Dogged Blog

Why all your special modern pet-hair targeting vacuum cleaners suck

Look, a vacuum cleaner just shouldn't be this complicated.

A few months ago, I purchased a Panasonic JetSpin Cyclone based on a review I read on the old Pet Connection. I knew the Dyson Animal was supposed to be the pinnacle machine for pet owners, but $500 for a vacuum cleaner? Just no. But the Cyclone had good reviews on Amazon as well as the one on Pet Connection and was a fraction of the price, so I bought it.

The reviews may be accurate, but I have to assume the people who wrote them grew up in a different era than I did. Every vacuum I've ever used has worked just fine in picking up dog hair, cat hair, and whatever else was on my rugs. I haven't experienced all these clogs and suction-failures the TV ads wax dire over, and all I ever had to do was change the bag every few uses and, once or twice in the lifetime of the vacuum (which would run into decades) change a belt.

My new vacuum was so freaking complicated that I had to get out the instruction manual just to emtpy it. It has multiple filters and I can't even figure out how to get half the attachments off the machine or onto the wand. Hell, I don't even understand how the wand works at all. I hate it so much I'm giving it away, and I went to Amazon and ordered an old-fashioned bagged upright Hoover with hundreds of rave reviews that cost even less than the Cyclone (around $125).

Keep your stupid high tech vacuums and their bagless, filtered, super-magical special pet hair sucking technology. I'm going back to the kind of vacuums that had a one-page instruction manual. And if you want the Cyclone, it's yours.

Comcast's horrible customer service rides again

I sometimes wonder why Comcast is still in business.

After my last go-around with them, when they randomly gave my phone number away to someone else for no reason and professed to be unable to fix it for several days, you'd think nothing would surprise me.

But after Rawley, my dog, took my remote control out into the woods in a snowstorm, I contacted them about getting a replacement, a ten buck purchase. They informed me I'd need to provide them the following to buy -- not be given, but purchase -- a replacement remote:

1. Name on the account,
2. Address,
3. Telephone number associated with the account,
4. One of the following:
4.1. Last four digits of the Social Security Number of the account
holder,
4.2. Security Code,
4.3. Account Number,
4.4. Amount and date of most recent payment on the account, or
4.5. Services that are listed on the account.

Really, Comcast? Are you out of your mind?

It's not that I don't have all that information; I do. It's that it's the most ridiculous piece of overkill I've ever seen.

And it's worth noting that the people at Comcast are all very pleasant and nice. It's not rudeness that's the problem. It's the actual systems at Comcast that are broken, and the fact that their employees are not empowered to help customers. Being polite is not a substitute for having genuine customer-friendly policies and procedures.

Dear Typepad, can I haz spam controls now plz?

What with all the angst at Pet Connection closing down, the last thing I want in my life is any more CHANGE, but I'm thisclose to moving this blog.

I can't freaking believe the amount of spam I get in my comments, sometimes 20 spam comments a day. I've had to put the blog on moderation, which I HATE both because it slows down the conversations or even stops them, and because in general I loathe a heavy hand.

I filed a support ticket over this a few weeks ago, and the person was very apologetic and said they were working on better spam controls, but this is the thing: I get email notifications of new comments on this blog. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the notifications for spam comments are being caught by Gmail's filters. ZERO percent of my actual comments are.

  I can tell at a glance that these things are spam; they all have similar syntax in the username. They all have the same phrases in them. Obviously Gmail has no problem identifying them as spam.

Typepad, seriously: What's the problem? If I had the energy, I'd already be gone. And in every other way, I love this service. I'd happily pay twice what I'm paying now to make this crap go away and be able to turn my moderation off.

Yours in extreme annoyance,

Christie

Bank of America: Finding new and better ways to screw their customers

How bad does a bank have to get before you move your money? I'm ashamed to admit that it took a customer "service" policy that affected me personally to get me to do what I should have done a long time ago.

I mailed a check that was never received, nor was it cashed. So this morning I called Bank of America to cancel payment.

I was told that if the check was converted to an electronic debit, they'd pay it even though I stopped payment. And they also said that the check would be paid anytime in the future as long as my account was open and funds were available, FOREVER, and that if I wanted my "stop payment" to last beyond six months I'd have to call and renew it every six months, FOREVER.

So clearly all any thief holding a stolen check has to do now is wait 6 months and present the check. Or wait a couple of years. Odds are, it will be paid.

