IS THE CUSTOMER ALWAYS WRONG?

28 October 2003

Apparently the customer is always wrong.

Today was not a good day.

I started by going back to Weight Watchers. When I left for Australia, I spoke with the woman in charge of membership, told her I would be gone until the end of October. She asked if they should keep my records or send them to Weight Watchers. I said that I would definitely be back, and to keep the records.

Well, when I arrived today, the records were not there. Two years of dieting records gone. I was surprised at how much of a sense of loss I felt at that! But what was the worst was that the woman in charge (not my leader) acted as if it was my fault, and said I would have to pay for the missed meetings. I reminded her again that she and I had discussed this and that I was not going to be where I could attend meetings. I have to admit to being a little hurt that she seemed not to recognized me, when I've talked with her nearly every week for the past two years (and we even share the same name).

She then said that she'd give me the day's meeting free, but I would just have to pay to re-join.

Uh? Excuse me? REjoin??? We finally compromised on my paying for the more expensive plan for one meeting, which was $1 less than the fee to rejoin. But this took most of the meeting time, and I missed most of the meeting.

The only bright spot was the weigh-in lady, who actually seemed sympathetic, remembered that it had all been written clearly on my chart, remembred talkingto me about Australia, and tried to be helpful in catching me up with the brochures for the meetings that I missed (explaining the new plan). (This woman had been there for THREE meetings before I left, as opposed to the original woman who has been there for all of them!)

So I don't know how much I gained since mid-September. I know I gained. But I don't know how much. We're starting at square one and I'll have to go back and see if I can find my first booklet and get an accurate accounting for next week.

After that debacle, I went in to Woodland, the adjacent town, to take my computer in for an upgrade. I had contacted the guy who owns the computer place when I was in Australia and made arrangements for a larger hard drive and better photo card so I could begin to use all this neat graphic stuff that I got from Peggy. I also wanted to increase the RAM. We agreed I'd bring the machine in today and that it should take about 2-1/2 hours to do the upgrade.

Last week I ran into the guy and reminded him that I would be coming in this morning around 9 a.m.

So at 9 a.m., I stopped by, dropped off the computer, but had forgotten to bring my XP update disks, so I left all the instructions of what I wanted done and I went home to get the disks.

When I got back, I asked if I should hang around or would they call me when it was finished.

The receptionist looked shocked and said that they wouldn't be able to get to it until Thursday. She said she'd set me up for a real appointment so that there would be no conflicts. I pointed out that I had set up an appointment weeks ago, from Australia and re-confirmed it last week.

She went to talk with the only tech who was there, who was very unhappy to hear that he'd have to work on my computer today. He was so angry that he refused to make eye contact with me and only grumbled to the receptionist, within my earshot. He was only working half day and he'd do whatever he could, but he made it very plain that this was a huge inconvenience for him.

We compromised on the upgrade time and now it's supposed to be ready tomorrow afternoon.

I went shopping and when I got home there was a call from the computer company. I had requested upgrading to 512K of RAM. This company installed additional ram for me a year ago, which I think I may have bought on eBay. Now they're telling me that my motherboard will only run 256K RAM and it's not even using the additional RAM that they installed a year ago, and 512 is not possible.

I'd make a big deal of this, since it's the same guy who installed the additional RAM originally who is now saying that the computer hasn't even been using it, but I think that he may have snuck the install in while working on Dr. G's computer and didn't really charge me for it, so I won't...but funny that he didn't tell me at the time that I was at maximum RAM already.

So I'm feeling very disgruntled today. My records are lost in the bowels of WeightWatchers Int'l and I feel like a pay slip rather than a person, and my computer is God knows where and will be God knows what like when I get it back.

Then Dr. G had me make a call for him, reminding a company of additional work that he felt was due him. Lemme tell you, by the time I got off the phone, hearing all that had transpired between him and the staff of this company, the more thrilled I was that I no longer work for him. He also has lost my last bill, for work I did before I left, which I told him he could pay me for on my return. I can't run off a duplicate bill for him because, naturally, it's all stored on my computer.