I have been provided with a variety of equipment to use when I go out to probationers' residences to conduct home visits, including a Kevlar vest. Sure, Kevlar is great protection against a bullet to the torso, but I hate wearing my vest. It's bulky, it's awkward, it's uncomfortable, I look like the Pillsbury Dough Boy when I have it on, and worst of all, it's miserably hot. By the end of a 70-degree day of home visits, I'm drenched in sweat. In the dead of summer, I'm pretty sure my internal organs have been pressure-cooked by the end of a shift. And those who know me know that I absolutely loathe being hot.
So I've been getting a little sloppy about wearing my vest lately. (Sorry, Mom!) My home visits have been concentrated in the county in which I work, which is half rural, half suburban, mostly laid back. That's not to say that bad things don't happen around here, but it's pretty uncommon to see anything on the local news coming out of our county.
I also like to think that I have a pretty disarming style when I'm out on home visits. I do everything I can with my body language, choice of words, tone of voice, facial expressions, etc. to put everyone in the home at ease, even as I'm confiscating their drugs, alcohol, firearms, or whatever else I find in there that's going to send them to jail. I'm also extremely particular about who I take with me as a partner. There are a small handful of people in my office who I'm comfortable with in the field, and I pretty much just stick with them.
So I figure with all of that going for me, why subject myself to a day full of heat-related misery, when the chances of me needing the Kevlar are minuscule, right?
I know, I know. That's how officers get killed. Getting complacent. But did I mention how much I hate my vest?
Yesterday, my partner and I were planning to do some home visits in a fairly nasty part of Indianapolis. Unfortunately, the temperatures were predicted to hit the mid- to high-80's, with considerable humidity. Despite the exponential increase in risk, based simply on the area we were headed to, I was still contemplating not wearing my vest. It was going to be absolutely miserable wearing it in that kind of weather.
But then I got a sign from above, delivered by Olivia.
As I was getting her ready for school yesterday morning, she observed that some of the flowers in our garden were gone. I confirmed her observation and told her that the flowers were dead. Then came the question I wasn't prepared for.
"Daddy? What does 'dead' mean?"
I did my best to explain in 4-year-old terms that "dead" means that someone or something isn't with us anymore, but they've gone to heaven, and they're watching us from way up high in the sky. I was mentally high-fiving myself after that answer. Not bad for having to completely pull that one out of the thin air at a moment's notice!
"So the flowers are in heaven?" she asked.
"Yes, they are," I said.
"So Bronson [our dog that we had to euthanize a couple months ago] is in heaven?" she asked.
"Yes, he is," I said.
Olivia pondered that for a moment or two, and then uttered one of those sentences that changes a person's course of action.
"Daddy? I don't want you to be dead."
Two hours later, as I was strapping my Kevlar vest on, that sentence was running over and over again through my head. As I boiled like a lobster all day, that sentence was going through my head. As I was desperately trying to cool down for hours after work, cranking up the air conditioning, sitting in front of a fan, taking a cold shower, downing Gatorade like it was going out of style...that sentence was going through my head.
The story would have been made-for-TV material if I had gotten shot yesterday, and the Kevlar vest stopped the bullet. But that didn't happen. Nothing even remotely close to a confrontation ever happened, and my partner and I made it back to the office completely intact.
And yet my four-year-old daughter managed to correct weeks of sloppiness on my part in one short, well-timed sentence.
Kids say the darndest things.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
What We've Got Here is Failure to Communicate
It's no breaking news that the internet has revolutionized the way we socialize. There's e-mail, texting, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blogging, match-making websites, and countless other ways that we can socialize with each other without ever leaving the computer screen. I'm a texting and e-mail junkie, and I have a Facebook page and this blog. I tinkered with Twitter for awhile but never really got the hang of it or understood the point of it.
In the beginning, I thoroughly enjoyed Facebook and this blog. Facebook got me reconnected with high school classmates, including my best friend from my childhood, who I hadn't communicated with in over 20 years. It was an easy way to keep up with my friends' and family's lives, as well as an easy way to keep them updated on what's going on in my life. This blog was a fun way to express things that were on my mind, and to feed my interest in writing.
But in the past couple of months, I've become increasingly disenchanted with both.
After receiving a considerable amount of backlash--both directly and indirectly--from my last post on this blog, I lost my interest in writing. I meant my last post as a means of venting and, to a lesser extent, a plea for help from other experienced parents on how to survive this difficult phase in my kids' lives. Apparently the child-rearing manuals that came with my kids got lost somewhere between the hospital and our house after they were born, because I don't know what the hell I'm doing most of the time. I just fake it, and sometimes I get it right. Sometimes things go very wrong for an extended period of time, though, and I get frustrated. I got some supportive comments from a few friends, but I was alarmed to discover that many other people took that post as an opportunity to question my parenting skills, my mental health, and whatever else was being questioned. I wanted help. I got scrutinized, instead. I didn't like it.
Facebook has become a similar headache. It seems that any of my posts that are anything but silly slapstick entertainment are hyper-analyzed. Comments are misconstrued, activities are judged, who I choose as friends are a source of contention, photos are criticized...and don't even get me started on those God-forsaken games like Farmville. God, I hate that game. What started out as a fun little time-killer turned into a full-time job with endless demands to send shit, build shit, harvest shit, fertilize shit, and on and on and on. The damn game didn't work right 80% of the time, it involved an endless string of pop-up windows, and then I started getting huge amounts of junk e-mail at home that I blame on either Zynga--the creator of Farmville--or Facebook prostituting my e-mail address out to the highest bidding john. I'm just so disgusted with the whole experience that I stopped playing all games a few weeks ago, and I'm taking a break from Facebook as a whole for awhile.
Obviously, I am responsible for what gets posted on my Facebook page and on my blog, so I'm not trying to play the role of martyr here. And I know I'm not the only one who experiences this. I read a lot of columns--entire columns!--on sports websites, analyzing and criticizing what athletes post on their Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. What I'm sure the athlete meant as a means of expressing frustration with a situation turns into an entirely blown-out-of-proportion ordeal in the media. A 140-character post on Twitter leads to multiple 800-word columns of analysis, criticism, theories, and various interpretations on countless websites.
It got me thinking about what the on-line world has done to human socialization. Chuck steadfastly refuses to make a Facebook page, and only recently did he begrudgingly add the ability to send and receive text messages on his phone. His reasoning is that he prefers face-to-face interactions to anything on-line. And I'm starting to understand his perspective.
Human communication is a very complex process involving a whole slew of verbal and non-verbal cues. When we communicate solely through written text, especially with a limited number of characters, the vast majority of those cues are lost. The nuances of interpersonal relations go missing. Often, the communicator's intent is lost or misinterpreted. If I had expressed the same frustrations that I wrote about in my last post on this blog to a circle of live human beings, I guarantee that the response would have been different. People would have heard tone of voice, seen facial expressions, observed posture and hand movements, and all of the rest of the cues that we, as human beings, constantly transmit and receive. My style of communication--especially my sense of humor--relies heavily on sarcasm, exaggeration, context, timing, and the multitude of cues observable in face-to-face interactions. That doesn't always translate well to text. If I tell someone in person, "I want to choke my kids today!", they easily pick up on the other cues--especially if they know anything about me and know that I would never actually harm my kids--and recognize that I'm blowing off steam and maybe asking for assitance. If I post "I want to choke my kids today!" on Facebook, I have people contemplating calling the police and/or Child Protective Services.
Misinterpretations are often easily avoided with face-to-face communication. When I say something, I'm reading the cues of the person I'm talking to. I can clearly see when the person is not understanding what I'm saying by the look on their face, and I'm immediately able to address a potential problem, further explain my position, or otherwise clear up the misconception or confusion. That ability is lost when posting things on-line.
I believe, too, that when we interact face-to-face, we are much less inclined to dish out the biting criticism, the rude remarks, and the armchair quarterbacking that is so easy to distribute behind the safety of a computer screen. In face-to-face communication, we usually refrain from expressing those types of thoughts because we don't want to witness the hurt feelings, risk a punch to the face, or experience any other backlash from what we express. We have developed into a much more critical society, and I wonder how much of that is a result of the ability to post written comments and avoid the face-to-face repercussions of our comments.
Small conflicts get blown up into huge ordeals when we feel like we can just unload on someone by way of a keyboard. Such a storm is brewing right now in my workplace, providing a very real illustration of that point for me and the employees of two different offices. What could probably have been resolved with a quick face-to-face interaction or two is brewing into a full-blown knock-down-drag-out because of sharp-edged e-mails passing back and forth.
Sure, we've always had the rumor mill, the grapevine, the watercooler, and various other means of gossiping about people, but with the relatively newfound ability to comment on just about every single little thing on-line, and often from the safety of anonymity, we seem to have gotten more malicious, more inflammatory, more judgmental, more unforgiving, and more confrontational. We have fewer filters, less tact, and lowered inhibitions when we communicate electronically.
We have become, in my opinion, less human.
We have lost sight of the fact that human beings are...well...human beings. We make mistakes. We say stupid things. We have whims. We have desires. We have emotions. We have good days. We have bad days. We're not always rational. It is human nature to want to express those sentiments to other human beings. But because of the modern ways in which we communicate now, we often only see one dimension of a person's message, missing the totality of it. And way too often, our responses to those messages are malicious.
We actively seek out people's moments of weakness, taking great pleasure in rubbing their noses in their mistakes, reveling in their demise, broadcasting their defeats to the world, and standing over them, beating our chests in glory because, in this very moment in time, our lives appear to be better than theirs. We have lost the ability to show compassion, to understand, to empathize, to reach out a helping hand, to pick someone up when they're down, to identify with their anguish and offer a shoulder to cry on. We have lost the ability to celebrate someone else's successes without jealousy or wondering out loud who they screwed in order to get where they are now. We have lost the ability to turn the other cheek...to forgive and forget and move on. In our frenzy to rip the meat off the bones of others at every opportunity, we have forgotten that we are all human beings--that we're all in this together. We have forgotten to treat others the way we want to be treated.
It's what our society has become, and that's sad. But I can't change it. I can only adapt.
The lesson I've learned from all of this is that I need to step back a little bit from the on-line world and take a page from Chuck's book on reestablishing more face-to-face contact with people. And if/whenever I do return to Facebook and this blog, I need to censor what I write and what I post (and, taking my own medicine, lay off of Ryan Leaf). That's a shame to me, since I had the obviously idealistic belief that Facebook and a blog would be a good place to share thoughts, opinions, discussions, experiences, and laughs while keeping up with the same from people I'm interested in. All it's good for now, though, is sharing a few vacation photos and funny websites, and that doesn't hold my interest nearly as much.
In the beginning, I thoroughly enjoyed Facebook and this blog. Facebook got me reconnected with high school classmates, including my best friend from my childhood, who I hadn't communicated with in over 20 years. It was an easy way to keep up with my friends' and family's lives, as well as an easy way to keep them updated on what's going on in my life. This blog was a fun way to express things that were on my mind, and to feed my interest in writing.
But in the past couple of months, I've become increasingly disenchanted with both.
After receiving a considerable amount of backlash--both directly and indirectly--from my last post on this blog, I lost my interest in writing. I meant my last post as a means of venting and, to a lesser extent, a plea for help from other experienced parents on how to survive this difficult phase in my kids' lives. Apparently the child-rearing manuals that came with my kids got lost somewhere between the hospital and our house after they were born, because I don't know what the hell I'm doing most of the time. I just fake it, and sometimes I get it right. Sometimes things go very wrong for an extended period of time, though, and I get frustrated. I got some supportive comments from a few friends, but I was alarmed to discover that many other people took that post as an opportunity to question my parenting skills, my mental health, and whatever else was being questioned. I wanted help. I got scrutinized, instead. I didn't like it.
