Thursday, April 5, 2012

CUSTOMER SERVICE AND OTHER MYTHICAL CREATURES

Things don't always happen the way we'd like them to, otherwise most of this would have been published a couple of days ago. We've got more on "customer service", illegal mind boggling and moms from Hell. I will try to leave you laughing, or at least smiling.
May 31st my internet went down. (their fault, not mine) As with the phone company and other "public utilities" it's amazing how slow they are to respond to your request for service but how quick they can shut you off for late payment. I had a friend whose cable TV was going to be turned off for seventy-five cents. I told him he should have either paid in pennies or with a check made out on a rock (perfectly legal if there are sufficient funds to cover it.)
My eyeglass problem has been solved thanks to a small store on Second Avenue between Twenty-Fifth and Twenty-Fourth Street. While I never got any satisfaction from Cohen's Vision Center (they never even answered my letter) or another Columbia area optometrist, this gentleman understood that some of us wear glasses to see, and charged me only forty nine dollars for the frames. Ever notice the promises the big chains make when they move into a community and what happens when they get rid of the small guys? Me too.
When I mentioned illegal mind boggling I wasn't talking about the drugs we consumed back in the sixties. Instead I was referring to a group of Manhattan and Queens car wash employees who hired a lawyer to sue their employer for unpaid wages as they were paid less than minimum. Usually I'd back any employees doing this, but this leaves an incredibly bad taste in my mouth, as the employees I'm talking about are all illegals. Points for sheer brass balls, but I want to know what's going to happen if these guys win. Do they intend to pay the government back taxes. Ship these guys back to Mexico and their employer back to India. The illegal here is our increasingly put upon national symbol.
Bill Cosby once told an unruly child-I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it and make another just like you. He's got nothing on the Uptown Mommies I've been observing lately. Strollers are likely to be used as traffic indicators, with the helpless child pushed out into the street to see if there are any oncoming vehicles. If the child's still there, they cross. We've got two great parks blocks from where I work, but mothers still insist on letting their children scooter among the bicycles and pedestrians on Broadway. When one child fell off his scooter I chastised the mother for not having the child wear a helmet. I was bluntly told to mind my own business. None of these women can compete with the twenty-ish something hippie mom talking away on her cell while her son tugged at her dress to get her attention. Failing to, he reached into her grocery bag, pulled out an apple, "cleaned" it in a dirty puddle and took a big bite out of it. While I wanted to tell her, I figured if her couldn't get her attention, how could I.
Sometimes New York papers can read like the Enguirer. While they'll never reach the heights of"Headless Body Found In Topless Bar" the resent "City Lost My Sister's Brain" comes close, right?

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