Who among us can't appreciate a good rant that has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with nostalgia for the good-old-days? This piece recently appeared in the newsletter of the California Bluegrass Association and it's written by their regular columnist, Charles Brady, who happens to . . .
It's time to unload not just a pet peeve, but an entire kennel of irritation. I'll bet you share some of these. So here goes: Do not tell me you miss me unless you are my mother or my husband or a friend. I'm not going to buy anything else. I'm not. So, retailer, stop sending me emails to say you . . .
Yes, I know. I am supposed to be above the little, petty irritations of life. I should have a lofty view. After all, I have a blog named Heart Mind Soul, right? Nahh. Lots of stuff irritates me, and one day last week I was reminded of a few of them. The Safeway baggers. Now, I have to tell you . . .
Our neighborhood has an online "back fence" on which neighbors chat about neighborly things. (I know. Hey, it's Silicon Valley, right?) Once in a while, situations that are not neighborly are posted. (They're always the most interesting.) When I saw this posted, I knew I had to share it: Help! . . .
Today I'm revealing customer service secrets that big companies don't want you to know. Did you know that many big companies have special departments to handle customers who escalate their complaints in a certain way? And that the staff of those special departments are charged with making the . . .
As a young public relations professional I had the luck to begin my career with a century-old company. It was a regional telephone company with a long history of customer and media relations. My boss was a former Associated Press editor and I was trained right in writing, too. But the single most . . .
In a day when many companies are placing increasing distance between them and their customers, one company that’s doing exactly the opposite stands out. That company is Delta Airlines. Delta hasn’t asked me to write this, paid me or given me anything at all for this post. It’s just that recent . . .
We're a self-service country, so it's interesting to see that in India, people engage others to do such daily tasks as laundry (see my post on the huge outdoor laundry in Mumbai) and...a shave. As we drive through the countryside, I've seen these scenes all over India. Yesterday, I saw four barber . . .
I'm really lucky to be in the age group that remembers old-time pharmacists. You know, the ones that knew us, our ailments and wanted to sit for a spell and give us kindly professional advice? Yeah. There are many things I remember and miss about the past, and this is one. Maybe you're . . .
It was a morning like any other morning: I was up way too early. A few bills were sitting on my desk and I figured I'd pay them. One of them was from my cable / internet provider, a company that's name begins with a C and ends with a t."Wow!" I thought, "$230.00 is high. Way higher than our normal . . .
