Absurdity

I tend to forget that I have a credit card that racks up "thank you" points when I use it. As a result, I end up with thousands of points that can be used to procure things like vacuum cleaners and restaurant gift certificates and other goodies it's nice to get for free rather than actually pay for. Both my kids recently moved into new apartments and both, interestingly, demonstrated enthusiasm for the idea of a vacuum cleaner. So I thought - thank you points.

I log on today, find I have the usual zillion points and identify a nice ultra-light little vacuum cleaner perfect for someone who still has several additional moves ahead and doesn't want to get over-burdened with things that are hard to carry (like my two favorite such someones). I order one and enter the address. I click on Place Order. All goes well. I order a second and enter the second address. I click on Place Order and this time the thank you screen informs me that my order has been placed and the vacuum will be shipped to me. I don't want any vacuum cleaners, so I look for a way to cancel or modify the order. There is none. I do find a telephone number, though, so I call it. It's promptly answered by one of those voice recognition ladies. She tells me a bunch of things I don't want or need to hear, then starts asking me to "state or enter" info like my phone number, zip code and SSN. I do so. She tells me my point balance (another thing I'm uninterested in, particularly since I have it on the screen in front of me). Then, she tells me to listen carefully to my options. All I want is an operator - a human one, although the voice recognition lady does seem nice - but of course that's the last option. I hit 5. A voice does a little commercial for the thank you site. A human answers and asks to whom he is speaking. This question strikes me as odd since I just entered my entire life story for the voice recognition lady, but I swallow my irritation and tell him my name. Pleasantly. He asks me how he can help. I tell him. He apologizes and calls me ma'am about 12 times (despite having just asked me for my name), but the system is down and there's no way he can help me. No, I can't fix the problem online either. His suggestion is that I call back "in a few hours or tomorrow." I want to swear, but I ask (still pleasantly) if there's a way to bypass the time I spent with the voice recognition lady when I call back. Lots more calling me ma'am (until I can't stand it any more and ask him to quit calling me ma'am), but there isn't. I say goodbye.

I really don't want a vacuum cleaner to be shipped to me, so I read some email and some news stories, all the while watching the clock. After 90 minutes, I can't stand it any more, so I take a deep breath and call the number again. The voice recognition lady and I repeat our conversation, I hear the same commercial, and this time a new guy named Mike asks to whom he is speaking. I tell him and ask if the system is back up. He says yes. I explain my problem. In a burst of irrelevance, he tells me they no longer want to use SSNs for security purposes and asks if I could pick something else. I do. He then logs into my account, finds the bad order, asks for the correct shipping address (and is audibly typing it in as I tell him), then asks me to hold. I do. After some ghastly music (but no more commercials), Mike tells me Mary Ellen is on the phone with us. She's a supervisor and she'll handle the address change. I say ok and Mike says goodbye. Mary Ellen says hello and asks me for the correct shipping address. With some amazement evident in my voice, I tell her I just gave it to Mike. She apologizes for the inconvenience (and calls me ma'am). I give her the address and listen to her type it in. (Where did Mike's input go??) Mary Ellen tells me that when I place orders online, "for my protection" I will never be allowed to specify an address other than my billing address. I reply (still pleasantly, although it's killing me) that not 5 minutes before the bad order, I did just that. She assures me that's impossible. I resist asking why there's a button to click that says "Send to alternate address." (Really, could the explanation be anything but ludicrous?) Instead, I assure her that it was completely possible. She says we better check on the other order because, really, it's impossible. She pulls up the other order. It correctly states the alternate shipping address. She's amazed. I'm now trying not to laugh. (My husband, who normally makes this sort of call because I can't be trusted to behave properly, is laughing helplessly as he listens to my end of the conversation.) Mary Ellen gabs for a while about the old system and the new system, assures me that no vacuum cleaners will be coming to Nevada and asks me if there's anything else she can help me with. I say no and we part pleasantly.

I know the odds of a vacuum cleaner coming to Nevada are very high, but my fingers are crossed. All I can think is that I should have bought more expensive vacuum cleaners so I wouldn't have so many points left. I can only hope they don't expire before I have the will to face another redemption.

