Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: pandemic

Customer service is trash these days

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On my way to the grocery store, I was listening to NPR/MPR per usual. They were playing a podcast called On Point hosted by Meghna Chakrabarti, and the episode was entitled: Is customer service bad on purpose? It’s about whether or not customer service was worse these days than, say, a decade ago. My immediate impulsive answer was, “Fuck yeah!”

I had noticed in the last several years, the ability to get a human being on the phone for customer service was nigh near impossible. There are tips and tricks to get around this, but companies were finding ways to get around those tips and tricks. It’s frustrating as hell, especially when it’s a company or service that does not have a competitor. For example, the government. I had to talk to someone in the local government about my healthcare plan, and I had to wait on the phone for three hours to actually talk to a human being. That is unconscionable. And this was before the pandemic! I’m sure it’s only gotten worse since then, but as Meghna said with such passion, I go to great lengths so I don’t have to talk to someone on the phone.

This all came to a head recently when I ordered a print from RKG. They are a British company, so they carefully chose an American shipping company for us Americans that seemed like a good company on paper. The company promised express shipping and the cost was half of the actual print. I don’t mind paying for good service, otherwise I wouldn’t have bought it.

The tracking told me that it reached Cincinnati, OH in the morning of the day it was supposed to reach me. Damn. I looked it up again, expecting the drive to be roughly 6 hours, but it’s 11. I’m sure I did it the day it was supposed to arrive here, too.

It did not reach my house that night. Fine. It was supposed to and I paid for it to reach my house that night, but fine. I would wait for the next morning and–still in Cincinnati. What? I mean, what? I went online to the delivery company’s website and plugged in my tracking number. Yup. Stuck in Cincinnati. Hm. That could be a rom-com.

It didn’t arrive on Friday. Or Saturday. I dug a bit deeper on the website to see if I could actually talk with someone. I could in chat on the website! They asked for my tracking number, which I gave them. “Your package is in Cincinnati. Would you like to track another package?”


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The more things change

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The more things change, the more they really stay the same. Ian is here and it’s as if there has been no time between the last time I flew out to see him (spring of 2019) and now. The last time he was here was probably the summer before that. So, four years.

Here’s how it goes. He sits on the black recliner that is on the left in the room (which is from my vantage point of my couch). He is on his Steam Deck (which is new) while wearing sweats. I’m on the couch in my booty shorts (new) and a t-shirt, looking at my laptop. Shadow is in his bed in the corner of the room, taking his tenth nap of the day. I have one ear bud in to listen to a YouTube video so I won’t disturb him. We both do our own thing, but then one of us will say something, and we’re off to the races. Right now, he’s playing a game while I’m typing away. This is how we spent many hours.

Earlier, we actually went out and did things. Went to a vape shop (for him), the T-Mobile store (also for him), and then Target (for both of us). It’s true that you can’t walk out of Target having spent less than a hundred bucks. Even if you go in to buy one item, something else will catch your eye. You WILL buy rubber plates, tumblers, and bowls on steep sale. Or is that just me?

But we just slipped into our easy way of interacting that we’ve always had. When we got to Target, I made him push around the cart because that’s one performative gender role construct that I have no problem exploiting. I don’t like pushing around carts, so if he’s fine with it, great.

In general, that’s how I feel about chores. If there’s one that someone doesn’t mind doing, then they can do that. Like I hate the thought of doing laundry, but I don’t actually hate doing it. I used to not mind doing dishes. I don’t like doing them now, but if someone cooks for me, I most definitely will do the dishes.

On the other hand, I hate vacuuming. So much. It’s probably my least-favorite chore of the daily ones. That’s not true. Cleaning the toilet is the worst. And the fridge. But vacuuming is up there. I also don’t like tidying up in general. I’m a slob, and it’s my shame, honestly. I can’t seem to make myself clean, no matter how much I exhort myself. I know it’s a sign of ADHD, which I have suspected I have. It’s not something that I’ve ever tested for, but I have the suspicion that I have a mild form of it. I have the hyper-focus thing, daydreaming, and procrastination. I know that the inability to make yourself do things, i.e., considering yourself lazy, is a hallmark of ADHD. I know that I should probably get tested, but I…just don’t have the energy right now.

