We'll Get There Eventually

Local Sale Ads and Their Corporations

2011-10-25T21:01:00.000-07:00

These are some local sale ads to which I have added labels to show most, though not all, of the corporations that control our food (or at least the food that is heavily advertised and pushed at us). Some notable missing areas: meat and veg. It is nearly impossible to know where your produce and meats are from in a standard supermarket, especially from the sale ads. Supermarkets tend to be open 24/7, but the butchers and produce managers who might be able to answer some questions, obviously, do not.

Swanson's Ad - Page 1

Swanson's Ad - Page 2

Swanson's Ad - Page 3

Swanson's Ad - Page 4

I was struck by the realisation that the absolute worst place to shop in this area if you're trying to avoid faceless corporation-controlled foods is the most "local" store: Swanson's. This is a chain of 3 family owned grocery stores in the Aberdeen/Hoquiam area. They do have a variety of locally made foods in the store (not advertised except the brownies on page 2), but the only ones worth your time are the freshly-made tortillas or tortilla chips in the little in-store tortilleria.

Safeway Insert - Page 1

Safeway Insert - Page 2

Safeway Insert - Page 3

Safeway Ad - Page 1

Safeway Ad - Page 2

Safeway Ad - Page 3

Safeway Ad - Page 4

One of the hardest things to identify in source was wine. I don't know if this means that most wine is produced by small-scale wineries and not owned or controlled by a corporation at all, or if it's just more opaque. I find it hard to believe that big-name, heavily-advertised wines like Yellow Tail or Layer Cake are not owned by some conglomerate or other.

Top Foods - Page 1

Top Foods Ad - Page 2 - Sorry about the scanning error

Top Foods Ad - Page 3

Top Foods Ad - Page 4

Top Foods Insert - Page 1

Top Foods Insert - Page 2

This local Top Foods sale ad is the same for the Aberdeen store as the Olympia store, but if you've ever been to both you'll know how vast the differences. When the Aberdeen store stopped being open 24/7 the quality of everything went swiftly downhill. I think the company just doesn't care about this small store anymore. I know some of the employees were saying they might have to try to find a second job just to make up the hours they were going to lose (by not being open 24/7), but I think they must have cut more than just their hours; everyone in that store seems to HATE their job, and it shows in the treatment of the store and the customers. The Olympia store, on the other hand, is blissful. Always. It's beautiful, well-lit, friendly, well-stocked, I LOVE the Olympia Top Foods.
...
But I love Trader Joe's more.

P.S. - The Food Day presentation went really well!

P.P.S. - In case it actually needs to be said; all trademarks and whatever are the properties of their respective blahblahblah I don't own any of this. Nor did I ask anyone's permission but they do distribute the sale ads publicly, if that matters.

BLOG ACTION DAY

2011-10-15T20:27:00.000-07:00

Actually, I'm doing a much bigger project for Food Day (24th Oct 2011) and I'm building up a good post for that. It's going to be a presentation to 2 classes at Grays Harbor College. We're showing Forks Over Knives (I hope that link works, it's to the Netflix page since the movie is available on Instant) and I'm doing a lecture on knowing where your food comes from, tailored to the local area.

In particular there is a farmers market and "local" butcher that regular features factory-farm pork from Iowa (we're in WA state), mangoes from god-knows-where, etc. They do have some local produce and products, but they give the impression that everything in the market is local/organic/fresh/good for you/whatever and it really isn't. I've also got a feature of the lecture that I will try to post here when it's all done: Three local grocery circulars with added labels of every corporate parent company of everything on sale. It really opens your eyes to see just how much (say, 95%) is completely corporate-sponsored and mostly by Kraft.

Happy Blog Action Day! See you soon with more info!

This is my latest attempt to get them to understand the problem.

2011-08-24T18:15:00.000-07:00

If they're going to behave like morons, I'm going to treat them like morons. Here is the entire email I most recently sent to MyPoints. Stay tuned to see if they write back.
-Click pics to see full size-

OK, we'll try this another way. Since I can't seem to find any of your customer "service" agents who will READ my emails and respond accordingly, let's try big, easy to understand PICTURES.

1. I go to the Local Deals section of the MyPoints.com website. I am already logged in.

2. Click GO on the zip code box. Notice above that the zip code had ALREADY been filled in, yet was DIFFERENT than what was showing. So where does it go now?

