New Shoes in the Rain

It's Monday.  Need I say more? I love these short work weeks, as I'm taking Friday off to make a four day deal out of the Labor Day weekend.  I remain messed up pretty much all week, and will be so next week, too.  The cost of taking time off... I often express my frustrations about customer service issues in this space, and am about to do so again.  But let me first mention some instances of really good service! I can't really think of any, so here are some negative experiences I've had recently. My wife was involved in a fender-bender not long ago while I was on a business trip.  She and the occupants of the other car were all unhurt and she reported the claim (our first) to a very nice representative at the insurance carrier we currently use.  Did not hear anything for nearly a week, so I went online to their portal, where I had set up an account, and found the electronic version of a letter that the claims rep had apparently put into the mail.  You...

Good Monday morning to all.  Hope the weather is agreeable where you are, and not causing problems for you and yours. It seems that a number of things are moving rapidly toward a conclusion or some sort of inflection point where conditions will change dramatically.  And since I mentioned the weather, let's start there. I live in central Kentucky, but earlier in the month, about eighty miles to the southeast of where I live, the residents of what's colloquially referred to as eastern Kentucky experienced rainfall totaling nearly three and a half inches in about seven hours.  This raised the level of the Kentucky River by about twelve feet in some locations, and massive amounts of flooding occurred throughout the region. Thousands of residents either fled their homes or had to be rescued once they were cut off by the rising waters.  For those who have never visited this part of Kentucky, many parts are very hilly, bordering on mountainous, meaning that level ground exi...

Good Wednesday morning, everyone.  I write this morning from Chattanooga, Tennessee, where my business travels have brought me. And one thing that is an enduring feature of traveling for work is that your travels may go smoothly overall, but the trips are always populated by an almost equal number of good and bad things that happen along the way. For instance, our part of the world has had too much rain lately, as news reports from eastern Kentucky have shown.  So I am reluctant to complain too much about weather, but it is a factor in car travel and when you’re in sales, you nearly always have your hands full when you enter an account’s premises. So I am not a fan of umbrellas for that reason, but that preference does have its drawbacks, namely having to wait out heavy rain before returning to the car.  That did not happen yesterday but after my last call I decided to stop somewhere for an early dinner, but stayed in the car to let an absolutely torrential rain pass. ...