Facebook has become a similar headache. It seems that any of my posts that are anything but silly slapstick entertainment are hyper-analyzed. Comments are misconstrued, activities are judged, who I choose as friends are a source of contention, photos are criticized...and don't even get me started on those God-forsaken games like Farmville. God, I hate that game. What started out as a fun little time-killer turned into a full-time job with endless demands to send shit, build shit, harvest shit, fertilize shit, and on and on and on. The damn game didn't work right 80% of the time, it involved an endless string of pop-up windows, and then I started getting huge amounts of junk e-mail at home that I blame on either Zynga--the creator of Farmville--or Facebook prostituting my e-mail address out to the highest bidding john. I'm just so disgusted with the whole experience that I stopped playing all games a few weeks ago, and I'm taking a break from Facebook as a whole for awhile.
Obviously, I am responsible for what gets posted on my Facebook page and on my blog, so I'm not trying to play the role of martyr here. And I know I'm not the only one who experiences this. I read a lot of columns--entire columns!--on sports websites, analyzing and criticizing what athletes post on their Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. What I'm sure the athlete meant as a means of expressing frustration with a situation turns into an entirely blown-out-of-proportion ordeal in the media. A 140-character post on Twitter leads to multiple 800-word columns of analysis, criticism, theories, and various interpretations on countless websites.
It got me thinking about what the on-line world has done to human socialization. Chuck steadfastly refuses to make a Facebook page, and only recently did he begrudgingly add the ability to send and receive text messages on his phone. His reasoning is that he prefers face-to-face interactions to anything on-line. And I'm starting to understand his perspective.
Human communication is a very complex process involving a whole slew of verbal and non-verbal cues. When we communicate solely through written text, especially with a limited number of characters, the vast majority of those cues are lost. The nuances of interpersonal relations go missing. Often, the communicator's intent is lost or misinterpreted. If I had expressed the same frustrations that I wrote about in my last post on this blog to a circle of live human beings, I guarantee that the response would have been different. People would have heard tone of voice, seen facial expressions, observed posture and hand movements, and all of the rest of the cues that we, as human beings, constantly transmit and receive. My style of communication--especially my sense of humor--relies heavily on sarcasm, exaggeration, context, timing, and the multitude of cues observable in face-to-face interactions. That doesn't always translate well to text. If I tell someone in person, "I want to choke my kids today!", they easily pick up on the other cues--especially if they know anything about me and know that I would never actually harm my kids--and recognize that I'm blowing off steam and maybe asking for assitance. If I post "I want to choke my kids today!" on Facebook, I have people contemplating calling the police and/or Child Protective Services.
Misinterpretations are often easily avoided with face-to-face communication. When I say something, I'm reading the cues of the person I'm talking to. I can clearly see when the person is not understanding what I'm saying by the look on their face, and I'm immediately able to address a potential problem, further explain my position, or otherwise clear up the misconception or confusion. That ability is lost when posting things on-line.
I believe, too, that when we interact face-to-face, we are much less inclined to dish out the biting criticism, the rude remarks, and the armchair quarterbacking that is so easy to distribute behind the safety of a computer screen. In face-to-face communication, we usually refrain from expressing those types of thoughts because we don't want to witness the hurt feelings, risk a punch to the face, or experience any other backlash from what we express. We have developed into a much more critical society, and I wonder how much of that is a result of the ability to post written comments and avoid the face-to-face repercussions of our comments.
Small conflicts get blown up into huge ordeals when we feel like we can just unload on someone by way of a keyboard. Such a storm is brewing right now in my workplace, providing a very real illustration of that point for me and the employees of two different offices. What could probably have been resolved with a quick face-to-face interaction or two is brewing into a full-blown knock-down-drag-out because of sharp-edged e-mails passing back and forth.
Sure, we've always had the rumor mill, the grapevine, the watercooler, and various other means of gossiping about people, but with the relatively newfound ability to comment on just about every single little thing on-line, and often from the safety of anonymity, we seem to have gotten more malicious, more inflammatory, more judgmental, more unforgiving, and more confrontational. We have fewer filters, less tact, and lowered inhibitions when we communicate electronically.
We have become, in my opinion, less human.
We have lost sight of the fact that human beings are...well...human beings. We make mistakes. We say stupid things. We have whims. We have desires. We have emotions. We have good days. We have bad days. We're not always rational. It is human nature to want to express those sentiments to other human beings. But because of the modern ways in which we communicate now, we often only see one dimension of a person's message, missing the totality of it. And way too often, our responses to those messages are malicious.
We actively seek out people's moments of weakness, taking great pleasure in rubbing their noses in their mistakes, reveling in their demise, broadcasting their defeats to the world, and standing over them, beating our chests in glory because, in this very moment in time, our lives appear to be better than theirs. We have lost the ability to show compassion, to understand, to empathize, to reach out a helping hand, to pick someone up when they're down, to identify with their anguish and offer a shoulder to cry on. We have lost the ability to celebrate someone else's successes without jealousy or wondering out loud who they screwed in order to get where they are now. We have lost the ability to turn the other cheek...to forgive and forget and move on. In our frenzy to rip the meat off the bones of others at every opportunity, we have forgotten that we are all human beings--that we're all in this together. We have forgotten to treat others the way we want to be treated.
It's what our society has become, and that's sad. But I can't change it. I can only adapt.
The lesson I've learned from all of this is that I need to step back a little bit from the on-line world and take a page from Chuck's book on reestablishing more face-to-face contact with people. And if/whenever I do return to Facebook and this blog, I need to censor what I write and what I post (and, taking my own medicine, lay off of Ryan Leaf). That's a shame to me, since I had the obviously idealistic belief that Facebook and a blog would be a good place to share thoughts, opinions, discussions, experiences, and laughs while keeping up with the same from people I'm interested in. All it's good for now, though, is sharing a few vacation photos and funny websites, and that doesn't hold my interest nearly as much.
Friday, March 19, 2010
A Frustrated Parent's Lament
Olivia is on the cusp of turning 4 years old, and June will turn 3 in early summer. They're both in a phase right now (I sure hope it's just a phase, anyway) that is causing me a significant amount of anguish.
They love their mommy.
Not normally a bad thing, right? But these two knuckleheads take loving their mommy to a whole new level. They want "uppy" all the time (they want the Mrs. to hold them), and they're constantly under her feet to the point of trying to crawl up her legs. Not only have neither of them "cut the cord," but they often both act like they're literally trying to crawl back up into the womb. Each of them says the word "Mommy" no fewer than 113,784 times a day, trying to gain her attention, and they do it over the top of each other. The more tired they get, the clingier they are. The Mrs. tries to make dinner, and she's constantly turning around and nearly falling over one of them. The Mrs. tries to sit on the couch and relax for a minute, and they're all over her. When she takes a shower, the girls are pounding on her bathroom door, wanting in.
Olivia, especially, has always been a mommy's girl, but her level of dependence on the Mrs. has become nauseating. When the Mrs. sits down, Olivia is instantly right next to her, with as much bodily contact as humanly possible, sucking her thumb and running her hands through the Mrs.'s hair, twisting it into knots. Olivia has also decided that she suddenly can't do things that she's been able to do by herself for quite some time--dressing herself, opening the refrigerator to retrieve a yogurt, etc.--without the Mrs. "helping" her (read: doing it for her).
In the evenings, the Mrs. and I rotate reading stories to the girls before bed every other night. However, for the past several weeks, the girls raise nine kinds of hell when it's my turn to read to them. They want Mommy to do it. And when we break the news to them that it's Daddy's turn to read, you'd think we were driving a red-hot nail through their eyeballs, the way they react. They don't want me reading to them, they don't want me putting them to bed, they barely want anything to do with me.
They certainly don't want me disciplining them. I'm the seemingly heartless enforcer in our house. I have the iron fist. They know that they can slide stuff past Mommy (or wear her out) that they can't get past me. (And the Mrs. knows this. I'm not writing anything that we haven't already repeatedly discussed with each other. She balances out my heavy hand, too.)
Every night, Olivia finds her way into our bed, and then she's all over the Mrs. like glue--again with as much bodily contact as humanly possible, even to the point where she lies on top of the Mrs. And when that doesn't satisfy her need for contact with her mommy, she starts rolling around all over her, like a dog rolls in grass. It's absolutely ridiculous.
June isn't helping matters any with her own behavior. She's the most stubborn, defiant kid in the history of mankind. Well, at least since her...um...mother...was a child. (Yeah, we'll stick with THAT parent being the one who is stubborn and defiant. It's my blog. I can write anything I want!) June will say "No!" in response to EVERYTHING. She often follows it up with a very theatrical slumping of the shoulders, pouty lip out all the way, sometimes letting a string of spit slowly go from her mouth to her shirt, head hung, and a slow walk to her room. When she finally gets to her room, she slams the door shut in grand fashion, often yelling "I QUIT!", and then completely comes unglued, crying and shrieking at the top of her lungs. And she never stops. She'll carry on for hours...days...months...if we let her. And it takes absolutely no effort whatsoever to set her off. She just did it to me this morning when I told her--in a very civil tone, not raising my voice one little bit--to stop coloring on the placemats with a pen.
Tell June it's time to eat dinner? "NO!" It's time for a bath? "NO!" It's time to get out of the bath? "NO!" It's time for a diaper change? "NO!" Want to sit on the potty? "NO!" Time for bed? "NO!" Time to get up? "NO!" Time to turn off the TV? "NO!"
You get the picture.
I think the Mrs. is just as exasperated as I am, but for a different reason. For me, as silly as it sounds, it hurts my feelings--A LOT--when my daughters say that they don't want me to do anything with them, and when they act like it's absolute torture to do something with me, rather than with their mommy. I know they're just 4 and 3 years old, and they likely don't mean anything malicious towards me, but after weeks and weeks of hearing "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" every time I want to read them a story or put them to bed, it starts to take a toll. I'm also exceedingly frustrated with Olivia's sudden "helplessness" without the assistance of her mommy. And now June is starting to copy her older sister's behavior, too. June's second favorite phrase, behind "NO!", is "I can't do it!" That phrase goes right through me.
The Mrs., on the other hand, is feeling smothered, and for good reason. She's doing basically all of the childcare on a daily basis because our two little knotheads are so insistent on doing everything with Mommy. The girls constantly have a list of demands--I want juice, I want yogurt, I want candy, I want this, I want that--and they talk over each other, getting louder and more frantic in their demands as they try to drown the other one out. The Mrs. can't get a moment's peace. She gets very little sleep at night, and to make things worse, I'm a pretty heavy sleeper, while the Mrs. is a pretty light sleeper. There are times when I wake up in the morning feeling fairly refreshed, and the Mrs. looks like death warmed over because she's been up all night with one or both of the girls for some reason. I had no idea that she was up with them, or I would have helped. I know she wants to kill me, but I swear I didn't hear anything last night!
The dog is just as bad as the kids, wanting the Mrs.'s attention non-stop. You should witness the scene when the Mrs. gets home from work, having picked the kids up from school, and the dog greets her. It is absolute, unmitigated chaos for a good 30 minutes while two toddlers and a dog do everything they can to get the attention of the Mrs. and demand everything under the sun. I don't know how the Mrs. does it every day. I'd want to jump off the nearest cliff. That's probably the only thing saving me from being a widower--a total lack of cliffs in central Indiana.
I'm hoping this is just a phase. I'm hoping other parents can tell me that Olivia and June will eventually grow out of this. If I know there's an end in sight, I can hang on until we get through it. I can endure just about anything. I'm pretty stubborn and defiant that way. Er...I mean...the Mrs. is. But if this is something unusual, we need to get everyone in to see the doctor or a counselor or someone pronto because I can't take another 15 years of this.
They love their mommy.
Not normally a bad thing, right? But these two knuckleheads take loving their mommy to a whole new level. They want "uppy" all the time (they want the Mrs. to hold them), and they're constantly under her feet to the point of trying to crawl up her legs. Not only have neither of them "cut the cord," but they often both act like they're literally trying to crawl back up into the womb. Each of them says the word "Mommy" no fewer than 113,784 times a day, trying to gain her attention, and they do it over the top of each other. The more tired they get, the clingier they are. The Mrs. tries to make dinner, and she's constantly turning around and nearly falling over one of them. The Mrs. tries to sit on the couch and relax for a minute, and they're all over her. When she takes a shower, the girls are pounding on her bathroom door, wanting in.
