Bored with the board

 

Today's post will be a short one with nothing to say that involves being transgender, as I am too tired to say much of consequence.

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One of the things I had on tap for the day was a co-op board meeting.  Normally, I find them a little boring.  But today, being sleep deprived, I wasn't in the mood to be active.  Luckily, others made up for my lack of energy - and we got a budget passed.

As usual, I can't provide any juicy details about my co-op's business.  But I can say that I was tasked with writing a letter that could stir things up a little with our co-op's managing agent.  And I did it in one take.  If one reads between the lines, I've indicted one person for not caring enough to his best for us.  If not, the email addresses a problem the co-op has had with the managing agent from the beginning of our relationship.  

Either way, we win.  I did my job.  And that's the important thing....

We had high expectations of a restaurant, and they failed us.

 

Hudson Valley Restaurant Week came, and we decided to have an elegant dinner at Restaurant Six.  Years ago, Vicki was married here (in the restaurant's prior incarnation), and it would be our first time back in its new incarnation.  Sadly, we were less than underwhelmed by the experience, and I found that I had to write a complaint letter before I could get to sleep.

But first....

As usual, RQS and I relaxed throughout the day until the bug took us, and we started to clean up my closet, making room for homeless accessories I own.  Several pairs of shoes found their way to a donation bag, and I gained a better organized closet.  And then we started to get ready for dinner.  

Around 5:15 pm, we left my apartment and drove to Vicki's house.  She was surprised that I was there on time (I am usually a few minutes late), and we were off to the restaurant.  I had allocated much more time than needed to reach the restaurant, as I planned to avoid taking the Taconic parkway (the most direct way) to the restaurant for safety purposes.  (I don't like driving on the stretch of road in Putnam county, as people drive at high speed on a road that has no shoulders, and has steep inclines on a curving roadbed.)  However, I decided to drive this road, as the sun was still out, and we arrived at the restaurant about an hour early.  So, we killed time by driving around for 30 minutes, and went back to the restaurant hoping to be seated early - which we were.

Instead of  repeating what I said in my complaint letter, I have to say that I wished we went somewhere else to eat, and Vicki could see that by how my conversation style differed from my usual style.  Eventually, we left the place, and I drove home on the side roads I planned to take on the way up to the restaurant.  We dropped Vicki off, and then returned home.  And that's when I decided to write my complaint letter.

Hopefully, they will fix things after reading this email.....

To the management of Restaurant Six:

This weekend, my group had the experience of dining at your establishment.  We had high expectations of your restaurant based on its reputation. Arriving early, we were seated quickly without having to wait. Although we were impressed with the ambiance and the quality of the food, we were very disappointed for the following reasons:

1. Service was very slow.
2. No napkins were on the table.  None of your staff noticed this even after bread and water were delivered to the table, and we had to ask for napkins .
3. The time lapse between the serving of the appetizers and the delivery of our main courses was over 40 minutes.  After we finished our appetizers, no one cleaned up the dirty dishes on our table until one of our party asked about what happened to our main courses - and only then were the dirty dishes taken away.  Shortly after the table was cleaned, the main courses magically appeared.
4. There was a noticeable lull in service compared to what was being received by other tables in the room.  
5. At one point during the meal, we had an interaction with one of the wait staff, and he commented: "This is my first and last day working at this place."
6. When my dessert was delivered to the table, it was not delivered with the spoon needed to consume it.  I had to ask for this.
7. No one asked whether we would want coffee or tea at the end of the meal.
8. The service was inconsistent at best.  At the beginning, the wait staff engaged readily in conversation, describing the dishes with enthusiasm.  Then, they disappeared and dropped the ball. After we asked about our main course, and it was delivered, no one bothered to apologize for the delay.

As much as I would love to come back because of the ambiance and the food, I am soured on the idea of returning due to the spotty service your staff provided.  My dining partners share the same opinion, and were very disappointed because there are many fine dining establishments in the Hudson Valley, and we expected to add this place to our list.

Follow that cab! (to McDonald's?)

 

While RQS and I were out this weekend, we turned into a Mickey D's to eat.  And guess what we saw in the Drive-Thru lane: A Checker Cab!  If one looks carefully at the car from all angles, it's easy to tell that this car is not registered as a cab.  Instead, it was registered as a Historical Vehicle (25+ Years Old), and limited to 2,000 miles of driving each year.  They enjoyed seeing me take pictures of the car, and I enjoyed doing so.  May they have many more enjoyable miles to go in this retired cab.