Let's not even mention that when you search "stop payment" or "lost check" on the Bank of America website you get NO returns, no information on how to do that, let alone the ability to do it.

I wended my way through their horrible phone system until I got the agent who shared with me these impossible to understand policies.

I'd started moving my money to my credit union a while ago because BofA took bailout money, has a horrible record on making loan modifications, and doesn't pay any corporate taxes, but never finished it because the inconvenience of changing the bazillion auto-payments I have set up just overwhelmed me. And it still does. But if that's the only way to prevent a thief from sucking a lot of money out of my account while BofA not only looks the other way but actively facilitates it, fine. They've now made a necessity out of virtue.

I'm amazed it took this much, but yeah. You've been my bank since I was 17 years old, BofA, but you and me? We're through.

Kong Wobbler takes Scottish Deerhound from top speed to napping

I'd like to buy the inventor of the Kong Wobbler roses and candy.

Seriously, that thing is awesome. Rawley, once he drags his lazy butt out of bed in the morning, is ready to go-go-go. During the work week, he goes out with my friend Courtney Gunter-Durbin from The Whole Pet here in San Francisco, which helps me focus on getting my 12-16 hours of work in each day (yeah, I gotta do something about that schedule, I know), but on the weekends, getting him out to the park and the beach to run off that energy is an inescapable responsibility.

Fortunately, it's often the highlight of my week, too, as it was last weekend when he decided to try to wade through chest-deep mud and cross an inlet of the San Francisco Bay while the tide was out.

But I sadly have to work this weekend, so I needed him to chill out while I finished a few things, after which we'd be able to go to the park.

I put a handful of organic dog treats in the Kong Wobbler I'd bought when he was a puppy, and it kept him busy for nearly an hour. Not only that, when he was done, he curled up for a nap.

Here's a video of him as a puppy, the first time I gave him a Wobbler. The photo above is, of course, Rawley napping.

Amazon, on the other hand, is doing it right

Although Comcast did eventually fix the problem, apologize, and credit me a month's service to make up for the hassle of giving away my phone number one day for no apparent reason, it was only after I Tweeted and blogged about the two hour customer service support chat from hell. What happens to regular customers who don't have hundreds or thousands of Twitter followers, or who don't have "I write for the San Francisco Chronicle" in their Twitter bio?

Still, their Twitter customer service rep, @ComcastMelissa, was truly awesome, and the people to whom she escalated my problem were extremely fast and helpful. Kudos where they're due.

In contrast, I didn't need to go whining on Twitter to get great customer service from Amazon. I ordered something that didn't arrive, went to their online support chat, and prepared to suffer. This is what happened:

You are now connected to Tyler from Amazon.com.

Me:This was being sent with one day delivery and has never arrived -- it's been almost 2 weeks. I would like it to be re-sent to me, and a refund of the one-day delivery charge. Thanks.4:22:42 PM

Tyler:Hello, Christie, I'm sorry to hear that you haven't received your order. This will take a moment as I bring up the order to assist you.4:23:02 PM

Me:Thanks4:23:08 PM

Tyler:Given that it has been so long, I will arrange for a replacement to be sent to you. In addition, I will be refunding your $3.99 shipping charges. As you currently have a Prime membership, I will also be arranging to extend your prime benefits for an additional month as an apology for this missed delivery.4:25:55 PM

Me:Thanks so much!4:26:08 PM

Tyler:I'll be sending an e-mail to you in the next few minutes confirming that the replacement has been created (as well as this Prime extension). Is there anything else I can assist you with today?

Me:Nothing, this was very fast and helpful, thank you!

Tyler:I'm glad to be of assistance, Christie. Thank you for visiting Amazon.com, we hope to see you again soon!4:26:46 PM

Note this took four minutes. And yes, they'll see me again soon.

Yet another reason newspapers are dying, and it's not what you think

I subscribed to the daily paper.

Don't ask me why; I haven't been a subscriber to the dead tree edition of the San Francisco Chronicle in years. I got it at my old house for my mother, who read it faithfully, but I personally never looked at, and canceled the subscription when she passed away in September of last year.

But when I recently moved, I had to fight the impulse to subscribe nearly every day, until finally I gave in and did it.

That's when I realized that this was the very first time in my life I've moved to a new home and not subscribed to the paper as a sort of routine part of moving. Even when I lived in the country and getting the paper was a huge pain in the butt, I at least tried to get it.