3. Click Save as Default Location. As I hope you've gathered if you're following along. I have already done this numerous times. That's why it was already filled in when I got there. But it was STILL not showing up on the map or the displayed Deals.

4. Sign Out. Lets just try this all again and SEE if it "saved my location", shall we?

5. I've signed back in and gone back to the Local Deals page. What shall I find there? Will it have actually saved my location this time??

6. SPOILER ALERT! It didn't. AGAIN.

Just to fill you in on some more details:

And this:

And in case we don't remember the crux of the problem: this is where the Local Deals EMAIL sends me:

Can we SEE the problem now? Is this reaching ANYONE???

Just FYI, because of the TERRIBLE customer service I've encountered so far, I've gone ahead and posted the details of this entire debacle and your amateurish handling of it to Facebook, Twitter, Tell 1000, Ripoff Report, Planet Feedback, my personal blog, my best friend's blog, and Interaction Metrics, which tracks bad customer service.

Good luck.

-Gem

MyPoints member for 13 years.

MyPoints Customer Service is Awful

2011-08-22T01:00:00.000-07:00

(This is the text of my Ripoff Report regarding MyPoints.com. I also sent this to Tell1000.)

I have been a member of the MyPoints.com website for 13 years, as of September 2011. There is a section of the MyPoints website where you can get local deals, powered by Groupon, and earn points for each Groupon deal you partake in. There is also a daily email associated with this feature.

On Groupon's site, independent of MyPoints, I have entered the zip code where I would like my deals based and they remember that as part of my account. It's a very simple concept that most of the internet has figured out. However, on the MyPoints Local Deals site ("powered by Groupon") everything location-based is broken. The first thing I see is a map of an area that is rather close to where I live, but not within my actual zip code. There is a box to the left where you can enter a different zip code and a "Save this as my default location" button. Since I have previously tried to customise this site I see in the zip code box my preferred zip code: not where I live but also not what the map displays. No matter how many times I click the "Save location" button, the page will always revert to that other, strange location when reloaded. This really random location is literally neither here (where I live and the zip code registered with MyPoints) nor there (the zip code I have entered repeatedly in the zip code box). It's also not where my IP address indicates that I am, and it stays on this mystery location even when I've tried it from a friend's house.

I have considered that it might be a problem with my chosen browser and have tried every other major browser on the market; the page remains the same.

The second and related issue lies with the emails, sent daily, alerting me to deals in "my area". So far we have 3 locations in play; 1. my actual home zip code, 2. the zip code where I usually shop and would like deals in, and 3. this strange nearly-there area that comes up automatically on their site. The emails add a FOURTH location: Victoria, BC (Canada).

From my use of the term "zip code" I will hope you have gathered that I am based in the US. Not Canada. Don't get me wrong, Victoria is lovely, but I'm not going to travel to another country to take a yoga class. Also, Canadian post codes are nothing like US zip codes. Not even close. US zip codes are 5-digit numbers. Canadian post codes are 6-character alphanumeric codes. So this isn't a matter of a simple typo.

Now, the real problem: We've all made mistakes in the past, and sometimes websites can go a little haywire. That's all OK, but it needs to be fixed. So I emailed customer service. Thus began weeks of emailing back and forth with a bevy of random, untrained, unhelpful customer "service" agents who clearly did not read the emails I sent, only scanned them for keywords and sent back a generic reply. Typically the same thing listed in the FAQ on the main site.

I have 11 emails displaying the most insultingly unhelpful and incompetent customer service representatives I have ever encountered.

The first emails started off with the suggestion to change the zip code in the previously-mentioned "save my location" box. I can understand that they probably get a lot of emails where people haven't read the instructions and where this might be helpful, but (as I had already indicated to them) this had already been done. One of the subsequent emails apologised for a discrepancy in price from something called "Brad's Deals"; I replied that I had never heard of "Brad's Deals" nor had I mentioned them, or prices at all, in my query. The only issue I might have with any prices is that they are in Canadian dollars!

I restated my question in simpler terms.

They told me to delete my cookies.

How they might have thought this would affect an email that they are sending me, I really cannot fathom. I tried it anyway, just to be sure (I have already stated that I tried to solve the website-only problem by using other browsers, which didn't help, so this is especially useless).

I'll leave it at that as the emails basically repeated this pattern for days and days. I eventually gave up and, in a fit of pique, called them morons...