Olivia, especially, has always been a mommy's girl, but her level of dependence on the Mrs. has become nauseating. When the Mrs. sits down, Olivia is instantly right next to her, with as much bodily contact as humanly possible, sucking her thumb and running her hands through the Mrs.'s hair, twisting it into knots. Olivia has also decided that she suddenly can't do things that she's been able to do by herself for quite some time--dressing herself, opening the refrigerator to retrieve a yogurt, etc.--without the Mrs. "helping" her (read: doing it for her).
In the evenings, the Mrs. and I rotate reading stories to the girls before bed every other night. However, for the past several weeks, the girls raise nine kinds of hell when it's my turn to read to them. They want Mommy to do it. And when we break the news to them that it's Daddy's turn to read, you'd think we were driving a red-hot nail through their eyeballs, the way they react. They don't want me reading to them, they don't want me putting them to bed, they barely want anything to do with me.
They certainly don't want me disciplining them. I'm the seemingly heartless enforcer in our house. I have the iron fist. They know that they can slide stuff past Mommy (or wear her out) that they can't get past me. (And the Mrs. knows this. I'm not writing anything that we haven't already repeatedly discussed with each other. She balances out my heavy hand, too.)
Every night, Olivia finds her way into our bed, and then she's all over the Mrs. like glue--again with as much bodily contact as humanly possible, even to the point where she lies on top of the Mrs. And when that doesn't satisfy her need for contact with her mommy, she starts rolling around all over her, like a dog rolls in grass. It's absolutely ridiculous.
June isn't helping matters any with her own behavior. She's the most stubborn, defiant kid in the history of mankind. Well, at least since her...um...mother...was a child. (Yeah, we'll stick with THAT parent being the one who is stubborn and defiant. It's my blog. I can write anything I want!) June will say "No!" in response to EVERYTHING. She often follows it up with a very theatrical slumping of the shoulders, pouty lip out all the way, sometimes letting a string of spit slowly go from her mouth to her shirt, head hung, and a slow walk to her room. When she finally gets to her room, she slams the door shut in grand fashion, often yelling "I QUIT!", and then completely comes unglued, crying and shrieking at the top of her lungs. And she never stops. She'll carry on for hours...days...months...if we let her. And it takes absolutely no effort whatsoever to set her off. She just did it to me this morning when I told her--in a very civil tone, not raising my voice one little bit--to stop coloring on the placemats with a pen.
Tell June it's time to eat dinner? "NO!" It's time for a bath? "NO!" It's time to get out of the bath? "NO!" It's time for a diaper change? "NO!" Want to sit on the potty? "NO!" Time for bed? "NO!" Time to get up? "NO!" Time to turn off the TV? "NO!"
You get the picture.
I think the Mrs. is just as exasperated as I am, but for a different reason. For me, as silly as it sounds, it hurts my feelings--A LOT--when my daughters say that they don't want me to do anything with them, and when they act like it's absolute torture to do something with me, rather than with their mommy. I know they're just 4 and 3 years old, and they likely don't mean anything malicious towards me, but after weeks and weeks of hearing "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" every time I want to read them a story or put them to bed, it starts to take a toll. I'm also exceedingly frustrated with Olivia's sudden "helplessness" without the assistance of her mommy. And now June is starting to copy her older sister's behavior, too. June's second favorite phrase, behind "NO!", is "I can't do it!" That phrase goes right through me.
The Mrs., on the other hand, is feeling smothered, and for good reason. She's doing basically all of the childcare on a daily basis because our two little knotheads are so insistent on doing everything with Mommy. The girls constantly have a list of demands--I want juice, I want yogurt, I want candy, I want this, I want that--and they talk over each other, getting louder and more frantic in their demands as they try to drown the other one out. The Mrs. can't get a moment's peace. She gets very little sleep at night, and to make things worse, I'm a pretty heavy sleeper, while the Mrs. is a pretty light sleeper. There are times when I wake up in the morning feeling fairly refreshed, and the Mrs. looks like death warmed over because she's been up all night with one or both of the girls for some reason. I had no idea that she was up with them, or I would have helped. I know she wants to kill me, but I swear I didn't hear anything last night!
The dog is just as bad as the kids, wanting the Mrs.'s attention non-stop. You should witness the scene when the Mrs. gets home from work, having picked the kids up from school, and the dog greets her. It is absolute, unmitigated chaos for a good 30 minutes while two toddlers and a dog do everything they can to get the attention of the Mrs. and demand everything under the sun. I don't know how the Mrs. does it every day. I'd want to jump off the nearest cliff. That's probably the only thing saving me from being a widower--a total lack of cliffs in central Indiana.
I'm hoping this is just a phase. I'm hoping other parents can tell me that Olivia and June will eventually grow out of this. If I know there's an end in sight, I can hang on until we get through it. I can endure just about anything. I'm pretty stubborn and defiant that way. Er...I mean...the Mrs. is. But if this is something unusual, we need to get everyone in to see the doctor or a counselor or someone pronto because I can't take another 15 years of this.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Do You Play Football?
I just want to take a minute to record a classic moment in probation supervision before I purge it from my memory and get on with my life.
A little background info: One of our probation officers recently left our department to take a similar position in another state. For the sake of this story, we'll call him...um...Ben. Because that's his real name. This probationer met with Ben a few weeks ago for his initial appointment, and Ben then reassigned him to me for the remainder of his probation.
Ben is a very meticulous probation officer. He consistently scored near the very top of our office in performance evaluations, and he's well-known for his attention to detail. As a result, when I got the file, there were very thorough notes in place describing what Ben told this probationer at his appointment.
Our conditions of probation require that everyone--regardless of their offense--complete a substance abuse evaluation within the first 45 days of their probation. In this particular case, this probationer clearly needed to do this. The reasons why are unimportant. Just trust me on this one. He needed to complete a substance abuse evaluation.
So here's how part of the appointment went.
First, the probationer showed up 10 minutes late today because he couldn't find the entrance to the building that leads to my office. Granted, it's a different entrance than he went through to see Ben a few weeks ago, but we work in a small building. He could walk all the way around the building about 30 times in 10 minutes.
Then we get back to my office, and the first thing out of his mouth is, "Do you play football? You look like you play football." Really?, I'm thinking to myself. Because I'm 5'8". 5'9" if I stand up real tall. And no one who has seen my physique in the past 20 years would accuse me of having an athletic build. I can count on two hands the number of 5'8" or 5'9" players who have EVER played in the NFL in the past 50 years, and they were/are all lightning fast. I'm not even in the same realm as "lightning fast." And those players were/are all at least 40 pounds lighter than I am.
I ask him if he has gotten his substance abuse evaluation scheduled or completed, as Ben had told him to do.
HIM: No.
ME: Why not?
HIM: Because I have to take care of my girlfriend's kids while she's at work.
ME: Where does your girlfriend work?
HIM: She works with old people.
ME: Doing what?
HIM: You know, she goes to old people's houses. Like, old people.
ME: For what reason?
HIM: Ummmmmm.......
ME: To rob them?
HIM: No! You know, OLD PEOPLE.
ME: I know what old people are. What does your girlfriend do at old people's houses?
HIM: Well, they're, like, old people. And they're in a bed or something in their house.
ME: Uh huh. And what does she DO for them?
HIM: I guess she takes care of them.
ME: Does she work for hospice care?
HIM: Huh? What's that?
ME: *Sigh* How old are her kids?
HIM: Six and four.
ME: So what does having to watch her kids have to do with you not picking up the phone and scheduling an appointment like Ben told you to do? I have a four-year-old and a two-year-old, and I can make phone calls when I'm watching them.
HIM: Well, I can't drive.
ME: Again, what does that have to do with you not picking up the phone and scheduling an appointment?
HIM: Well, I want to go to [a specific substance abuse counseling agency], but I don't have their number.
ME: Did you check the list of counseling agencies that Ben mailed to you?
HIM: He didn't give me a list.
ME: Really, because his notes said he mailed you a list along with your initial appointment letter, and you obviously showed up for your initial appointment, so I know you got the list, too.
HIM: I don't know what I did with that envelope.
ME: Did you look in the phone book for [the particular agency's] number?
HIM: I don't have a phone book.
ME: Did you call the probation department to ask for [the particular agency's] number?
HIM: No. I thought I had the entire period of my probation to get the evaluation done.
ME: Do you not remember signing your Probation Order, and receiving a copy of it, where it says this has to be done within the first 45 days of your probation?
HIM: Nobody told me that.
ME: Really, because that doesn't sound like Ben at all to me, not making sure that you understand your conditions of probation and have a copy of them.
HIM: I didn't know.
ME: Oh, I can't wait to see the judge's face when you tell him that at your probation violation hearing.
HIM: I'm violated?!
ME: Well, you're past your 45 days the Court gave you to get your evaluation done, so why shouldn't I violate your probation?
HIM: What if I get it done by my next appointment?
ME: Ah, now you're catching on. You do that, and I might not file a violation. But if you don't, I guarantee you that I WILL file one. Do we understand each other?
HIM: Yes.
ME: Good. I'm giving you a drug screen today, too.
(Long pause)
HIM: Did you play COLLEGE football?
A little background info: One of our probation officers recently left our department to take a similar position in another state. For the sake of this story, we'll call him...um...Ben. Because that's his real name. This probationer met with Ben a few weeks ago for his initial appointment, and Ben then reassigned him to me for the remainder of his probation.
Ben is a very meticulous probation officer. He consistently scored near the very top of our office in performance evaluations, and he's well-known for his attention to detail. As a result, when I got the file, there were very thorough notes in place describing what Ben told this probationer at his appointment.
Our conditions of probation require that everyone--regardless of their offense--complete a substance abuse evaluation within the first 45 days of their probation. In this particular case, this probationer clearly needed to do this. The reasons why are unimportant. Just trust me on this one. He needed to complete a substance abuse evaluation.
So here's how part of the appointment went.
First, the probationer showed up 10 minutes late today because he couldn't find the entrance to the building that leads to my office. Granted, it's a different entrance than he went through to see Ben a few weeks ago, but we work in a small building. He could walk all the way around the building about 30 times in 10 minutes.
Then we get back to my office, and the first thing out of his mouth is, "Do you play football? You look like you play football." Really?, I'm thinking to myself. Because I'm 5'8". 5'9" if I stand up real tall. And no one who has seen my physique in the past 20 years would accuse me of having an athletic build. I can count on two hands the number of 5'8" or 5'9" players who have EVER played in the NFL in the past 50 years, and they were/are all lightning fast. I'm not even in the same realm as "lightning fast." And those players were/are all at least 40 pounds lighter than I am.
I ask him if he has gotten his substance abuse evaluation scheduled or completed, as Ben had told him to do.
HIM: No.
ME: Why not?
HIM: Because I have to take care of my girlfriend's kids while she's at work.
ME: Where does your girlfriend work?
HIM: She works with old people.
ME: Doing what?
HIM: You know, she goes to old people's houses. Like, old people.
ME: For what reason?
HIM: Ummmmmm.......
ME: To rob them?
HIM: No! You know, OLD PEOPLE.
ME: I know what old people are. What does your girlfriend do at old people's houses?
HIM: Well, they're, like, old people. And they're in a bed or something in their house.
ME: Uh huh. And what does she DO for them?
HIM: I guess she takes care of them.
ME: Does she work for hospice care?
HIM: Huh? What's that?
ME: *Sigh* How old are her kids?
HIM: Six and four.
ME: So what does having to watch her kids have to do with you not picking up the phone and scheduling an appointment like Ben told you to do? I have a four-year-old and a two-year-old, and I can make phone calls when I'm watching them.
