Here and there, random thoughts on food, photos, marketing, & customer service

Update 2/1/11: Many Bloggers are looking for swift Internet Blog justice when they write a Blog article on something that happened to them. I’m sure you’ve seen them. The Barista at Starbucks has a bad day, looks at the customer the wrong way, forgets to put whipped cream on his carmel flavored hot drinky drink coffee and BAM! Later that morning, the Blogger pens a snarky Blog post (quite possibly while working for someone else at his crappy dead end job) about how upset he is that some other bastard in another dead end job wronged him and skunked up his normally quite tasty $5 morning coffee. The world’s a horrible place, we know (stop drinking corporate coffee and things might be a tad better BTW).

When I wrote this I cited two visits that happened at two different locations, with two different unhappy workers. In the case of the place I went first, I had been there many time before and out of the dozen or so times I was there, I only once talked to someone who I thought was nice to me. I’m not the kindest or friendliest looking guy when I am on my way to get my arm punched full of holes (again). I come in my work clothes, and well yes I do look an INS/ICE agent with my black boots, and work jacket, I am actually a nice guy. I know dealing with unhappy, low-income people all day is most likely a thankless job, so I am ALWAYS super polite when I come in. Don’t forget these folks can make me pay by way of the needle, so I am ALWAYS on my best behavior when I come in. My point here is that while I detailed these two incidents, there were plenty of other times I visited this same center, where I was subjected to less than kind medical services. And while this post is about me, I heard plenty from the loud mouths behind the counter. I’m sorry I have excellent hearing and they are not exactly discreet. I heard the same lady I had issues with tell a nice hispanic couple who were trying to figure out how to have a seaman analysis performed. She told them something along the lines that it could not be done at this office, but a sample could be dropped off at another office. When the poor man asked how a sample should be tendered at the office and if there was a “place” that could be done, She said no there was no place, but if he stopped at the McDonald’s near the other office, he could “produce” a sample there in the bathroom and rush it over so it was fresh to the nearby office. That’s just one thing I heard while waiting, and waiting for my turn to be stabbed. Someone would approach the counter, and she’d stick out her hand and say “PAPERWORK!”. Not cool at all.

I’m telling you, this was not a case of me being a baby, but a real issue with our healthcare system and the people working for Quest. Did the regional manager for Quest reach out to me? Yes he did. Was he extremely nice? He sure was. Did he do something about it, I think he did. From what I understand from the “community” of people that are forced to endure repeated blood draws, the person who gave me so much trouble is no longer with Quest. How does someone that is so upset stay on in a what they must feel is a terrible job without management not knowing about the issue? No clue.

Companies should be on top of this, they should be following up with clients. When a real complaint comes down the line, it should be handled swiftly by people who are able to do something about it. The first response from Quest hould have not been a “canned” form letter, and in my mind should have warranted a phone call to me right away.

In any case, I’m grateful that Quest did take action to ensure this person did not have the chance to do any more damage. If you read the update below, I am now going to a different Quest office with much better results.

What’s should be done with a Blog post now that problem has been solved, the offending company has apologized, and I’ve moved on? Do you delete the post? I don’t know.

Update 1/7/11: I still go visit Quest Diagnostics once a month, however I now go to a different location that is south of Glen Burnie. There I have discovered the polar opposite of the staff that I had so much issue with in the two Glen Burnie centers. I now see a phlebotomist named Theresa who takes wonderful care of me. I’ve been to see her three times already and she always asks how I’m doing and she always wishes me well when I leave. She might be the most wonderful medical service provider I have ever run across. Also the Quest office that I now go to is totally clean, up to date, and looks great.

Because I’m waiting for a kidney transplant, I have to get a blood sample to Johns Hopkins once a month. I also have to be regularly tested so my nephrologist can monitor my kidney function. As a result, I’ve become quite familiar with Quest Diagnostics, as that’s where I go to get my blood drawn.

These centers The centers I have visited recently are staffed by unhappy people, who appear to hate their jobs and seem to relish making my life as difficult as possible. I admit I have some strange issues and because I bring my own blood sample vial for Johns Hopkins, I’ll admit it’s not normal. However, I show up with the the sample vial and it’s shipping box and every time they pretend like they have never seen me before and bitch up a storm about how this is a pain for them.

Since these people stick sharp objects into me, I’ve resisted the urge to complain or post something that is not exactly a compliment here on my Blog.

Here’s the letter that I recently sent Quest to let them know how I feel.

