Forgotten Details

With the passing of my friend, I was reminded of a couple things that few people plan for prior to their passing, but which often come up after they have shuffled on to the great beyond.

If you have online accounts, especially with automatic debits scheduled, make sure someone else has the ability to access them after you are gone - and not just your significant other because, often, they may go when you do. I went through this weekend with Roboform and had it store the login information for all of my accounts and then put my master password with my Will. I know this may seem trivial, but it can take quite a while for your family to pull all of your records together, find an attorney, get all the documents signed, get to Court, obtain Death Certificates and get the necessary documents to the correct departments of all the companies. In all that time, you may have automatically debited your account for thousands of dollars, which can be significant - especially if any of the debt (like most student loans) are discharged at death or if you have an otherwise insolvent Estate. More than anything, figuring out all of these details can be a real headache for your family and loved ones. Plus, Roboform is free.

I know I have not updated here in about two weeks. Sorry about that. I had a funeral to attend the weekend before last and last weekend, I was in a wedding and both events were out of town. Overall, I think I preferred the funeral to the wedding, which probably sounds a little morbid. However, it was just easier and more fun for me, I think. I saw more people that I knew and liked at the funeral and had fewer headaches and nicer people to deal with. Fortunately, the bride and groom were not aware of most of the major debacles that occurred in the days leading up to the wedding, and they were in their own state of bliss. However, for those of us just along for the ride, it was a painful experience that I hope not to have to repeat for at least a year or two.

The funeral was good, I guess. It gave me a chance to see some friends I have not seen in years and we were able to sit and laugh and exchange stories about our friend who is no longer with us. I do not think it was the magical experience that I have often heard funerals described as. I did not leave the event thinking, "Alright, now it all makes sense; I'm ready to move on." Instead, I think I departed feeling just about as confused as ever about my loss as I had before. However, I definitely felt it was a worthwhile experience to attend and his family really appreciated how many people had shown up to honor their son.

I guess that nutshells the past couple weeks of my life. I will try and do better at posting more frequently on more items of note and interest.

Thoughtless

A friend of mine recently complained that my blog is not introspective enough for her anymore. She feels that the posts are not as thought provoking as they once were and she is left having to try and find her inspiration in horoscopes and Post Secret. "Now it's just all about your life." I guess my life has lost its luster. The intrigue and excitement traded in for a steady girlfriend. Now my largest daily crusade is trying to find the time to go to the gym and have hours of sex. It is torture.

On the bright side, I still have an incompetent bank. I have held an account with Washington Mutual Bank ("WAMU") for over nine years now. Sure, we got off to a rocky start when they accused me of larceny because they failed to process my opening deposit check correctly and believed that I had tried to defraud them for hundreds of dollars. However, that was all water under the bridge. We had moved on with our respective lives and were now the best of friends. I had cajoled at least two other people into opening accounts with them in the last six months, and they had sent me more free checks, even though my account is so old that it does not actually qualify for free checks. And when I went overseas, no bank treated me better. They gave me a free international 800 number to use and a number to call collect, in case anything happened. They also typically respond to the emails I send to them within 6 to 10 minutes. Always a nice feature to have when you are planning for your trip or trapped in some small Italian town, unable to access your cash because the Italian bank you are using does not give out more than 150 Euros at a time, but they tell you it is because your bank has frozen your account.

Last week, WAMU sent me a little message. "Open a savings account with us and get a 5% APR." Not a bad deal. I already have an online account with HSBC that gives me a little bit of a higher interest rate, but WAMU would be local for me, and I have a longer history with them. There's a connection - I see it when our eyes meet and they tell me they love me. So I decided to apply for a new account. This is when I learned that WAMU had only been plying me with nice words and cheap wine so that they could bend me over and give me the shaft.

As it turns out, WAMU had kept a notation on my account, from back when I first opened the darn thing, saying that I was a bad account holder and had attempted to commit larceny with them. Note that I never actually did anything wrong and that nine years ago they wrote me an apology letter for the incident. No matter, the notation was there and I could not open my account. Not only that, no one could figure out: (A) why the notation was still there after over nine years and (B) how to remove it.

It took me almost two weeks and multiple phone calls to various departments, from which I was often disconnected in the middle of a transfer. After day 8, I was convinced that Sprint's customer service had infiltrated and taken over WAMU's. It was fantastic, but in that bad way that makes you feel like you just did something you are going to regret and are going to need to get tested. At the end of the day, it was not even WAMU that fixed the problem. They had told me it was fixed, but I later learned that nothing had actually been done, despite all their little account notations to the contrary. To top it all off, after they realized that my life was still a living hell and that they were at fault, they told me that there was nothing more that they could do. The customer service woman told me she would completely understand if I wanted to close my accounts and take my business elsewhere. Desperate for some closure to all of this, I went to WAMU's "Early Warning" fraud company and explained to them what was happening. They also saw lots of account notations, but also explained to me quite politely that there was nothing that they could do either, except pass it up the food chain of management again and see if possibly something got done this time. Miraculously, a day later, it was fixed. Two weeks, twenty service reps and hours of painful frustration later, and I could go ahead and give WAMU more of my money.

The thing I find most frustrating in dealing with telephone customer service, today, is the fact that no one speaks English as their primary language, and they are all dumb. I nearly always have to get transferred to a supervisor or some other higher-end department to reach someone who sounds like they might have a glimpse of a thought dancing in their head and that might comprehend the English language beyond, "Thank you. Come again." And it is not the fact that English is not their primary language that is so frustrating (granted, it can be a little frustrating on a phone call - where you have to rely on the English language to convey all that you are thinking and feeling), it's the fact that they are dumb as toast. Reading from their little scripts and annoyed and angered when you ask to speak to a supervisor that might actually be able to understand what you are saying and help you.