HIM: Well, I can't drive.
ME: Again, what does that have to do with you not picking up the phone and scheduling an appointment?
HIM: Well, I want to go to [a specific substance abuse counseling agency], but I don't have their number.
ME: Did you check the list of counseling agencies that Ben mailed to you?
HIM: He didn't give me a list.
ME: Really, because his notes said he mailed you a list along with your initial appointment letter, and you obviously showed up for your initial appointment, so I know you got the list, too.
HIM: I don't know what I did with that envelope.
ME: Did you look in the phone book for [the particular agency's] number?
HIM: I don't have a phone book.
ME: Did you call the probation department to ask for [the particular agency's] number?
HIM: No. I thought I had the entire period of my probation to get the evaluation done.
ME: Do you not remember signing your Probation Order, and receiving a copy of it, where it says this has to be done within the first 45 days of your probation?
HIM: Nobody told me that.
ME: Really, because that doesn't sound like Ben at all to me, not making sure that you understand your conditions of probation and have a copy of them.
HIM: I didn't know.
ME: Oh, I can't wait to see the judge's face when you tell him that at your probation violation hearing.
HIM: I'm violated?!
ME: Well, you're past your 45 days the Court gave you to get your evaluation done, so why shouldn't I violate your probation?
HIM: What if I get it done by my next appointment?
ME: Ah, now you're catching on. You do that, and I might not file a violation. But if you don't, I guarantee you that I WILL file one. Do we understand each other?
HIM: Yes.
ME: Good. I'm giving you a drug screen today, too.
(Long pause)
HIM: Did you play COLLEGE football?
Monday, February 22, 2010
Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say
Today I got a book by Seuss.
The rhymes in it can be quite loose.
I like to read it to my girls,
Especially the one with curls.
Seuss is a fave of mine, you see.
It started back when I was three.
My grandpa liked to write in rhyme.
He was quite silly from time to time.
As I grew up and learned to read,
He wrote me letters in rhyme. Indeed!
The entire letter would read like Seuss.
Sometimes I'd read while drinking juice.
I'd write him back as best I could
And make it rhyme, just like he would.
For years, we kept it up like this.
He'd read my rhymes, and I'd read his.
It became a kind of special thing,
The joy for me that it would bring.
And then one day, Grandpa was gone.
I cried the day that he passed on.
I still miss him lots, even today.
So when I see Seuss, it makes my day.
I really like his silly rhymes.
They take me back to happy times.
If you don't like green eggs and ham,
That's quite alright. I understand.
But Dr. Seuss is dear to me.
And now he fills my girls with glee.
Grandpa, the goofy rhymes still live.
Your gift to me, to my kids I give.
I read the Doc and have to smile,
While thinking of you, all the while.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Phase One Ends (well, almost)
Phase One of the eBay and Craigslist experience is over. For the most part, anyway. We have found some stragglers--CD's we forgot about in the car, a couple more old computer games I found way back there in the desk, stuff like that--that are up for auction right now, but none of it will bring in much money. It's more about clearing out clutter at this point.
There haven't been a whole lot of developments since my last post. Not surprising at all was the outcome of my unpaid item claim on eBay's Resolution Center: the Louisiana deadbeat never paid. Nor did she even respond. She has, however, found the time to buy more stuff on eBay...and pay for it. Why she never paid for my item will forever remain a mystery.
If you ever sell anything on eBay, take the time to block this person from bidding on your items:
dre_kayla
So ten days after I originally sold the item--plus all the wasted effort of trying to contact dre_kayla, followed by wasting my time opening an unpaid item case in the Resolution Center--I have sold it again to a person who was the third-highest bidder in the auction. The new buyer's maximum bid was $2.00 less than that of dre_kayla in the original auction, so that's what I sold it to her for.
I haven't had any other problems with payment. Everyone else has been great about promptly paying.
Only about half of my buyers have left me feedback on eBay so far, but it's all been positive, so that's good.
The item we got the most money for? The lot of 78 CD's from 1980's hard rock hair bands that went for $140.00. Nothing came even close to that. In fact, we sold a lot of 97 CD's from 1990's bands and got $53.00 for it. The Mrs. can't believe that my "lousy" music even sold in the first place, much less that it became the top seller. I still chuckle about it.
All the "big" sellable stuff from inside the house is gone now, so we'll make very little additional money for however much long it takes Phase One to finally fizzle out. Phase Two will begin when it warms up, and I can get up into the attic and out into the storage shed to see what is up and out there. I suspect, however, that most of what we'll find in those two places will be more appropriate for a yard sale than for eBay. There may not be a Phase Two, but we'll see.
At any rate, we've grossed just over $800.00 so far. By the time eBay and PayPal take their fees, and we factor in all of the shipping supplies we've purchased, I imagine we've probably netted somewhere in the neighborhood of $650.00 or so. Not too shabby.
I did spend a little of our earnings during my time on eBay. I found a nice little wall decoration that I've been after for quite awhile. It very simply states Luke 6:31, also known as the Golden Rule. It's a very important concept to me. It's the way I try to live my life, and it's something I want my daughters to see on the wall every night at dinner and incorporate into their daily lives, too. There are several variations of it, but the decoration I got says: "Do to others as you would have them do to you." I got one for my office, too.
Maybe I should have gotten an extra one for dre_kayla.
There haven't been a whole lot of developments since my last post. Not surprising at all was the outcome of my unpaid item claim on eBay's Resolution Center: the Louisiana deadbeat never paid. Nor did she even respond. She has, however, found the time to buy more stuff on eBay...and pay for it. Why she never paid for my item will forever remain a mystery.
If you ever sell anything on eBay, take the time to block this person from bidding on your items:
dre_kayla
So ten days after I originally sold the item--plus all the wasted effort of trying to contact dre_kayla, followed by wasting my time opening an unpaid item case in the Resolution Center--I have sold it again to a person who was the third-highest bidder in the auction. The new buyer's maximum bid was $2.00 less than that of dre_kayla in the original auction, so that's what I sold it to her for.
I haven't had any other problems with payment. Everyone else has been great about promptly paying.
Only about half of my buyers have left me feedback on eBay so far, but it's all been positive, so that's good.
The item we got the most money for? The lot of 78 CD's from 1980's hard rock hair bands that went for $140.00. Nothing came even close to that. In fact, we sold a lot of 97 CD's from 1990's bands and got $53.00 for it. The Mrs. can't believe that my "lousy" music even sold in the first place, much less that it became the top seller. I still chuckle about it.
All the "big" sellable stuff from inside the house is gone now, so we'll make very little additional money for however much long it takes Phase One to finally fizzle out. Phase Two will begin when it warms up, and I can get up into the attic and out into the storage shed to see what is up and out there. I suspect, however, that most of what we'll find in those two places will be more appropriate for a yard sale than for eBay. There may not be a Phase Two, but we'll see.
At any rate, we've grossed just over $800.00 so far. By the time eBay and PayPal take their fees, and we factor in all of the shipping supplies we've purchased, I imagine we've probably netted somewhere in the neighborhood of $650.00 or so. Not too shabby.
I did spend a little of our earnings during my time on eBay. I found a nice little wall decoration that I've been after for quite awhile. It very simply states Luke 6:31, also known as the Golden Rule. It's a very important concept to me. It's the way I try to live my life, and it's something I want my daughters to see on the wall every night at dinner and incorporate into their daily lives, too. There are several variations of it, but the decoration I got says: "Do to others as you would have them do to you." I got one for my office, too.
Maybe I should have gotten an extra one for dre_kayla.
Monday, February 15, 2010
eBay Update
The adventure continues, although we're nearing the end of what we've determined to be Phase One of the eBay/Craigslist experience. We have grouped the last of our CD's into six lots, ranging from 3 CD's to 100 CD's per lot, and put them up for auction on eBay. The last auction ends in 2 days and 1 hour, and then we'll be done for awhile.
Oh, we have a set of VHS movies for sale on Craigslist, too. They didn't sell in three or four lots on eBay, so we put them all together into one lot and have them advertised on Craigslist for now. We'll see if there is any interest on Craigslist, and then they'll probably become yard sale fodder in the spring.
(Another example of how I don't understand what people will buy: we couldn't even get any nibbles on eBay for those VHS movies, which are all truly in terrific condition. But some exercise VHS tapes in covers that were beat to hell (and I clearly indicated that in the description)? Sold 'em for $5.50. And three people were fighting over them. Go figure.)
It's been going pretty well so far. I've been getting positive feedback from some of my buyers, which is good. Many buyers probably haven't gotten their stuff yet. The ones who have responded all had their stuff sent Priority Mail or First Class. There are plenty of people, though, who should have gotten their stuff, but who have not taken a minute to leave me positive feedback. That's frustrating.
At any rate, we don't really have anything left in the house that we want to sell on eBay, and I need a break from it all for awhile, anyway. When it warms up, I'll head up into the attic to see what we have up there to clear out. I'll also check out what's in our storage shed. Maybe there will be a Phase Two when that happens, or maybe we'll determine that our remaining clutter is more yard sale material than eBay material.
So in a couple of days, Phase One will be over. Assuming everyone pays, of course.
Which brings me to my next update. The deadbeat who won one of my auctions last Tuesday, then said that "maybe" she'd pay on Friday, and "definitely" would pay on Saturday? She still hasn't paid. According to my calendar, it's now Monday. Further, she has made no attempts to communicate to me any problems she might be having with paying for the item. Her hollow promises to pay by Friday or Saturday were a response to ME contacting HER. She has made zero effort to initiate contact with me, nor has she given me any indication as to why she's not paying. What pisses me off even more is that since she won my auction, she has paid for two other auctions she has won--a toddler's outfit and a cell phone. She's new to eBay, so I initially wondered if maybe she just didn't understand how to use eBay or PayPal. At least this latest development clears up that concern.
My conclusion now is that she is simply willfully not paying me, for reasons unknown to me.
The Mrs. has an amusing theory. The deadbeat is from Louisiana. Part of my eBay moniker contains the word "Colts." The Mrs. wonders if this is some sort of deranged Saints fan...
Whatever the situation is down in the bayou, I'm done with it. I was going to wait until tomorrow to give her a full week to pay before taking action. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't being unreasonable. Maybe it's a total coincidence that the other 31 buyers I've dealt with in the past week have paid me within minutes or hours (and in two instances, SECONDS) of winning their bids, and she's the one and only person I'm having problems with.
So last night, I started thoroughly researching eBay's policies. I discovered that they have what they call a Resolution Center. After four days from the time the auction ended (which was last Tuesday, Feb. 9), I can notify eBay of a deadbeat buyer. eBay notifies the deadbeat of the open case, and the deadbeat then has four days in which to respond or pay. So clearly, eBay feels that having to wait four days for payment is too long. Turns out, I'm not being unreasonable at all.
After some thought, I decided to submit my case to the Resolution Center last night, rather than wait until tomorrow. At this point, the $46.00 she owes me is less of an issue for me than the fact that she has been a complete pain in my ass. Waiting two more days was going to amount to nothing more than two more days of me not being done with this ordeal.
I also want eBay to be aware of this deadbeat. People like this don't need to be on eBay, wasting other people's time. Hopefully, eBay will pin a scarlet "D" on the chest of this deadbeat's profile, for every other potential seller to see. As I wrote previously, the worst sin of an eBay buyer is to win an auction and then not pay for the item. Equally as bad would be if someone paid a seller for an item, and the seller never shipped it.
So I decided that it's time to take things to the appropriate higher authority, much like decisions I make at work about filing probation violations. (And this entire situation has been very similar to what I experience on a regular basis at work.) When do I notify the judge of a probation violation? When the probationer doesn't do what they're supposed to do? And when I confront them about their shortcomings, they make promises to correct the behavior, and then don't follow through with those promises? When the probationer has committed the worst kind of violation of the rules? Yes, that's when I notify the higher authority in the form of filing a probation violation with the judge. So using that train of thought, it was clearly time for me to notify the higher authority regarding this eBay deadbeat.
