Care

So, I did get a response from BBBY (Bed, Bath, and Beyond):

Thank you for bringing to our attention the issues you experienced with our customer service team in-store and online. We are truly disheartened to see that any one of our customers had such an experience. At Bed Bath & Beyond we strive to deliver excellent service, however, in this instance we fell short of our expectations. Please rest assured that we will use this example to retrain our staff, to ensure no customer receive this type of service again, because this is not acceptable for any of our customers, and especially not acceptable for Bed Bath & Beyond standards.

We see from the situation you described how it can leave the impression that "the entire corporate culture is callous", but nothing can be further from the truth. Our first and highest priority is to always take care of our customer. We take every customer feedback seriously and act quickly to ensure we improve how we deliver our services and make every effort to retain our customers. We would like the opportunity to resolve this matter to your satisfaction and keep you a satisfied Bed Bath & Beyond customer. We have the phone number you provided on your original email and I will contact you by phone tomorrow morning.

We sincerely apologize for the issues you experienced and look forward to speaking with you soon. Please feel free to contact me directly at [redacted]. I am in the office Monday through Friday from 8AM to 6 PM EST.

Best Regards,

Raj


See? That's what I wanted. I think any wronged customer would want that, that their complaint is heard and the company is taking corrective action.

I did reach out to Raj, and the phone conversation was a reasonable one. He told me his efforts to determine how things went wrong, and what he was doing to make them right.

After several missteps by BBBY, Raj made every corrective effort.

What were the missteps? That I asked to be treated as a person who wanted to do business with them: a customer, and instead of treating with respect, they processed into their workflow, and when the square peg (that is, me: a human being) didn't fit into their round hole, they tried to make me conform.

But I'm not a BBBY employee. I am a customer.

That's where they screwed up. "We didn't provide the service we said we would? Fill out this complaint form." "You filled out the form incorrectly [I didn't]. Fill out the complaint form again with the same information." They didn't want my business, they wanted to punch the ticket and move the work from the inbox to the outbox.

Raj, however, threw out the processing aspect of the business and met me, person to person, talked the situation over me and addressed my concerns directly.

Then he offered to change BBBY by adding an entirely new SKU so I could buy the items I was originally promised.

But the problem here for me was: what did I do the second I got out of my car at my house after BBBY showed me they weren't good for their word? I went right to the Yankee Candle online store and ordered the candles myself, like I should have done a week prior instead of getting in my car to get not 'no service' but the 'brush off.'

But what have I been harping about in these posts? I've been harping on 'diligence' and 'dignity.' I've been demanding BBBY employees do their job, for a change, and treat me with respect, for a change.

Raj did just that.

So what did I do when he asked for my credit-card information so he could place an order of Yankee candles for me? Did I give him the brush off? No.

No. I had made all these demands, and BBBY listened and followed through, exactly as I asked. So would I reward their diligence with what?

I do not Raj going back to report on this with a half-hearted response and a zero-result. I want him to go back to his boss with no reservation, knowing he did everything he could to make things right, and he did make things right.

Why?

Because, at the beginning of each day, I look into the mirror and see a man there, and ask him: did I do what I said I would? did I do what I asked others to do?

Today, I can say 'yes, I did.' Because, today, somebody in BBBY, and not just somebody, but Raj from eSupport said 'yes, I did,' too. I answered his 'yes' with mine.

Thank you, Raj. And thank you, Bed, Bath, and Beyond, for listening to me, and following through.

Evening Prayer at the Perpetual Adoration Chapel

Dear LORD,

thank you for today, this week, this month, this Lent, this time of prayer and fasting in anticipation of the Christ's sacrifice to save us all.  

Please be with the Cardinals as they discern Your Will for the Church in these coming months and years as they choose a new Pope. Please be with my family as they prepare to come home. 

I ask all these things in the Name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen.

Endemic

So, here's the response from Bed, Bath and Beyond corporate:

"Dear Douglas, 

Thank you for taking the time to bring this matter to our attention. In instances such as this, the complaint is forwarded to the District & Regional Customer Service Managers for that particular store. However, we are unable to distinguish store location with the information provided. Please forward the exact street, city & state, so we can contact the Manager for that store along with your contact telephone number and a good time to call you. Once we receive this information, you will be contacted by the District Customer Service Manager within 24 - 48 business hours.

