town of Strasburg, VA and Waste Management

 On Thursday, July 3 the town put out a message that trash might be collected on the normal day (Friday). ... maybe on Saturday? We, along with the rest of our neighbors put our trash out on Thursday evening.

WM didn't collect the trash on Friday or Saturday.

https://www.strasburgva.com/administration/page/trash-pickup-schedule 

It's now Monday afternoon. Trash for our entire neighborhood hasn't been picked up. After four days in the heat, it stinks. The town put out the following:

𝗧𝗿𝗮𝘀𝗵 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗨𝗽𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲 – 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘆, 𝗝𝘂𝗹𝘆 𝟭𝟰

Waste Management has notified us that they are unable to service Strasburg today due to ongoing staffing issues.

The plan moving forward is as follows:

Friday’s missed route from last week will not be collected until this coming Friday (7/18).

This is an OUTRAGE!!!

How stupid does WM and the town think that we are? WM is a BIG company that sponsors a yearly PGA golf tournament, donates large sums to charities, and pays for expensive advertisements on TV that claim that they're the greatest. Yet they can't meet their contractual requirement to collect the trash EVERY week because of "STAFFING ISSUES"? WM and the town must think that their customers are stupid.

WM and the town owe EACH and EVERY person in the neighborhood an apology and a rebate for their abysmally poor performance and breach of contract.

One thing that WM, Strasburg, and Shenandoah County have in common--they can't get their act together.

https://flickr.com/photos/dreamsjung/3595425744

attribution: Jason Taellious and flickr

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USPS

This is the back of an envelope addressed to my wife from the USPS. Inside the envelope was roughly one half of a birthday card. The roughly half of the birthday card and envelope were torn diagonally in a straight line from top to bottom. The other roughly half of the birthday card wasn't included.

It was just a birthday card--from my wife's brother who lives in Florida. He's in his mid 80s and my wife is six years younger.  Needless to say, the roughly half of the birthday card was completely unreadable. The whole birthday card and envelope had made it all the way to Virginia intact.

"The United States Postal Service handles over 202 billion pieces of mail each year."

I get it. That's a LOT of mail. Accidents happen.

My question is: How many of those 202 billion pieces of mail each year is junk mail? 

I don't know about you, but WAY more than half of our mail is junk mail. 

If junk mail is eliminated, then there'd be WAY less mail to deliver and less mail that is "inadvertently damaged".

Junk mail can be eliminated by raising the rate for junk mail to 78 cents per ounce--the current price for a first class stamp. With junk mail eliminated, more care would be given to first class mail. Not only that, citizens wouldn't have to deal with all of the junk mail that they have to dispose of. Also, with the HUGE reduction in junk mail, the price for first class mail can be reduced--a BIG WIN-WIN for all!

"This call may be recorded for quality control purposes."

Don't you just hate that.

You have a problem. You need to speak with a PERSON. But instead, you get a robot.

Don't vendors know that the WORST thing that they can do when a customer has a problem with YOUR product or service is to have them talk to ROBOT instead of a person?

The second worst thing that they can do is have a customer talk with a person who talks 100 mph and has a heavy accent.

The third worst vendor mistake is to have the FIRST thing that the robot says is "This call may be recorded for quality control purposes." 

Vendors, if you're going to IGNORE your customers' problems with YOUR product or services by having them talk to a robot instead of a person, then don't piss them off even more by having the robot say that you're actually concerned about their problem when you're not. If you were REALLY concerned about your customers' problems with your product or service, then you'd have them speak with a PERSON instead of a ROBOT.

Vendors who have their customers talk to a robot when they have a problem "talk the talk", but they don't "walk the walk".

AARP

Have you ever wondered how AARP pays for their operations, advertising and benefits with their low membership fees? 

AARP endorses products and services, such as Consumer Cellular and United Healthcare. Have you noticed that the cost for these services are going up? Those Ted Danson Consumer Cellular commercials aren't cheap! 

Maybe AARP's membership fees are low because of kickbacks from the products and services that AARP endorses, which means that AARP members are paying for those kickbacks in what we are paying for Consumer Cellular, United Healthcare, and other products and services that AARP endorses. 

AARP's membership fees may be only the tip of the iceberg.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/30771656@N05/5305394974/

attribution: Pascal Lee and flickr

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/deed.en

Woodstock Gardens (formerly Beaune Brothers)

 It's ALWAYS something with Woodstock Gardens. 

