We've all heard by now about Trump's policies separating parents and children as they cross the border. It doesn't matter if they're crossing "illegally" or if they're here asking for asylum, which by the way is part of international law as the right of all peoples. Step over the border and kiss your kids good-bye. It hasn't mattered if they're infants, have Down's Syndrome, or whatever. They're gone.
The next pieces of information that have come across are that Trump has decided it "doesn't look good" (ya think?") and after a month or so, he decided to change his policies. That was quickly followed by testimony before Congress that the government can get into their database and instantly locate any kid in the system.
Problem solved, no?
NO!
Not even close.
It's true that there is a database for adults jailed and awaiting immigration hearings. Not, of course, that there are enough judges in that particular system to make that any kind of a timely process. Nor will Trump add more to the system, claiming he can't tell whom to trust. (Must be that loyalty oath to Himself that's missing, eh?)
It's also true that there is a database with the information on the location of the kids separated from their parents. Sounds like problem solved, doesn't it? But here the Devil is truly in the details.
The database of children does not contain the information on the parent(s) the kids were separated from. Terrific planning, eh? If that's not bad enough, the database of parents does not contain information on their separated children, neither who they are nor where they were sent. Starting to see a complication here?
But wait: there's more. The two databases can not communicate with each other. It's not as simple as, say, different computer programs. It's about the so-called legal protection of the children, keeping their information private. Not just from us. Not just from reporters who might want to check up on the situation. It's "protecting" the parent's lawyers from getting the information on the children!
Those parents in the know, usually because somebody in the same fix has figured out a way to connect with the right advocate to secure assistance, and has shared this information with another parent, still run into problems. The advocates who care enough to be involved in trying to solve this dilemma are way over-stretched. Calls to them by parents reaching out are often put on hold for over 20 minutes. What to us is an inconvenience becomes a roadblock to these parents since their allowed phone time is 15 minutes. It doesn't take a math whiz to see the problem here.
This, of course, is if the kids even have a lawyer! Oh, you thought they had to be represented? Well, being the immigration-friendly country we've become under Trump, there's this teensy little policy change. Children under 5 can/do appear in court without representation now. Because, you know, non-English speaking kids, even pre-verbal kids, can do such a great job of defending themselves from this big steamroller we call an immigration legal system. Right?
You think this was bad enough already, putting kids in "cages", idiots on TV (FOX) describing it as being like summer camp because they have a roof, three squares, sort of, and some fenced-in outside space, perhaps a tent shelter in summer heat with no air conditioning and miniscule cross ventilation, and a cuddly mylar blanket to sleep under? All on top of no Mommy or Daddy, of course. Wheee! You thought this was as bad as it gets?
Well, guess what? If those parents are here claiming their need for asylum and looking for their kids with the meager resources provided, they get offered a "choice". This government will go to the bother of locating their kid/s and reuniting them with their parents on their way out of the country after they've dropped their claim for asylum, just because it's the only way they are offered to be reunited with their kid/s. And even that doesn't mean they get any kid returned to them, not to mention the correct child returned to them, as they are booted out the door.
"Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore...." Ain't we great, or what?
Saturday, June 30, 2018
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
A Little Weather
It wasn't supposed to rain yesterday. Of course, we always believe every gem that falls from the meteorologists' lips on the TV forecasts. But we were hoping it was true.
Of course it wasn't. Nor was it true about today, but at least this time it managed to miss us. Still, one of the best investments I made before heading north was a new set of windshield wipers. The old ones were around three years old, but who notices those things in Arizona? The new set is getting good use.
Anyway, there wasn't anything all that dramatic about the rain we got over the last week. No hail, here. No major wind events, here. No massive quantities, here. Steve even got a bit of fishing in during a dry spell at his favorite fishing spot, a bit of sand bar at the base of a boat launch on the St. Croix River that is accessible once the water levels go down after snow melt. By late summer it is usually big enough to drive onto and park to set up his chair.
The part of the weather that was noticeable to us, from this vantage point, was the really heavy accumulations up about 100 miles north of us. The worst was in western Wisconsin. Anyone with a map can easily figure out that that area drains into the St. Croix.
Bye bye favorite fishing spot for a while.
Especially after that Wisconsin dam broke.