Dear Quest Diagnostics,

I went to the Quest Diagnostics Oakwood Road center in Glen Burnie, MD on Monday (8/2/10) near the end of the day, and the person who was staffing that office was there alone and not happy about it. She was busy. I tried to make an appointment on-line, but the Quest website was down, so I did not know this office closed at 3:00 PM. She slammed things around, made lots of bad body language cues, and was just generally not helpful or friendly. Because I had a priority draw, she would not do it because it was so late and that office does not do those anyways. There is no way I could have known that. When I noticed her body language and was made aware that the office was closing soon by her stomping across the office and locking the door, I offered to leave. She did offer to take care of me, “because I was there”, but I soon found out she could not. She then was like “I can do this one, but not this one,” (I had two orders) I told her I would rather just do the blood draw thing one time and left. This was not the first time I’ve run into this person, and every time I come to visit (once a month), I get the same attitude.

I then went the next day (Tuesday 8/3/10) to the Hospital Drive office, also in Glen Burnie, MD where it was not much better. I made an appointment on-line for 12:00 Noon. I arrived 15 minutes early to a clogged waiting room, and a huge line of people. I signed in and then waited for about 5 minutes, when nothing happened, I left to use the bathroom and made a quick phone call, but was back by 11:55. I went up to the counter and the lady was like “I called you three times, and you did not answer”. “See this”, pointing to the clipboard “I wrote no answer because you were NOT here!” I told her that I was sorry and that I was indeed there for the 12:00 Noon appointment. I waited over 30 minutes until I was put in a room, where I then waited another 5 minutes or so. I’m sure she was punishing me for not being there when she called my name, but I was indeed there in time for my appointment. She had the same bad attitude and body language as the other center. While I waited around the corner, out of sight of the window, I could hear her doing her work. She would pick up a rubber stamp, and stamp something so hard the entire room could hear the crash it made as she slammed it down. Same thing held true for her stapler. She’d bang down on that so hard it sounded as if she was causing harm to herself. She talked loudly, had no respect for anyone, not even for clients who addressed her with respect.

I’m sick and waiting for a kidney transplant. I’m sure many of the other people waiting here in your offices are also sick or not feeling well. These paying “customers” often have no choice but come to your lab to have a blood sample drawn. All of them deserve your employee’s respect as they try to comply with all of the rules and regulations that they must endure in order to meet the requirements. Many have never been to your office before, and they have no idea what’s going on, but that’s no reason not to treat these folks with respect.

If your workers are unhappy, then they should seek employment elsewhere, and your management should take steps to ensure your paying customers are not berated by your employees.

Update 8/9/10: Here is their response. I have not included the personal contact info that was included with the letter:

Thank you for your inquiry regarding the service you received during
your recent visit to the Patient Service Centers (PSC)located in Glen
Burnie, Md. We strive for excellence in our PSCs and feedback from our
patients is crucial in providing us with direction for improvement. I
personally get involved with the investigation and the implementation of
any training that we may need to do for areas that are in need of
improvement.

When visiting one of our PSCs our patients should always be treated with
a high degree of quality service. I apologize that you did not
experience this with us on your visit. I will promptly work with the
staff at this location(s).

Thank you again for taking the time to send to me the comments. I hope
that we will have the opportunity to service you in the future. Please
feel free to contact me directly, in the future, if you should have any
further questions or concerns.

Update 8/9/10: I continue to have to have my blood drawn, so I decided to try a different Quest office in Crofton, Maryland. I’m happy to report it was nothing like my prior issues with the two Glen Burnie offices that I had been going to. The person who was in the office was cheerful, happy to see me, figured out my weird paperwork in about 2 minutes, and performed my blood draw quickly with no pain or discomfort. Also, if you read the comments, someone else from Quest is looking into the situation. I will let you know what happens regarding that.

So after waiting for the buzz to settle down, me and the family finally took a field trip to P.F. Chang’s in Annapolis. It’s located on the Route 2 side of the complex right up the street from Chevys. For those of you that don’t know the Parole shopping center that was once home to Sears and was promptly killed by the building of the Annapolis Mall. You can revel in the wonder that is now Annapolis Towne Centre at Parole. The extra “E” in Towne signals that this is an expensive place to hang out. One place that’s sure to attract the folks with extra dollars is the new Whole Foods Market. I’ll talk more about that later.

You can get all of the details on this troubled development at http://www.visitatc.com (Not a great domain name if you ask me.). It’s got a bunch of swanky places to shop like Brooks Brothers, Talbots, Origins, and Coldwater Creek.

