Customer service

I don't know how well it shows through in my blog, but most days I have no faith or hope for humanity. It seems as though everyone is either greedy, self centered or just plain stupid, in many cases all of these at once. So this week had plenty of potential for turning out to be really crappy.

First off, last week I realized that I was getting low on coffee. Now I've only been hooked on this stuff for about a year (damn you Glen...humm I should get some Turkish coffee again sometime...see what you've done!) but when I get hooked I go all the way. I've never actually had a cup of coffee, I prefer to enjoy coffee as an espresso. Small on volume, big on punch. Though the comments I received from some cyclists on a ride would lead me to believe that they never heard of or drank espresso!!! How can a cyclist not? It must be a Midwest thing, after all they all call it eXpresso. Anyway, the point of this story is that Glen had pointed me to Peet's Coffee, and I got an espresso sampler pack for Christmas from my parents. Damn that's fine coffee! So last week I ordered some more, a pound of the Espresso Forte, which arrived promptly Monday. Well I opened it up and enjoyed the aroma, and then I was quickly saddened. I had ordered it to be ground specifically for espresso, a very fine grind to pack well and allow for rapid extraction of the flavours (yes, see analytical chemistry in coffee). Well this stuff looked almost like wood chips, they had given me the percolator grind size, which really doesn't mix with an espresso machine.

Fortunately they are a really great company. I called them up to complain and what did I get, an apology, a new order of the proper grind, second day delivery and I get to keep the original pound of coffee. So there was one potential headache averted.

The second one came from my glasses. I hadn't realized it but over the past three years my eyesight has fallen off considerably. It's really strange how a gradual change can be imperceptible for so long, but suddenly you realize that you're straining to the sign on the McDonald's across the street. So it was time that I got my eyes checked and sure enough, I needed to get new glasses. Well all my life I had been getting my glasses from my uncle, he is after all an optometrist. But since he lives in Montreal I haven't actually picked my frames since the first pair of glasses that I ever had. Now all things considered, he'd done a fabulous job of picking out styles that worked really well for me. But for a change I figured I'd pick out my own pair...until I realized I really can't see what the glasses look like on my face without proper lenses in them. Thankfully Deirdre has great taste and I now have a really great looking pair of glasses. This is the style but they are brown in colour.

Anyway, yesterday I was looking that the glasses and noticed something. The paint on the part that holds the nose pad was chipped! I don't know how the hell that happened but I was pissed, I've only had these glasses for about 2 or 3 weeks. So I called up the optometrist and mentioned the problem. Before I could even ask what they would do about it she was telling me that they were ordering me new frames and that it should be there in about a week.

So maybe there is some hope for humanity after all...either that or I'm the luckiest bastard when it comes to customer service, either way I'm happy.