We truly apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. If you have additional questions or concerns, feel free to forward your response via email or contact Customer Service by dialing 1-800-GO-BEYOND (1-800-462-3966).

Sincerely,

Kiara
Customer Service
Bed Bath & Beyond 

"

So, what's wrong with this response?

Nothing. It's business as usual. 'Kiara' did nothing outside of her job description.

She didn't read my complaint, for if she did, she surely would have seen the words 'Loisdale' and 'Bed, Bath, and Beyond' juxtaposed. I mentioned the word 'Loisdale' twice, in fact.

So if we go to google and enter 'Loisdale Bed Bath Beyond' we get the following top response:

Bed Bath and Beyond - Springfield, 6642 Loisdale Road VA 22150 ...

That took less than a second for me to do.

How hard was that, Kiara, to do your job with any diligence? You're welcome, by the way, for letting me do what you are supposed to do, as customer service.

Do you see how this is endemic? I got the same shoddy service from you as I did from your store representative. You didn't bother to read what I wrote, you just looked for checkboxes to fill, and when you saw that it wasn't exactly in the format you were expecting from me (an expectation you did not communicate a priori, by the way) you defaulted to 'well, I can't handle this, this is outside what I'm programmed to understand.'

You didn't care at all, nor exert one bit of effort.

My complaint is not (just) against your Springfield, VA 22150 location, it's against your entire corporate callous culture. Please remand to your C.E.O. to read, review, laugh at, and get on with his day. After all, he has a business to run: he doesn't have time to address the concern of a customer.

My contact information was in the original complaint. With my cell phone number and a good time to contact me. I'm not going to repeat myself because of lack of care or concern or competence on your part. Thanks.

Customer Focus

There are some things I don't like, one of them is being lied to, even if this lie is supposedly 'unintentional.'

I think that's what infuriates me more, is that these service people have no intentionality in their lives, and that shows up in their work.

So, today, I went to purchase some Yankee kindle candles. And I did my research, I found out that the Bed, Bath and Beyond was a Yankee Candle reseller, and I found the nearest location: on Loisdale road.

I called them to confirm that they had Yankee kindle candles in stock.

Emphasis mine.

The customer service rep responded right away and crisply. Yes, they have them in stock.

So, I get into my van, drive there, search the store.

What do I find?

Mmhm. Yes, we have no bananas.

So I go to a POS rep asking where can I find Yankee kindle candles.

Emphasis mine.

The rep pointed me to the Yankee candle section.

Not good enough. I tell him I've been to that section and could not find Yankee kindle candles.

Oh. Yankee kindle candles? That's different.

He refers me to the manager.

The manager sucks on his lip and says, after checking his inventory, 'We don't even have those in inventory, are they new?'

'Are they new?' is what I get.

I said I called in. I said I was informed they were in stock. He asked was it this store I called? Because other stores have more expansive inventories.

I gave the address and phone number of this store.

He apologized.

That was nice. An apology.

I got out of my house, into my car, and drove to Bed, Bath and Beyond, so I could not purchase the item I wanted, but instead get an apology.

He said he didn't know why the service rep would tell me they have Yankee kindle candles in stock without even checking inventory.

He didn't know why.

But I know why.

But do you see, Bed, Bath, and Beyond why an apology doesn't cut it? It cuts it for your manager, but not for me. I don't want, nor need, an apology. I wanted customer service, in that when I was told you have something in stock, you do, actually have that thing in stock.

What does your word mean? to you?

Because now, Bed, Bath, and Beyond, your word means nothing to me. You, through your representative told me you had something at the store I was going to, and you did not even have that ordered, nor in inventory.

You lost a customer today. You lost a guaranteed purchase, and all you needed to get my money was to actually back up what you said.

You didn't.

Why?

Here's why.

You don't listen, and you don't care.