Yesterday, after a trip north to visit a family member, and noticing how high water levels were in small streams where we can usually barely see any water from our usual freeway route, we decided to swing by before getting home and see what the local level was. The Hwy. 48 bridge across the river east of Hinckley was closed from flooding. We figured the little sand bar 60 miles downstream was also going to be flooded.
We didn't figure the whole launch ramp would be under water, nor the surrounding woodland. Of course we should have figured it out when we could see crud rushing by on top of the water from two blocks away on our approach. Even if there had been a place to toss in a line, it would have been tangled in downstream trees before the hook landed on the bottom.
We weren't the only car playing tourist there either. We had to wait our turn to swing the parking lot circle and pause near the top of the ramp to take it all in. Nobody was nuts enough to actually launch from there.
Having some daylight left, we decided to hit the park/boat launch under the bridge from Minnesota to Osceola. It's a well-known spot not only for fishing and picnicking, but one of the favorite spots
for canoe rental companies to pick up customers who just want to float down from Taylors Falls for a leisurely day on a pristine river. The rental companies promise to pick up your canoe and at least one person who can drive back to pick up the rest of your group. Really ambitious folk can paddle their way down to William O'Brien State Park for their pull-out on the same terms.
Once we got there, the park was blocked off and both launch ramps had about a foot of ramp left. Off in the park tables were standing in water, and roads and parking spots invisible. Obviously no canoeists were around. Probably no rental companies were stupid enough to risk equipment and lawsuits for a few days. We were surprised, however, to see three determined fishermen on what was now the top of the bank casting into the river. Steve asked what they were catching. "Not a damn thing."
I guess for some it doesn't matter.
Later we found a photo somebody had posted online showing the boat launch in Taylors Falls. It had a really nice railing around it, the top bar of which served as the only indicator that it was still there. The paddle-wheeler which normally ties up to it between summer trips was nowhere to be seen. I can only trust they had plenty of time after hearing about the dam to figure out where to park it for the duration. It's a lovely ride.
On the plus side of all this, the corn is growing gangbusters, and the mosquitoes think they've found heaven.
Of course it wasn't. Nor was it true about today, but at least this time it managed to miss us. Still, one of the best investments I made before heading north was a new set of windshield wipers. The old ones were around three years old, but who notices those things in Arizona? The new set is getting good use.
Anyway, there wasn't anything all that dramatic about the rain we got over the last week. No hail, here. No major wind events, here. No massive quantities, here. Steve even got a bit of fishing in during a dry spell at his favorite fishing spot, a bit of sand bar at the base of a boat launch on the St. Croix River that is accessible once the water levels go down after snow melt. By late summer it is usually big enough to drive onto and park to set up his chair.
The part of the weather that was noticeable to us, from this vantage point, was the really heavy accumulations up about 100 miles north of us. The worst was in western Wisconsin. Anyone with a map can easily figure out that that area drains into the St. Croix.
Bye bye favorite fishing spot for a while.
Especially after that Wisconsin dam broke.
Yesterday, after a trip north to visit a family member, and noticing how high water levels were in small streams where we can usually barely see any water from our usual freeway route, we decided to swing by before getting home and see what the local level was. The Hwy. 48 bridge across the river east of Hinckley was closed from flooding. We figured the little sand bar 60 miles downstream was also going to be flooded.
We didn't figure the whole launch ramp would be under water, nor the surrounding woodland. Of course we should have figured it out when we could see crud rushing by on top of the water from two blocks away on our approach. Even if there had been a place to toss in a line, it would have been tangled in downstream trees before the hook landed on the bottom.
We weren't the only car playing tourist there either. We had to wait our turn to swing the parking lot circle and pause near the top of the ramp to take it all in. Nobody was nuts enough to actually launch from there.
Having some daylight left, we decided to hit the park/boat launch under the bridge from Minnesota to Osceola. It's a well-known spot not only for fishing and picnicking, but one of the favorite spots
for canoe rental companies to pick up customers who just want to float down from Taylors Falls for a leisurely day on a pristine river. The rental companies promise to pick up your canoe and at least one person who can drive back to pick up the rest of your group. Really ambitious folk can paddle their way down to William O'Brien State Park for their pull-out on the same terms.