This is the way that Woodstock Gardens left our patio after mowing our lawn this morning. 

• this week the blower guy didn't blow the grass off of our patio
• a couple of months ago Woodstock Gardens decided to stop mowing a portion of our lawn 
• including around an underground drainage pipe that Beaune Brothers installed several years ago
•  the trimmer jockeys are the worst 
• every week I tell them not to trim next to the driveway, lead walk, front stoop, side door and patio
• if I miss a week, it's back to the same old, same old

I realize that there aren't many Einsteins cutting grass. I get it that turnover is high--but this is RIDICULOUS! We shouldn't have to remind these people every week to:

• cut the entire lawn
• don't step on and crush the underground pipe that we paid Beaune Brothers to install several years ago
• don't trim next to the driveway, lead walk, front stoop, side door and patio
• blow the grass off the patio before you leave

Navy Federal Credit Union

Navy Federal Credit Union has been our bank for 40 years. NFCU boasts:

https://www.navyfederal.org/about/corporate-fact-sheet.html 

NFCU "talks the talk", but NFCU doesn't "walk the walk". For example, take "transfer funds" on their website. In short, I've had to call for help EVERY time that I've tried to use it lately. Recently, the helpful person on the call line gave me the scoop:

Me: "it doesn't work."

Helper: "do you have a mouse?"

Me: "not in years. all my devices (laptop, tablet, smartphone) have touch pads."

Helper: "I have a mouse. transfer funds works better with a mouse."

WHAT?!? 

 

YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!! 

NFCU "talks the talk", but NFCU doesn't "walk the walk".

Walmart Pharmacy

I give Walmart Pharmacy a 5 out of 5. There's one small glitch however.

A few days before my wife's monthly prescription ran out, we received a text message from Walmart.

"Do you want us to refill your prescription?" YES

"Do you want us to refill your prescription automatically each month?" YES

"We will text message you when your prescription is ready to be picked up." That didn't happen.

I checked Walmart Pharmacy's website. It showed that the prescription was ready for pickup.

I mentioned this to Walmart's clerk when I picked up the prescription. She said that they were having to call people 7 days after their prescriptions were filled to come pick up their prescriptions. She also said that Walmart Pharmacy was "upgrading" (wink wink) their system.

Lesson learned: Use Walmart Pharmacy's website. Walmart's text messaging is unreliable.

RevUp/Valley Health

Our PCP suggested that my wife and I get RevUp. 

https://getrevup.com/ 

Based solely on our PCP's recommendation, we agreed. We didn't realize at the time that RevUp is a "remote care" service located in Solana Beach CA. 

I'll be 79 this year and my wife will be 77. Currently we live independently in our own home. Thanks be to God. We realize that there may come a time when we're unable to live independently in our own home. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Back to RevUp. We didn't know the cost when we got RevUp. We were told that medicare would pay for most of the cost. Then the bills came. For $198 a month we both get a 10 + or - minute phone call from RevUp. That's almost $5,000 a year! Medicare pays 72% and we pay the rest. 

When I got the bill, it read: "chronic care management visits at valley health primary care strasburg". Needless to say, I was confused since I hadn't visited my PCP's office in strasburg during the subject months. IMHO, calling these "visits" when I didn't visit my PCP during the months in question is misleading at least and fraud at worst.

Needless to say, we decided that RevUp is NOT for us. Unless you live by yourself, have serious health problems, and you aren't independently wealthy, then, in our opinion, RevUp is NOT for you.

RevUp should change their name to RipOff!

Now to Valley Health.

"As the head of Valley Health, Nantz oversees more than 6,000 employees and six hospitals, including two in West Virginia, as well as more than 70 medical practices and other facilities. The health system serves a population of more than 500,000 in the Shenandoah Valley, West Virginia and Maryland. It reported $77.8 million in revenue for fiscal 2023, after losing $71.8 million in revenue in 2022.

Before joining Valley Health in 2020, Nantz held executive roles at Bon Secours Mercy Health, including serving as chief administrative officer and president of the Atlantic Group, a role where he was responsible for 14 hospitals and other services in South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Florida.

Nantz has a degree in accounting from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and a master’s in health administration from Pfeiffer University in North Carolina."

https://virginiabusiness.com/virginia-500-2024-health-care-biotech-pharmaceuticals-mark-nantz/ 

It's a lesson that I learned long ago. It's not like I don't know that large corporations care more about profit than their employees, customers, or quality of the products or services that they provide. 