I feel like customer service, across the board, has taken a dramatic cut in the corporate model. Almost no company seems to emphasize it anymore because they are all too busy saving money with shipping it overseas. And I get the fact that a lot of customers are dumb and annoying too and that they can approach you with questions that baffle the mind and make you want to sign them up for the first manned space flight to Pluto, but there are also people like me that would rather not waste hours and hours on the phone, having to fight with a company to get them to do their blasted jobs.

Now that Mattel is in the middle of doing its second recall of toys in the past month, I begin to wonder if maybe more companies will begin to question the wisdom of shipping things overseas just so that they can save a buck. I wonder if maybe companies will begin to realize that, "Hey, maybe you really do get what you pay for." And maybe they will begin to emphasize education in their workers, rather than just someone that can fill a seat. Or maybe they are all waiting for the market to force them to take these steps.

Really?

I had to read her words at least two times for them to really gain any recognition in my head. She was not telling me that my friend was sick or that he needed an operation or that he had been severely injured. No, her words were quite clear, explaining to me that my friend, her lover, had "passed away in a very serious and tragic accident". But she had to be kidding. None of my friends have just up and died, at least none my own age. Sure, there were a couple of people in high school, but I knew them mostly in passing. This was not just someone I knew tangentially. This was someone I kept up with on a fairly regular basis, and she was telling me that I would not be doing that anymore.

It was too much to take in on a Tuesday morning. Who the hell goes on vacation to the Grand Canyon and dies? I guess, my friend does (did). My brain is still getting used to the fact that my friend and I will never communicate again. It does not quite seem real that he and I will not just strike up casual conversations. That he won't be there to tell me about his misadventures and tell me about his great accomplishments. He made mead in his spare time. I know that may sound dumb, but he was really good at it. He won gold medals in national competitions. He really loved it. I love it when people love what they do. I think that is such a great thing.

He had lost so much weight in the last few years, almost a whole person. He was so proud of himself. I was really proud of him. He had found a woman that he loved and who loved him back. Things were going pretty well for the guy, and then that was it. The "Game Over" logo had flashed across the screen and he had no more quarters left in his pocket to continue.

Whenever I really think about it, which I try very hard not to do, I start thinking of how suddenly life can slip just beyond our grasp. Like a small wisp to which we struggle in vain to cling. I think, here was a man working so hard and getting his life together and doing such great stuff and now it is over. He was not at the end of his days. There was no indication that he was going to just stop breathing on the first Thursday of the month. It was so sudden, and it makes me sad to think of how hard he worked and how he likely planned in his mind for his future and now it is all over. I still cannot quite get my head around it.

I Blame Harry Potter

Ok, so this time I was called out by both Amber and Kate for not carrying out my Blogger duty of writing at least a single post per week. It's not my fault, though. It's that boy's. That Harry Potter lad. Last week, I spent all my free time, and I didn't have a lot of it, finishing the book. Then last weekend, through the beginning of this week, I was in Chicago. Since I got back, I have been insanely busy at work and have been having terrible trouble sleeping. I often have reasonable difficulties sleeping, but it was getting really bad. So bad that when I would finally be able to go home, I didn't actually have the energy to do much of anything, let alone compose a coherent thought for my blog. It was as though dementors had surrounded my house. Ok, ok. It wasn't all that bad, but it wasn't good.

The good news is that it's Friday. Friday, people! How cool is that?

As to Harry Potter, Book 7. I thought the book was good. There were parts of it that annoyed me, much like there are parts of her other books that I find a little boring or annoying, at times. However, I think I found at least one complete plot hole in this book, possibly two. I was particularly disappointed with the last couple of chapters of the book. It felt like her editors had made Rowling (or whoever the author actually is) write it. I can't go into too much detail here about it, of course, so as not to give away too many spoilers. It was pretty funny, though, to see people reading it wherever I went over the past two weeks. I kept asking my girlfriend if I should just walk up to someone I would see reading it and tell them how it ended, but she was firmly convinced that this was a entirely bad idea. Go figure.

Chicago was warm, finally. We're talking 80 and 90 degree weather. Not that cold that hits you in the face and knocks you on your ass that I have come to know and expect from the Windy City. I even got to spend some time walking along Lake Michigan, which has been preserved no better than the Atlantic Ocean, I am sorry to say. However, I hear it is improving. Maybe. I got to see two shows - one of them at Second City. It was such a great show. Not only were the performers funny, but they bring you copious amounts of alcohol, for a small fee. It was really a lot of fun. The other show ... was not exactly what I had in mind.

The concept of the second show seemed to be that the performers attempted to completely knock down the fourth wall, and allow their audience unfettered access to, and participate in, the actual performance. This approach gave rise to such exciting things as an audience member's personal details from her blog being exposed to the entire audience and a performer and an audience member getting into a brawl on stage. Again, it was not what I had in mind, but my girlfriend loved it and my mind grew as a result of it, so no harm done. Finally, I got to eat some wonderful food, again. It was sort of typical Chicago fare this time. Not really any fancy restaurants, mostly local spots that average people there would go to everyday. For example, we went to a well known local spot that serves some delicious chili, pizzas, and blue margaritas. Yum.

I am becoming a big fan of Southwest Airlines for a number of reasons. First, their flights to and from Chicago seem faster than any other airline, by at least 15 minutes - up to one half hour. Second, their people seem genuinely nice. It is often just such a pleasure to fly with them. Third, their frequent flier program is based upon number of flights, not number of miles. I think you get rewards as of your twelfth flight, that is only six trips. Plus, they now have a pretty nifty tool on their Website that lets you know all their available fares for every day of any month between two cities. Very cool.

I guess that about brings us up to date. My work here is done.