I had taken a peek at the P.F. Chang’s menu on-line and and I already know that they had lots of vegan options. Nice! I also have VeganExpress on my iPhone which I highly recommend. It tells you who has vegan food choices and what they are. So unlike most places where there’s one or two things we might be able to eat, we have a large selection of stuff we could eat at P.F. Chang’s

I called at 4:45 PM to make reservations, and they said they could seat us at 7:30. I told them I would call right back to confirm. I waited too long, because when I called back they only had reservations available for 8:00. No biggie, I took it. I don’t know if it was true or not, but I suspect that that they “told” me that this was the “last” table for four they had. Right away they are creating buzz with an air of exclusivity. I’ll likely tell the rest of my party or friends that “I got the last table”. Wow! they must be packed all the time, so they must be really good. We’re programed to relish the hot spots with lots of buzz, so if they did this on purpose, then wow, what a great Jedi mind trick to create buzz about your brand! The other two things that I tuned into, was they had intelligent people on the phone, and when I called the first time, they answered on the first ring, and the nice lady that picked up was ready to help and there was no need to lead her in to the questions I had. She was smart, friendly, and ready to do her job. Refreshing. I was looking forward to calling her back, but when I rang back I spoke to a guy who was just about as nice. I made my reservation (he was the one that said this was the last one for 8:00 PM) and he asked if I had any special requests or needed anything special. I wish I had a request, but sadly no. I did tell him I was coming to get some vegan food. I don’t think he had an answer, but no matter.

I got there early and waited in the car for the rest of the family to walk over from Whole Foods. They ended going in before me as I was parked out back. When you walk in the “walk-in” hostess it front and center. When my wife said she had reservations she told our group to step around the corner where the “reservation” hostess whom she named by name would help us. They were going to seat us as a small table, and we asked for a booth instead. There was no fuss, and the nice person who seated us, had to run back to the hostess to check, and she said that we could sit where ever we wanted.

This is where we started to have some issues. It took awhile for our waitress to find us. It was obvious right away that she had too many tables. A little of the special feeling started to go away. The restaurant is very nicely decorated and it’s pain to see that they paid attention to how to build a free standing eatery. When she did show up, the first thing she wanted to know, if there was a special occasion, or if we were celebrating anything. We said no, and she replied that with Navy commissioning week there was alot going on. Too true. Maybe this was not the best time to come try them out??

It was after all 8:00 PM so we were all starving! We gave our drink orders and put in an order for the Crispy Green Beans, a favorite of ours from other places we’ve been. It took awhile for our drinks to arrive. Nothing hard, just a lemonade, two ginger ales, and a few waters. we’re pretty sure we saw our order of Crispy Green Beans delivered to another table, so we were worried about that. It took a while for our server to notice that we did not have our order. Here’s were she made a good move. I think she must have noticed on the way back to the kitchen, and when she game back she did not come empty handed. She showed up at the table with a free order of P.F. Chang’s Lettuce Wraps. Sadly, they are made with chicken, so the kids ate them, but our string beans arrived soon after. We also put in an order for spring rolls as we were still starving and we wanted to try them. they came out pretty quickly. Both the lettuce wraps and the sting beans were taken off of our check without us having to say anything. (The lettuce wraps were not on the check to begin with.)

Our dinner took longer to arrive than I would have expected, but everyone was happy with it. I’m guessing part of the P.F. Chang’s formula is to go with smaller portions. My son and daughter both ordered meat dishes as they on get non-vegan when we’re out. Both of them were smaller then I expected for the price. If you had not had appetizers, you would want to order desert. The vegan dishes were noticeably cheaper that the meat based ones. Nice! I got the Budda’s Feast “stir fried”. It’s a mix of veggies with tofu. I was looking forward to some good tofu, but my dish was noticeably light on it. I was a little sad about that. It was good, and it was a bit greasy and had a pretty strong peanut overtone. I did eat it all, so there were no problems. My wife got the Chow Fun, with tofu, and it too was a little greasy. Both of the vegan dishes were noticeably large portions than the meat based dishes.

The server was on her game, our waters and my lemonade where never empty. She did want to keep touching my wife on the shoulder, so that could be a small complaint. She also kept using terms of endearment like “sweetie” and “honey” on my kids. They are both teenagers, so that kind of talk might be better reserved for the kiddies.