…which I wholeheartedly stand by.

MyPoints Customer Service is Incompetent

2011-08-22T00:58:00.000-07:00

(This is what I sent to Interaction Metrics regarding MyPoints.)

I contacted customer support via email to address an error on both their Local Deals page and the corresponding Local Deals daily emails. The customer service agents clearly never actually read my complaint, they simply scanned for keywords and replied with a generic message that was completely unhelpful. I replied back to give further information and again got a cookie-cutter "we didn't read your email and we don't care" response. This went on for weeks. I included every previous email to and from in every reply I sent, in the hopes that SOMEONE would read and understand. No one ever did and the problem remains.

MyPoints Customer Service is Inept

2011-08-22T00:56:00.000-07:00

(This is what I wrote to MyPoints themselves [aside from the mentioned emails] via PlanetFeedback)

Incompetent Customer Service and Unresolved Site/Email Errors

There is an error with both the Local Deals section of your website and the associated daily Groupon-linked emails.

When I go to Groupon independently, they know not only where I am located but also the (different) area for which I would like to receive deals. They know this because I told them. I have been a member of MyPoints for 13 years (this September), so YOU know where I am, because I have told you. Yet when I go to the Local Deals page it returns some very strange map that seems near-ish to my zip code, but definitely NOT where I live. And I have previously entered a different zip code to indicate where the deals should be located (and I have repeatedly clicked the "save location" button) to no avail. The page displays the desired zip code in the zip code box, but the map shows a strange area that is neither here nor there, literally.

And as for the emails that are supposedly based on this information: they are all for deals in Victoria, BC. Canada. So that adds a THIRD incorrect location.

I don't live in Canada. I have never said I lived in Canada, let alone Victoria (though it's a lovely place). This is a problem (as I hope you can imagine) because it would be asinine to buy a "deal" in another country. I'm not travelling across the border just to take a yoga class.

I tried a bit to fix the problem myself and I tested the site on many different computers and browsers. It's not on my end. So I contacted your customer service department with the details of the case.

I was less than pleased with their responses, which clearly indicated that they were not reading the entire email but probably scanning for key words and issuing a cookie-cutter generic reply. I tried again and again to explain the actual problem in very clear language, but every subsequent email from your agents was less useful than the last. I also included every single email of mine and theirs in the hopes that ONE of the service representatives would read the whole correspondence and understand the issues. This never happened. The last email I received from your agents was the final straw; it repeated the same instructions on the main Local Deals page for setting a location. In case you've skipped ahead, let me remind you that I had detailed in EVERY email that this was not the issue and would not solve the problem.

I would still like the original issues of the incorrect locations in the emails as well as on the Local Deals page to be solved. I would also like to impress upon you how poorly trained and incompetent your customer service agents are. I want you to retrain or rehire your customer service staff so that they are more helpful than a FAQ page. This is why people contact customer service; because the Frequently Asked Questions page did not answer their question. I am extremely fed up with this and will cancel my membership if these problems are not resolved.

This is not the first time I have had to contact your customer service reps and every other time has been an unpleasant and unhelpful experience.

Blog Action Day: Water (Toilets!)

2010-10-15T21:17:00.000-07:00

Warning people! We're talking about toilets here!
I have an old house (1923) which only has one bathroom and in this old bathroom there is an old toilet. This toilet lived a good life and served many families very well, but it was starting to leak and show its age. Time for a new toilet.

I called a few local plumbers to see what they suggested and how much it would cost. I could get a new toilet for as little as $200 installed, but that would be a generic, very low quality model. I could choose a higher quality model, of course. I could go to Home Depot and buy whatever toilet I wanted and (the internet assured me) install it myself. Because of the age of the bathroom and toilet and because I wanted someone else to be responsible if anything went wrong, I definitely wanted a professional to do all the dirty work. And I knew it was going to have to be a low flow. *cue dramatic music*

Low Flow. In the '90s this term came to represent the evils of government-mandated conservation. I'm sure it set the environmental and water conservation movements back at least a decade: The early low flow toilets were awful; you usually had to flush a couple of times at least before the bowl would clear, which completely negates the water savings. It was embarrassing and frustrating. There was even an episode of King of the Hill about the horror of low flow toilets. I understand they've been improved, but it emphasized that I needed to do some more research. I have only the one toilet in the house, and it's very important that it work efficiently and comfortably.