Once I shot the above picture, we went inside for lunch.  Not only did they get the order wrong, but they did not bring the meals to the table as ordered at the kiosk.  (We picked up a table number, and we were called to pick up the bag with our food.)  Although RQS got what she ordered, I ordered a Big Mac meal and received a Quarter Pounder meal and a small order of nuggets.  And the nuggets had less than no flavor.  There was no ketchup in the pumps - we had to ask for packets.  The washroom had a funky smell. And we ended up with a list of 7 complaint items which I intended to forward to McDonald's headquarters.

When we got back home, I sent off my complaints to McDonald's - and received a call back a couple of hours later.  I guess the parent organization actually cares that customers have an enjoyable experience at their stores.

Co-Op Issues - a short post.

 

I am known to my co-op board of directors as both Mario and Marian.  This is not and will not be an issue for me with the co-op.  But there is something that annoys me quite a bit, and it's related to a personnel issue that we've been dealing with for a while.  Although I can't talk about this issue, I can say that it has caused me to write "nastygrams" which would have made my late wife proud.

My late wife was good at writing complaint letters to businesses.  I can still remember a letter she wrote to our (then) favorite Chinese Restaurant complaining of horrible service given by a waiter who ignored us for the entire meal.  Needless to say, the owner gave us a free meal and made sure that we didn't see that waiter again.

Lately, I have been developing a similar skill when doing my duties for the co-op.  We have a vendor whose performance is sub par, and I have been in contact with the owner to get things resolved to our satisfaction. (This is about all I can say about the issue, as it doesn't mention the vendor or the nature of the issue.)  This has been a good experience for me, as I have learned something about myself at the same time as I've learned things about others.

Hopefully, these issues will be resolved soon.  If not, I will continue with my letter writing and documenting the lack of progress on these issues as needed.

More on my new Air Conditioner - Independence Day Weekend Support Issues.

 

I figure that my readers may be interested in the following complaint letter I wrote to the president of Friedrich Corporation discussing the troubles I've had with my AC.  It's best to write to the top honcho when you have a problem, as the little people have only so much power to influence major problems in a company.  And in my case, my complaint addresses major quality problems for the company which affect me as a customer.

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Mr. Chuck Campbell       
President,
Friedrich Corporation
10001 Reunion Place
San Antonio, TX 78216

 

Dear Mr. Campbell,

I recently bought a pair of Friedrich Air Conditioners, looking to replace the two in-wall units I have that recently failed.  The first of these units has been delivered, and I am already having problems – all of which should have been caught before the unit was sent out to your distributors for consumer sales. It is this unit and its problems that I want to discuss in this letter.

The unit (Wallmaster model WCT16A30A) comes with a manual which does not properly identify where the “Menu” button can be found.  Looking straight at the control panel, it is not readily apparent that this button is directly UNDER the control panel.  I had to call tech support to find out where this button was.  Your manuals should be updated to make this clear for the person who wants to start setting up the unit’s special features, such as WiFi (for use with the Friedrich Connect App).

Next, when I started to follow the manual’s procedure for setting up the WiFi on the unit, so that I could use your App, I encountered another problem.  So, I rushed home to get in contact with tech support before it closed down for the long weekend.  Most people in my area cannot get home on weekdays by 6 pm when your tech support line shuts down, so they are forced to take time off from work to deal with your very limited tech support hours.  This is the second issue I’ve had to deal with, and I was lucky to be able to schedule my time so that I could reach your people in time.

Finally, when I called tech support, I was the 6^th caller on the queue.  A few minutes before 6 pm, a technician came on the line and rushed to service me.  He noted that there was a firmware update to the AC that needs to be applied, and asked me for my email address without confirming he had taken it down correctly.  Once he had my address, all further communications would take place by email – and that he’d be sending me information right away.  This did not happen.  He was in a rush to get me off the line, so that he could service other customers before his shift ended for the week. Either he got my email address wrong (inexcusable in one way) or he didn’t bother to send me the email (inexcusable in another way).  Even more bothersome was the fact that your firm shipped out a product without making sure that it would work as documented in the field.  This is totally without excuse.  Products coming out of the factory should be “perfect”, and not needing any repairs – especially by a customer.

So, you might be asking – what do I want?  For the first thing, as a customer, I want better support hours for your products – both weeknights and weekends.  For me personally. Since your firm screwed up by sending out a buggy unit and a manual that is incomplete, I would like for your office to suggest something which might be of real value to me.  Since my previous two previous air conditioner units failed after their warranties ended, you may consider an extended, full service, labor, and parts warranty for my two units.  I’m pretty sure that you do not design your units to fail shortly after 3 years of use, so this might be a cheap way to keep me (and possible future customers of the Wallmaster units) happy.  It also provides an incentive for your firm to improve the quality of its products, in a similar way that Hyundai’s increase of warranty protections forced its employees to build products with greater quality than before the warranty was improved.

 

Sincerely Yours,

Marian Johnson