This probationer--er, I mean, this deadbeat--now has four days to respond to the open case in the Resolution Center. If (when) she doesn't, I'm not sure what eBay does to her, but I know what I'm going to do on Thursday evening. I'm going to offer the item to the second-highest bidder with a completely clear conscience. And then I'm going to leave the deadbeat negative feedback. I've already learned that when the deadbeat inevitably leaves me negative feedback in retaliation, I can get eBay to remove it from my feedback score because she didn't pay for the item. HA! Suck it, deadbeat! I'm also able to block her from ever bidding on any of my auctions again.
Who knows...maybe the deadbeat will surprise me and pay for the item within the next four days. My probationers have surprised me in the past by doing something to help themselves long after I had lost all hope.
I'm just a tad skeptical, though.
Stay tuned.
Oh, we have a set of VHS movies for sale on Craigslist, too. They didn't sell in three or four lots on eBay, so we put them all together into one lot and have them advertised on Craigslist for now. We'll see if there is any interest on Craigslist, and then they'll probably become yard sale fodder in the spring.
(Another example of how I don't understand what people will buy: we couldn't even get any nibbles on eBay for those VHS movies, which are all truly in terrific condition. But some exercise VHS tapes in covers that were beat to hell (and I clearly indicated that in the description)? Sold 'em for $5.50. And three people were fighting over them. Go figure.)
It's been going pretty well so far. I've been getting positive feedback from some of my buyers, which is good. Many buyers probably haven't gotten their stuff yet. The ones who have responded all had their stuff sent Priority Mail or First Class. There are plenty of people, though, who should have gotten their stuff, but who have not taken a minute to leave me positive feedback. That's frustrating.
At any rate, we don't really have anything left in the house that we want to sell on eBay, and I need a break from it all for awhile, anyway. When it warms up, I'll head up into the attic to see what we have up there to clear out. I'll also check out what's in our storage shed. Maybe there will be a Phase Two when that happens, or maybe we'll determine that our remaining clutter is more yard sale material than eBay material.
So in a couple of days, Phase One will be over. Assuming everyone pays, of course.
Which brings me to my next update. The deadbeat who won one of my auctions last Tuesday, then said that "maybe" she'd pay on Friday, and "definitely" would pay on Saturday? She still hasn't paid. According to my calendar, it's now Monday. Further, she has made no attempts to communicate to me any problems she might be having with paying for the item. Her hollow promises to pay by Friday or Saturday were a response to ME contacting HER. She has made zero effort to initiate contact with me, nor has she given me any indication as to why she's not paying. What pisses me off even more is that since she won my auction, she has paid for two other auctions she has won--a toddler's outfit and a cell phone. She's new to eBay, so I initially wondered if maybe she just didn't understand how to use eBay or PayPal. At least this latest development clears up that concern.
My conclusion now is that she is simply willfully not paying me, for reasons unknown to me.
The Mrs. has an amusing theory. The deadbeat is from Louisiana. Part of my eBay moniker contains the word "Colts." The Mrs. wonders if this is some sort of deranged Saints fan...
Whatever the situation is down in the bayou, I'm done with it. I was going to wait until tomorrow to give her a full week to pay before taking action. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't being unreasonable. Maybe it's a total coincidence that the other 31 buyers I've dealt with in the past week have paid me within minutes or hours (and in two instances, SECONDS) of winning their bids, and she's the one and only person I'm having problems with.
So last night, I started thoroughly researching eBay's policies. I discovered that they have what they call a Resolution Center. After four days from the time the auction ended (which was last Tuesday, Feb. 9), I can notify eBay of a deadbeat buyer. eBay notifies the deadbeat of the open case, and the deadbeat then has four days in which to respond or pay. So clearly, eBay feels that having to wait four days for payment is too long. Turns out, I'm not being unreasonable at all.
After some thought, I decided to submit my case to the Resolution Center last night, rather than wait until tomorrow. At this point, the $46.00 she owes me is less of an issue for me than the fact that she has been a complete pain in my ass. Waiting two more days was going to amount to nothing more than two more days of me not being done with this ordeal.
I also want eBay to be aware of this deadbeat. People like this don't need to be on eBay, wasting other people's time. Hopefully, eBay will pin a scarlet "D" on the chest of this deadbeat's profile, for every other potential seller to see. As I wrote previously, the worst sin of an eBay buyer is to win an auction and then not pay for the item. Equally as bad would be if someone paid a seller for an item, and the seller never shipped it.
So I decided that it's time to take things to the appropriate higher authority, much like decisions I make at work about filing probation violations. (And this entire situation has been very similar to what I experience on a regular basis at work.) When do I notify the judge of a probation violation? When the probationer doesn't do what they're supposed to do? And when I confront them about their shortcomings, they make promises to correct the behavior, and then don't follow through with those promises? When the probationer has committed the worst kind of violation of the rules? Yes, that's when I notify the higher authority in the form of filing a probation violation with the judge. So using that train of thought, it was clearly time for me to notify the higher authority regarding this eBay deadbeat.
This probationer--er, I mean, this deadbeat--now has four days to respond to the open case in the Resolution Center. If (when) she doesn't, I'm not sure what eBay does to her, but I know what I'm going to do on Thursday evening. I'm going to offer the item to the second-highest bidder with a completely clear conscience. And then I'm going to leave the deadbeat negative feedback. I've already learned that when the deadbeat inevitably leaves me negative feedback in retaliation, I can get eBay to remove it from my feedback score because she didn't pay for the item. HA! Suck it, deadbeat! I'm also able to block her from ever bidding on any of my auctions again.
Who knows...maybe the deadbeat will surprise me and pay for the item within the next four days. My probationers have surprised me in the past by doing something to help themselves long after I had lost all hope.
I'm just a tad skeptical, though.
Stay tuned.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
One Man's Clutter
I've been on something of an adventure lately. I've been selling things on eBay and Craigslist. Yes, lots of people have been doing this for quite a long time, but this is the first time I've tried it. It's been an interesting learning experience.
It all started with the Mrs. and I having a full-blown case of cabin fever. Being stuck in the house for a long time makes a person realize just how much clutter we have. It felt like our house looked something like this:
Since one person's clutter is another person's treasure, we plan to have a yard sale at some point, but unless we're willing to sit outside in 5-degree weather and six inches of snow for a couple of days (and we're not), it's going to be a few months before we can clear out some of the clutter.
The Mrs. suggested that we try selling stuff on Craigslist. For those unfamiliar with Craigslist, you can post free advertisements, by geographical region, for--among other things--items you want to sell. People in the area in which you live respond to the ads, agree to purchase the items, and then you meet them somewhere to complete the transaction.
So the first item I put on Craigslist was my Playstation 2 and some PS2 games. I wanted a new Wii, so I had no use for my PS2 anymore, and any money I could get for it would go toward the Wii. I also included a couple of Guitar Hero guitars, which were going to be a nightmare to ship anywhere because of their bulk. I posted the price I wanted, and lo and behold, a few days later, someone responded. We worked out the details of the transaction over e-mail, then met in a local Wal-Mart parking lot. I got rid of something I didn't use anymore, I got the cash I wanted, the other person got a video game system and games at a good price, and I didn't have to mess with trying to ship those bulky guitars. Win-win.
I put a few more things on Craigslist, but aside from a few e-mails asking some questions, I didn't get any more interest. I had no way of knowing what my stuff was worth, and I built in some negotiating room into my asking price, so maybe I was trying to sell the stuff for too much money. Or maybe it was as simple as no one wanting my stuff.
After a couple of weeks, aside from the PS2, I still had the same amount of clutter in my house. So I decided to start selling stuff on eBay, instead.
One disadvantage of using eBay is that it costs money to list things. Exactly how much it costs to list things is dependent on a number of factors: what you're selling (there's a flat fee to list something, and it seems to vary depending on what the item is), how many photos you post of the item (the first one is free, but subsequent photos cost 15 cents a piece to post), what your starting asking price is (there's no charge to start the bidding at 99 cents, but if you want a higher starting price, it costs more to list), and what additional features you want to purchase to bring attention to your listing. I didn't add a lot of bells and whistles to my listings, so most of them cost anywhere from 10 cents to a dollar to list.
eBay also takes a percentage of your final sale price. I use PayPal, too, as the way I want to be paid by winning bidders, and PayPal takes a percentage of every transaction I make. Between the two, I'm paying out about 10% of what I get for an item.
And then there's the matter of shipping everything. I planned to sell a lot of CD's and DVD's, so I had to purchase a bunch of padded mailing envelopes. I also wound up having to buy some shipping boxes, since I used up my entire supply of boxes I had saved from Christmas. And I bought some bubble wrap to protect some of the fragile items and electronics I was planning to ship. There's the time involved in packing everything up, plus the gas to the Post Office, and the time spent at the Post Office. But as far as the actual shipping costs are concerned, I required buyers to pay for their own shipping. eBay offers a nice postage calculator that allows the buyer to type in their own zip code, and it will calculate how much postage will be, using a variety of services. If someone wants an item delivered overnight to Alaska, that's fine with me, as long as they pay for it.
The advantage to eBay is that my range of potential buyers went from the Indianapolis metropolitan area to the entire world. (I chose to ship only to the United States, so that I wouldn't have to mess with international shipping, but it still opened up my audience to the entire nation and its territories.)
So for the past week or so, I've been putting a bunch of stuff up for auction on eBay. I started out with a bang. I assembled a collection of 78 CD's from 1980's hard rock hair bands. Stuff like AC/DC, Twisted Sister, Def Leppard, Billy Idol, Motley Crue, Poison, Quiet Riot, etc. I had uploaded all the music I wanted from those CD's onto my computer, so the CD's themselves were just taking up space. The Mrs., who has never understood my love of that kind of music, was a bit skeptical that there was any other human being in the entire galaxy who would want those CD's. I was starting to wonder the same thing after they had sat on Craigslist for a week without any interest for a $50.00 price tag. I put it up for a three-day auction on eBay, and after a couple of days, the lot of CD's was up to $51.00. I was pretty pleased with that. I was getting the money I wanted for them in the first place, and I had the satisfaction of showing the Mrs. that someone else in the world likes the same music I do.
As the final day of the auction wound to a close, the highest bid crept up into the $60.00 range. And then came the final two minutes of the auction. People started bidding like crazy, trying to blindside each other at the last second, and driving the price higher and higher. Every time I refreshed my computer screen, the Mrs. exclaimed in glee, "It's up to $70! $75! $80! $95! $100!..." By the time the auction ended, the final sale price was $140.00. The Mrs., drunk on the thrill of the last two minutes, grabbed my shirt collar with both hands, unwittingly shaking me back and forth a few times. To make sure I was paying attention, she put her face three inches in front of mine and emphatically commanded, "SELL....MORE....STUFF!!"
The next few items we put up for bid resulted in the same experience. Halfway through each auction, we were fairly pleased with the price we were getting for stuff, and then in the last couple of minutes of each auction, there was a frantic spree of bidding, and the price doubled. Sometimes tripled. Every time, the Mrs. nearly came out of her skin with excitement, watching the last two minutes of bidding. I was having fun watching it, too.
Not everything sold for good prices, though. And not everything sold. I made some mistakes along the way that have cost me money, much to my chagrin, but I have learned a lot, too.
For instance, I've learned a lot about the U.S. Postal Service and what they have to offer. I learned about Media Mail, which I had never heard of before. In a nutshell, if you're shipping CD's, books, movies, or other specific kinds of media, you can ship it using Media Mail. It travels at the same speed as Parcel Post, but for less than half the cost. You can read more about it on the USPS's website here. Since I was shipping a lot of CD's, that worked well for the buyer, who could spend less on shipping and more on the item they were bidding on. For instance, the Parcel Post charge on those 78 CD's I sold was going to be $28.00. I sent it by Media Mail--with the same projected arrival date as Parcel Post--for $9.80.