Once we got there, the park was blocked off and both launch ramps had about a foot of ramp left. Off in the park tables were standing in water, and roads and parking spots invisible. Obviously no canoeists were around. Probably no rental companies were stupid enough to risk equipment and lawsuits for a few days. We were surprised, however, to see three determined fishermen on what was now the top of the bank casting into the river. Steve asked what they were catching. "Not a damn thing."
I guess for some it doesn't matter.
Later we found a photo somebody had posted online showing the boat launch in Taylors Falls. It had a really nice railing around it, the top bar of which served as the only indicator that it was still there. The paddle-wheeler which normally ties up to it between summer trips was nowhere to be seen. I can only trust they had plenty of time after hearing about the dam to figure out where to park it for the duration. It's a lovely ride.
On the plus side of all this, the corn is growing gangbusters, and the mosquitoes think they've found heaven.
Sunday, June 17, 2018
Sauna, FREE!
OK, now we really know we're in Minnesota. It wasn't just that by crossing the border it suddenly smelled of green (and don't ask me why that border thing works, but it does). It isn't just that the days are longer above 45 degrees north than they manage in Arizona in the summer, though that's true too. It's not just that Steve has already drowned a few worms in pursuit of a number of tugs on the end of his fishing pole, although technically worms don't drown, they just get nibbled to bits. It's not just arriving to violets, lilacs, tulips, dandelions, ripening cherries and overgrown grass, most of which I take credit for from years of landscaping this yard, after leaving behind the glare of the sun off rock lawns.
It's not even seeing family again, all of whom have remained behind in this state while we ventured south to avoid winters. But we are in the process right now of seeing more family, in honor of Father's Day. Showers and wardrobe hunting for the day are done, with me choosing something cool and flowery and Steve locating a t-shirt stating "If fishing were meth, I wouldn't have any teeth", which is funnier the better you know Steve.
The car has been loaded, gifts for the little ones, tackle boxes and jewelry for the big ones, charcoal and beverages tucked in odd corners, jellies from Paul finally on their way to be delivered. In its own way, all of that is ordinary.
But you see, Minnesota's been blessing us with seasonal thunderstorms, the kind that color the TV maps in brilliant moving patches from the radar, and require scrolls running across the bottoms of the screens. These are the kind where even in this porous soil and high levels of vegetation surrounding 14,000 lakes great and small, flood warnings are issues when they suddenly dump up to 8" of wet stuff, either running through new trenches or smashing windshields, packing repeated nights with my favorite lullabies, aka thunder. So when you open the door to start loading the car for the trip, you're smacked with heat and humidity levels that start you looking for a route to swim up out of it to breathe again.
We measure humidity in dew points up here rather than some kind of percentage. Yesterday those hit 80 in the metro, and that was before another round of overnight storms covering the northern 2/3 of the state, with a southern afternoon blast predicted. To give us a comparison, the meteorologists inform us a dew point of 80 is higher than either Miami or the Amazon basin. It curls straight hair and straightens curly hair, unless you're me and everything frizzes it anyway.
It's all a great reminder that, while we can avoid Minnesnowta, we always manage to return for Minnesauna. In fact, we've been very successful in timing it each year for about a week after the return of Minnesquito.
It's not even seeing family again, all of whom have remained behind in this state while we ventured south to avoid winters. But we are in the process right now of seeing more family, in honor of Father's Day. Showers and wardrobe hunting for the day are done, with me choosing something cool and flowery and Steve locating a t-shirt stating "If fishing were meth, I wouldn't have any teeth", which is funnier the better you know Steve.
The car has been loaded, gifts for the little ones, tackle boxes and jewelry for the big ones, charcoal and beverages tucked in odd corners, jellies from Paul finally on their way to be delivered. In its own way, all of that is ordinary.
But you see, Minnesota's been blessing us with seasonal thunderstorms, the kind that color the TV maps in brilliant moving patches from the radar, and require scrolls running across the bottoms of the screens. These are the kind where even in this porous soil and high levels of vegetation surrounding 14,000 lakes great and small, flood warnings are issues when they suddenly dump up to 8" of wet stuff, either running through new trenches or smashing windshields, packing repeated nights with my favorite lullabies, aka thunder. So when you open the door to start loading the car for the trip, you're smacked with heat and humidity levels that start you looking for a route to swim up out of it to breathe again.