Driving Me Crazy

What the hell is wrong with people when they drive? As my son put it last summer, Las Vegas is like one big traffic accident surrounded by casinos - or was it one big casino surrounded by traffic accidents? It's actually impossible here to get in your car and go anywhere without seeing at least one fender bender. Weather is almost never a factor, but people seem to have failed to absorb the simple geometry of driving a car. They are literally all over the road. It's not unusual to watch someone make a right on red...all the way across 4 lanes of traffic into the left lane. There seems to be a general unawareness of the meaning of certain standard driving cues, such as lane markings and red lights, and an equal ignorance of the existence of certain standard automotive features, such as turn signals. (Some people evidently consider headlights optional, too, but that's less of a problem in a place with so much neon.) On my way home from the Strip today, I encountered: two accidents; a Hummer (don't get me started) driving 50 mph in the left lane on a highway where the speed limit is 65 and the average speed is 75; two trucks in some sort of "mine is bigger" drag race; the usual complement of people leaving 2-3 car lengths between them and the car in front of them when they stop at red lights; and an infuriated woman in a red Mustang who honked at me (and, when I checked my rearview mirror, was banging her hands on her steering wheel in a frenzy of frustration) when I stopped at a red light. No, I didn't fail to go through the yellow (I know the drill with yellows); the light was already red when I got to the intersection. Short of ignoring it and taking my chances (not only illegal, but a very stupid move when the cross street has 4-6 lanes of traffic streaming by at 35-45 mph), stopping was truly my only option. I kind of wanted to get out and explain things to her, but decided it was ok if she thought I was an idiot. Even assuming I could have explained anything to someone in a frenzy of frustration over having to stop at a definitively red light, really, it's hard to get too worked up over the opinion such a person might have of my driving abilities.

Be Careful What You Wish For

I like answering business and career development questions for people and I love to write, so I figured inviting people to participate in my online Forum would be fun and easy. Well, it is fun - quite fun and gratifying, too, given how quickly questions started arriving - but it's harder than I anticipated. There's a difference between talking in person with someone and writing an answer for posting and public consumption. Context is missing, I guess. I thought I just gave my perspective and my thoughts to people who ask me these kinds of questions when I give speeches. Evidently, though, I don't simply say what I say, drawing on my experience; without realizing it, I must be personalizing my advice. Turns out that even with total strangers, there are cues when we're face-to-face that are missing when all I have is a question. Writing an answer without a face to read is a whole different deal. It doesn't bother me to compose fiction or nonfiction in a vacuum and then send my words out to have what impact they will, but there's something so personal about individual career questions. They are so heartfelt and sometimes they require the asker to be so vulnerable. I want very much to reach the person who has taken the time to ask me a question, to answer her in a way she can hear, relate to and use. I sure hope I'm doing that. And then there are all the other people who will read the answer, people about whom I know absolutely nothing. Yikes!

You Can Go Home Again

Credibility is an interesting thing. I’ve given two presentations this week, both well received. At the first, my credibility came from my resume - people were receptive because my career accomplishments are recognizable and because they occurred in a context similar to the audience’s context (law school, then a law firm, then a company, and so on). The second presentation, though, was at one of the law firms where I actually worked. And I noticed a difference – not in the receptivity of the audience (both groups were great), but in the effect my words seemed to be having. There was something about my having actually worked at the firm that personalized what I was saying and prompted reactions that looked to me like epiphanies. I’m pretty sure I saw "Wait – she did that here?!" expressions on more than a few faces and I’m also pretty sure that the messages I was communicating had even more force as a result. It’s much harder to maintain negative thinking, fear and uncertainty in the face of someone who actually accomplished - at the same place and with many of the same people - a thing or two that you suspected might be impossible.

One of the Many Reasons I Love Las Vegas

So I'm leaving tomorrow for 10 days of travel. Once my presentations were prepared and my suitcase was packed, the only remaining to-do item was to get some cash for the trip. With every intention of going to the bank, I got in the car and headed out. Before I was even a block from my house, I decided there was no point in going to the bank when I could go to a casino instead. Why take my own money when I can take money that earlier today belonged to the Venetian or the Bellagio or the local Station casino? I realize there's some risk to my approach, but I figured I'd give it a try - the bank is really close to home, so a stop there on the way back, while depressing, wouldn't have been inconvenient. But it all worked out and my wallet is now nicely full of crisp $100 bills that a few hours ago didn't belong to me at all. Every time I spend one on the trip, I'll smile and think whatever I've bought was basically free. My only problem will be remembering to turn the big bills into smaller ones. I keep forgetting that outside of Vegas people consider it odd to pay for a pack of gum with a C-note.