For single CD's or movies, I was offering a flat $3.00 shipping price (the maximum eBay allows you to assess on those items) but offering Priority Mail service. I soon learned that Priority Mail costs a lot more than $3.00. First Class, however, comes in right under $3.00, and travels nearly as quickly as Priority Mail. I had someone in Illinois pay me for a movie on the 9th, I shipped it First Class on the 10th, and he had it on the 12th. First Class postage cost $2.63. Priority Mail was going to be close to $8.00. So I learned that on items where I'm offering a flat $3.00 shipping price, I need to advertise that it will be shipping First Class, not Priority Mail.
I've learned not to be cheap on setting a starting price. eBay allows you to set a starting price of up to 99 cents for free. Starting prices higher than that get charged a fee. So I set the starting bid on most of my auctions at 99 cents, figuring the price would work its way up, and then I've avoided a fee. Well, that didn't always work out very well. I ended up selling several individual CD's for 99 cents. I even had to part with a four-CD lot for 99 cents. Figure that I spent 15 cents to list each CD, 50 cents on the mailing envelope, probably 25 cents in gas to get to the Post Office and back, and eBay and PayPal take about a dime of my profits, I'm only breaking even--or maybe even losing a penny or two--for the time I spent listing the CD, printing off a receipt, packaging the CD, driving to the Post Office, and standing in line there.
I've learned that trying to ship something packaged in an old Priority Mail box by any means other than Priority Mail is impossible, even if you black out the Priority Mail markings with a Magic Marker. That was an expensive lesson to learn. That was the four-CD lot that I sold for 99 cents. He paid an additional $3.00 for shipping. I had to pay $9.00 to send it to him Priority Mail because of the box I packaged it in. Ouch. Only as I was driving home did it occur to me that I should have taken the package back home, wrapped it in brown shipping paper, and then sent it by Media Mail. D'OH!!!
I've learned that CD lots sell a lot better than individual CD's do. I don't have much trouble selling CD's when I group them into a lot of 20 or 30 CD's in a similar genre. But I have failed miserably at selling individual CD's.
I've learned that I have no clue as to what people will buy, or what they'll pay for it. I sold a crappy 2002 computer game that wasn't even very good back in 2002, much less eight years later, for $15.00. I couldn't believe it! I'm not even sure I paid $15.00 for it back in 2002! Then I turned around and listed an album by AC/DC that came out within the past two years, and it was in immaculate condition because I had used it a grand total of once--to upload it onto my computer. I figured I might get $5.00 for it. It didn't even get a single bid. Crappy eight-year-old computer game = $15.00. Relatively new CD by a well-known band that is in "like new" condition = zippo. I don't get it.
I've learned why some of my stuff didn't sell on Craigslist. It was way overpriced. I sold an old digital camera on eBay for less than half the price I was advertising for it on Craigslist. No wonder no one showed any interest on Craigslist. Other items, though, went for a lot more on eBay than I was offering them for on Craigslist.
I've learned to space the auctions out a little bit. I had one day this week where 35 auctions all ended on the same day. I spent hours that night, packaging everything up, and it was quite an ordeal trying to carry it all from my car to the Post Office the next day. And then I held up the line at the Post Office for 20 minutes while I got everything shipped off. So having all those auctions end at the same time turned out to not be my best idea.
I've learned that there are deadbeats on eBay, just as there are in the rest of the world. I'm still awaiting payment for an item I sold four days ago. She told me yesterday that she'd "try" to pay me yesterday, and if not, then she'd "definitely" pay me today. I'm still waiting. If she hasn't paid me by Tuesday (a week after she won the auction), I'll offer the item to the second-highest bidder, who was just a dollar below the winning bidder. If that person doesn't want it, the third-highest bidder was only a dollar below the second-highest bidder. If none of those people still want it, I'll just re-list it on eBay. And then I'll leave negative feedback for the winning bidder. A person's feedback score on eBay is about as important as a person's credit rating is in real life, and getting negative feedback for not paying for an item you won is the worst kind of blow to your feedback score.
I've learned that no matter how specific I am in the description of an item, people will still ask stupid questions that are answered right there in the description. So time has to be set aside to answer these stupid questions in a tone that won't offend a potential buyer. Not all questions are stupid--in fact, I've learned how to write my descriptions better, based on what questions people ask me--but when someone asks me how much it costs to ship the item to them, when there's a shipping calculator prominently displayed on the listing, I want to bang my head against the wall. The all-time dumbest question I've gotten is if a CD I was selling was new or used. The listing said "used" in no fewer than four separate places, including at the very top, in bold print.
I've learned that PayPal holds my winnings on an item until the buyer gives me feedback on eBay, thus indicating that the buyer received the item. Makes sense. That way I can't collect a bunch of money from people and then never send the item. But if the buyer never takes the time to leave me feedback--which has happened in the past--the money sits there on hold for three weeks. After that, PayPal assumes the buyer received the item and has no issues with the transaction, and they release the money to me. It's not a big deal to me, since I'm just selling stuff for extra money, but it's not a good idea to use PayPal if you're selling stuff on Tuesday with the intent of using that money to buy groceries on Friday.
At any rate, in about a week's time, the Mrs. and I have sold $600.00 worth of stuff between eBay and Craigslist. That is well beyond our wildest dreams (and the Wii is paid for!). I'll lose $60.00 of that to eBay and PayPal, and I have another $40.00 or so in incidental expenses relating to packaging materials and my screw-ups in estimating postage, but still...I'll take $500.00 and the space that the sold items left behind. In no time, we're hoping that clearing out the clutter will make our house feel like this:
It all started with the Mrs. and I having a full-blown case of cabin fever. Being stuck in the house for a long time makes a person realize just how much clutter we have. It felt like our house looked something like this:
Since one person's clutter is another person's treasure, we plan to have a yard sale at some point, but unless we're willing to sit outside in 5-degree weather and six inches of snow for a couple of days (and we're not), it's going to be a few months before we can clear out some of the clutter.
The Mrs. suggested that we try selling stuff on Craigslist. For those unfamiliar with Craigslist, you can post free advertisements, by geographical region, for--among other things--items you want to sell. People in the area in which you live respond to the ads, agree to purchase the items, and then you meet them somewhere to complete the transaction.
So the first item I put on Craigslist was my Playstation 2 and some PS2 games. I wanted a new Wii, so I had no use for my PS2 anymore, and any money I could get for it would go toward the Wii. I also included a couple of Guitar Hero guitars, which were going to be a nightmare to ship anywhere because of their bulk. I posted the price I wanted, and lo and behold, a few days later, someone responded. We worked out the details of the transaction over e-mail, then met in a local Wal-Mart parking lot. I got rid of something I didn't use anymore, I got the cash I wanted, the other person got a video game system and games at a good price, and I didn't have to mess with trying to ship those bulky guitars. Win-win.
I put a few more things on Craigslist, but aside from a few e-mails asking some questions, I didn't get any more interest. I had no way of knowing what my stuff was worth, and I built in some negotiating room into my asking price, so maybe I was trying to sell the stuff for too much money. Or maybe it was as simple as no one wanting my stuff.
After a couple of weeks, aside from the PS2, I still had the same amount of clutter in my house. So I decided to start selling stuff on eBay, instead.
One disadvantage of using eBay is that it costs money to list things. Exactly how much it costs to list things is dependent on a number of factors: what you're selling (there's a flat fee to list something, and it seems to vary depending on what the item is), how many photos you post of the item (the first one is free, but subsequent photos cost 15 cents a piece to post), what your starting asking price is (there's no charge to start the bidding at 99 cents, but if you want a higher starting price, it costs more to list), and what additional features you want to purchase to bring attention to your listing. I didn't add a lot of bells and whistles to my listings, so most of them cost anywhere from 10 cents to a dollar to list.
eBay also takes a percentage of your final sale price. I use PayPal, too, as the way I want to be paid by winning bidders, and PayPal takes a percentage of every transaction I make. Between the two, I'm paying out about 10% of what I get for an item.
And then there's the matter of shipping everything. I planned to sell a lot of CD's and DVD's, so I had to purchase a bunch of padded mailing envelopes. I also wound up having to buy some shipping boxes, since I used up my entire supply of boxes I had saved from Christmas. And I bought some bubble wrap to protect some of the fragile items and electronics I was planning to ship. There's the time involved in packing everything up, plus the gas to the Post Office, and the time spent at the Post Office. But as far as the actual shipping costs are concerned, I required buyers to pay for their own shipping. eBay offers a nice postage calculator that allows the buyer to type in their own zip code, and it will calculate how much postage will be, using a variety of services. If someone wants an item delivered overnight to Alaska, that's fine with me, as long as they pay for it.
The advantage to eBay is that my range of potential buyers went from the Indianapolis metropolitan area to the entire world. (I chose to ship only to the United States, so that I wouldn't have to mess with international shipping, but it still opened up my audience to the entire nation and its territories.)
So for the past week or so, I've been putting a bunch of stuff up for auction on eBay. I started out with a bang. I assembled a collection of 78 CD's from 1980's hard rock hair bands. Stuff like AC/DC, Twisted Sister, Def Leppard, Billy Idol, Motley Crue, Poison, Quiet Riot, etc. I had uploaded all the music I wanted from those CD's onto my computer, so the CD's themselves were just taking up space. The Mrs., who has never understood my love of that kind of music, was a bit skeptical that there was any other human being in the entire galaxy who would want those CD's. I was starting to wonder the same thing after they had sat on Craigslist for a week without any interest for a $50.00 price tag. I put it up for a three-day auction on eBay, and after a couple of days, the lot of CD's was up to $51.00. I was pretty pleased with that. I was getting the money I wanted for them in the first place, and I had the satisfaction of showing the Mrs. that someone else in the world likes the same music I do.
As the final day of the auction wound to a close, the highest bid crept up into the $60.00 range. And then came the final two minutes of the auction. People started bidding like crazy, trying to blindside each other at the last second, and driving the price higher and higher. Every time I refreshed my computer screen, the Mrs. exclaimed in glee, "It's up to $70! $75! $80! $95! $100!..." By the time the auction ended, the final sale price was $140.00. The Mrs., drunk on the thrill of the last two minutes, grabbed my shirt collar with both hands, unwittingly shaking me back and forth a few times. To make sure I was paying attention, she put her face three inches in front of mine and emphatically commanded, "SELL....MORE....STUFF!!"
The next few items we put up for bid resulted in the same experience. Halfway through each auction, we were fairly pleased with the price we were getting for stuff, and then in the last couple of minutes of each auction, there was a frantic spree of bidding, and the price doubled. Sometimes tripled. Every time, the Mrs. nearly came out of her skin with excitement, watching the last two minutes of bidding. I was having fun watching it, too.
Not everything sold for good prices, though. And not everything sold. I made some mistakes along the way that have cost me money, much to my chagrin, but I have learned a lot, too.
For instance, I've learned a lot about the U.S. Postal Service and what they have to offer. I learned about Media Mail, which I had never heard of before. In a nutshell, if you're shipping CD's, books, movies, or other specific kinds of media, you can ship it using Media Mail. It travels at the same speed as Parcel Post, but for less than half the cost. You can read more about it on the USPS's website here. Since I was shipping a lot of CD's, that worked well for the buyer, who could spend less on shipping and more on the item they were bidding on. For instance, the Parcel Post charge on those 78 CD's I sold was going to be $28.00. I sent it by Media Mail--with the same projected arrival date as Parcel Post--for $9.80.
For single CD's or movies, I was offering a flat $3.00 shipping price (the maximum eBay allows you to assess on those items) but offering Priority Mail service. I soon learned that Priority Mail costs a lot more than $3.00. First Class, however, comes in right under $3.00, and travels nearly as quickly as Priority Mail. I had someone in Illinois pay me for a movie on the 9th, I shipped it First Class on the 10th, and he had it on the 12th. First Class postage cost $2.63. Priority Mail was going to be close to $8.00. So I learned that on items where I'm offering a flat $3.00 shipping price, I need to advertise that it will be shipping First Class, not Priority Mail.