But that was all years ago, and my reading habits have completely changed since then. Like, I guess, nearly everyone, I get most of my news from a wide variety of online sources, including a lot of newspaper websites, even including the Chronicle's SFGate.com (for which I'm a columnist). The habit of reading a single paper cover to cover was broken so long ago I can't quite remember when it happened.

I've kind of enjoyed the ritual of going into my front yard every morning to get the paper and let the dogs sniff around, but I think I'm going to be canceling my subscription soon.

Two reasons: One, the paper is pitifully thin. If it weren't for the advertising inserts, it would be thinner than our little monthly neighborhood free shopper. It's really sad.

Two, the delivery has been atrocious. I've only been getting the paper for a couple of weeks, and I've had four days it wasn't delivered. That's 4 out of 14, which if it continues to be that bad means in a given month, I'll get the paper only three weeks out of four. And if you don't report it before 9:30 AM, you can't get it re-delivered, you just have to take a credit.

I realize that "newspapers are dying" is the stupidest and most over-done topic on the entire Interwebz, and I should be embarrassed to be writing about it at all. But until now, I haven't missed the role the newspaper used to play in my life, or the social landscape of America, or even just of San Francisco.

Even now, saying I write for the Chronicle is my single best "ticket" to access to sources for stories. There's a cachet there that hasn't gone away even as the paper dwindles down to minisculosity.

So it's late. It's irrelevant. I know. But just for today, I miss newspapers.

If Comcast cares, they'll read this transcript

This morning a friend texts me she's getting a disconnected message when she calls my landline. I check it, and it makes calls, including long distance calls, just fine. But when I call myself from my cell phone, it tells me the number has been disconnected. Weird.

I call Comcast, my provider, and their phone support says they're having higher than usual call volume (I don't think they know what "usual" means, since I always get that message) and suggests I try their online support.

So I do, for nearly two incredibly aggravating and frustrating hours. Seems Comcast just randomly gave my phone number away to another provider, for no reason anyone has been able to explain to me.

But worse than them doing that was the experience I had trying to find out what happened and fix it. Because while both these agents were perfectly polite, they clearly had no ability to help me, and had what seemed like a lot of difficulty following the chat. I don't know if they had ten other people in chat at the same time or had simply been put out like sacrificial lambs to appease irritated customers without any solid training or being enabled to really help people, but this was ridiculous.

Given that neither of them had the ability to help with this problem, why didn't they just tell me that, apologize, and let me get OFF THE FREAKING COMPUTER?

Comcast, if you really "care," please read this transcript, paying particular attention to the timestamps and the HUGE gaps where your agents were saying nothing, leaving me staring at a screen waiting and getting more and more annoyed, and consider whether or not your current support system is even remotely functional.

And also, you might want to consider why it is that you managed to give my phone number away. Seems like, I don't know, let me try to think of a way to describe it... BAD BUSINESS.

Last, please notice how long it was until someone apologized to me for giving my number away.

Transcript below the jump, and the only edits I made were to redact my personal information (phone number, address, etc.). I didn't even fix my own typos.

A reader's heresy: I hate real books

Amazon reported that their sales of e-books has outstripped that of hardbacks. That's not really surprising, as hard cover books are incredibly expensive and we're in a recession.

But some of my friends have been lamenting this, and I'm not. I won't lament when sales of digital books exceed all "real" books, whatever the cover. Because while I love what's in books, I hate books themselves.

I hate the dust, mites and mold they harbor. I hate having them around the house to collect dust, mites and mold. I hate the smell of old books. I hate the way their spines have to be broken to lie flat, and how many paperbacks never do lie flat even then.

Speaking of which, I hate paperbacks because they're ugly.

So there. I've said it. I don't miss "real" books and embrace my Kindle and the digital era with open arms.

You may feel differently. You may be like Star Trek captain Picard, who would curl up in his spaceship cabin with a "real" book of Shakespeare's sonnets. That's okay, too. But given how frequently people rhapsodize about their love of physical books and turning pages and so on, I thought I'd present the other side.

A Kindle point Amazon appears to be missing

Dear Amazon.com,

Why do you waste so much prime "recommended for you" real estate promoting books for Kindle that are NOT OUT YET? It's not that I don't want to be able to pre-order Kindle books; I do. It's that by making them so prominent, you're missing the whole huge wonderful beauty of buying a book for a Kindle, which is that I can find out about a book and then buy it and read it in around one minute.

You know, "Books in 60 seconds"? Your slogan? Recognize it?

That is all.