We measure humidity in dew points up here rather than some kind of percentage. Yesterday those hit 80 in the metro, and that was before another round of overnight storms covering the northern 2/3 of the state, with a southern afternoon blast predicted. To give us a comparison, the meteorologists inform us a dew point of 80 is higher than either Miami or the Amazon basin. It curls straight hair and straightens curly hair, unless you're me and everything frizzes it anyway.
It's all a great reminder that, while we can avoid Minnesnowta, we always manage to return for Minnesauna. In fact, we've been very successful in timing it each year for about a week after the return of Minnesquito.
Thursday, June 14, 2018
They Call This Vacation?
Perhaps I've been retired too long. I've forgotten how much work is involved in anything resembling a vacation. Admittedly, there are complications, making this vacation more like work among the fun parts, many of which can be written off as results of aging. And some of them are just the stereotypical extra duties of being a woman. You know, who still does the cleaning? Still, I never imagined it would take me a month to get back into working on my own enjoyment of this summer.
I should have guessed by the time we both got in to the car to head north. I had thought I had planned well, organizing the errands, loading the car starting over a week ahead of departure date. All was ready... except the very last thing. I needed to open up the circuit breaker box to flip all the individual switches to "Off" except the master and solar switches. I knew perfectly well how to do it. But the hands decided they just weren't strong enough to push that little latch on the bottom over to the side, enabling the cover to drop. It wasn't solely that part. But dropping the cover, which was the goal all along to access the inside, left even less latch to push against and it kept slipping back to the locked position.
I finally had to call Steve. His hands are stronger, but it was back to square one to explain the process and order of the steps. I had almost given up when he finally accomplished the task, so we both returned to the car, sweating despite the early hour. A mile down the road I wondered if we were going to get anywhere at all because I was getting waves of that light-headed feeling that I take as a warning that I shouldn't be walking, much less be behind the wheel. Steve has been forbidden from driving unless and until his dizziness can be diagnosed and treated. It was me or nobody. I found an empty parking lot to pull into, parked under what passes for a shade tree in Arizona, and waited about 20 minutes for normalcy to return. Fortunately, it did. And stayed.
After a night in St. George, Utah, we spent half a day touring both Zion and Bryce before heading up to Salt Lake City for a weekend with Steve's "little" brother's family. Dinnertable conversations left indelible memories of new family stories with which to embarrass the next generation of young relatives for the rest of their lives. They are detailed, so if you really want to hear them, ask sometime. We did find out not to tell a funny story just as somebody takes a large drink, and also that Steve's brother's hair is now thin enough that we can see him blush over his entire head!
As the family headed off to work and school on Monday, we headed east for a 3-day trek to Minnesota. Normally it would have been planned for two days, but we weren't sure how well Steve would tolerate long car rides. The downside of only putting in about 450 freeway miles a day was giving us plenty of time to find out how uncomfortable motels can be if you plan on anything but flopping into bed until morning. No comfy chairs, no easily found TV programs, too little temperature control, the hell of sinking into a foam mattress and having to try to climb up out of it to move just a few inches....
It was great to get to the house, except for one thing. 10 months is a very long time for a bachelor to accumulate untended messes. Since cleaning was our "payment" for rental of our room, in lieu of cash, I couldn't complain too hard. But the four hours before bed included sweeping floors, washing dishes and countertops, cleaning and sanitizing the bathroom, and a complete change of bedding.
Two of those justify explanation. First, the house design leaves an entryway that invites every leaf, seed, and dirt bit to fill it in. Trust me: in about three days it looks the same as before sweeping it out. Of course everybody's shoes track in the mess, and what starts as a leaf disintegrates into scattered bits before you cross the room to the kitchen. Yes, there are shoe mats inside the door: what's your point?
Second, there was a very unexpected mess in our bedroom. It's still only partly taken care of, meaning the bed is usable. But somebody left cans of Coke in a wastebasket just inside the door nearest the unheated part of the house, and the heat for the room was mistakenly set at 40 instead of 45. It wasn't good enough. Those cans exploded over the carpet, up the floor and across the ceiling, and down to the middle of the bed to cover pillows and spread.
It's a good thing our bodies were still on mountain standard time instead of central daylight time, giving us (me!!) a comfortable extra two hours before crawling into bed. Oh yeah, the ceiling, wall, and carpet still need attention, but....