SIDE NOTE: For some strange reason, it seemed like every plumber I called was pushing toilets with "elongated" bowls and "comfort height". I discovered this is the kind of toilet I have encountered in many public washrooms that is so tall I feel like Goldilocks on papa bear's chair. No thank you. Now, these plumbers don't know I'm only 5'2", but why would they all be universally pushing toilets for very tall people? But I digress....

In my current Googling, and many years previously, I kept coming across these toilets called "Dual Flush". Apparently they're very popular in parts of Europe and the UK, and they're de rigueur in Australia. They were invented in Australia in the '80s. They use two buttons on the top of the toilet instead of a lever. One button releases .8 gallons for liquid waste and the other button gives you 1.6 liters for -ahem- bigger messes. Rather than one static amount of water that's enough to dispose of solid waste even when you only need the amount required to remove liquid waste, you are given a lesser-amount choice, thereby saving water!

I mentioned this to a couple of the plumbers and they all said the same thing: "Oh! But they're SO MUCH more expensive! That's gonna cost a bundle!"
WRONG AGAIN, plumbers! (Did they think I wanted one imported from Sydney?? We have them here, too!)
The average price I was quoted for a good quality toilet, including installation was around $550. I was able to find a cheap dual flush toilet at Home Depot for somewhere around $250. I called the one plumber I had decided upon and gave him these numbers. He said he needed to do some research himself, and he'd call me back. When he called me back, he told me that the toilet I found was of very poor quality... *mm hmm*
BUT
He liked this new-fangled dual flush idea and his supplier found him a quality dual flush for only a little more than the toilet he originally recommended to me (that one with "comfort height" that would leave my feet dangling and the "elongated" bowl that makes me feel like I'm balancing on two parallel poles). In the end he said he'd install the one I wanted: the Gerber dual flush, standard height, round bowl toilet for the original price he quoted me for the bad toilet. Success! And hopefully he will pass on this new information to other clients. Spread the word!

Epilogue: I have a great dual flush toilet that has lowered my water bill by about $20 a month! You don't have to spend a mint or compromise your standards to make the switch to energy- or water-efficient appliances.

P.S. - If you're not in the market for a whole new toilet, you can buy conversion kits for around $30! Try here. (I have never tested a conversion kit, nor do I know anyone who has, so caveat emptor.)

2010-09-30T22:30:00.000-07:00

Change.org|Start Petition

Netbook RIP 27 Nov 2009 - 12 Feb 2010

2010-02-21T14:06:00.000-08:00

Apparently my netbook reads this blog. And wasn't too happy about me going on and on about my new DROID phone. On Friday the 12th, as I was carrying it to find a better WiFi signal it HURLED itself out of my arms and onto the hard wooden corner of a chair.
It was touch-and-go for a while; he was displaying nothing but a terrible error message. Then one day, he never woke up. He wasn't even three months old!! :_(

I called the company and (predictably) dropping isn't covered (it took 45 minutes to find that out, not counting the 3 times their phone tree HUNG UP ON ME!) though they were perfectly willing to fix him... for $398!! (Not including postage.) I only paid $170 (after-Thanksgiving sale). I did find out that I can have him fixed for "free" by buying the Accidental Coverage plan for $119. Which is less than buying a new one, so I guess that's what I'll have to do.

Despite my excitement over my new phone, it really isn't a replacement for a netbook or notebook. As I'm finding out in spades.

*sigh*

P.S. - I downloaded the full manual (not included) for the netbook and took him all apart to see if I could locate a(n easily fixable) problem... no dice. Not a scratch, not a bump, not a solder out of place. So it's a bloody mystery.

DROID Phone Is MAGIC!

2010-02-08T08:52:00.000-08:00

I really don't know what I'm doing with this blog. But since nobody reads it (except spambots) I guess that's OK.

I just got the new DROID phone and I have to say: I have never been so impressed with a gadget in all my 32 years. This is the coolest thing I own. It's the bloody future!! Could you even imagine 10, 15, 20 years ago that a tiny mobile phone could do almost anything like what the most basic cell phones can do today?

This phone has the most impressive, clear, bright, high-res screen I have ever seen. It makes me want to watch movies on my phone, even though I have a nice big HDTV. It really has to be seen to be believed.

