customer service

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Cake Update Already, Grocery Store Report

Well, you bolstered my spirits SO MUCH after yesterday’s cake talk (please continue to share your cake dreams; it is a delightful distraction) that I felt totally pumped up and ready to make my cake call. I fished out the business card the baker had given me, phone in hand, ready to dial… and noticed that she has a website. 

Listen, I KNEW that she had a website – I’d looked at it before Carla and I went to the event she hosted. My recollection was that the site listed some of the cookies and baked goods she normally offers at the farmer’s market, and that it mentioned cakes on the menu, but that the only thing it said about cakes was that they are custom. 

But I wanted to research as much as possible, without doing SO MUCH research that I would lose my phone call determination, so I quickly visited her site. Turns out I was wrong: she has a page on her site devoted to cakes. Not only did it list the price per cake (THIRTY DOLLARS), it had an ONLINE FORM that I could fill out with all of my details!!! 

You will understand that the clouds parted and the sun shone down on me and the air filled with the gentle chorus of angels singing, “Ahhhh!” in harmonious unison.

I included as much detail as I could (and the form was nice and long), and left my name, phone number, and email address in case I left out critical details, or in case she refuses to work with lemon curd on principle, I don’t know; I will angst about literally anything. And then I paid VIA PAYPAL (the angels’ song crescendos). THIRTY DOLLARS. I thought for sure I was looking at least $75, if not $100-$150. But no. Thirty. Dollars. 

Then, it DID turn out I had left out important information. But I learned this because she emailed me because she is clearly my cake soul mate. (She wanted to know how many people would be eating the cake, if I had a color scheme, and if I wanted any decorations/words.) Then we figured out where to meet to pick it up, and voila! Done! 

I am very pleased. And honestly, even if the cake is so-so, the purchase experience was SUCH a good experience on its own I will definitely patronize her again. 

By the way, I told Carla when I picked her up from school that I’d ordered my birthday cake! Soothed by everyone’s comments, I was completely unfazed by having done it myself: it is not a big deal, and lo, it was not. But Carla did not get the memo. She was AGHAST. “WHY did you do that, Mommy?” she exclaimed. “You’re NOT supposed to do that!” And I said, “If I don’t do it, who will?” “DADDY!” She was further scandalized when I said she and I were going to pick up the cake after school on my birthday. “You can’t LOOK at it, Mommy!” she said, eyes wide. “DON’T LOOK.” 

On to the grocery store report, which I am adding here simply because I like reading other people’s grocery store reports. 

I went this morning, which is not my usual morning. Also, we are expecting around a foot of snow overnight, so people are panicking. (Is that why I went to the grocery store when I’d already stopped there Monday afternoon? PERHAPS.) So either of those variables could be responsible for the store being much more crowded than usual. 

There was an elderly couple who was on the same route that I follow. I swear I have seen them or their couple-twin before, because they are a) darling and b) incapable of standing in a way that does not occupy 75% of the aisle. I am constantly saying “Excuse me!” “Ope! Sorry! Can I squeeze by?” to these people. They also deliberate long and hard about every item they buy. Seriously. I stood beside them in front of the lettuce and they stared at the romaine for what felt like many minutes. I could NOT get away from them. They were even in the cracker aisle, where I had to replenish our Triscuit supply. Carla is very into Triscuits lately. 

Anyway: As usual, our store was fairly well-stocked, although I felt a little… wary, as I made my way around. 

First, there is yet another reorganization of the produce section happening. It seems to me like they have added black trays/bins to the normal shelves, and for all I know, it’s to enhance cleanliness and make washing/removing/refilling the trays quicker and easier. But what it LOOKED LIKE is that they are finding ways to make less produce look as abundant as ever.

And it is still abundant! I had a rainbow of bell peppers to choose from! When I was a kid, we were lucky to find a single wrinkled green pepper at the grocery store in the middle of winter, let alone a pile of not only green peppers but red and orange and yellow ones.

Lettuce was bountiful.

Berries were back in stock, although the berry section was rather small. That’s probably just the time of year, though. Or they are winnowing the blue-, black-, and raspberries to make room for an influx of Valentine’s Day strawberries. 

The banana and onion sections were full. There was NO CELERY, which was worrying for a moment… but when I circled back around to get more mushrooms (I was adding new items to my meal plan as I went; see yesterday’s post for an updated list), the celery had been restocked. 

