Washington to western Massachusetts. We covered about 3,000 miles in six days. The first two days were hard: getting a 27 foot truck with an attached loaded car trailer over mountain passes it not a lot of fun at 30 miles per hour. Once we got onto the flat of South Dakota and points east, daily average speed doubled and we had one main responsibility: keeping our rig between the lane lines.

My son had never been on a long road trip before. He had once before moved his family from Washington State to California and back. But that took only a day or so each way.

This trip was different. It was long, very long. My son invited me to join him several months after I had volunteered to help drive when he accepted the new position in February. He set the agenda: six days of driving, one day to unload the truck (the crew already hired at the other end), one day to take me to Logan Airport and pick up his wife and my grandkid.

The trip was pretty much uneventful. We avoided getting trapped by pulling into parking that would be next to impossible to drive out without taking the car off the trailer and the trailer off the truck to turn things around.

We learned how to scout for entrances, exits, diesel pumps, motel parking, and truck stops. We even got to learn how to perform a DPF regeneration procedure on the truck 40 miles east of Sioux Falls.

I brought a book of current road maps. I got an edition that included approximate locations of rest stops for freeways and service areas for turnpikes. My son brought his iPhone 5 with Google Maps. There was a striking difference in our use and experience of both media.

I could tell him where the rest stops were on the trip. I could also tell him what freeways to take and when. He could guide us from motel to motel using the app. Plug in the next address and push play. Google Maps also gave some indication of road maintenance work ahead.

Sometimes my information would be just as accurate as Google Maps but more direct in instructions, less confusing. I came close to really trusting Google Maps.

But then came the last 40 miles…

My instincts and experience let me read the maps best route as going from New York to Massachusetts via I 90 and then turning left to Pittsfield and heading up Route 7.

Google Maps, and the route we followed, had us getting off I 90 at Albany, going through Troy along Route 2 over to Route 7. I was copilot at that point so my son was in control. The 27 foot truck with the attached trailer navigated the unfamiliar streets of Troy NY with its stop lights on hills. We also covered the rest of the 30 or so miles climbing and descending the narrow two lane road with 7 and 10% grades at about 40 miles per hour at best.

It was not pleasant. No shoulder. Long drops. A lumpy, bumpy road. Hills and valleys. Pretty country, but a heck of a lot prettier when in a car, not said moving rig.

So, what are the lessons here?

Google Maps is great for a lot of micromanaged driving.

But the big lesson is that Google Maps is a great app provided you are not in a 27 foot truck dragging a car trailer. It is capable of finding the shortest route, but not necessarily the easiest route. (Perhaps that is a sign of the times: shortest, not best.) It also is not capable of listing rest stops and service areas. It would also be interesting to list gasoline and diesel prices at service areas.

The book of maps was very good on a gross scale. Sometimes it took a bit of hard looking to decipher the best route. It was also useless in the dark.

I believed in old technology. My son believed in new. I think we learned that there is a place for both.

The Problem with the Cs

When I was growing up, one of the frequent descriptors of Communism as practiced by the Soviet Union and others was that it was “Godless.” True. Many of the countries that had some form of Communism also emphasized either atheism or at least didn’t encourage religion.

We, of course, practiced Capitalism with a separation of big business and religion. While officially the religion of the United States is a sort of a “none of the above,” it is emphasized that we are a Christian nation.

Too bad none of our unofficial creed seems to have rubbed off on very many of our business leaders or their supporters in Congress.

 For all our puffery about the greatness of capitalism, it, too, is Godless.

Both historic systems lack a moral core; both exhibit the same trend of a rich ruling class that either cannot see nor has the moral core to see the other “99%.”

In this country, our god is the dollar.

“My Dollar that art in somebody else’s pocket,

Hallowed be Thy Name…”

We spend a lot of time and energy praising the rich. We idolize them. We believe that an egomaniac like Donald Trump and others like him are heroes. We want to believe that we can be just like them, whatever that is.