I still push myself to do a few hours of cleaning, or tree branch trimming, or whatever, whenever I can kick myself into action. However, it seems to take me about an hour to reach exhaustion, and three days to recover enough to go for the next thing. And meanwhile there are still the usual tasks of grocery shopping, dishes, re-sweeping everything, driving Steve to whichever fishing hole allows him space to set up his chair and gear because yes, he still can't drive, and take a good friend to the doctor for regular lab work because she also can't drive and just got out of the hospital after temporary kidney shut-down. She swims in a complicated soup of chemicals with some unforeseen interactions, and while she avoided dialysis, all of them were removed and are slowly being added back or being replaced by something else in her system.
Never knowing how Steve will be feeling day to day, hour to hour, we're trying to fit in family visits and diners with friends, managing to keep about 2/3 of them without cancelling. Those dizzy spells also mean you-know-who gets to handle the to-do lists. I make him do his own cancellation notifications. At the moment we're planning Father's Day with one of his sons along with 3 grandchildren, one accompanied by a boyfriend. He's rented a pontoon for his dream 75th birthday celebration, 4 hours with access to three local lakes, fishing for those interested out of the limit of 10 bodies allowed on board. Me? Camera, not pole, and conversation with anybody not eyeballing their line in the water. No cake, no presents, and everybody BYO-Everything. Well, I think Steve's bringing a bucket of minnows. Original planning involved a launch trip for walleye on Mille Lacs, but that also involved lots of travel time. Since his dizzy spells arrive unannounced, it's also a much riskier plan. Since they tend to leave within half an hour or so, he can often wait one out and go back to enjoying the day.
I have managed to see 2 of my 3 children, and spoken with my granddaughter. I managed to hit my favorite bead store, though this year, I came with different wants and didn't find what I wanted. (Hey, they're not on e-Bay either, so don't fault the store. And I did mention them to the owners and got them drooling over the idea, so maybe they'll secure them by next summer.) I have decided to postpone until next year a trip to tour the Apostle Islands, after finding out how early motels book up in the area, compared to how late in the season it already is. But my favorite local grocery store with the crispiest apple fritters is still making them. You just have to arrive as soon after 7AM as possible.
Yesterday I finally dug out my boxes with wire, tools, and other jewelry supplies, and started renewing my callouses from winding hard wire around various steel rods to start making jump rings again, enabling me to not only do chaining this summer but teach it to a couple of people as promised last spring. Of course, I'm accustomed to doing it in front of a TV program that doesn't need much watching, but summer TV, well, sucks.
Sure, that's it, my perfect excuse for putting chaining off: bad TV. I'll go with that.
I should have guessed by the time we both got in to the car to head north. I had thought I had planned well, organizing the errands, loading the car starting over a week ahead of departure date. All was ready... except the very last thing. I needed to open up the circuit breaker box to flip all the individual switches to "Off" except the master and solar switches. I knew perfectly well how to do it. But the hands decided they just weren't strong enough to push that little latch on the bottom over to the side, enabling the cover to drop. It wasn't solely that part. But dropping the cover, which was the goal all along to access the inside, left even less latch to push against and it kept slipping back to the locked position.
I finally had to call Steve. His hands are stronger, but it was back to square one to explain the process and order of the steps. I had almost given up when he finally accomplished the task, so we both returned to the car, sweating despite the early hour. A mile down the road I wondered if we were going to get anywhere at all because I was getting waves of that light-headed feeling that I take as a warning that I shouldn't be walking, much less be behind the wheel. Steve has been forbidden from driving unless and until his dizziness can be diagnosed and treated. It was me or nobody. I found an empty parking lot to pull into, parked under what passes for a shade tree in Arizona, and waited about 20 minutes for normalcy to return. Fortunately, it did. And stayed.
After a night in St. George, Utah, we spent half a day touring both Zion and Bryce before heading up to Salt Lake City for a weekend with Steve's "little" brother's family. Dinnertable conversations left indelible memories of new family stories with which to embarrass the next generation of young relatives for the rest of their lives. They are detailed, so if you really want to hear them, ask sometime. We did find out not to tell a funny story just as somebody takes a large drink, and also that Steve's brother's hair is now thin enough that we can see him blush over his entire head!
