I haven’t blog in 4 days, which I thought was more like 2 or 3. Been concentrating on getting to work and home, little else. I have talked here about slowing down on the Interstate. I was able to get in a full tank of gas at 60 mph or less ending tonight in Mount Jackson. I thought gas here near home was still at $3.09.9 and the gas in Mount Jackson was $3.09.9. So I thought there would be no advantage to getting home on a few gallons. I also saw my miles on this tank of gas was 320 miles, something I had not remembered seeing before. I believe it is a small tank, but it is a pickup. So I filled up with $3.09.9 and found I had raised my mpg from the high 17 mpgs to 21.37 mpg. When I got home my wife informed me that gas near our house is $2.99 and just a little further down it is $2.98.
Now in case you are tisk tisking your tongue at me for driving 10 miles an hour under the speed limit, you can stop. I really don’t care what you think about what my speed is. I have been very careful and I have not had any close calls since the first night. And that one was more me getting adjusted to being slower than it was a close call. I am sure the driver was well aware of how close he was. And unless you want to contribute to putting gas in my truck I’ll continue to drive at what I feel is reasonable and safe.
I got a call tonight from a man with a middle eastern first name and a last name of Kurdi. I asked my friend, Ala, who is Kurdish if there were any Kurds who had a name very close to their nationality like Kurdi. She said she believed he is Arabian. I have for a few weeks now been keeping a personal journal of every contact I have on the phones and I looked this guy up in my personal journal. Sure enough, I talked to him in November. I thought his very rapid speech, his accent and his high pitched very excitable voice sounded familiar. He was just as animated the last time. This time I had to side with him, however. His services were disconnected without warrant.
Even customer service was wringing their hands. It was a string of errors that led to the disconnect but it really was the fault of the tech who disconnected the services without personally informing the customer it was happening. I would love to talk to the people in charge of the service techs because they continually do things that send our customers into orbit and it just isn’t necessary. Evidently cable TV, phone and Internet service techs are held to the same high standards all the computer techs I have known are held to. I would not have lasted in the computer service business for 3 decades if I had done the things these techs do.
We have pretty frequent calls from Middle Eastern and Hispanic customers. There are frequent messages on our inner office messaging system asking for either an Arabic or Spanish speaking translator. Fortunately in our office we have both, except the Spanish translator works days, the Arabic translator works evenings.
Today I received one of three books I found on eBay a short while ago. I had already received “The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come” and today I received a 1959 copy of a Weekly Reader Book Club book I treasured when I was very young, “Champion Dog Prince Tom.” The book, written for children, is a partly fictionalized account of a true story. The main character is a pure bred Blond Cocker Spaniel who won more obedience and field trials than any dog in history, before or after. The title of the book is his official title.
One thing about this job, I can do anything I want while waiting on a call. And I normally read until dinner at 7pm, then watch collegiate basketball after dinner until it’s time to go home. I get interrupted frequently on both sides of dinner, but I also get to read a good bit and watch more basketball than I would home. Our phone system uses some kind of algorithm to place phone calls among the 8 to 10 or more operators that are on at any one time. So one never knows when a call will hit their desk. Two nights in a row this week I got a call with one minute left in my day! Gotta hate that.
Cheers.
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