Alas, so many of them don’t get it. They don’t seem to understand that they are as much a part of this blue dot as the rest of us. Nor do they understand that under most major religions and moral codes, they have an innate obligation to help those who aren’t as successful.

I am not saying that they should be like Andrew Carnegie and give up their fortune as fast as the acquired it. I am saying that they could do a better job like Bill Gates Jr. and try to use their wealth to make the world a much better place.

I am also not saying that one can’t make a living. I am saying that there is a point where enough is enough and anything over that amount should be considered greed and probably shows a selfish intent to harm. It is a “F**k you!” attitude that is unhealthy to the planet and everything living on and in it.

I am saying that those individuals who demonstrate so much greed, self-aggrandizement, and super egos are not a part of any of the major religions.

If they were, they would behave differently. They have no right talking about the United States being a Christian country. It is not. If it were, or had any other major religion as its underpinning, they would not be able to act as they do.

They only love themselves and their dollars.

Well, there will come a point when their money will not do anything for them. They are as mortal as the rest of us. And like the rest of us, they, too, will rot.

Lets Talk About The News

Or the reporting of medical and science topics.

Recently, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle released a study confirming men taking fish oil supplements who have detectable levels of that oil in their blood stream have a higher risk of prostate cancer.

These individuals had a 43% higher chance of getting a prostate cancer. These same individuals have a 71% higher chance of getting a nastier form of prostate cancer.

This is interesting. But there are some things to view this finding with a bit of a jaundiced eye.

First, other studies have shown that a large majority of men will have some form of prostate cancer the older they get and die. Most are slow growing cancers. That is just the way it is.

Second, the subjects of this study, the ones who have the increased risk, are an interesting subgroup of men: they have detectable levels of fish oil in their blood. This fact was mentioned by news readers (I refuse to call them reporters) but it was never clarified if this was rare or common in men who take supplements.

Is this population of men unique? Do natives of the arctic regions, the population where the benefits of fish oil were discovered in the 1970s, have higher rates of prostate cancers?

There is an association, but not clear causality between fish oil and prostate cancer. We see the result statistically but no why.

The problem with the reporting of this research is that it doesn’t give any emphasis to what the report actually says. Editors looked at the conclusion and failed to see the conditions of the study: that these results were valid only for men who have detectable levels of fish oil in their blood, not a common occurrence.

I am sure there will be a drop in the Fish Oil Supplement revenues. I am not sure dropping a fish oil supplement is at all justified for most people. Certainly not women who do not have prostates, nor most men but don’t have detectable levels of the fish oil in their blood.

This study was relevant for one population of men. And it did not address why they had the precondition.

Too bad it was not reported that way.

This sort of poor, misleading reporting comes from a lack of understanding of science, medicine, and how to read research results. I would seriously question if these editors could tell you how evolution works in the broad, Darwinian sense.

I doubt they could explain the basics of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, or that nobody has ever proven smoking causes lung cancer. Yes, there is a strong association between the two, but there is proven cause and effect, the naming of specific compounds in burning tobacco or the additives to tobacco products that actually cause a specific type of cancer of the lung.

I would hope that our communications schools would attract students who would also have strong minors in the physical and biological sciences.

Or science, math, and engineering students take a minor in communications.

Either way, we consumers of news would gain the benefit of knowing what is really going on.

Good News -- Bad News

First the good news:

The coal and gas industry thinks Obama’s plan to reduce climate change is a bad idea.

This is good. It means that Obama is at least starting on the correct path.

Now the bad news:

I don’t think Obama understands the climate change crisis. He is either ignorant of the problem or is getting bad advice.

Or is it that his leadership style is wrong for the problem.

I voted for him and try to support him. But I voted for somebody who I thought would lead us out of the privatization and industrial morass that G W and his crew of cronies inflicted on us the first eight years of this century.

Too often Obama has only followed the policies of his predecessor. The NSA Prism program is one small example. So are the programs that privatized our prisons, intelligence, and many of the military functions. Judging from our military experiences, we seem to be paying more for base security, kitchen and laundry services, and other contracted services than before.

