Well now the Queen has a stomach ailment that will not quit! SO what now? We constantly try to find the silver lining, but I guess my glasses are near sighted worse than I am!!
I guess you don’t get given more than you can handle, or so they say. I do count my blessings, the Princesses, the Queen the Royal Canines, The Royal Fishy - Beau, and the fact that we get up every morning and have friends and loved ones that do care about us. Hmm I guess things could be worse!!

Sunday, October 15, 2006

What The Heck Happened to Customer Service?

The Customer Always Comes First… Yea Right!!

Don’t believe the old adage “The Customer comes First.” The other day I went into my bank to find out about a charge that the vault keepers assessed. Based on my calculations and the fact that I have 3 bank accounts plus an additional Overdraft Reserve, (ODR), account linked to my checking account to cover any unforeseen miscalculations in balance, I should not have been charged any fees.  Well, morning strolls around and I happened to look at my account online and discovered the $32 Insufficient Funds charge that had hit my account.  Well “we will have none of that” I said, and it was off to the Bank.  Let me digress a bit, two weeks prior to this the lovely bank changed it’s Teller System thus creating a totally separate account for my ODR no longer including the balance in with my checking account.  This means that the account looks a lot different as they continuously have to transfer funds in and out of the checking account from the ODR account.  However, if you follw the basic accounting flow it is easy to understand.  Getting back to the story, I went in to the bank and questioned the “Platform” person, lets call her “L”, about my account.  She is a very nice person and we have known her for six years of banking in the current locale.  She was confused about the entry and had to ask the Teller Manager about the entries.  This lady is a real !!!

Well she attempted to explain to “L” why the charge was placed.  “L” explained it to me , but being that I know accounting and worked for the Bank for 17 years in the Accounting Systems and Control area, I knew she wasn’t quite understanding that they were not taking into account the payments that I had made to the account.  Well upon hearing me try to explain this to “L” , decided that she needed to be in the middle of it and abruptly announces in a loud voice that I should stop yelling at “L” and that I was overdrawn and that is why I got the charge.  I explained that I wasn’t yelling and that no I wasn’t overdrawn and why.  She again “yells” to us and all present in the bank, “Stop shouting at “L” you were overdrawn and she can’t help you any way you need to call Service Line.  We can’t help employees with their accounts any longer.”

Ok that definitely shows me that Customer Service is still important to todays Big Corporations!!  By the time I left feeling like , however, I maintained my composure and left.  Oh how it annoyed me to let them treat me like that!!!  Now I understand why people are leaving banks and going towards Credit Unions!! 

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Free this Free That ….

Don’t you just love all those emails and ads that you some how wind up receiving, offering you everything you need to “Own the Moon” all for the low price of “$0.00”!!  UNTIL you get to the fine print… this course, package, marketing material or even Own Your Very Own Website and sell today’s Hot Products Free all you have to do is sign up and give us your email address and we’ll ship everything you need to you; you just have to pay the low shipping cost of $49.95 and ALL this can be your’s!!! Then you see that * and read down past all the testimonials and success stories to the bottom of the 20 or 30th page where you finally see it and it says its your’s free only for 30 days then you will be billed $195 a month thereafter unless you cancel.  Of course you have already submitted your application and are now looking for how to cancel and the site goes down and you are heading to the kitchen for that bottle of Tequila you were saving for a relaxing weekend of Margaritas and pinochle, “Honey where are the shot glasses”, oops I digress!!  So, one can only hope that the order didn’t go through, that you remember before 30 days are up to cancel, or that somehow, somewhere, sometime these companies get a taste of their own marketing!!!

Thursday, October 12, 2006

The King Issues a Royal Thank Yee!

I would like to take a brief moment to issue to the Royal Blog-Meister, SEB, and My wonderful Queen for all of their efforts to make this Majesty Happy and Blog Capable!

Kudos for a job well done!!

Sunday, October 08, 2006

The King Tries His Hand as The Royale Baker!

In these modern times job security is a must!!

In an effort to keep one’s job, diversification becomes an all important attribute coupled only with adaptability. Without these two most important traits you can almost be assured that you will not keep your job for long. This fact even holds true to the higher echelon. In an effort for this ruler of thy realm to stay “job diverse” and to be a benevolent despot, I have tried my hand at the skilled craftsmanship of baking!!
Yes the King did bake some Banana Bread!! Here is what the outcome looked like:

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The Royal court seems to give the thumbs up.

I just hope it tastes as good as it looks!!