As the family headed off to work and school on Monday, we headed east for a 3-day trek to Minnesota. Normally it would have been planned for two days, but we weren't sure how well Steve would tolerate long car rides. The downside of only putting in about 450 freeway miles a day was giving us plenty of time to find out how uncomfortable motels can be if you plan on anything but flopping into bed until morning. No comfy chairs, no easily found TV programs, too little temperature control, the hell of sinking into a foam mattress and having to try to climb up out of it to move just a few inches....
It was great to get to the house, except for one thing. 10 months is a very long time for a bachelor to accumulate untended messes. Since cleaning was our "payment" for rental of our room, in lieu of cash, I couldn't complain too hard. But the four hours before bed included sweeping floors, washing dishes and countertops, cleaning and sanitizing the bathroom, and a complete change of bedding.
Two of those justify explanation. First, the house design leaves an entryway that invites every leaf, seed, and dirt bit to fill it in. Trust me: in about three days it looks the same as before sweeping it out. Of course everybody's shoes track in the mess, and what starts as a leaf disintegrates into scattered bits before you cross the room to the kitchen. Yes, there are shoe mats inside the door: what's your point?
Second, there was a very unexpected mess in our bedroom. It's still only partly taken care of, meaning the bed is usable. But somebody left cans of Coke in a wastebasket just inside the door nearest the unheated part of the house, and the heat for the room was mistakenly set at 40 instead of 45. It wasn't good enough. Those cans exploded over the carpet, up the floor and across the ceiling, and down to the middle of the bed to cover pillows and spread.
It's a good thing our bodies were still on mountain standard time instead of central daylight time, giving us (me!!) a comfortable extra two hours before crawling into bed. Oh yeah, the ceiling, wall, and carpet still need attention, but....
I still push myself to do a few hours of cleaning, or tree branch trimming, or whatever, whenever I can kick myself into action. However, it seems to take me about an hour to reach exhaustion, and three days to recover enough to go for the next thing. And meanwhile there are still the usual tasks of grocery shopping, dishes, re-sweeping everything, driving Steve to whichever fishing hole allows him space to set up his chair and gear because yes, he still can't drive, and take a good friend to the doctor for regular lab work because she also can't drive and just got out of the hospital after temporary kidney shut-down. She swims in a complicated soup of chemicals with some unforeseen interactions, and while she avoided dialysis, all of them were removed and are slowly being added back or being replaced by something else in her system.
Never knowing how Steve will be feeling day to day, hour to hour, we're trying to fit in family visits and diners with friends, managing to keep about 2/3 of them without cancelling. Those dizzy spells also mean you-know-who gets to handle the to-do lists. I make him do his own cancellation notifications. At the moment we're planning Father's Day with one of his sons along with 3 grandchildren, one accompanied by a boyfriend. He's rented a pontoon for his dream 75th birthday celebration, 4 hours with access to three local lakes, fishing for those interested out of the limit of 10 bodies allowed on board. Me? Camera, not pole, and conversation with anybody not eyeballing their line in the water. No cake, no presents, and everybody BYO-Everything. Well, I think Steve's bringing a bucket of minnows. Original planning involved a launch trip for walleye on Mille Lacs, but that also involved lots of travel time. Since his dizzy spells arrive unannounced, it's also a much riskier plan. Since they tend to leave within half an hour or so, he can often wait one out and go back to enjoying the day.
I have managed to see 2 of my 3 children, and spoken with my granddaughter. I managed to hit my favorite bead store, though this year, I came with different wants and didn't find what I wanted. (Hey, they're not on e-Bay either, so don't fault the store. And I did mention them to the owners and got them drooling over the idea, so maybe they'll secure them by next summer.) I have decided to postpone until next year a trip to tour the Apostle Islands, after finding out how early motels book up in the area, compared to how late in the season it already is. But my favorite local grocery store with the crispiest apple fritters is still making them. You just have to arrive as soon after 7AM as possible.
Yesterday I finally dug out my boxes with wire, tools, and other jewelry supplies, and started renewing my callouses from winding hard wire around various steel rods to start making jump rings again, enabling me to not only do chaining this summer but teach it to a couple of people as promised last spring. Of course, I'm accustomed to doing it in front of a TV program that doesn't need much watching, but summer TV, well, sucks.