The cereal aisle had some worrying holes – no Rice Krispies. But I did snag a box of Wheat Chex – not that we need Wheat Chex. My thought process was something like, “If we run out of power and have to dip into pantry food, we can all eat Wheat Chex” which is nonsensical, but the anxious brain has its own sense of inarguable logic.

Pasta was well stocked, except that rigatoni was missing. This is my husband’s preferred pasta shape (I am penne 4 life), so it was notable. I got him some campanelli; he can be soothed occasionally by the ruffles. 

The freezer section still had pancakes, and I just bought pancakes Monday so I walked right past. I know! I am the epitome of restraint! Still no French toast sticks. 

The chicken nugget section was VERY thin. Probably six or seven bags of various breaded chicken options total. Since we just emptied a bag, leaving me with one bag in the freezer, I picked up another bag. Since the pandemic, I have been fully indoctrinated into the Cult of the Backup. As Nicole said the other day, “I always have backups in the pantry of household staple. If the backup comes into use, then I buy another backup. It gives me an enormous amount of comfort to know that if we run out of an item on the main floor, there is a backup in the pantry downstairs.” YES. This is the one true way. Someday I will convert my husband to our movement. What’s not to like? We always have cookies. 

The ground beef section was VERY low. Once again, the prepared foods counter was closed. But it was open when I popped in Monday afternoon – it must simply have shorter hours these days, probably due to staffing issues. 

Lunchables were available. My daughter’s favorite muffins were not, but her second favorite muffins were, so I grabbed some of those. Bread was plentiful. 

The one thing I regret not grabbing was a package of tulips, on sale for $6.99 a bunch. (That’s… a lot. But I have been eyeing the tulips my past few trips, and I think it was running $8.99 before. Two dollars off is a good savings.)

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Banking Bureaucratic BS Rant

If you are up for feeling ranty about something completely inconsequential in The Grand Scheme, please join me for a VERY long and ranty rant. I am Super Peeved right now, so I am putting it all down here and releasing the peevedness into the universe so that it will leave me alone.

Our final payment for our car was due on Tuesday. We exchanged that car for a new car the previous Saturday, meaning that we did not need to make the final payment. But we forgot that our automatic online bill pay system was on top of things, and was ready to make the payment for us.

The instant we realized this – middle of the nightish Monday – we figured out how to stop the payment. I called the bank on Tuesday, first thing, and they stopped the payment. We could see in our account that the money briefly left… and was then returned.

Great. Easy peasy.

Wednesday, we received an email from the car company saying thank you for your payment. Sigh.

I called the bank and explained what happened. Nope, they said. We can see that you stopped the payment. See? Right there? In your account? It was stopped.

Okay, great.

Yesterday: An email from a Third Party Online Bill Pay Service, which pays bills for our bank. They had submitted the payment to the car company, but our bank would not release the money to pay them. Because we had, you know, STOPPED THE PAYMENT. So our online bill pay service is now suspended and we are on the hook for the money that they paid, even though we supposedly stopped the payment. (The bigger of the two issues is the suspended bill pay service. We have four automated bills coming up before the end of the month, and, okay, I guess if the solution is “just write four checks” it’s not THAT big of a deal. But it is ANNOYING.)

(I have not yet called the car company, to see if they can simply RETURN THE MONEY for the car we no longer own.)

I called the Third Party Service. I sat on hold for 17 minutes (yes I am counting because I am PEEVED) before someone answered. She was polite but not friendly. I explained my issue to her. She needed my social security number and email address and birth date and verified that she could not see any issues.

But… I got this email, I told her. An email that says our service has been suspended.

Nope. She can’t see that there is any issue with my bill pay service.

But… this email.

We went round and round for a bit. Finally, I asked her if the fact that the email went to my husband’s email address was significant. Aha. Yes. Apparently, even though the money with which we pay our bills comes from a joint account, my husband is the one who set up the bill paying system under his name and social security number. Therefore, I cannot make any sort of decisions for the online bill paying system. My husband needs to be the one who calls.

Sigh.

Me: Okay, what are your hours?

Third Party: 8:00 to 5:00. In fact, we are closed right now. [What? Why did they answer then?] [Also, it was past six, so they must have been operating out of a different time zone, which is kind of a relevant detail.]

Me: Well… My husband is not available during those hours. So what kind of information can I get you that would allow me to talk to someone about this issue?

Third Party: Sorry. Only your husband.

Me: But he isn’t available.

Third Party: He doesn’t have to “be available.” All he has to do is get on the phone at the same time, WITH YOU, and confirm that you can handle this without him. [I am paraphrasing.]