Also, Obama clearly wants to lead by consensus. He expects the Republicans to meet him in the middle. In the process, he gets to the middle and then begins negotiations only to give up even more, if he gets a deal at all. He still has not figured out that the Republican opposition 1) hates him and 2) will do anything to make him a failure – including bring down the country to do so.

This does not inspire confidence in any of our elected leadership.

This need for consensus is probably why Obama is placing so much emphasis on natural gas exploitation. It is less polluting than coal. It appears to be plentiful – at least a century’s worth of fuel after which we will all be long gone along with the gas.

What he doesn’t understand is that IT’S THE CARBON, STUPID!

Just because natural gas is half and polluting as coal doesn’t make it any less of a problem considering what our planet’s future appears to becoming.

Obama’s plan is like giving lung cancer patients ibuprofen instead of aspirin while letting them smoke.

That is not leadership.

What is about to happen to this planet and every living creature (including us) needs to be addressed now. It should have been addressed twenty years ago. It isn’t going to get any easier. It is only going to get harder.

We are the frog in the pot of water being heated to boiling. We need turn off the heat, not turn it down an notch.

Ignorance or Insecurity?

The more one learns about the physical universe of the large and the small, the inert and the alive, the more wondrous it becomes. That all this should simply be is itself amazing. That we now can get a decent idea of the hows and whys through our investigations only adds to the awe.

I think that it is sad that so many in this country don’t appear to have the education, experience, or proclivity to see beyond their immediate level of experience. Their faith overrides the knowledge we have learned as a species about our environment and beyond.

It is clear that viruses, bacteria, and insects become resistant or change in response to the environment humans present them. Bacteria species will become resistant to antibiotics we use to combat them over time. The HIV virus has responded to our treatment to AIDS and made many of our treatments less effective over time. And there are now insecticide resistant insects that we created using chemical pest controls.

We have known about this for many decades.

These are clear examples of evolution.

And yet so many people don’t accept the concept of evolution. They can’t or don’t want to grasp the concept. I believe that they find the concept threatening. They can’t see the wonder of us and everything else being here from such simple processes as variation, opportunity and chance.

It is the same when looking at the really big -- the universe. The concept of measuring something by the distance light can travel over time seems to be very hard for them to believe. It makes us insignificant. The terms of “I,” “you,” and “they” loses so much of their impact.

Dr. Carl Sagan drives the point home with his commentary about the pale blue dot in a last photograph taken by the Voyager space craft before it headed beyond the outer planets. It is a very small dot and we are the small creatures upon it.

The next time you see a leaf fall from a tree, realize it took 13.7 billion years for that to happen. And you saw it. That is humbling!

To give the power of the forces of our lives to an unknowable entity is an act of conceit. It makes us believe that we are more important than we are. It denies who and what we are. It denies what everything around us is. To assign all of creation to an unknown entity is to copout from the real wonder of this place. It is a shrug to reality.

Yes, we as life may be unique. At least for this solar system we are.

We take life, ours and all other life, pretty much for granted. We work hard and passing judgment as to what is good and what is bad. The problem is that there is only life.

It is a tough universe out there and in order to survive all creatures have had to find ways to make a living. Good and bad generally are a point of view relative to the individuals and the events, not a Large Scale Moral Question. It is when the actions of one species knowingly threaten the existence and well being of a number of species that one could ask about the morality of certain actions.

A comet destroying the reptilian mega-fauna on the earth, was that an immoral act? Was it a random event or did what we like to call a deity send the comet on its way so that mammals including us could take over? Was that the plan? Did God say that the dinosaurs weren’t doing anything with the earth so why not make room for us? Is God disappointed in his choice after seeing the mess we are making of the place?

If there is a God, then he didn’t make us smart enough. We don’t seem to be able to control ourselves and stop trying to destroy what was so reasonably balanced before we got fire. And now many of us seem to expect God to step in and save us.