When your service rep heard 'Yankee,' she stopped listening to everything else I said, even with my emphasis. Do you know why she stopped listening?

Because she's not 'customer focused,' she's not even focused at all. All she wanted to do was to get me off the phone and get onto the next thing.

So did she do due diligence? No. She didn't listen to what the customer was asking, and, then, even if she did listen (she didn't), she didn't even check inventory: a 1.75 second check (I watched the manager check: it took him precisely that long).

Bed, Bath, and Beyond: I am not even worth 1.75 seconds of your time.

I got the same (lack of) focus from your POS rep. I asked for Yankee kindle candles, all I got was a hand-wave to the section of the store I just came from.

You lost $50 in sales today, and a customer, because your representatives can't spare me 1.75 seconds, can't focus, and can't put any intentionality into their words.

Their words are your Word, and your word, for me, now means nothing, because what was said had no basis in truth.

Thank you for that.

Now, let's focus on some real customer focus.

Last week I was at the Ravensworth Safeway. I bought a bottle of wine. The POS rep was the MOD that day.

He was a huge, jovial man, just doing his job. If you've seen professional baseball players, this guy had that look: tall and built massively.

He asked for my id. Of course. Vendors are required to card when selling alcohol to people who look 30 or under.

I smirked, and handed him my drivers license.

He scanned it, then started to hand it back.

Then scanned it again. Then gave me a double-take, then a triple take.

We both started laughing at the same time.

"Wow! Whatever it is you're doing is really working!" he exclaimed.

And I was proclaiming delightedly how I just love it every time I'm carded.

This was probably the first time in his life he carded a man pushing 46, thinking he was in his mid-twenties.

But what happened?

To him, I was just another customer, and he was just pushing me, my order through the system, doing his job. But then, something happened, his expectations were subverted when he saw a young man (so he thought) buying alcohol, but found out this young man is nothing of the sort, and then he wanted to know about me.

Then he stopped treating me as an order being processed, he started treating me as a human being, and he reached out and connected with me: person, to person.

And it wasn't just me. As I was pushing my cart out, I saw him be relieved from the register, and he greeted an elderly couple, customers, by name and with a smile, and asked about their day.

And that: right there, was the real 'Point of sale.' That manager exemplified 'customer focus,' because ... intentionality? Yes, he showed it. He actually did focus on the customer right in front of him, and from those customers he did focus on, me, and that couple, he smiled and received smiled back.

It was a pleasure doing business with that man.

And what did that little bit of intentionality cost him?

Not a dime. In fact, I would go so far as to say he had a better, more productive day on the job, being (actually) customer focused and being intentional than the customer service rep I talked with at Bed, Bath and Beyond at Loisdale Road, who was probably trained to be 'customer focused,' but was she focused, and did she treat me as a customer? that is: a person with whom she wanted to conduct business with?

Was her day better, just trying to get by and blowing off people? Does she have high job satisfaction?

Is this what you wish to project as your image, Bed, Bath and Beyond?

Do you know what I prefer?

I prefer to be treated as a person. I prefer that when I ask you a question, I'm actually heard, and that the answer I'm given is actually correct.

And I will make that preference known by conducting business with companies that do that.

Gracia plena

Dear LORD,

Thank You for today. Thank You for this past week of hard work You've given me, for the pay it will give to my family, for the pleasure it game my boss, seeing us all work so hard, for the camaraderie it fostered.  Thank You for the phone call from my dad and the relief he had, calling, and knowing I am well.

Please watch over my family in the Philippines as they prepare to return here. Please make home here a place welcoming to them. Please make me Your instrument, at work, as a coworker and friend, and at home as a loving husband and father.

I ask all these through Jesus Christ, the LORD. Amen.

"Here I am, LORD"

"Here I am, LORD"

So, yesterday at work, Dharni, Shishir and Anteneh looked pretty glum. This weekend the xxx batch process will be running, and it has to be monitored hourly (to make sure that it is, indeed, running, and not being bogged down or quit), so 4 guys, including Daniel, that means six hour shifts, day or night, regardless, throughout the weekend.

So I said, "Do you want me to help?"