Me: I’m so sorry, I must not be being clear. My husband is at work during the hours you mentioned. He cannot make a phone call during that time.

Third Party: He doesn’t have to MAKE A PHONE CALL. He simply needs to be ON THE PHONE while you are on the phone so he can authorize you to take over.

At this point, my frustration boiled over. My voice got high pitched and shaky. I was near tears. I told her how I knew it wasn’t her fault, but I was really frustrated, we had stopped the payment in advance, this shouldn’t be an issue, and we have a JOINT ACCOUNT FOR PETE’S SAKE, I have as much say over the disbursal of the money in that account as he does, so WHY can’t I talk to someone about fixing this problem?

She repeated a) that they are now closed and b) that he doesn’t have to be AVAILABLE, he just has to be on the phone with me long enough to give them permission to talk to me.

So I thanked her, hung up, wrote a bunch of all-caps texts to my husband (who, at 6:37 pm was STILL AT WORK because that is how things are for some people, in fact, for LOTS OF PEOPLE, this can’t be the first time a human has needed to conduct routine business during non-business hours?!?!?!?!), and called the bank.

My thinking is: I called the bank on Tuesday and stopped the payment. Whatever happened next is THE BANK’S FAULT and they should fix it.

My call with the bank started well. The customer service rep was very friendly and nice.

I confirmed with him that we had stopped the payment. Yes, we had. Then I told him my whole sob story, including that Third Party wouldn’t let me untangle the mess and I hoped that he, Bank Guy, would be able to fix it, considering that it was something that happened AFTER I called the bank to stop this payment.

He was totally going to help me. He first did some sort of poking around in the background and then explained to me that only my husband had enrolled in the online bill pay service, which was therefore tied to his social security number. I was not enrolled in online bill pay at all, he informed me. So for obvious security purposes, Third Party couldn’t deal with someone who wasn’t my husband. He said it had nothing to do with our having a joint account. I found this information useful and thanked him.

Then he started… talking around the situation. Saying things like, “And they were saying that they needed to talk to your husband because it’s his information, and then he could easily tell them that it’s okay for you to handle the rest of the conversation.” And, “It’s totally frustrating that things like this happen, ma’am.” And, “You did everything right on your end and it seems like things got a little mixed up.” You know, being really empathetic and showing that he understood the situation. 

Finally, I figured out that he was no longer just trying to be nice. What he was saying was, HE couldn’t help me. (I literally had to ask him, “Are you saying that you cannot help me reinstate my suspended account?”) I still had to deal with Third Party. Which meant that I still had to somehow get my husband on the phone between 8:00 and 5:00. 

I lost it a little. Not angry – just, you know, high pitched voice, shaky, sweating, near tears. Delightful. And I told Bank Guy that my husband CANNOT MAKE THAT WORK. He is NOT AVAILABLE. And I also said, “I did the right thing, right? What happened after I stopped the payment? Why did it not actually STOP?” And he gave me some B.S. answer about how the Third Party system must have gotten confused. I tried to say, Well, since I STOPPED THE PAYMENT, then I think it is up to the bank and the Third Party Bill Paying Service to work it out.

That is when his tone shifted. Nice, patient, empathetic Bank Guy was done with me. He started speaking very slowly and loudly.

“Just to clarify, your husband doesn’t actually have to be on the phone,” he said over and over. (Which, what? YES HE DOES, that is exactly what you are saying.) “He can be on a three-way call with you, and tell Third Party, ‘you can talk to my wife.’” 

“He isn’t available during the hours they are open,” I said.

“I’m QUITE SURE HE GETS A LUNCH BREAK, MA’AM,” the guy said, very slowly and loudly.

At that point, I took a very deep breath, thanked him, and said goodbye. 

Listen. I am not saying that my husband deserves special treatment. He does not! But I AM SAYING that there are probably LOTS OF PEOPLE who are not available between those very specific hours, and that it is ridiculous that they cannot talk to me and YES I KNOW SECURITY CONCERNS BLAH BLAH BLAH I AM JUST MAD, OKAY? 

And I am not exaggerating about his availability! My husband has seventeen patients tomorrow. If he gets to eat lunch on any given day, and that is never certain because he is almost always running late, he scarfs it down between phone calls to patients, or while he is reviewing pathology reports, or while he is writing his patient notes and recommendations. Sometimes in a day he does not get to use the bathroom. He typically leaves the house at sixish and comes home around eightish. This is just how it is.