The Dying Art of Customer Service

I ordered a birthday gift for my sister from a website I order from frequently. The gift card instruction box gave me pause at the time – instead of the usual "check here if this is a gift" type thing, the site had a weird instruction to "note that it’s a gift in the comments box." It was totally unclear how you included a gift message, but I decided to type that in the comments box, too, and hope for the best. (I felt rather like my grandfather, who always spoke to answering machines as if they were secretaries. "Please ask Debra to give me a call," I would hear when I played messages.) Today, I heard from my sister that she got a great gift with no card or indication of who sent it. Luckily, she guessed it was me. I emailed the website to complain and got (very promptly, which was nice) an apology along with a statement that the card WAS included and the recipient no doubt overlooked it. Basically, the response was "Sorry, but we’re right and your gift recipient is wrong." How is it possible for anyone not to get that the explanation totally undercuts the apology and makes this a bad response? Even if it were true, where's the corporate upside in telling me my sister is wrong? And what ever happened to "the customer is always right?" It would have been fine with me if the apologizer had typed "I’m sorry you were disappointed. We make every effort to assure that cards get included, but sometimes, blah, blah, blah," then hit send, and called me something unflattering to the person in the next cubicle. I don't expect groveling, but it seems to me that businesses might seek customer service reps who understand that corrective rebuttal is probably not the most effective approach to customers.

Everything Old is New Again

I was in Chicago right before the White Sox made it to the World Series the year before last, and I'm heading to Chicago next week, so I was feeling pretty good about the Bears' chances against the Saints today. Still, you can't be a Bears fan without knowing there's a good chance the horrible team instead of the great team will show up. What a gratifying game for a long-time Bears fan to watch! Solid play throughout, only one penalty, great defense, not-only-not-harmful-but-actually-decent offense - just a thing of beauty from start to finish, right down to the snowflakes, which reminded me of the wonderful playoff game I attended at Soldier Field in 1985 when the Bears shut out the Rams and snow started to fall in the 4th quarter. I hope it's once again the Bears vs. the Patriots in the Super Bowl and with the same result as in 1985-6, too. And I can't wait to see the Art Institute lions wearing their Bears helmets next week - makes it worth it to have to leave sunny Nevada for wintry Chicago. Go Bears!

New-Wave Feminism?

I was poking around on Gather.com and discovered (among the cheesy and the dreadful) a couple articles that piqued my interest because their tags included the words "sexism" and "Feminazi." The first was an article decrying women who want to call history "herstory." I can agree that the word thing is silly – I've always wanted the real thing with words and titles I've earned; the word "chairman" may be sexist, but it is what it is and I'll be damned if I'm going to let it become "chair" or "chairwoman" when it applies to me (an opinion sharp-eyed readers will know I share with my character, Jane). But I’m appalled that anyone would consider such wordplay to be proof that feminists are "feminazis" and feminism is "crap," as one commenter pithily (if not elegantly) wrote.

The term "feminazi" evidently started its life as a label for man-haters and other extremists. It didn't surprise me to learn that Rush Limbaugh is credited with broadening the use of the term to mean any female who is intolerant of any point of view that challenges militant feminism. Every movement has its fringe elements and even its thugs. True feminism, if you ask me, is nothing more or less than the belief that women, like men, are human beings entitled to social, political and economic equality.

The second article stated that women who grew up in the 80s consider sexism to be something they grew up largely without and feminism to be a movement they no longer need. Because I prefer not to think that a whole generation of women is either blind or half-witted, I trust that the article is wrong. According to it, though, the mindset of the majority of 20-somethings is post-feminist and they think the word "feminist" conjures up negative images. Apparently, they consider the "angry feminist" to be at best a relic and at worst a feminazi.