I've learned not to be cheap on setting a starting price. eBay allows you to set a starting price of up to 99 cents for free. Starting prices higher than that get charged a fee. So I set the starting bid on most of my auctions at 99 cents, figuring the price would work its way up, and then I've avoided a fee. Well, that didn't always work out very well. I ended up selling several individual CD's for 99 cents. I even had to part with a four-CD lot for 99 cents. Figure that I spent 15 cents to list each CD, 50 cents on the mailing envelope, probably 25 cents in gas to get to the Post Office and back, and eBay and PayPal take about a dime of my profits, I'm only breaking even--or maybe even losing a penny or two--for the time I spent listing the CD, printing off a receipt, packaging the CD, driving to the Post Office, and standing in line there.
I've learned that trying to ship something packaged in an old Priority Mail box by any means other than Priority Mail is impossible, even if you black out the Priority Mail markings with a Magic Marker. That was an expensive lesson to learn. That was the four-CD lot that I sold for 99 cents. He paid an additional $3.00 for shipping. I had to pay $9.00 to send it to him Priority Mail because of the box I packaged it in. Ouch. Only as I was driving home did it occur to me that I should have taken the package back home, wrapped it in brown shipping paper, and then sent it by Media Mail. D'OH!!!
I've learned that CD lots sell a lot better than individual CD's do. I don't have much trouble selling CD's when I group them into a lot of 20 or 30 CD's in a similar genre. But I have failed miserably at selling individual CD's.
I've learned that I have no clue as to what people will buy, or what they'll pay for it. I sold a crappy 2002 computer game that wasn't even very good back in 2002, much less eight years later, for $15.00. I couldn't believe it! I'm not even sure I paid $15.00 for it back in 2002! Then I turned around and listed an album by AC/DC that came out within the past two years, and it was in immaculate condition because I had used it a grand total of once--to upload it onto my computer. I figured I might get $5.00 for it. It didn't even get a single bid. Crappy eight-year-old computer game = $15.00. Relatively new CD by a well-known band that is in "like new" condition = zippo. I don't get it.
I've learned why some of my stuff didn't sell on Craigslist. It was way overpriced. I sold an old digital camera on eBay for less than half the price I was advertising for it on Craigslist. No wonder no one showed any interest on Craigslist. Other items, though, went for a lot more on eBay than I was offering them for on Craigslist.
I've learned to space the auctions out a little bit. I had one day this week where 35 auctions all ended on the same day. I spent hours that night, packaging everything up, and it was quite an ordeal trying to carry it all from my car to the Post Office the next day. And then I held up the line at the Post Office for 20 minutes while I got everything shipped off. So having all those auctions end at the same time turned out to not be my best idea.
I've learned that there are deadbeats on eBay, just as there are in the rest of the world. I'm still awaiting payment for an item I sold four days ago. She told me yesterday that she'd "try" to pay me yesterday, and if not, then she'd "definitely" pay me today. I'm still waiting. If she hasn't paid me by Tuesday (a week after she won the auction), I'll offer the item to the second-highest bidder, who was just a dollar below the winning bidder. If that person doesn't want it, the third-highest bidder was only a dollar below the second-highest bidder. If none of those people still want it, I'll just re-list it on eBay. And then I'll leave negative feedback for the winning bidder. A person's feedback score on eBay is about as important as a person's credit rating is in real life, and getting negative feedback for not paying for an item you won is the worst kind of blow to your feedback score.
I've learned that no matter how specific I am in the description of an item, people will still ask stupid questions that are answered right there in the description. So time has to be set aside to answer these stupid questions in a tone that won't offend a potential buyer. Not all questions are stupid--in fact, I've learned how to write my descriptions better, based on what questions people ask me--but when someone asks me how much it costs to ship the item to them, when there's a shipping calculator prominently displayed on the listing, I want to bang my head against the wall. The all-time dumbest question I've gotten is if a CD I was selling was new or used. The listing said "used" in no fewer than four separate places, including at the very top, in bold print.
I've learned that PayPal holds my winnings on an item until the buyer gives me feedback on eBay, thus indicating that the buyer received the item. Makes sense. That way I can't collect a bunch of money from people and then never send the item. But if the buyer never takes the time to leave me feedback--which has happened in the past--the money sits there on hold for three weeks. After that, PayPal assumes the buyer received the item and has no issues with the transaction, and they release the money to me. It's not a big deal to me, since I'm just selling stuff for extra money, but it's not a good idea to use PayPal if you're selling stuff on Tuesday with the intent of using that money to buy groceries on Friday.
At any rate, in about a week's time, the Mrs. and I have sold $600.00 worth of stuff between eBay and Craigslist. That is well beyond our wildest dreams (and the Wii is paid for!). I'll lose $60.00 of that to eBay and PayPal, and I have another $40.00 or so in incidental expenses relating to packaging materials and my screw-ups in estimating postage, but still...I'll take $500.00 and the space that the sold items left behind. In no time, we're hoping that clearing out the clutter will make our house feel like this:
Monday, February 8, 2010
My Super Bowl Thoughts
I'm disappointed in the Colts and their performance in the Super Bowl last night. I can think of a lot worse fates than the New Orleans Saints being NFL Champions, though. In fact, aside from the fact that the Colts were their vanquished opponent, I'm happy for the Saints.
I didn't watch any of the pre-game hype of the Super Bowl, nor did I watch any of the media coverage after it. I hear from a number of people that the media over-Katrina'd everything, as I fully expected that they would. I imagine the Haiti earthquake was close behind Hurricane Katrina in the ad nauseam attempts to pull at heart-strings, given the ties to Haiti by the Colts' Pierre Garçon and the Saints' Jonathan Vilma.
Those disasters were absolutely awful. Don't get me wrong. I don't mean to diminish either event at all.
What I didn't want to endure, though, is hours upon hours upon hours of the media and the NFL using Katrina and Haiti to hype a football game, especially one in which they prosper financially in a huge way. I fully understand the rising-up-from-disaster storyline. I get it. I don't need to be repeatedly bashed over the head with it.
I'm happy for the Saints in part because the people of New Orleans have something to feel great about. The fact that they have worked so hard to recover from Katrina's devastation and have had this great football season to distract and entertain them likely makes this celebration even sweeter for them. I'm happy for them because this is the first Super Bowl appearance and victory for the Saints in their 43-year existence. I remember decade after decade of the Saints being the laughingstock of the NFL. Good for them for getting their day in the sun. And I'm happy for Drew Brees. He played college football at Purdue, here in Indiana, and he seems like a genuinely good guy. I enjoyed watching him share the moment on the field with his infant son, too.
The talking heads of the sports media will debate in minute detail what went wrong for the Colts, but I have a few thoughts before I glance at an article or two on-line and then move on with my life. In no particular order:
The Colts won the first quarter, 10-0. After that, the Saints handed them their asses, 31-7. The 31-17 final score was deceptively close. The Saints dominated from the second quarter on.
The Colts appeared arrogant. The Saints appeared passionate. It seemed to me that the Colts expected to win handily and didn't anticipate much of a challenge from the Saints. After the first quarter, it seemed headed in that direction. But when the Saints regrouped and came back to punch the Colts in the mouth, the Colts had no response. It's almost as if they were astonished that the peion Saints had the audacity to challenge them, much like a school bully reacts when one of his intended victims fights back. The cold, heartless automatons in blue and white had no ability to muster up any passion or fight. Even after the game, they just calmly walked off the field. No heart. No passion. No fire. Not that I expected to see Peyton Manning curled up in the fetal position at midfield, sucking his thumb and soaking in a pool of his own tears, but SOME sort of emotion would have been encouraging to see...from ANYONE on the Colts sideline. By contrast, the Saints' sideline, even when they were down early, was fired up.
The Colts ran six plays in the second quarter. Six. That's terrible.
It was nice to see some semblance of a running game from the Colts. For awhile, anyway, until the Saints compensated and shut it down.
I think that a huge turning point in the game was the Saints' ability to prevent Peyton Manning from scoring one of his patented right-before-halftime touchdowns. Then they followed it up with the on-side kick after halftime, keeping the ball away from the Colts again. Those two events were potentially a 14-point turnaround for the Saints.
I like Saints coach Sean Payton a lot. That guy has big brass ones. I LOVED the on-side kick to start the second half. I also loved that he went for it on 4th and goal in the first half, even though it didn't work. Coach Payton pulled out all the stops, and I thought it was great.
The irony that Tracy Porter--the Saint who intercepted Manning and ran it back for the game-sealing touchdown--played his college football at Indiana University is delicious. The kill-shot applied to the Colts by a Hoosier.
The Saints had to beat the #4-seed Arizona Cardinals and the #2-seed Minnesota Vikings to advance to the Super Bowl. The Colts only had to beat the #5-seed Baltimore Ravens and #6-seed New York Jets to advance. I wonder if the Colts would have been better prepared for the Saints if they had had to beat San Diego and/or New England along the way. Then the Saints beat the AFC's #1-seed in the Super Bowl. So New Orleans beat Kurt Warner, Brett Favre, and Peyton Manning in the postseason. Indianapolis beat Joe Flacco and Mark Sanchez. There's really no question in my mind as to who the better--and more deserving--team is.
Janet Jackson has ruined the Super Bowl halftime show for everyone. In the NFL's efforts to prevent another "wardrobe malfunction," they have subjected us to a slew of way-beyond-their prime bands, none of whom are younger than about 50, culminating in last night's performance by The Who. I think The Who was pretty popular about 30 years ago. Maybe 40 years ago. They sounded horrible, especially in the beginning, too. (To their credit, they certainly can't be accused of lip-synching.) Is there no relatively modern band that the NFL can trust not to flop a boob out on live TV? I wonder if The Who guitarist's 60-year-old beer gut falling out of his too-short button-up shirt while he windmilled his guitar will be considered a "wardrobe malfunction."
I don't want to beat the dead horse of the Colts quitting on the perfect regular season, but without a Super Bowl ring--the goal that Bill Polian and Jim Caldwell claimed was their only goal, not a perfect season--this goes down as just another forgettable season. They could have had something special, had they not quit. I have to wonder, too, how throwing in the towel on the final two games of the season affected the team's chemistry. Had they played the regular season all the way through, would they have been more polished and refined by Super Bowl time? We'll never know.
I realized as I watched the Colts implode last night that it wasn't bothering me much. Maybe it was because I kind of like the Saints and Drew Brees, too. Maybe it was because the Colts didn't really seem very upset about how things were going, so why should I get overly upset? My family and friends can cite several instances in which I have come absolutely positively unglued about games lost by teams I'm passionate about. But this one didn't really bother me much. On the other hand, I'm still pissed about the Super Bowl four years ago that was handed to the Steelers by the referees at the expense of my Seattle Seahawks. So last night just reaffirmed that I'm a Seahawks fan first. The Colts are a distant second.
And now I'm ready for baseball season. Go A's!
I didn't watch any of the pre-game hype of the Super Bowl, nor did I watch any of the media coverage after it. I hear from a number of people that the media over-Katrina'd everything, as I fully expected that they would. I imagine the Haiti earthquake was close behind Hurricane Katrina in the ad nauseam attempts to pull at heart-strings, given the ties to Haiti by the Colts' Pierre Garçon and the Saints' Jonathan Vilma.
Those disasters were absolutely awful. Don't get me wrong. I don't mean to diminish either event at all.
What I didn't want to endure, though, is hours upon hours upon hours of the media and the NFL using Katrina and Haiti to hype a football game, especially one in which they prosper financially in a huge way. I fully understand the rising-up-from-disaster storyline. I get it. I don't need to be repeatedly bashed over the head with it.