But, just to realllllly address the skepticism, let’s say he HAS a free five minutes. Is there a guarantee that we will get through to a customer service person in that small timeframe? NO. And do you REALLY think that they are going to let him bark, “Talk to my wife” into the phone and leave? NO. He will have to do all sorts of identification verification stuff before they let him go. So even if he could find a few minutes during his LUNCH BREAK – OMG I am apoplectic about that phrase for some reason – it’s not necessarily going to be enough time. 

PLUS – PLUS!!!! – there should be a SOLUTION other than “just make a three-way call.” What if he were out of the country? What if he were sequestered in jury duty? What if he were dead? (God forbid.) (I am being hyperbolic because I am PEEVED.)

I guess the moral of the story is that I need to be automatically ON EVERYTHING. But man is that frustrating! 

And also! Can we all agree that this is, in fact, THE FAULT OF THE BANK? That THE BANK should be working with the Third Party Bill Paying Service to figure out how to get them their money back? Because I STOPPED THE PAYMENT. I even called back the next day and confirmed it! And they verified it by looking at my account! 

I want THE BANK to call Third Party between the hours of 8:00 and 5:00 and DEAL WITH THIS. 

Man. This is why middle-aged white women get a bad rap, right? I am so worked up about this that I want to go nuclear. I want to call the bank and talk to A Manager. I want to immediately and forevermore remove all our money – checking and savings and money market account – from this bank to another bank. Maybe I am being entitled and unreasonable. But right now, my vision is so clouded by how INFURIATING this all is, that I can’t see that. 

My next call, as soon as they open, will be the car company which apparently got our STOPPED payment. Perhaps they can return it to the Third Party and everything will go away. 

Now I need to go take some calming breaths so I can talk to the car company without shrieking.

Edit: Now I have called the car company. The customer service person asked if my husband had authorized me to handle this — eternal screaming — and I said yes, and he said fine. Then he submitted my “request” to, you know, not accept money that we do not in fact owe them, to a “team” for “review” and told me that it should take 3-5 business days for us to get our check. He was by FAR the nicest customer service person I dealt with this entire time, but I could tell he was a little suspicious of my motives, even after I explained why I was so anxious to get the payment back.

Now I am going to go clean the bathrooms. There’s nothing like a little righteous anger for making it Very Satisfying to scrub toilets and shower pans.

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One Bad, One Good

Two short anecdotes for your weekend reading pleasure enjoyment amusement eye-rollment hate read whatever.

One Bad: When the family was here, we all went out to dinner one of the nights. Our reservation was at 6:30. The rest of the family arrived before me – Carla and I had trouble finding a parking spot – but we got to the restaurant at 6:30 on the dot. (I had told everyone else that the reservation was for 6:15 because I am mean.) We walked in and there was a man and his child in front of us. The hostess grabbed some menus and escorted them to a table. Carla and I waited for the hostess to return.

The door opened and a woman rolled in. You know the type. I am not going to describe her, because every descriptor makes it seem like I think everyone with [descriptor] is an ass, when that it just not true. She power-walked right past me to the hostess table. I edged closer, because I was there first, and she had a kind of bulldozery aura about her. She looked at me, “Is anyone here?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, pleasantly, glad that she’d acknowledged my presence. “The hostess just took someone else to his seat.”

The hostess returned. We had been waiting for maybe a minute at the most. The hostess smiled at us, trying to work out who to speak to first, and the other woman leaned onto the hostess table and said her last name and the number of people in her party.

“Excuse me,” I said, more tightly this time, but still aiming for pleasant, “we were here first.”

Instead of saying, “Oh, whoops, sorry” or “Oh, man, I thought for some reason you WORKED here, even though you are wearing a coat and are accompanied by a young child!” or “I completely forgot my manners! What was I thinking?” she gave me a superior little scoff and said, “Well, I have a 6:15 reservation.”

“I have a reservation too,” I said. I was firm. “And I was here first. You can wait your turn.”

At this, she put her hands up defensively, pasted a Deeply Surprised But Also Bitchy Look on her face, and said, “Well, I’m not going to argue with you.”

The hostess, clearly relieved this little exchange had not escalated further, escorted me and Carla to the table where our family was already sitting.

Fin.

Except… NOT fin, because… WHAT? I am still bewildered by the whole interaction. And flustered, because I absolutely hate confrontation. And really, would it have mattered if we had allowed her to go first? No, it would not have mattered. Maybe the gracious thing to do would have been to let her manhandle her way into being seated first. But she was so BRASH about pushing in front of us! And so… unapologetic about it! There was NO WAY she didn’t know that we were in line before her. Absolutely zero. And then she acted like I was being ridiculous or argumentative for asserting that I was there before her? What the what?!? We are living in a SOCIETY!