She knew the service was not up to snuff, and she did the best should could under the circumstances. If you recall that I mentioned that we got the “last table” for 8:00 PM. I was looking around and either they want to keep tables open for walk-ins or the story about the last table was not entirely true. Shortly after 8:00 I did notice there were a number of empty tables. Also, I wondered how they could keep up with their reservations if the service was so slow. There is NO doubt, we cut into the next round of diners. I guess things might start to taper off after 8:00 PM?

You can read more about their business model here: http://consumerist.com/5262103/

It appears that when the economy started to slow down, they looked at everything they could do, and whatever they’re doing appears to be working.

Everyone I’ve spoken to, loves P.F. Chang’s, so I feel that they’ve figured something out. I think they’ve made the dining experience feel special, and found a way to trade on that. The article on Consumerist which quotes Newsweek in their coverage, says P.F. Chang’s is sort of the Applebee’s of Chinese food. I’m not sure if I agree with that. There’s nothing special about Applebee’s and with only Salad with fruits and veggies AND “oil” being the only two vegan food options on the menu, there’s certainly nothing there for me. I think P.F. Chang’s has captured what was the Outback Steakhouse sort of feeling from ten years ago, and NOT made it about price, but kept that special feeling. Outback is now trying to lure folks back on price with some meals as low as $10. My friends that have eaten at Outback recently say the food and the service was bad. Outback is now trying to recapture diners on price, and now they have diners that don’t suit their target audience, and pissed off servers because nobody is tipping.

P.F. Chang’s seems to have avoided all of this by being smart on price and totally with it on the atmosphere, menu, and overall dining experience. They are to be commended for having a number of vegan and gluten free menu items. In fact I’d have to say it’s more then any other main-stream restaurant. P.F. Chang’s is currently a hot ticket and P.T. Barnum would be proud.

Here’s what we had and how much it cost:

Spring Rolls (4) $5.95
Crispy String Beans $5.95 (Taken off bill for being late)
Chang’s Chicken Lettuce Wraps $7.95 (Free)

Buddha’s Feat $7.50 (I give it a 3 out of 5 light on tofu)
Veggie Chow Fun $7.95 (Wife gave it 4 out 5 said it was bit greasy)
Lemon Chicken $12.95 (Son gave it 4 out of 5)
Crispy Honey Shrimp $$14.95 (Daughter gave it 3 out of 5, sad it was “okay”)

All came with choice of white or brown rice.

Total bill with $11 tip $72

We agreed that we prefer Lemongrass in Crofton to P.F. Chang’s, but our bill there would have been over $100. I really like that the fact that the meat free dishes at P.F. Chang’s are reflected in their price. That is usually not the case at most places. Also, I think that if you’re ordering s menu item WITHOUT meat or cheese, they should give you a break on the price. At most places, they don’t. Ledo’s Pizza is vegan without the cheese, the most expensive ingredient, but if you order it without the cheese, they charge the same price. That’s alot of extra profit. How about a free extra topping if you hold the cheese or $1 off??

P.F. Chang’s can be found here: http://www.pfchangs.com.

Is it any wonder why Dell is so beleaguered?

So I ordered a Dell, yeah I know, I’m a Mac guy, why on earth would I be getting a Dell. Well the answer is they are practically giving them away. So basically it came down to them making me an offer I could not refuse. I got a “Netbook” with a 16 GB SSD for about $350. I need a PC laptop for a project I am working on, so this appeared to be the right time to add to my collection of over 25 computers. I do own a Dell tower that was supposed to be a Printer RIP for cheap, but the software sucked and I arranged to take it off my client’s hands. I also have another clone PC, but other than that they are Apples, Macs, and a few Ataris

The trouble I have with Dell is I ordered my new computer twice. My first attempt was on March 2nd ( I do have an order number and confirmation e-mail). I was was patiently waiting (this is a computer I DON’T really need) and then an e-mail from Dell arrived on March 10th saying “This order has been canceled.” What’s up with that?? I tried to order again on March 12th, and yeah they have to “tweak” the configuration some, but they say I won’t have it until April 7th. So it take more than a month to get Dell to send a laptop. Wow! How does a company that treats clients (especially an Apple follower) stay in business selling computers when they can get one sent out in under a week?

I can order a custom configured Apple MacBook Pro and have it shipped from China in three to four days. It seems to me that that would be more complex, then some Dell guys in Round Rock, Texas sticking in a 16 GB SSD drive, and slapping a camera into my new Dell Netbook.