Sure, that's it, my perfect excuse for putting chaining off: bad TV. I'll go with that.
Friday, June 1, 2018
Why Century Link Sux
We used this company for our Wi-Fi home service in AZ for several years. When it worked, it worked. I realize this sounds either redundant, obvious, or both. But it didn't always work. Eventually, we got tired of the hassles, and contacted their closest competitor in the area, Cox.
We got instant replacement (OK, within 24 hours to be precise) and had no problems with the service coupled with a reasonable price.
Thank you, Cox.
Within minutes of the new service being set up, we unplugged the old box and Steve called Century Link to cancel their service. Immediately. Our records show that call happening on May 2. So do theirs. Now the "fun" begins.
We were offered a UPS email return label to print out for return shipping of their box. While returning their equipment was/is totally reasonable, an email label to a machine which connects to no printer was refused by us as an option. The "very helpful" young man on the other end of the phone stated they would mail us out a label that same day!
I bet you can already figure out where I'm going with this, right?
The first several days we religiously checked the mail for their label. By the time a week had passed with no label, we let the missing label get lost in the pile of details needing tending to in the process of getting ready to travel. Suddenly we realized just how overdue it was and contacted the company again. Again, an offer of an e-label. Same response on our part. This time we were connected to a more practical young lady who gave us the shipping address for returns, informing us that we could pay for the return and that our cost would be removed from our remaining bill.
That was done. I kept the receipt. It contained their address, the date, price to ship, and a very helpful tracking number. Gotta love those! In the meantime, the company bills, previously on automatic deduction from Steve's bank account, were dis-enabled (is that a word?) by a phone call to his bank.
Armed with that paperwork, we left on vacation. Trusting as we are, the UPS receipt was among the things packed.
Included in our forwarded mail was, of all things, their label to ship the already-shipped equipment to them. Toss! (Giggle and head shake included.) Today his email announced the Century Link bill would be taken out of his bank.
Bill? What bill? He had settled up with the company for the previous month, including through shut-off. I dug out the receipt from UPS, and a quick search of the tracking number showed it had been received May 22.
Phone time!
After bouncing from one employee to another equally clueless, Steve was finally switched to somebody who could look at our records and - we naively thought - could straighten things out. Their records showed two things. No record of the return showed, nor was any proof over the phone requested via, say, the UPS tracking number which was still in hand, ready to be quoted to them. Second, while termination of service was shown requested on May 2nd, nobody put it through until the 25th! They claimed we owed them for their incompetence.
At this point I requested the phone from Steve. He doesn't like to swear over the phone. I won't exactly say I like to, exactly, but I'm completely willing to call a spade a fricking shovel when the need arises. Among suggesting their incompetent staff members should be invited to perform physiologically impossible acts upon themselves (exact quote, I wasn't actually swearing yet), I clearly informed them we felt absolutely no responsibility for their failure to shut off service on the day requested, or failure to note the return of equipment which also included inside it a handwritten packing list with both our and their addresses on it, in case some idiot ripped open the box without seeing what it was all about. It was also mentioned that the bank had already been informed to quit accepting withdrawals from their company, so after he'd threatened to send the bill through anyway, I wished him good luck with that.
In a totally deadpan voice he responded by questioning whether there was anything else. I found it a good time to request he pass the matter upstairs and suggested it should be cause for several incompetent people to find other employment.
Upon hanging up, and passing the receipt over to Steve for continued safekeeping, I took a moment to reflect that nowhere in the conversation had I actually sworn at this brainless, unhelpful, robot.
Hmmm, too bad.
ADDENDUM: Why Wells Fargo Rocks!
Out and about this afternoon, Steve stopped in at Wells Fargo, his bank for many years, to make sure what he'd thought he'd done to deal with Century had, in fact, been done.
Well, there were issues. But the woman he dealt with invited him back into her office, and listened. Once Steve explained the above situation, she asked him to wait a few minutes while she contacted their fraud department, The result was two-fold. First, all the official paperwork was completed properly so that Century Link no longer had any access to his account. Turns out what Steve thought he'd done wasn't exactly complete.
A result of that was that Century Link had indeed not only subtracted from his account a fee for the month he wasn't using it, but added in a fee for what they claimed was the non-return of their box. Wells Fargo took it back, all of it, and replaced it in Steve's account!