And they said, "Yes," gratefully.

When God asked the heavenly host, "Whom shall I send?" Elijah responded, "Here I am, LORD," in response to God's call.

Elijah: אֱלִיָּהוּ "My God is the LORD."

But what was God's call?

God's call was to bring His message to His people. That is: to do His Work. And what is His Work? Well, in Elijah's case it was to prophesy. But why? The why was to bring His people closer to Him, to ease their burden, not because it was His burden but because the burden they bore was that of worldly concerns.

When I asked, "Do you want me to help?" I knew I was sacrificing my weekend, and, given the project I'm working on, I'm truly sacrificing it, as in, I'm not going to be paid for this, no matter what my contract says. And maybe, God willing, I will get paid for it, but we're all in the same boat in that regard, and moreso: Dharni and Anteneh are full-time/salaried employees ... all they get is a 'thank you.' Maybe.

But being a priest, prophet and king requires sacrifice. Nobody wants to do it. Jonah ran when God called him to speak His Word to the Ninevites. Good King George VI (to be) cried when his brother Edward VIII abdicated the throne to him.

Why?

Because to be a King means standing in front of everybody, straight and strong, but powerless to do or to change anything, just seeing the people you reign over throw themselves in front of enemy swords and guns to defend you and to follow your command, and because why? Because you hope and pray what you've sent them off to is the right, and not a foolish and terrible mistake that you will have to live with for the rest of your life.

Because to be a prophet means to tell people what terrible and bad things they are doing, and the certain doom they are facing, and not have them thank you for this 'Good News' but, instead, turn on you, hate you, persecute you, kill you, and laugh when nothing happens to them, because God's Word and Justice isn't like instant coffee, punishing you right away. It does, but sometimes not visibly, no, sometimes it takes 40 years of your iniquity for the Persians or the Romans to roll in and roll over your country and to destroy your temple and your culture and to disperse your people to the four winds. But you tell them all this will happen, and they laugh at you or ignore you.

Because to be a priest is, yes, to offer the sacrifice to God, but it's all day, every day, getting up in the wee early morning hours, going out to be among the people, serving them, going home, exhausted, and alone, no wife, no children, no friends (you're a priest, after all, who wants to hang with you?), waking up early again the next morning and doing it all over again for the rest of your life, and then have a parishioner come up to you after Mass and critique your homily: "Father, you were wrong to talk about politics: this is church, keep your religion out of the voting booth." or even: "I think you said the word 'very' too much, Father, it made your homily boring."

So you pour your heart out and people don't understand what you're doing or call you boring?

Priest, Prophet and King. All sacrifice themselves to the laity, the common man, who doesn't understand nor care, so gratitude? Forget it.

God calls us, each of us, to martyr ourselves, some: literally, but some, us, me, in little ways. He asks us to take up our crosses and follow Him, and the reward isn't what we're going to get out of it: no one deserves Heaven nor can 'earn the right' to it. The reward is the sacrifice itself. God calls us to worship Him and to be of service to others. By saying 'do you need my help?' I sacrifice a tiny, teeny little bit of nothing: 'my rights,' 'my time,' none of which belong to me, anyway. But in that sacrifice, I'm in service to others, an example of what Jesus the Christ was for me, and in so doing, do I save my coworkers?

No. But I answered God's call to service, giving up myself for Him.

I'll let Him save them through my example or through the movement of the Spirit in them. 

I'm here to do what God wills me to do. I'll let God be God and do the rest.

Special Intention for an unborn and her mother

Dear LORD,

Please.

There is a girl who is pregnant now and is considering an abortion.

I don't know why.

I know she's distraught, angry, very young, and maybe she thinks she can't be a good mother to her child.

I pray she gets the help, love and support she needs, now, in this time of her crisis, and throughout her life. I pray her friend is strong enough to tell her her heart and to be there for her. That she sway her to reconsider these self-destructive thoughts and let her know that she can be a good mother and that she doesn't face against the world alone. That she has friends and help.

That she has You.

Please watch over her and open her heart to Your Love.

I ask this through Jesus Christ, our LORD.

Amen.