Valley Health would like its customers to believe that it's all about quality of the medical care that they provide to their customers. It's not. Valley Health "talks the talk", but doesn't "walk the walk".

Like many other corporations, the qualifications of the person at the top of Valley Health aren't in the services that it provides. Valley Health's president and CEO isn't a doctor. He's a "bean counter". And all that bean counters want is more beans ($$$$$) to count. 

Valley Health should change their name to Valley Stealth! Feel the pain!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/68751915@N05/6736184859/in/photostream/

attribution: 401 (K) 2012 and flickr

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

In the future I will be monitoring our PCP's recommendations MUCH more closely. 

Dear DOGE

Elon Musk

Department of Government Efficiency

Washington, DC

Re: junk mail

Dear Elon,

Now that you've chainsawed USAID, the Department of Education, the Pentagon, etc., I would like to draw your attention to the poster child for government inefficiency--USPS, and in particular, junk mail. 

90% of our mail is junk mail. Instead of raising the price of a first class stamp to 73 cents, the USPS should raise the rate for junk mail to $73 per ounce. 

Not only would eliminating junk mail reduce the amount of mail handled by the USPS a hundredfold and reduce the amount of junk mail being sent to landfills a hundredfold, but also eliminating junk mail would be a great service to the American people. 

A hundredfold decrease in junk mail would allow you to chainsaw USPS staff AND reduce the cost of a first class stamp to a more reasonable 25 cents.

Talk about win-win!

Sincerely,

(your name)

cc Donald Trump, White House, Washington, DC

https://flickr.com/photos/stephenvandyke/96983232

attribution: Stephen VanDyke and flickr

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

PEretiredAD

Take a look at my new blog: peretiredad.blogspot.com

AD may be the worst assault on customers yet.

fundraisers in pubic schools

My wife and I are old timers. I'm in my late 70s and my wife isn't far behind. As a kid I went to private schools and my wife went to public schools. Many of my friends went to public schools.

In private grade school we sold magazine subscriptions for fundraisers. I didn't particularly like hawking magazine subscriptions door-to-door, but I did what I had to do. My friends in public school didn't hawk magazine subscriptions door-to-door and their parents didn't have to pay tuition like my parents did. Their parents (and my parents) paid taxes for their children's public education.

It began when our four kids went to public school. First it was for supplies--paper, glue, crayons, etc. They were even required to bring rolls of toilet paper to school.

Today we got an email from our grandson saying that he was helping our granddaughter raise funds for a "fun run" to remodel and buy new furniture for her classroom. Contributors were encouraged to pledge $$$ per lap. My granddaughter's goal (she's in kindergarten) is $360!!!

WHOA!!! In this state (and many others, I suspect) public schools are typically the responsibility of local government. One would think that includes school remodeling and furniture.

The fundraiser is very sophisticated. It looks like it was put together by a professional fundraiser/snake oil vendor.

What's this world coming to?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/howardlake/3698848347/

attribution: Howard Lake and flickr

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brutal cold, heat pump and space heaters

The cold weather has been brutal. 

In 2017 my wife and I bought a new, relatively small home with a heat pump. It's our first experience with a heat pump. The problems are:

1. the fan unit is located just on the other side of our bedroom window. It's noisy.
2. the thermostat is located in a hallway towards the back of the house. When we set it to 70 degrees, it's 70 degrees in the hallway and colder everywhere else.
3. The heat pump itself is located in a utility room that is accessed from the garage which is located inside the perimeter walls of the house. The heated air from the heat pump is transmitted by ducts located in the crawl space under the house. When it's brutally cold, by the time the "heated" air reaches the back of the house it's barely warm--and that's with "auxiliary heat" from the heat pump (electrically heated coils similar to a space heater).

To solve problems 2 and 3 I bought two space heaters (dr. heater)--one for the front of the house and the other for the back. With them the heat from the space heaters goes directly to the spaces where the extra heat is needed. No more expensive, barely warm "auxiliary heat" from the heat pump. I save a little money by paying less for the direct heat from the space heaters than paying for the barely warm "auxiliary heat" from the heat pump.

Stay warm! (and pay a little less)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cold_day_in_Lagarelhos,_Vinhais.jpg

attribution: Lagarelhos Vinhais via Wikimedia Commons

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en