I am trying to teach Carla grace and patience and forgiveness, of course, but I am also trying to teach her to be aware of other people and to take turns and to stand up for herself… and I guess I chose the latter options to model for her in that moment.

The second worst part – after having to get into any sort of confrontation at all – is that it felt/feels like such a big deal. My heart was pounding. I felt like I was being ridiculous – justified, but still, like I was engaged in a playground argument of the first grade maturity level. (“It was MY turn on the swing.” “Nuh UH, I was here first!” “Nuh UH, I was!”) I felt like my voice got overloud and squeaky and my indignant meter had been ratcheted up way too high.

Why can’t I be easy-breezy during a confrontation? Why couldn’t I have smiled pleasantly and said smoothly and cheerily, “Oh, you know, we were here first!” and then just not engaged her anymore? Why, instead, am I still feeling vexed and embarrassed a week later?

Side note: She said that she had a 6:15 reservation and we were definitely there at 6:30. So she was LATE. Which does not give her any excuse to line hop. But it makes me extra irritated. Lateness on your part does not constitute submission to your will on my part.

One Good: Remember when I was complaining about Target the other day, and how I had to drive all the way back to the store and wait for some security person to review my transaction just so I could get a refund for an item I did not buy?

(Brief detour which will have you further wondering why this falls under the “one good” heading: Remember how in the same post I also mentioned that Target is always making errors in what they charge you? Well, I went to Target this week and bought Home Alone 2: Lost in New York PURELY because it was on sale for $6. And then it rang up for $9.99. Fortunately, I caught the error. But SHEESH, Target. GET IT TOGETHER.) (Also, when the cashier keyed in the adjusted price, she had to choose an option on her computer screen to, presumably, explain the reason for the adjustment. I didn’t see all the options, but the one she picked was something like “customer disputed price.” Well, yes, I disputed the price. Because it was incorrect. Why is there no option for “item scanned at a price that was different from what was listed on the display,” huh, Target?)

Home alone 2.jpg

Why this is the only point in this ridiculous post I am choosing to illustrate with a photograph is beyond my powers of understanding. Also, why didn’t I buy ELF as well?

Anyway, I went to Whole Foods to pick up my Thanksgiving turkey. While there, I also added a few other things to my cart, and when I checked out, the amount that the cashier told me I owed seemed… like a lot. But I was in a hurry and I was really fretting about how I was going to brine my turkey by myself and, after all, the turkey was expensive and Whole Foods in general is expensive (and I don’t normally shop there, so I’m not really familiar with HOW expensive) so I figured the total was probably right and I had just underestimated the total of what I was buying.

I should have looked more closely at the receipt right then, but I didn’t. Instead, I drove home, unloaded my bags, and then looked at the receipt. Which is when I discovered that they had double charged me for my turkey. My enormous $44 turkey.

Listen, please forgive me when I tell you that I overlooked an extra $44 being added to my receipt. It is one of my key failings as a human, that a) I have no idea what things cost and b) being in a store suddenly renders me incapable of doing simple math and c) I get flustered easily and don’t take the extra twenty seconds in the store to just make sure I haven’t been overcharged. It drives my husband CRAZY, believe me, and if I knew how to fix it (budget in advance! or at least have some idea of what it will cost to buy the things you are buying! or for the love of peanut butter just take the extra twenty seconds to check the receipt! yes, you are right!) I would do it, but it seems to be a part of my brain that doesn’t work.

(By the way, I recognize the immense privilege glaring through the above entire paragraph – please know that I do.)

ANYWAY, I was so upset with myself. This was not a charge I could overlook. And if I would drive back to Target to reverse a $12.99 charge, then I was DEFINITELY going to drive back to Whole Foods to reverse a $44 one. But I didn’t have time. (I didn’t know, then, that our Thanksgiving would be moved back by an entire day and that I, in fact, had a whole extra day’s worth of time.) I had to brine the turkey and wash potatoes and chop herbs and finish cleaning the guest room and and and.

So I called the Whole Foods and told them about my problem… and they simply LOOKED UP MY RECEIPT and refunded my extra turkey charge immediately.

It took five minutes. Which includes the time I spent berating myself for having to make an unscheduled additional 45-minute roundtrip drive to and from Whole Foods. I did not have to leave my house. No one in security had to review footage of me not buying two turkeys. I got my money back. It was marvelous.

The end.