Well, what a load of crap that is! I've never been able to understand why any woman wouldn't be a feminist – and, given the rampant inequality that still plagues society even in 2007, at least a provoked feminist, if not an angry one. Don’t even get me started on listing examples of current sexism; I’d exceed the limits of what I can store on this site in no time! Angry feminism is not outdated nor is it necessarily extreme; it's a completely suitable (if not always the most effective) response to ongoing inequality. Despite anger, and despite what those threatened by the notion of social, political and economic equality for women may choose to believe, feminism has nothing to do with hating men or, for that matter, with hating marriage or children or other women who make different choices or anything else. It’s not about hate. It’s about refusing to tolerate inequality and seeking to eliminate sexism.

"Feminazi" is a horrible term, despite its catchiness. It connotes fascism and the notion that one group is superior/dominant relative to another. Evidently, the term is used by (among others) liberal, self-identified feminist women to deprecate other women who hold "extreme views." (Perhaps another thing women who grew up in the 80s grew up without is an understanding of the repressive and dangerous impact of Nazis and fascism.) For solidarity as well as linguistic reasons, I don't think this is where we want to be heading.

Eyebrows & Mountains

What is it about fantastic eyebrow waxers? For at least 10 years, every time I've found a great one, she's pretty quickly left town or moved to a different salon (one located as inconveniently as possible for me) or just disappeared like a thief in the night. I call to make my supposed-to-be monthly appointment, which is inevitably more like an every-six-weeks-or-so appointment and I hear, "Oh, sorry, she's no longer with us." Infuriating. I hate having to explain what I want ("as thick and arched as possible, you know, normal") to someone new whose personal eyebrows are all too often a pencil-thin crime.

Anyway, the most recent vanishing esthetician was too good to lose (and smart and kind enough to let me know where she went). And Las Vegas isn't as big or as spread out as Chicago, so I decided to follow her to her new digs. Of course, people here think I'm crazy - who would drive 25 minutes each way for a 5-7 minute appointment? Well, I did just that today and discovered that it's ridiculous how little it takes to make me totally happy. The drive was a pleasure - all 80 mph on a brand new road with no traffic (I picked my time carefully), and simply incredible mountain vistas as I drove north. We had a few clouds today and reddish-brown desert mountains are even more spectacular when there are clouds to contrast the light in the ridges and dips. I was listening to a great mix CD (Ben Folds and assorted country - thank you, Annie). As I drove, I realized anew how much I love my new home in the Silver State.

I routinely drove much longer than 50 minutes round-trip for things in Chicago and the scenery never made my heart sing. Well, ok, coming down Lake Shore Drive with that gorgeous skyline spread out before me and the lake on my left was pretty sweet, but I'd lived there too long. I'd stopped reveling in the beauty. Mostly, I tried to contain my irritation at the traffic and to avoid both the potholes and my tendency to scream words I really shouldn't use. But Nevada is still new. The scenery, in addition to being amazing, is so different from what I spent my first 50 years looking at. Sunshine and mountains and novelty are apparently going to take longer than 2 years to fade into unnoticed background for me. I like that I'm constantly struck by my surroundings and I like seeing things from angles I don't see every day. Hard to believe that driving seriously out of my way for an errand would prompt a singing heart, but it did. And my brows look great, too.

A Writing Epiphany

I woke up yesterday morning with a short story in my head. The press of words was so great that I got out of bed WAY too early, went immediately to my computer and started writing. The next thing I knew it was dark, I hadn’t eaten all day, and I was still wearing boxers, an old flannel shirt (of a print and color that don’t even begin to coordinate with the boxers) and the ancient Ugg boots I use as slippers when it’s cold. The outfit was suitable only for a recluse whose husband is used to her peculiarities, but the story came out beautifully.

Writing is more basic somehow, more direct and less fragmented, than being a lawyer or an executive. Happily, it's equally satisfying and more mesmerizing. It’s cathartic, even – and gratifying in a somehow more personal way. Kind of the way physical activity differs from intellectual activity. At first, I thought this was because as a writer I don’t have to deal with other people’s agendas. But then I realized that’s not true. My characters are very pushy, and I have to deal with their agendas. That’s what writing is: getting out of my head and expressed just right who these characters are and what they do. I think the real difference between writing and my original career might be that I don’t have to deal with my own agenda. My conscious will is never anywhere in the vicinity when I work to find the right words to express the feelings and images and people crowding my mind. For me, writing is like taking dictation from fascinating dictators. That’s why I lose track of time and appetite (and apparel).