So I got word that there was true vegan pizza in Fells Point. With family and in-laws in tow, we had to check it out. We had to wait a bit to get our order in, but when we did it was worth the wait. It’s been about 2 years since I’ve have real pizza from a real restaurant, with anything that even comes close to cheese. This is something I’ve been missing since I went vegan. When one of my son’s friends sent him a text saying that BOP Pizza had “vegan pizza”, we put it on our list. Now I don’t think vegan pizza is what’s BOP is famous for, but it’s nice that they offer it. Some places do offer soy cheese, but that often has casein in it, a common ingredient in soy and veggie type cheese. I e-mailed BOP Pizza to check to see if that is their cheese has casein. They confirmed that their soy cheese is casein free. Nice. Also cool that they took the time to e-mail me back the same day. I told “Mike” that I would be in soon and I was looking forward to it. He said “get ready for the best”. Now that’s taking a strong stance. I guess if Kevin Bacon says “BOP should stand for Baltimore’s only Pizza”, I can take his word for it. I did not have to, as they have about a dozen “Best of Baltimore” plaques hanging on the wall. One of them matches the one I have for MacMedics for ‘Best place to take your sick Mac”. Funny.

I ended up with half of a black olive and mushroom, while my wife opted to go for just plain soy cheese. They also has a vegan soy salad that looked like it might have been a fresh mozzarella thing. We forgot to order it. The pizza was awesome and it was more than what you’d expect for the price. Here, when you order a “large” it really is large. It’s Fells Point, so parking was a bit of an issue, but not a big deal.

We also felt very safe. Two of Baltimore’s finest undercover police offers were there. That was a little bit of shock, when I looked over and say what looked to be a 40 caliber Glock sticking out from under his jacket with the sleeves ripped off. Lets just say if these guys came running after me, I’m not so sure I would have stopped. The guy with the jacket had a bleached ponytail about 18 inches long, and he might have weighed about 240. They kept looking over at me in my muted tone Under Armour and Coyote brown 5.11′s. I guess I did not look like a force to be reckoned while I was eating my vegan pizza.

I stepped outside to take a picture for Facebook, and about 7 or 8 other police officers in tactical
uniforms went in to BOP, so I guess it’s popular place with the police.

I’m looking forward to two slices of left-overs tomorrow for lunch at MacMedics.

I had a chance to stop into Home Depot this weekend. It had been awhile as the last time I was there, the store was dimly lit, there was nobody around to help me, and worse of all I could not find a thing I was looking for. All the while I was there it was non stop page after page over the public address system. Help here, help there, solve this problem, so forth and so on. I think I actually left the store empty handed. I don’t recall that ever happening before. This was in the Glen Burnie Home Depot near Price Club.

So I’ve been avoiding Home Depot, and going to Lowe’s for the last couple of years. We’re having some work done at home, and our contractor likes Home Depot, so we needed to pick out some ceramic tile for something he is working on. I wanted to go to Lowe’s but Home Depot it was. 

We went to the Home Depot in Pasadena, Maryland right next door to the defunct Circuit City. Where do they find the guys to wave the going out of business signs on the side of the road anyways? Circuit City = sad, but that’s another story.

First thing that stuck me was the fact that the store seemed pretty busy. I kind of thought that with the slow down in housing and the economy overall, the store would be slower, and we could park up in the front row. No, that was not the case toady. We had to park at the end of the row.

The next thing that caught my eye, was the fact that they had a cheerful greeter at the door. As we entered the store and started walking around, no less then 6 or 7 Home Depot guys and gals with the orange aprons said hello or asked if they could help. What is going on? They had a virtual army of people working the store. How on earth can they pay all of these people? This is baffling! One guy said hello once (he was pretty gritty looking, with a beat up baseball cap) and then asked if he could help later. I’m not sure if he remembered me or not, but I was wearing one of red and black MacMedics jackets.

Another item that I noticed was the store was lit up like day no matter where you were in the store. I looked up and in addition to the normal florescent lights you would expect, they also had what appears to be directional lights to illuminate the sales floor. 

I was also surprised to see a pretty clean store.

We did find some tile we like, but there was only one example of it, and there way no way to ID it. We had a guy help us figure out what it was, but after talking to someone else and looking everything over a second time, we found out he had incorrectly identified it. That could have been a disaster, but we got it figured it out.

So what’s going on? I suspect that Home Depot took a long hard look at what was going on and acted on it. I have to say I was surprised. I would see the Home Depot commercials on TV (especially during NASCAR) and it just felt wrong, since what they showed on TV in no way matched my in-store experiences.

I think I still prefer the new Lowes on Quarterfield Road in Severn, MD, but it’s nice to have a fall back.