I've downloaded possibly hundreds of apps (I haven't kept all of them, but most) without spending any money, since there are so many free apps. I love Google's system of open source for the apps, and the fact that they don't reject any; the people will sort out the bad apps via the ratings. So far I've only had an actual problem with one app (others I uninstalled just because I didn't need or really want it) and the developers were really responsive and are working to fix the problem. How great is that?!

Some reviews I've read complained about the physical keyboard, mostly saying it was poorly laid out or unresponsive. I guess if you're typing on it extensively, or texting quite a lot, that would be a problem, but I don't have any problems with it. I think it's a lot better than the on-screen keyboard on my old Omnia (which I loved). And the on-screen (Android) keyboard is really quite impressively responsive and accurate.
Other complaints were that there is no physical end button for when you want to end a call, and that's true BUT: This phone is so clever! It knows when the phone is against your face and it turns the screen off, then detects when you take it away from your face and it instantly brings the screen back with a giant red end button. So I don't see the problem. The Droid phone really is good at detecting light levels and position with regards to the screen backlight. And even the backlit physical keyboard. It knows when I turn the hall light off while still typing! HA!

From this post you may have gathered that this is kinda my first foray into the world of new and advanced devices. I've been in the tech industry for 15-or-so years, but I've never really had the money to buy all the latest gadgets for myself. I typically only get to play with them for a while when I set them up for my clients. But this year (fiscal) I've bought a brand new super-fast, top-of-the-line computer (desktop), a cute, little netbook (which hasn't even been turned on since I got this amazing phone), and this amazing phone. I feel so up to date!

I can't even think of anything else to say about this phone, only because every little bitty thing about it just blows my mind.
Oh.
I will say that haters might be right about the weak battery life. But for my uses I'm rarely far from a charger, either the car charger, the dock (GENIUS!!), the computer cable, or the simple wall charger. Also, it seems that every time I check what, specifically, is eating up battery life, it almost always says that the display is taking up about 70-75%. But the display is so gorgeous, it's worth it. I could probably save a bit of battery life by manually adjusting the backlight, but it does such a good job of adjusting on its own (with looks, not performance, as the focus) that I'll just stay near a charger. And at least this phone doesn't yell at me when it's fully charged like the Omnia did. I can keep this plugged in or docked all night, all day, whatever, and it's perfectly OK with that.

And my very, very favourite feature of this incredible phone: I don't have to sit there and wait a full minute for the screen to time out just so I can put it back in my bag without my lipstick deciding to call Antarctica. The Omnia's touch screen could be touched by anything, and until the screen went dark objects in my purse would bump against the screen and start activating things. It was highly annoying. Now, not only does the screen not care about being felt up by my wallet, but I can turn the screen off with a simple button-push, without turning the whole phone off. BRILLIANT!!

You know you live in a small town when a building on fire passes as the social event of the season.

2009-10-28T23:33:00.000-07:00

My mum and I were watching the local (Seattle) news when a report came in ("Breaking News!") that a building in downtown *where I live* was on fire. They had no other information except the address and said they were sending a van down, but it takes 2.5 hours to get from there to here, so we knew it would be a while for any update. We had to run to the grocery store which is very close to the fire's location, so we thought we'd just take a peek while we were there. Apparently, so did everyone else in the town.
Seriously, at 7PM-ish on a Tuesday night there was a traffic jam in *this town*. There hasn't been a traffic jam here in 100 years.
I got the groceries we needed, then discarded any pretences and drove closer to get a good look. There were so many cars and pedestrians (people were taking their children closer so they could see) that we had to drive around for a while. We parked at the library and walked down the street to find half the town standing around behind the police tape, filming with their phones and cameras, chatting, and generally having a time as good as you can have when there's a building on fire and it's bloody cold outside.

I will say (in case you're judging harshly) the building was a furniture store's warehouse; no one lived there, no one was inside at the time, and there are no adjoining buildings that would be in danger. Also, the building was very old and rickety, and could probably benefit from burning down. They have good insurance and other locations and the business itself will be fine.

We saw quite a few people that we hadn't seen in a while and chatted with them and with strangers. The coffee and ice cream shops down the block were probably busier than they've been since they opened. I noted as we walked toward the crowd that this seemed to be a bigger turnout than any of the summer events and fairs that we had here a few months ago.
To give some perspective; in Seattle (in Greenwood) there was a 3-alarm fire (the one here was called a "multiple-alarm", whatever that means) that was covered fairly heavily by the local news stations and even then, I only saw people related to the businesses in attendance. They have better things to do in the city.

