Tag Archives: clusterfukatonia

I was all organized and updated pen name’s website but I forgot to mention it here. There’s an excerpt from Chapter 1 here. You can read a fun story about me and caulk here.

Everything is more or less under control except I decided to add one teeny bit. This weekend I should be able to final-final everything. Then I’m on standby until the cover art is finalized. Still hoping for first of November.

Remember when we needed a new copier at the office? Here’s the post about the cold-call from a company we will call “Won’t give you a proposal.” We ended up going with a company who we will call “Screw Me Once Shame on You, Screw Me Twice Shame on Me.” Here’s a post about the hassles with installation and delivery. For that occasion I invented a tag “clusterfukatonia” which I only used that one time but now that I remember I have it, I can use more often. Here’s one more short post about dealing with their online system.

You’ll never guess what happened.

A guy from a third competitor came here on a cold call and I said, “Yeah. Give me a proposal.” And he did. And he only asked to see the old lease once and when I said that wasn’t possible, he was good. And then he had a proposal to me in 2 days. And we like it. We especially like that the machine is easy to use. It has like three buttons. Bless any person in tech right now who is making things simpler.

But first I had to find out what was going on with the lease from the Screw Me company. You see, I had contacted them in APRIL, asking for a clarification of the end date of our lease. I believed the end date was October but it wasn’t clear. My new rep returned my call while I was out, didn’t give me the end date of my lease and left a bunch of numbers to call. I did not follow up. In May the rep came by and we talked about swapping out the current machine for a newer one for less money.

I never heard from him again.

So now that it was October and I had new guy’s proposal, I thought I’d get this party started. We have a procurement policy so we need to try for at least 3 bids. I contacted the We Won’t Give You A Proposal company using the form on their website that guarantees I will hear from someone in 4 hours. That was last Thursday. I haven’t heard from them.

I contacted the Screw Me company via email and heard nothing so I dug around and found my rep’s info and both his office phone and cellphone had “out of office on vacation, I will be back in June” messages. He included a manager’s phone number “if you need to talk to someone right away” so I called that guy–who answered the phone. A live body. Wow! He recognized the company name, told me he’d forwarded my email to my new rep and said he would let the new rep know to follow up with me.

I haven’t heard from him.

I finally called the bank that administers the lease and that’s when I learned that the lease ends in December. The Screw Me company has a deceptive lease and this is the SECOND time we’ve been caught up in it. I’m sure the minute the lease expires they will be all over us. That’s what they did last time.

Stay tuned for more fun with copier salespeople in the new year.

Early morning on Bainbridge Island ferry. Perfect way to start the day in Seattle.
 
Remember the story about the copier at the office?

We’re finally getting our new copier (different company) and it would be difficult to convey how stupid it’s been. I keep insisting to Colleague that we’re being punked.
 
I don’t have the heart to write the whole story so I’ll just do the today part.
 
We’ve been going back and forth on the delivery of our machine and we made arrangements to have it delivered today because it was one of the only days this month that both of would be in the office.
 
The delivery guy came (4.5 hours earlier than the time we’d scheduled) with the machine and when we asked if he was taking the old one he said he could, but then we wouldn’t have a working copier.
 
Because he was just delivering the machine.

They did not bring in anyone to install it, we were never informed it was a two step process and we had no information when it would be installed.
 
Naturally we were upset.
 

 
Remodeled King Street Station which looks amazing.

That’s always how it’s done, the guy said.
 
No, that’s not always how it’s done, I told him, when they installed the first machine they had a tech here.

He went off on a long story about how few techs they have and it probably has to do with our sales rep because the company merged with some other companies and on and on with a earful of excuses.
 
That shouldn’t be our problem, I said.
 
It’s not your problem, he said,
 
Colleague and I traded aghast looks at this blockhead so completely missing the point.
 
Colleague said while we weren’t blaming him individually we were really frustrated with the incompetence of his company.
 
All companies are incompetent, he told us.
 
No, I am not making that up. He said that.
 
If your company response to complaints of incompetence is that all companies are incompetent: you are the grand prize winner of You’re Doing It Wrong.
 
Meanwhile, our sales rep, who is burning center of our ire, had arranged to come in and train us on the machine. Colleague called to rage at him about when the hell is this tech going to be coming?
 
He’ll call you, our rep said. Then he asked if we still wanted him to come by to train us on the machine.

I’m zooming out of town tomorrow for a visit with Kira. Colleague is stuck with the problem for now.