On one level, we could look at the universe and say that it is all God’s work. We could lean on that belief and make decisions thinking that He/She/It cares about us. We will be disappointed when our pleading prayers go unanswered, or at least we don’t get the answer we want. We are selfish creatures to believe that He/She/It cares.

It is probably better to make the gods optional in our lives, but live with a moral code that understands we are all in this together. All of us, from humans to dogs and cats to bees and spiders to snakes and mice and fish to elm trees and scrub brush to carrots and broccoli. All life on this planet is in this together. This is our spot, our blue dot of life. At the moment nowhere else appears to have it.

And what we do affects everything and everybody else, so we must do it carefully.

                And we don’t care about ourselves or what is around us.

We are killing our planet. We will never get it to go back to what it was when we appeared on the scene. It is all going to come crashing down upon us through our greed, ignorance, arrogance, and short sighted stupidity.

I wish I were wrong.

But I have serious doubts that I am.

I normally don’t pass on fundraising affairs, but I think this is special. There are a number of ways to support Multiple Scleroses research through direct donations and walk-a-thons. There is another event coming up worth your donation: Bike the US for MS.

To quote their website:

Bike the US for MS organizes cross country bike trips that raise awareness for Multiple Sclerosis research & volunteer for patients. These tours follow America's most traveled cross country routes and combine an important cause with an incredible experience.

Proceeds from 2013 will fund home modification projects across the United States and support research & treatment at Swedish MS Center in Seattle, UVA's James Q Miller MS Clinic in Charlottesville, and Fairview MS Achievement Center in St Paul.

Why am I supporting and promoting this event? It is because one of the cyclists this year is a neighbor of mine on Whidbey Island. Her name is Diane Mattens and she has challenged herself to ride the “Northern Tier” route from Bar Harbor, Maine to Seattle, Washington. That is 4,295 miles! She leaves Bar Harbor on May 28^th and arrives in Seattle on August 4^th.

“So what”, you ask.

Here’s what: Diane was diagnosed with MS 28 years ago. Now middle aged, she works hard at fighting the disease, has become an avid cyclist, and last spring rode solo from Whidbey Island to California’s Golden Gate.

She now wants to become the first woman with MS to bike across the US while raising funds for the program at Swedish MS Center. Remarkably, all donations are tax deductable and over 90% will go to research and the volunteer organizations listed above!

So I ask that you go to biketheusforms.org, click 2013 Cyclists, click Northern Tier, and donate to Diane Mattens.

Many thanks in advance.

Customer Service, Not -- Continued

An update on Best Buy:

We received a confirmation call yesterday giving us a date and time for delivery for the product.

Today I received an email from Best Buy stating the date would be one day later. So I called the number to check order status.

Was told the date would indeed be the one given but that the time window would be two hours earlier. I strongly suspect that the caller yesterday didn’t know there is a two hour difference between the Central and Pacific time zones.

The operator today also said I was not the first person to call about the incorrect change of date.

As I say below, Best Buy has no idea about customer service and does not train their people to the point where they can do even simple things correctly.

Customer Service, Not

Ah, good customer service. I fear it is a dying thing in our society.

Good customer service is hard. It requires training. It requires effort. It requires constant reminders as to what needs to be done and how. But the rewards more than pay for the time and energy.

I have had great customer experiences. I have seen what it can do to keep a company going, well supplied with returning and new customers as much for the experience as for the product.

Example One: Canlis Restaurant in Seattle.

This business has been around for over 50 years. It is in an awkward location to get to; it has an adequate view of Capitol Hill and the University District; and the food is different, good, but not spectacular to my taste.

What it has, and what makes me want to go back, is a level of service that approaches the level of myth. It’s the experience, all of it.

The wait-persons are attentive, very attentive. They do not hover at your table. They do not constantly ask if everything is OK. They just seem to be not there. Except, when you want or need something, even if it seems to be a passing thought on your part, they appear at your side and ask what you want or need.