Steve walked out with a big grin on his face and renewed dedication to remaining a Wells Fargo customer! Now that's how to serve your customers!
We got instant replacement (OK, within 24 hours to be precise) and had no problems with the service coupled with a reasonable price.
Thank you, Cox.
Within minutes of the new service being set up, we unplugged the old box and Steve called Century Link to cancel their service. Immediately. Our records show that call happening on May 2. So do theirs. Now the "fun" begins.
We were offered a UPS email return label to print out for return shipping of their box. While returning their equipment was/is totally reasonable, an email label to a machine which connects to no printer was refused by us as an option. The "very helpful" young man on the other end of the phone stated they would mail us out a label that same day!
I bet you can already figure out where I'm going with this, right?
The first several days we religiously checked the mail for their label. By the time a week had passed with no label, we let the missing label get lost in the pile of details needing tending to in the process of getting ready to travel. Suddenly we realized just how overdue it was and contacted the company again. Again, an offer of an e-label. Same response on our part. This time we were connected to a more practical young lady who gave us the shipping address for returns, informing us that we could pay for the return and that our cost would be removed from our remaining bill.
That was done. I kept the receipt. It contained their address, the date, price to ship, and a very helpful tracking number. Gotta love those! In the meantime, the company bills, previously on automatic deduction from Steve's bank account, were dis-enabled (is that a word?) by a phone call to his bank.
Armed with that paperwork, we left on vacation. Trusting as we are, the UPS receipt was among the things packed.
Included in our forwarded mail was, of all things, their label to ship the already-shipped equipment to them. Toss! (Giggle and head shake included.) Today his email announced the Century Link bill would be taken out of his bank.
Bill? What bill? He had settled up with the company for the previous month, including through shut-off. I dug out the receipt from UPS, and a quick search of the tracking number showed it had been received May 22.
Phone time!
After bouncing from one employee to another equally clueless, Steve was finally switched to somebody who could look at our records and - we naively thought - could straighten things out. Their records showed two things. No record of the return showed, nor was any proof over the phone requested via, say, the UPS tracking number which was still in hand, ready to be quoted to them. Second, while termination of service was shown requested on May 2nd, nobody put it through until the 25th! They claimed we owed them for their incompetence.
At this point I requested the phone from Steve. He doesn't like to swear over the phone. I won't exactly say I like to, exactly, but I'm completely willing to call a spade a fricking shovel when the need arises. Among suggesting their incompetent staff members should be invited to perform physiologically impossible acts upon themselves (exact quote, I wasn't actually swearing yet), I clearly informed them we felt absolutely no responsibility for their failure to shut off service on the day requested, or failure to note the return of equipment which also included inside it a handwritten packing list with both our and their addresses on it, in case some idiot ripped open the box without seeing what it was all about. It was also mentioned that the bank had already been informed to quit accepting withdrawals from their company, so after he'd threatened to send the bill through anyway, I wished him good luck with that.
In a totally deadpan voice he responded by questioning whether there was anything else. I found it a good time to request he pass the matter upstairs and suggested it should be cause for several incompetent people to find other employment.
Upon hanging up, and passing the receipt over to Steve for continued safekeeping, I took a moment to reflect that nowhere in the conversation had I actually sworn at this brainless, unhelpful, robot.
Hmmm, too bad.
ADDENDUM: Why Wells Fargo Rocks!
Out and about this afternoon, Steve stopped in at Wells Fargo, his bank for many years, to make sure what he'd thought he'd done to deal with Century had, in fact, been done.
Well, there were issues. But the woman he dealt with invited him back into her office, and listened. Once Steve explained the above situation, she asked him to wait a few minutes while she contacted their fraud department, The result was two-fold. First, all the official paperwork was completed properly so that Century Link no longer had any access to his account. Turns out what Steve thought he'd done wasn't exactly complete.
A result of that was that Century Link had indeed not only subtracted from his account a fee for the month he wasn't using it, but added in a fee for what they claimed was the non-return of their box. Wells Fargo took it back, all of it, and replaced it in Steve's account!
Steve walked out with a big grin on his face and renewed dedication to remaining a Wells Fargo customer! Now that's how to serve your customers!
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