Alsop's Small Thoughts

I'm jinxed on customer support

I just spent 35 minutes on hold with Vonage, because the only way I can get my Vonage-specific Linksys router's firmware updated is through Vonage. Actually, I'm still on hold and it's now 41 minutes. But about eight minutes ago, the happy lady telling me how sorry Vonage is that I am having service issues went silent. While silence is blessed, since I was getting really sick of the IVR loop I was in, now I can't tell if they've hung up on me or if I'm just in silent mode. Should I hang up and dial back? This is the same thing that happened yesterday with Dell. Why are customer support lines just switching me into silence? Did I do something wrong in a previous life? Can I not get actual customer support? (Calm down, self. Don't take it personally!)

Dell (lack of) Support

I just spent 35 minutes on hold waiting for Dell Warranty Support to discuss returning my son's computer. (I already paid BestBuy to figure out that the hard disk is failing and to back it up.) I listened to the whole loop of happy talk telling me how to figure out the problem myself. Then the phone finally rang and I was transferred to -- silence. They hung up on me.

I don't apologize

On my own blog, but I do feel guilty that I haven't posted since December 19. Reasons? (Background: violin playing soulfully.) 1) I went to Santa Fe on December 20, driving a rental truck to move some furniture down there. That was two days. 2) Then I went to visit Bosque del Apache. I actually tried to post about that trip and might get some pictures up here eventually, but got distracted and closed the browser before I clicked on "post". (Will Typepad ever give us a way to save posts-in-progress without having to switch to Mobile Type?) I got discouraged by that and switched to focusing on Christmas. 3) Then I moved to a different place in Santa Fe for four days and, lordy be, actually had no connectivity at all! Couldn't post and was stuck having to use my computer the old way, without a network. It was actually my most productive time in years. 4) Then I moved back to the Digital Ranch (old hands know what that means) and got all my connectivity back but got my new computer delivered. Some of you know what THAT means: Now, more than a week later, I'm still struggling to get what I had on my old computer. And I still haven't been able to make the whizzy new stuff (like that EV-DO feature mentioned in the review link) work at all! I'll have more posts on my experiences as soon as my digital life settles back in.

Caffeinated thoughts

Starting out on my drive from San Francisco to Santa Fe, I had occasion to get both Peets (medium non-fat latte with an extra shot) and Starbucks (triple non-fat latte) in the same morning. The big difference: The tops for the to-gocups. (yeah, they taste different but...) Peet's has one-size fits all, which is brilliant since you haven't had your coffee yet to be able to think through which size top belongs on which size cup. Starbucks has a whizzy looking top that looks like it's designed to prevent spills, but -- under certain circumstances -- actually is able to shoot coffee at your good friend in the passenger seat of your car.

You KNOW I Speak English!

A major setback in consumer interfaces! That's the introduction of a new menu in ATMs. You stick your card in and the very first question you are asked is to pick your language. My bank, First Republic, now asks this question first thing. And United Airlines asks it every time I check in at Easy Check-in machines. (I'm pretty sure Delta and others do as well, so it doesn't sound like something one industry or one company has decided to do.)

Here's the problem: That card you stick in knows what language you speak as well as your name, account number, and a bunch of other data. So why does the machine need to ask me every single time? I suspect  it's the heavy hand of government regulation: Someone decided it was discriminatory to presume that every person with an ATM card speaks English. (We're not allowed to actually have a national language anymore, much less expect everyone to read, write and speak it!) But the fact that the machine can't remember which language I prefer and make sure that's what's presented to me is a technical crime of the first order. Another crime against humanity and human-ness in machines.

Sunfusion

I know you guys back East will have some difficulty understanding this: California drivers can't handle driving into the sun. You'd think there would be enough of it, that we'd develop a certain competence. When I lived in Boston, I noticed that drivers developed some competence at handling snow and ice. But I'm writing this in traffic that is stopping and going because the sun is in the drivers' eyes. Horrific conditions for driving, eh?

BlogDishBush

Ariel de Guzman should have a blog. The senior Bush's personal chef answers questions in today's NYT Magazine. Choice comment: "As far as nutrition is concerned, canned or frozen vegetables have more nutrition than fresh vegetables. It's added from the companies, the manufacturer."

Out Of Office Autoreplies: Oh yeah?

Please don't send me "Out Of Office" autoreplies (as they are called in Outlook and most email programs)! I just got one where the sender actually replied to my email only a few seconds after his autoresponder told me he was out of the office until Monday. Email is not instant messaging -- it's asynchronous, which means the sender doesn't expect a reply until you are able to sit down (or thumb down) and write one. In other words, it's not an issue of being "in the office". I have access to email -- in my office, in my home, in my car, in airplanes, airports, hotel rooms, on the beach, everywhere. So why the heck would I warn people that I don't have access to email?

Life In The (Perk) Presidio

I've taken to stopping from time to time for a coffee (medium, non-fat latte) at Perk Presidio, which is the coffee shop in the new Letterman (read Lucas) Digital Arts Center (great photos of the campus here) in The Presidio in San Francisco. I live in The Presidio and the Letterman campus is across the street from my house, so it's convenient to meet people at Perk Presidio. 

Actually, it's more than convenient. In late September, I met my friend, Bob, for a cuppa. While we're sitting outside enjoying the sunshine and coffee and conversation, George Lucas wandered in with his friend and sat to enjoy a cuppa too. It's nice to hang out with billionaire media moguls, but today was even better. I met with Shirley, a candidate for an executive position in one of my portfolio companies.  While we're talking strategy and technical issues, Darth Vader and two of his stormtroopers wandered by.  It looked like Darth and his team were backing up some kind of video spot being filmed by a Lucasfilm crew. Shirley was smart enough to have brought her camera, so I have photo evidence!

The Presidio is a happening kind of place.

Voice Mail Etiquette

I wish everybody would pay more attention to their voice mailboxes. To wit:
1) Please configure your cell-phone mailbox. If you don't use paging or other features, configure your mailbox to suppress those options so we don't have to hear that they are available every we call you before we can leave a message.
2) Please start your outgoing message by saying how to skip it, so frequent callers don't have to listen to your whole message before being able to leave a message. (Since I use my cell phone a lot, there's nothing more frustrating than having to wait through all this and then lose the signal before I can leave a message.)
3) Please don't answer your phone if you can't talk. I've had this happen numerous times, when people answer the phone to say (in a whisper) that they can't talk because they are in a meeting. My immediate thought is: "Why the heck did you answer the phone then?" I would prefer to leave a message if you can't talk.
4) Please be honest about your voice mailbox. If you don't use a particular mailbox (at home, at work or even on cell), say so and redirect the caller to a different number. One of my frequent contacts has just let his voice mailbox fill up so that it is not possible to leave messages anymore. This seems an inefficient use of the callers' time, versus just admitting that you don't use the mailbox.
Eventually, we'll get what we all really want: a single mailbox for all kinds of phones, rather than this mishmash where PBX vendors and service providers each try to control our business by providing a single, proprietary mailbox that doesn't integrate with any others. (And then we'll have voice mail that delivers an email notice that you have a message, maybe even including the message.)
If you have additional rules you'd like to add, please comment or send me an email and I'll modify this posting over time to reflect input.