It is magical.

It is wondrous.

It is mythical. It can be downright scary the first few times it happens.

But it happens the greater majority of times one wants or needs something.

Amazing.

And when you pay your bill, get your coat on and step out the door, your car is waiting right there, warm and ready. The staff wishes you goodbye by name!

Astonishing.

I tell you it is enough to make one want to come back no matter what the price (expensive) just for the experience. It is worth every penny and then some.

Example Two: Nordstrom.

Its customer service is legendary.

This store started out as Nordstrom Best Shoes over a century ago. It tends towards the upper middle price range of shoes, clothing, and accessories. OK, maybe more upper that middle.

I recently bought a jacket, shirt and tie, pants, and shoes there. I would happily go back anytime for even a handkerchief.

The outfit purchased is a higher quality than, say, JC Penny. But that is not the reason I would go back.

Again, it is the quality of service and how I was treated. It was the way the sales people suggested things to a clothing lug nut like me.

It was the attention to what I needed, what I wanted, and what was actually best for me. They understood their products, knew them completely, and could talk at length on a fabric’s features and benefits. I was educating me, not pushing me.

Being a weaver, I was impressed.

I appreciated how it all appeared on me in the mirror.

No pressure to buy. All they provide customers is excellent guidance and help and real customer service. They know how satisfy a customer.

Amazing.

I will go back. It is worth every penny and then some.

Yes, I have had good experiences with different companies.

Alas, there are also a few places I have promised myself to never return to for any reason. The experiences at these companies have consistently been so bad and the treatment so horrible that they do not deserve any customers.

I would not trust them even to give me the time of day.

And then there is Best Buy: Given my latest experience, I will never go into one of their stores again. I will go to any other alternative just to avoid their stores. I don’t need the abuse.

The sales staff is untrained, the computer infrastructure out of date and decrepit, and the management’s attitude towards the customer is “F*ck the C*stomer’s problem with our stores and staff.”

Best Buy is in economic trouble. Things have gotten so bad that the Board of Directors brought the original owner and CEO of the company, Richard Schulze, and created a position of CEO Emeritus for him to be on the Board of Directors.

But the upper management doesn’t have a clue as to why they are bleeding money. They think customers come in to look at a product and then go out on line to get a better deal. Best Buy has responded by matching prices to these prices to these Internet deals.

In point of fact, management has simply missed the point. I am sure, given my recent experience, customers go into Best Buy to purchase an appliance or product only to go SCREAMING OUT THE DOOR desperate to find a better, friendlier, honest place to buy, not just a better price.

The sales associate we ended up with for our purchase of an under-the-cabinet microwave proved to be unfamiliar with microwaves, how to take an order, how to get the order correct, and how to arrange a delivery/install date. He promised it to be delivered on March 16^th then set it up for May 16^th. We asked for a white microwave. We found out later he ordered a stainless steel microwave there by charging us too much.

When the delivery confirmation phone call did not come and the product was not delivered, the first of many phone calls ensued. That is when we found out that the sales associate had actually scheduled delivery for two months later. I tried to call the store and ask for a manager. They took my number. The manager never called me back.

The new delivery date was the 26^th during a three hour time window late in the day. The delivery/install people arrive 20 minutes late after the three hours. They opened the box and there was a shiny new black microwave. They boxed it up and left with it. I called the store, talked to a  Customer Service (sic) representative who promised that a manager would call me the next day since all manager were gone a hour and a half before the store closed.

No call back.

At that point I wrote a letter to the CEO, Hubert Joly, explaining the situation. I informed him that I also sent a copy to the State Consumer Protection Division saying this was a breach of contract on several levels.

I then talked to a corporate level Customer Service (sic) representative who promised me the local store manager would call me within the hour. The representative gave me a phone number to call him back if the manager did not call.

I waited 10 hours. No call. I called the representative’s number and left a voicemail. I called back the next day and left another voicemail. No call back, so I began to wonder if it was Best Buy’s policy to tell the customer anything but not call back.