It’s been almost a year since I died. sitting with Ian makes me feel like nothing has changed, but everything has. But nothing really has. But everything has. It’s a strange feeling.


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I’m as cold as ice

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It’s 69 degrees (nice) and I’m a happy clam. It’s still outside my comfort zone, but after two weeks of over a hundred, I’ll take it. Being outside didn’t make me want to claw my own face off and I could actually feel a nice breeze. I fucking hate summer. We get a hundred day here and there, but nothing like the last two weeks. Even with air con, a fan blowing high, ice water, ice packs, and as little clothing as possible, it’s miserable. I can’t think in the heat–it feels as if my brain is frying. It makes me snappish, irritated, and unable to concentrate.

Even though the weather is much more tolerable, it’s still not fun for me. I’m fine with 20-50 degrees, but I prefer it under that, honestly. Down to zero is nice and then it’s a bit nippy when it gets to sub-zero temps. I talked to Kat Friday night and we reminisced about how back when we used to go out, we’d have such a different reaction to the weather. She’s a Florida gal and revels in the heat. When we went out in the summer, I would be whining and moaning about the heat, barely able to move while she would be flitting around, clearly in her element. In the winter, however, the shoe was on the other foot. She would be hunching over, shivering, demanding to know why my spine wasn’t scrunching up. I, on the other hand, would be in my element and loving it.

As I grow older, my ability to deal with cold gets less attuned*, but my ability to deal with heat hasn’t gotten better at all. If anything, it’s gotten worse. I would love to live in a place where the weather never rose about 50 degrees.

Let’s talk demos. Still trying them out and I really dig it. I can play a game for ten minutes or an hour and not have to commit to it. During the Steam Next Fest, there are so many demos! This is both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s good because I can try out any game that catches my eye without plunking down money for it. It’s bad because, well, there are so many bad games out there. That ain’t throwing shade at video games because that’s the case with, well, everything. 98% of pop culture is pure crap. That’s just the way it goes.


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Panic-demic

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I had to go to my pharmacy yesterday because I needed my meds. It had been surprisingly painless to get my scrips, and I got the call Monday morning that my prescription was ready for pickup at the pharmacy. First time in…two weeks? Three? Quite some time that I’d interacted with someone not my brother face-to-face.

Before that, however, I had an online taiji Zoom class. It was a form class, which I prefer to the basic taiji classes. My teacher mentioned that the studio was going to be closed for May as well as April (which I think is a good idea), but said that her teacher was hoping once the weather got nicer, classes could be held in a park. My teacher said we would practice six-feet social distancing and all, but I immediately thought, “FUCK, NO.” Six feet is the very minimum, and there are reports that the virus can travel up to a billion feet. I’m exaggerating, obviously, but no one can say exactly how much distancing is safe.

When my brother was over two days ago, we kept roughly 10 feet apart, and I still felt it was too close. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel it’s ok to be close to someone again. Physically, I mean. I’m already wary of getting emotionally close to people, and this isn’t helping. On the other hand,  I’ve talked to my bestie more during the pandemic than we had before. I had been thinking of going to visit her this month because we both have April birthdays, but obviously, that didn’t happen. When all this mess is over, then we’re going to get together and have a big celebration. I don’t care about my birthday, but I do care about her. And, it’s fun to get together regardless of the reason. I also planned on flying out there (Philly) for Halloween because they have a really neat haunted house in an abandon…wanna say jail. Maybe an old insane asylum.

Back to the pharmacy. There were four women working and one other patron in the place. It’s a rather small pharmacy, and there was a yellow police tape (without ‘crime scene’ written on it) across one area so you couldn’t go that way. They also had yellow tape on the ground asking patrons to stay behind that and to keep six feet between people. No one was wearing masks or gloves except me. I was surprised by that and concerned. They had installed Plexiglass to block the person at the counter from the patrons except for the space for the handing over of goods. They had the credit card machine on their side, and they signed for me. Once I got home, I realized that they had only given me one prescription and not the one that was necessary (scalp cream for psoriasis. I have little patches right now). I had to go back, and there was some kind of computer glitch, so I had to wait like ten minutes for them to fix it. The whole time, I was quietly freaking out, but I managed to keep it inside.


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