I'm happy for the Saints in part because the people of New Orleans have something to feel great about. The fact that they have worked so hard to recover from Katrina's devastation and have had this great football season to distract and entertain them likely makes this celebration even sweeter for them. I'm happy for them because this is the first Super Bowl appearance and victory for the Saints in their 43-year existence. I remember decade after decade of the Saints being the laughingstock of the NFL. Good for them for getting their day in the sun. And I'm happy for Drew Brees. He played college football at Purdue, here in Indiana, and he seems like a genuinely good guy. I enjoyed watching him share the moment on the field with his infant son, too.
The talking heads of the sports media will debate in minute detail what went wrong for the Colts, but I have a few thoughts before I glance at an article or two on-line and then move on with my life. In no particular order:
The Colts won the first quarter, 10-0. After that, the Saints handed them their asses, 31-7. The 31-17 final score was deceptively close. The Saints dominated from the second quarter on.
The Colts appeared arrogant. The Saints appeared passionate. It seemed to me that the Colts expected to win handily and didn't anticipate much of a challenge from the Saints. After the first quarter, it seemed headed in that direction. But when the Saints regrouped and came back to punch the Colts in the mouth, the Colts had no response. It's almost as if they were astonished that the peion Saints had the audacity to challenge them, much like a school bully reacts when one of his intended victims fights back. The cold, heartless automatons in blue and white had no ability to muster up any passion or fight. Even after the game, they just calmly walked off the field. No heart. No passion. No fire. Not that I expected to see Peyton Manning curled up in the fetal position at midfield, sucking his thumb and soaking in a pool of his own tears, but SOME sort of emotion would have been encouraging to see...from ANYONE on the Colts sideline. By contrast, the Saints' sideline, even when they were down early, was fired up.
The Colts ran six plays in the second quarter. Six. That's terrible.
It was nice to see some semblance of a running game from the Colts. For awhile, anyway, until the Saints compensated and shut it down.
I think that a huge turning point in the game was the Saints' ability to prevent Peyton Manning from scoring one of his patented right-before-halftime touchdowns. Then they followed it up with the on-side kick after halftime, keeping the ball away from the Colts again. Those two events were potentially a 14-point turnaround for the Saints.
I like Saints coach Sean Payton a lot. That guy has big brass ones. I LOVED the on-side kick to start the second half. I also loved that he went for it on 4th and goal in the first half, even though it didn't work. Coach Payton pulled out all the stops, and I thought it was great.
The irony that Tracy Porter--the Saint who intercepted Manning and ran it back for the game-sealing touchdown--played his college football at Indiana University is delicious. The kill-shot applied to the Colts by a Hoosier.
The Saints had to beat the #4-seed Arizona Cardinals and the #2-seed Minnesota Vikings to advance to the Super Bowl. The Colts only had to beat the #5-seed Baltimore Ravens and #6-seed New York Jets to advance. I wonder if the Colts would have been better prepared for the Saints if they had had to beat San Diego and/or New England along the way. Then the Saints beat the AFC's #1-seed in the Super Bowl. So New Orleans beat Kurt Warner, Brett Favre, and Peyton Manning in the postseason. Indianapolis beat Joe Flacco and Mark Sanchez. There's really no question in my mind as to who the better--and more deserving--team is.
Janet Jackson has ruined the Super Bowl halftime show for everyone. In the NFL's efforts to prevent another "wardrobe malfunction," they have subjected us to a slew of way-beyond-their prime bands, none of whom are younger than about 50, culminating in last night's performance by The Who. I think The Who was pretty popular about 30 years ago. Maybe 40 years ago. They sounded horrible, especially in the beginning, too. (To their credit, they certainly can't be accused of lip-synching.) Is there no relatively modern band that the NFL can trust not to flop a boob out on live TV? I wonder if The Who guitarist's 60-year-old beer gut falling out of his too-short button-up shirt while he windmilled his guitar will be considered a "wardrobe malfunction."
I don't want to beat the dead horse of the Colts quitting on the perfect regular season, but without a Super Bowl ring--the goal that Bill Polian and Jim Caldwell claimed was their only goal, not a perfect season--this goes down as just another forgettable season. They could have had something special, had they not quit. I have to wonder, too, how throwing in the towel on the final two games of the season affected the team's chemistry. Had they played the regular season all the way through, would they have been more polished and refined by Super Bowl time? We'll never know.
I realized as I watched the Colts implode last night that it wasn't bothering me much. Maybe it was because I kind of like the Saints and Drew Brees, too. Maybe it was because the Colts didn't really seem very upset about how things were going, so why should I get overly upset? My family and friends can cite several instances in which I have come absolutely positively unglued about games lost by teams I'm passionate about. But this one didn't really bother me much. On the other hand, I'm still pissed about the Super Bowl four years ago that was handed to the Steelers by the referees at the expense of my Seattle Seahawks. So last night just reaffirmed that I'm a Seahawks fan first. The Colts are a distant second.
And now I'm ready for baseball season. Go A's!
Friday, January 22, 2010
Sullivan's Tire Plus Redefines Customer Satisfaction
Continuing the saga of the Money Pit and its repairs (catch up by reading the two previous posts), I took the MP to Sullivan's Tire Plus in Danville, Indiana, after work today. When I spoke with them earlier this week, they said to bring it in Saturday morning around 8:00am, but the Mrs. has a hair appointment that morning, and we were going to have transportation issues. As it was, I was going to need Chuck and his wife to help me with childcare and a ride to Sullivan's tomorrow afternoon when the van was done. So to solve the morning problem, I was just going to drop the van off tonight and leave it there.
When I arrived, the man I spoke with earlier this week wasn't there, so I had to repeat my story to someone else. The man took my key and then asked if I had a minute. I said, "Sure." But in my mind, I was cringing, thinking that maybe they were overbooked tomorrow, and I'd have to tolerate the rattling tailpipe for longer than I anticipated. He said he was going to talk to one of the mechanics, and he'd be right back.
He came back a couple minutes later and announced that they can fix it today! Sweet! That solves all my transportation and childcare issues tomorrow! I told him where the Money Pit was parked, and he said, "Actually, it's already in the service bay." Wow!! They don't mess around!
So I sat and watched a little TV, and I chatted with another customer who was sitting there. During our conversation, he asked me if these folks here at Sullivan's treat me okay. This was his first time here. I told him how we have brought at least three different vehicles to Sullivan's multiple times for repairs over the years, and they've always treated us courteously and fairly. They even quickly diagnosed and solved a problem in one vehicle that had previously baffled two other mechanics. The other customer was happy to hear it.
Fifteen minutes later, the mechanic came in. He told me how the impact of whatever hit the van had torqued and bent the tailpipe a little bit. He explained how he heated it up a bit, readjusted things, and he thinks the problem is solved. FIFTEEN MINUTES!! And it's done!! No more rattling tailpipe!
I was already happy as a clam as I walked over to the check-out counter to settle my tab. That's when Sullivan's REALLY blew me away.
The man who helped me when I arrived today entered all of the repair information in the computer and then just handed me my key. He told me that he's not charging me anything today. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. He only asks that if I wind up needing a muffler and tailpipe for the Money Pit at a later time, that I come back to Sullivan's.
I'm sure I looked like a total moron, standing there with my mouth hanging open. I was stunned. I couldn't shake his hand hard enough or thank him near enough. I absolutely will come back to Sullivan's for any automotive issues I might encounter on either of our vehicles in the future!!
Two hours later, I'm still in shock.
On Monday, Andy Mohr Toyota in Avon was telling me that I needed an entirely new exhaust system, that it would take 3-5 days for the parts to arrive, and it would set me back $500.00.
On Friday, Sullivan's Tire Plus in Danville countered with this: When I thought I was just dropping the van off so that they'd have it first thing in the morning, they got me right in, instead. The Money Pit was up on a rack before I knew it. Literally. Fifteen minutes later, with a little heat and some brute force, it was fixed. No new exhaust system necessary. I had the Money Pit back, and all of my logistical problems for tomorrow became moot points. Oh, and no more irritating vibration. And then the mother of all surprises: they did it for free. FREE!!
On Monday, by treating me like I have SUCKER tattooed on my forehead, Andy Mohr Toyota lost a customer forever. I will never buy a vehicle from them (I didn't buy the Money Pit from them, anyway), nor will I ever again take a vehicle there to be serviced or repaired. I will also tell everyone I know about my bad experience with them.
On Friday, by treating me better than I could ever have possibly imagined, Sullivan's Tire Plus ensured my business for a very, very, very, very long time. I will also tell everyone I know about my OUTSTANDING experience with them.
If you're in the Indianapolis metropolitan area and need work done on your vehicle, make the drive out to Danville (actually, they have a location in Avon, too, for those coming in from the city) and see the good people at Sullivan's Tire Plus. I can't recommend them highly enough.
When I arrived, the man I spoke with earlier this week wasn't there, so I had to repeat my story to someone else. The man took my key and then asked if I had a minute. I said, "Sure." But in my mind, I was cringing, thinking that maybe they were overbooked tomorrow, and I'd have to tolerate the rattling tailpipe for longer than I anticipated. He said he was going to talk to one of the mechanics, and he'd be right back.
He came back a couple minutes later and announced that they can fix it today! Sweet! That solves all my transportation and childcare issues tomorrow! I told him where the Money Pit was parked, and he said, "Actually, it's already in the service bay." Wow!! They don't mess around!
So I sat and watched a little TV, and I chatted with another customer who was sitting there. During our conversation, he asked me if these folks here at Sullivan's treat me okay. This was his first time here. I told him how we have brought at least three different vehicles to Sullivan's multiple times for repairs over the years, and they've always treated us courteously and fairly. They even quickly diagnosed and solved a problem in one vehicle that had previously baffled two other mechanics. The other customer was happy to hear it.
Fifteen minutes later, the mechanic came in. He told me how the impact of whatever hit the van had torqued and bent the tailpipe a little bit. He explained how he heated it up a bit, readjusted things, and he thinks the problem is solved. FIFTEEN MINUTES!! And it's done!! No more rattling tailpipe!
I was already happy as a clam as I walked over to the check-out counter to settle my tab. That's when Sullivan's REALLY blew me away.
The man who helped me when I arrived today entered all of the repair information in the computer and then just handed me my key. He told me that he's not charging me anything today. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. He only asks that if I wind up needing a muffler and tailpipe for the Money Pit at a later time, that I come back to Sullivan's.
I'm sure I looked like a total moron, standing there with my mouth hanging open. I was stunned. I couldn't shake his hand hard enough or thank him near enough. I absolutely will come back to Sullivan's for any automotive issues I might encounter on either of our vehicles in the future!!
Two hours later, I'm still in shock.
On Monday, Andy Mohr Toyota in Avon was telling me that I needed an entirely new exhaust system, that it would take 3-5 days for the parts to arrive, and it would set me back $500.00.
On Friday, Sullivan's Tire Plus in Danville countered with this: When I thought I was just dropping the van off so that they'd have it first thing in the morning, they got me right in, instead. The Money Pit was up on a rack before I knew it. Literally. Fifteen minutes later, with a little heat and some brute force, it was fixed. No new exhaust system necessary. I had the Money Pit back, and all of my logistical problems for tomorrow became moot points. Oh, and no more irritating vibration. And then the mother of all surprises: they did it for free. FREE!!
On Monday, by treating me like I have SUCKER tattooed on my forehead, Andy Mohr Toyota lost a customer forever. I will never buy a vehicle from them (I didn't buy the Money Pit from them, anyway), nor will I ever again take a vehicle there to be serviced or repaired. I will also tell everyone I know about my bad experience with them.
On Friday, by treating me better than I could ever have possibly imagined, Sullivan's Tire Plus ensured my business for a very, very, very, very long time. I will also tell everyone I know about my OUTSTANDING experience with them.
If you're in the Indianapolis metropolitan area and need work done on your vehicle, make the drive out to Danville (actually, they have a location in Avon, too, for those coming in from the city) and see the good people at Sullivan's Tire Plus. I can't recommend them highly enough.
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