I got on Best Buy’s Facebook page. I got a series of replies from “Jessie” who once again asked for me to send the complaint to an email address and off of Facebook. After several more exchanges, one of which was a request to send them my phone number for the fourth time, I sent them a copy of the letter to the CEO. That seemed to get their attention.

Ten minutes later, I received a call from the store. Arrangements were made for the delivery and installation of the microwave. She stated the delivery would be on a certain day but had the date wrong. I had to argue with her to get the day and date to agree with the 20013 calendar. She obviously was not looking at a calendar.

I talked with a rather manager who grudgingly granted a $50 refund for my problems. I was promised a revised receipt in my email in 10 minutes. This new sales associate gave me a phone number to call her if I didn’t get the receipt.

It never arrived. I called the number the next day. The phone number I was given by the  sales representative, the one I repeated back to her, was not in the store’s telephone system. I went through the call tree options and ended up with another Customer Service (sic) representative who after considerable effort got the Best Buy computer system to finally cough up the fact that the original order was cancelled but there was no addition order, no delivery date, no refund, no anything.

She was kind enough to try to get somebody on the case. About 30 minutes later I got a call back. The White Microwave is scheduled to be delivered and installed next week and there will now be a refund of a little over $80 but they would need the credit card number to complete the transaction.

Why didn’t they ask for the number the day before? Did I really talking to a manager? Or was this just another deceit?

I am not holding my breath that we will get the promised microwave as scheduled. Past experience tells me I would be dead of asphyxiation if I did…

Here are some conclusions about Best Buy; why I will never go back to one ever again, even though ever is a very long time; and why I will tell everybody to shop anywhere except at Best Buy:

1.      Best Buy is understaffed. There was no staff was in the appliance area. We had to search the floor for a sales associate several minutes, finally breaking up a gossip party in the video section.

2.      Best Buy puts sales associates on the floor who are untrained – let alone cross-trained -- and unqualified to sell the store’s products. They do not know what they are selling, the products’ features, benefits, and differences. They do not know how to operate the computerize order taking system. The training is so bad or lacking, they easily order the wrong product and can’t set up delivery properly.

3.      Customer Service (sic) is there to take calls but not to get anything done. It is a façade. The department is there to obfuscate, impede, and frustrate. They consistently lie about what to expect for store managers (like call backs) and give out bogus phone numbers or ignore answering them.

4.      Best Buy doesn’t give a damn about a customer beyond the paper and plastic cards in his/her wallet. This must come down from top management as the stores reflect management’s policies and directives. Management has not figured out that their products and prices are not the only reason to patronize their stores. Customers wish decent service on all levels. They also want respect. They don’t want to be lied to during any part of the process – from initial sale to final installation.

5.      Store management doesn’t give a damn. There is no incentive to solve problems. This entire situation could have been solved quickly with one customer phone call. Instead it is taking 30 days and counting.

6.      The electronic infrastructure within Best Buy is so antiquated it takes over a minute for a representative to display an order number even within a store. Customer Service (sic) computers are not tied together so that agents can see earlier calls and complaints from a customer. It also appears that these computers cannot connect to the Best Buy order computer system as the customer has to continually restate information.

7.      If you do a search of Best Buy Complaints on the Internet you will discover a long list of sites filled with similar horror stories. One site allows comments to entries; these comments usually say the customer is wrong. It appears that Best Buy has a team of people responding to complaints by condemning the original poster.

8.      Best Buy is not Nordstrom. Best Buy clearly forgets that they live and will die by their reputation provided through their customers. Unlike Nordstrom, Best Buy will die when customers go elsewhere, not just to find a better deal, but to be treated honestly and fairly. Best Buy has no idea what real customer service is.  

9.      Clearly, neither Richard Schulze, Best Buy CEO Emeritus, nor Hubert Joly, Best Buy CEO, has ever shopped at a Nordstrom.