They’re coming to get you.

I’m not the only one who’s noticed the fact that once you’ve graduated from a college, they always seem to know how to find you no matter how many times you move. And they won’t leave you alone. (Neal and I also saw a comic strip about this a few months back right after we’d just received a ton of mail from his former college. Perfect time and good for a nice, long chuckle after some initial irritation.)

I’ve moved four times now since I’ve graduated from my college, and they have always found me. In fact, they found me within a month of moving to Minnesota. Luckily, though, they don’t have my phone number. Yet. Neal’s alma mater has his (now former, since we just got new phones) phone number somehow, even though he hadn’t given it to them (and also tracked down his address within a few weeks of his moving). We received about ten or so unknown calls in a few days’ time. We don’t make it a habit to answer unknown numbers for just this reason: Telemarketers. And, yes, your alma mater calling to request money falls into that category. Egads! Didn’t I give them enough money when I was going there? I’m still paying them off! Anyway, we then received a letter stating that they were sorry they missed us. Could we give them some money? Ummmm…not really. Neal already gave you some money several years back, if you remember. And we’re still paying a portion (albeit much smaller than mine since I put myself through school solely on scholarships and loans and he had a bit of assistance, luckily for our budget) of it off.

I haven’t joined the alumn association or given any information to them for their little booklet for the simple reason that I just. don’t. want. to be contacted. And I’m still in contact with those I roomed with/liked/hung out with/want to be contacted by, and they have all my contact information. Simple, eh?

Not when they have noses like bloodhounds and can find you miles and states away!

*sighs*

Necessary reminders

Friendships are hard to maintain, especially long distance ones, which is why Neal and I were greatly blessed to have my best friend (and the one who married us!) come to visit us this weekend. Our first real visitor in our new home!

Misty is my longest-term friend, going on waaaay too many years now. (Since 8th grade. Almost 14 years…Egads! I’m old!) As all friends, we’ve had our ups and downs, times we didn’t talk and times we talked too much, periods of anger and of elation, sharing and supporting or feeling alone. It’s amazing to see how different we are as people and to wonder (as even the two of us have done) how we have remained friends so long. And then we realize how similar we are at the same time–finishing sentences or saying the same thing at the same time, etc. Then…it’s easier to realize how this friendship has stood the test of time and distance.

We’ve had many people declare their intention to visit (and a few who didn’t even care to do that, to be honest) but few who have actually had the time or inclination to actually do it. I miss my friends and family and even a couple ex-coworkers that I fell into friendship with. I miss talking about random life events, past histories, and exchanging advice based on experience and, sometimes, pain. (That is the kind of wisdom that is hard to ignore.)

When she left, I felt a bit bad that we didn’t do more while she was here. We took her to Gooseberry Falls to share in the frozen beauty they have become (and something I had yet to see myself, not having been there after a freezing time) and just around the canal area so she could see an ore boat come in (something I also just recently got to see myself for the first time). We ate and talked and laughed and just caught up on what has happened (the little details that get lost between the lines in emails and phone calls).

As she was getting in her car, I hugged her and apologized that we didn’t do very much, instead staying up until 4AM Friday night talking and almost (but not quite) as late on Saturday night doing the same thing. She reminded me the greatest thing about good friends: “I didn’t come here to see the sites. I came here to see you,” she reminded me.

I needed the reminder that we were doing exactly what a friend visits for: visiting and just being together. The doing isn’t the point. It’s the being.

And that definitely was the greatest bit of the entire weekend.

Customer satisfaction guaranteed–maybe

Neal and I have had several issues with customer service over the past few years, and when we married, we finally decided to start doing something about it. We are both big on customer service (within reason) and wonder why businesses these days seem to forget that the customer is how they make their money.

We are not the type of customers that we saw (and felt aghast about) at Home Depot a couple months ago when we decided to get our car keys copied for each other. A woman was ranting and raving on the phone to someone and then, when the salesperson she was yelling for just a few minutes prior actually came to help her, she put the salesperson on hold to continue griping about the lack of sales help to the person on the phone. In front of the salesperson. Who was there to help her. Within a few minutes. Then, when the salesperson finally got her to tell her what (in general) was needed, she kept asking the person on the phone what they needed (specifically) and was upset when the salesperson didn’t automatically know what type of replacement battery their cordless drill needed. When the customer refused to even answer what type of drill it was. Or what the battery looked like.

After the salesperson went off to find someone even more knowledgeable (because the customer’s ignorance was transferred onto the salesperson by the customer herself when what she wanted wasn’t known right now), the woman made a couple snide comments to us about sales help these days and “how hard was it to know what kind of battery her drill took?”

Yeah, lady. How hard is it to figure that out? Or maybe find out before you get there. Or, how about this: How hard is it to know what kind of drill you own when you arrive so you can actually get good service?

We’re not like this (and I actually ended up semi-apologizing for the woman when the first salesperson ended up being our cashier) and we try our best to find things ourselves, asking for help when we’re completely lost as to where something might be (such as the windshield washer fluid this summer that we went to pick up at a great price at Menard’s: It was nowhere near the car stuff section nor the other windshield washer fluid. I broke down and asked a salesperson, who directed me to the windshield washing fluid section or the main aisle, where we already knew it was not and had told him so. When I discovered several others wandering looking for the same stuff as well, I decided to ask yet another salesperson, who didn’t know either; however, he did ask someone else who did know and then led us directly to the fluid. At the front of the store. Without any on display and the entire supply boxed up with no identifying characteristics on the cartons.)

After several customer service issues, we decided we were going to be the type of people who actually recounted our customer service experiences back to the stores, restaurants, etc. that we frequented. We first spoke out about awful experiences that we had to a couple restaurants but soon realized that this wasn’t really as helpful to the company as our feedback could be in one main way: We were only reporting negative experiences, which meant that all the great customer service we experienced went unacknowledged.

We started sending feedback for excellent customer service, too. I’m disappointed to note that businesses are more likely to respond back to poor customer service than good service. Almost every business has at least responded with a short note about poor service but only one now has responded when we gave good customer service reviews. I find that a bit worrisome, actually.

This last place that we gave comments about good service to (actually, quite possibly the best service either of us has ever received in a restaurant) let us know that they would give our service provider special recognition, which I truly hope they do. We give the feedback to make service better (or to let them know when they have a “keeper” that they should recognize as a great provider of customer service, thereby giving them a good name in our eyes) and we honestly hope that it will. We are not always optimistic, as we realize that some people give bad feedback in order to receive coupons or free things. (To be completely upfront, we have received one discount coupon for a place we had atrocious service at–when we had to chase down someone to give us our bill after we hadn’t seen our server since she took our order [someone else brought our food]. We still haven’t used the coupon and we’ve had it for a couple months. We’re not sure if the coupon makes up for the extremely bad service and we’re a bit afraid to find out.) I’m afraid that the businesses where we give honest feedback on bad service will just feel that we’re trying to get something for nothing and that the businesses where we give good feedback will just toss it in the trash and not recognize those who are giving customers something so very rare these days:

Quality service.