I wish we did.

It's Blog Action Day!

2009-10-15T01:34:00.000-07:00

This year's topic for Blog Action Day is Climate Change.

Personally, I can certainly attest to the CHANGES in the climate! This summer, in particular, was absolutely unbearable. If I'd been able to drive I would have tried to get to one of those cooling centres they have for pensioners. What I did instead was confiscate my mother's boyfriend's window-mounted air conditioning unit, put it in my library (which is the coolest room in my house) and moved in. I lived in the library for 4 months.

One thing that intrigued and angered me: I read in The Morning News' newsletter, the part with "What does this map represent?" It's (obviously, since I linked to the file from the article) a map of participation in the Kyoto Protocol. Green means ratified, yellow (I don't see any on the latest map) means ratification pending, grey means undecided, and RED means REFUSED TO RATIFY.
Notice the only ones who are red? The USA! (and Puerto Rico, which is part of the US.) This is disgraceful.
The Kyoto Protocol is basically a promise to cut emissions. The US is the largest producer of emissions and we won't even promise to try!? We're the ONLY ONES. This is not a place where standing alone is a statement against some great evil, or a Lone Ranger stand that says we can do it better on our own (... and wasn't that a major problem with the previous administration's stance on international relations?). Asinine.

On a positive note: Our own Mayor Greg Nickels (Seattle) started a campaign to get other mayors of cities around the country to ignore the fact that the upper-government wouldn't ratify it, and pledge to cut emissions in their cities on their own. It's been very successful (after a quick check on Wikipedia, even more successful than I knew before!).
Anyway, I don't know nearly enough about the Kyoto Protocol issue, but I intend to read up.

There are so many other issues related to climate change, not least the simple change in lingo to "climate change" from the less-descriptive and often-misleading "global warming" (just ask all the arseholes who say "Where's this "global warming" [with finger quotes] they've been promising *snicker*?" on a cold day).

For my part, I have gathered every appropriately-sized bag we had lying around the house, folded them, and put them in a slightly larger bag, and put that in the trunk of the car. Then I added a line --DON'T FORGET BAGS AND COUPONS-- to the top of my printable grocery list. The few times I forget my bags (or I've done a great big shop and used them all), I either say "No bag, please." and put the purchases in my handbag, or I buy another reusable bag wherever I am (I have actually had to use plastic bags, but only rarely). I must have at least 20 bags now, and I've spent a grand total of $3.98 for them: Two $1 each, huge, pretty bags from Ikea, one 99¢ pink breast cancer bag from Top Foods, and a 99¢ bag from Trader Joe's (though that doesn't count the souvenir bag I bought while travelling for $26-ish that I have conscripted to use as a grocery bag, since it wasn't purchased with that in mind) and the rest were free, mostly with-purchase from supermarkets. So you don't have to spend a ton of money on reusable grocery bags, and you don't have to only use bags that are meant to be reusable grocery bags.

Other small steps:

My family is trying to get away from unnecessary use of kitchen paper towels.
We've started buying natural vegetable cellulose sponges (available at Trader Joe's, for instance) instead of the "normal" ones in the supermarket because the natural ones are biodegradable and even compostable! I promise they work just the same.
I've also put small recycle bins in all the rooms, including the bathroom (all those tissue rolls), right next to the regular garbage cans, to make recycling easier and convenient.
I'm thinking about buying gerbils again. Yes, this is related. :) Gerbils, while tons of fun to watch and play with, are mad about chewing. They will take care of all of your paper towel and bathroom tissue rolls, as well as any other cardboard, Kleenex, scraps of paper, sensitive documents you want shredded, etc. Really, they will go through it all. And they're SO cute.
I planted a garden, but it's all gone to seed. *FAIL*
I have made a plan that instead of turning the heat up when I'm cold, or even getting a blanket, I'm going to hop on my exercise bike! It warms me up, it's good for me, and I'll be damned if I don't start losing some bloody weight!!
I seriously think twice before buying anything that comes in a glass bottle/jar. We have recycling picked up with the garbage, but NOT GLASS. Supposedly it breaks in transit and clogs the sorting machine, or something, but still... We have to gather all the (heavy, sticky) glass and haul it to one of the glass recycling bins around town. Inconvenient.
That's all I can think of at the moment, and I'm sure this post is long enough as it is. :)

Happy Blog Action Day,

Gem

P.S. - Back in the affluent '90s, when everything was disposable, we had bought a pallet of toilet tissue (or so it seemed) and gave our 4 gerbils a full roll in each tank (they were in two big cages connected by tubes). The next day we came in to find the tanks FULL to the brim of white fluff, and no gerbils in sight! They had chewed it all into smaller bits, then dug tunnels like ant farms! You could see them in their little tunnels, scurrying about. Hilarious!

2009-10-12T18:16:00.000-07:00

B&N finally gave me the answer I was looking for.

"Thank you for your inquiry.

Barnes and Noble returns all expired and unsold magazines to the vendor."

So there we have it. That wasn't so bloody hard, was it?? I noted that this email was from someone other than the idiot I was emailing before, so hopefully it's just that one idiot, and not the whole company.

Now on to other companies... namely, the original: Staples.

Staples apparently doesn't have a universal corporate policy. They just let each store handle the expired magazines as they will, which usually means just throwing them in the locked Dumpster. I'm going to start with my local Staples, where I used to work. I hope they've changed their practices since I was there, but we'll see.

Not that anyone's reading this, but posts will continue to be sporadic, since I'm busy in real life. I'll be here on 15th October, though... it's Blog Action Day.

Toodleoo.

Wow. Just... wow.

2009-09-28T18:36:00.001-07:00

B&N has the worst customer service reps. These people are morons. Finally got a(nother) reply, but instead of actually answering my question, which I've stated and restated and simplified and reworded to them so many times, they chose to ignore what I said and assume I was just looking to score some free magazines.

We regret we are unable to donate unsold editions of magazines from our
newsstands. However, many magazine publishers sell previous issues of
their magazines directly to the public. We recommend contacting the
publishers directly by the information available on their website or
through Books in Print.

We look forward to seeing you in our stores again soon.

I don't think they will.

That wasn't what I asked. I have STILL only asked them to tell me what they do with the expired magazines. That's it. I never indicated I wanted them, I just want to know where the old magazines go when they die.

OK, now I will admit that my reaction to this latest response could be considered a bit harsh (I didn't actually call them morons to their [email]face), and I probably wouldn't express such vitriol if this were the first response I'd had from them. But after all their dicking around, I hate them.

So, I sent them YET ANOTHER email, giving them a chance to get it right the... 5th time. I gave them the example of what Borders said, hoping this would give them an idea of what a correct response would look like.

More updates soon.

SUCCESS: An Answer!

2009-09-12T17:47:00.001-07:00

Anyone from Barnes & Noble should listen up: Here's how Borders handled all this.

Last night (technically this morning, appr. 12.35AM [midnight-thirty]) I sent an email to Borders via their website's "Contact Customer Care" section. I said:

What do your stores do with the expired magazines when the new ones come in?

Today, at 10.19AM, they replied:

Thank you for contacting us about Borders.

When a magazine is taken off the shelves as expired, the covers are ripped off and mailed back to the publishers/distributors for a refund for the store, while the inside part of the magazine is sent off to recycling.

I hope this information was helpful. If you have any other questions or comments, please don't hesitate to contact us.
Sincerely,
Lois
Borders Customer Care

Holy crap that was so simple!! See, B&N? That's how it's done.

So, now we know that Borders is ensuring the old magazines get recycled. This is what I wanted to find out. Now let's see if B&N will EVER tell us what they're doing.

On a "Quite Interesting" Note

2009-09-12T02:33:00.001-07:00

I don't know how many of you (you? nobody reads this yet, who am I talking to?) are familiar with the BBC programme QI [Quite Interesting], with Stephen Fry and Alan Davies. If you are not, I suggest you immediately go to YouTube and search for QI ... this link should (if I did that right) take you to Episode Adam (1) of Series A (also 1).

If you are familiar, I think you might be interested to know that I've politely asked the BBC to release the series on Region 1 DVDs.

I called Netflix to ask if they had any plans to acquire these DVDs and they said that they only exist as Region 2, but if Region 1 were to be released, they would indeed snap them up. The fella I talked to knew exactly what show I was talking about (I expected to have to describe it a bit, but no!) and intimated that he, too, would love to have these shows available on Region 1 DVD.

In my QI-related internet excursions, I did find evidence that many US networks, including BBCAmerica, have attempted to option these shows for airing in North America, but the albatross in the works is all the media within each episode. The images behind the guests, the snippets of dialogue or music; all must be licensed and paid for. This makes airing the show cost-prohibitive. That's pretty much the only reason you haven't seen it on BBCAmerica, PBS, or any other networks that have pursued it.

As for why it hasn't been released on Region 1 DVD, it seems to be the consensus that the BBC doesn't think there's a market for it. I can understand not hearing about the other networks interest, but I'm baffled as to how they could be unaware of BBCAmerica's intent.

If you want to join me in asking the BBC nicely to release Region 1 DVDs, here's the link I used. (Then choose Enquiry > TV > BBC1 > and the full programme title is QI: Quite Interesting, but QI will suffice).

Wild Goose Chase

2009-09-11T21:56:00.000-07:00

B&N is NOT making any friends here.

As I mentioned in a previous post, B&N's customer service rep referred me to M2MediaGroup regarding their expired magazines.

Fine.

Seemed logical enough with what I had heard from places like Home Depot and their third-party magazine distributors. M2MediaGroup, however, is bloody clueless and tells me to contact B&N! I reply saying that B&N told me to talk to M2 and I get a terse reponse from someone called Tirza saying

We do not have expired magazines as we do not have a retail store. If you wish to contact a store regarding your inquiry you will need to so.

I'm not happy about this. I don't shop at Barnes & Noble frequently because their books are overpriced, but this is very close to guaranteeing I never go in another Barnes & Noble again. Why would they have such ridiculously inept customer service for such a SIMPLE QUESTION??

Also, if you don't have a retail store all rules of time and space are lifted and magazines never expire, apparently. ;)

Initial Contact

2009-09-11T01:34:00.001-07:00

Some information: It seems even everyone, even Barnes & Noble, uses third parties to stock and handle the magazines they offer in store.

I asked a lady who worked at Home Depot what they do with their expired magazines and she said somebody comes in and deals with them (as in, it's not some employee of Home Depot). She said she thinks it involves something about ripping off the back cover and then disposing of the magazine, but she didn't know how or where.

B&N finally got back to me and said that M2MediaGroup handles their stuff and to contact them. So I shall.

2009-09-08T16:26:00.001-07:00

I guess it's a little silly to not name the company I worked for but I'm naming every other company I'm talking about. I actually don't know why people "censor" company names in this context. So I won't.

I worked at Staples. I haven't worked there for ... must be about 4 or 5 years, now. Maybe more.

The Paper Problem

2009-09-07T23:29:00.000-07:00

I used to work for a national office supply chain that does not have the word 'office' in it's name. All the time I was there we sold magazines (mostly business/computer titles) and when the new issues came in it was corporate policy that the old, unsold magazines all be thrown away.

Thrown Away.

Not recycled. Not donated to employees, doctor's offices, schools, or charitable organisations. Just thrown away (in a locked bin). This was a few years ago, but with the glacier-speed that corporations catch up with the times, I'm concerned this is still going on.

I'll tell you what prompted this:

I went to Barnes & Noble to buy a couple of specific magazines, since they're the only store nearby that sells a nice selection. They must have thousands. I highly doubt every magazine (or even a few) sell out every month, therefore disposal is an issue. I didn't see any industrial-size recycle bins outside (then again, I didn't look that hard) and I'm sure if they donated magazines I would have heard (lots of my family & friends work in hospitals, doctor's offices and schools; the likely targets).

OK, my point:

I intend to contact B&N, Borders, office supply stores, grocery stores with magazine racks and other places that I think of and find out what they do with the old magazines. I might try to get in touch with a couple of publishers as well. If they are still regularly putting these forests-worth of paper in the landfill, I intend to raise a stink.

It's all well and good for you and your neighbours to recycle, but if giant corporations don't play their part...

To reiterate: I don't KNOW what these companies do yet. I'm going to find out. And then post it here. I hope they all recycle. Or something.

INTRODUCTION

2009-09-07T23:09:00.000-07:00

"We'll get there eventually" is a phrase I've learned to employ when the people around me are unnecessarily freaking out about

1. Being late

2. Being lost

3. Being alone

4. Being unemployed

5. Being unsuccessful

6. Et cetera.

It illustrates my attitude toward the small stressors in life.

... At least some of them...

There are PLENTY of things that make me go crazy and you'll likely hear about them here.