Egregious Customer Disservice

HFC / Beneficial, what were you thinking?

This is not a rant. I don't do that here. Really. This is just a report of an astounding customer service failure. 

Facts:

• Household (HFC) Companies and Beneficial Companies are part of the the HSBC Group, one of the largest financial services organizations in the world. 
• They have a huge customer base in the United States. 
• April 15, 2013 is this year's deadline for most U.S. taxpayers to file their federal and state income tax returns.
• Some taxpayers need to include certain information on their returns related to their accounts with HFC / Beneficial.
• Sometimes, those taxpayers misplace their paperwork.
• Consumers have come to rely upon customer-facing web sites to get information they need when they misplace their paperwork.
• HFC / Beneficial's customer-facing web site is down for maintenance on April 13 and 14, the two days immediately preceding the tax filing deadline. Automated and live operator telephone services are also unavailable.

What were they thinking? Obviously, they were not thinking about their customers.

Okay, maybe this is a little bit of a rant.

Keep On Paddling

I woke up in an unfamiliar place. I was in a small inflatable raft in a very large body of water. Where was I? I had gone out for an early morning paddle, without a phone or other GPS, and dozed off. The wind and the current had carried me beyond my normal range of exploration. Unperturbed, I studied the direction I was drifting for a little while, and began to paddle in the opposite direction. After a while, a familiar landmark came into view. I kept on paddling toward it and soon found my way safely home.

That was a dream I had early this morning. If you're like me, you have many different kinds of dreams. Some are frightening. Some are funny. Some are just inexplicable mash-ups of recent events, ideas, and emotions. Some, like this one, seem to tell a story with a point.

When you find yourself adrift in unfamiliar circumstances, consider the forces that brought you there. Understand them. All of them. Work to reverse them. Swim upstream for a while, if you have to. Soon, a solution, a familiar landmark, or a clear course will become apparent. Then, just keep on paddling until you are safely home.

Legislative Transparency and Accountability?

If you're in favor of legislative transparency and accountability, don't look for it in the so-called "American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012" passed yesterday by the Senate to avert the "fiscal cliff."

What's in the 157 page Senate budget bill? Contrary to media over-simplifications, it's not just about individual income taxes. Those are just in Title II.  There's a lot here that changes very little.

Title I - General Extensions 
Title II - Individual Tax Extenders
Title III - Business Tax Extenders
Title IV - Energy Tax Extenders
Title V - Unemployment
Title VI - Medicare and Other Health Extensions 
Title VII - Extension of Agricultural Programs
Title IX - Miscellaneous Provisions
Title X - Budget Provisions

A few observations...

• There is no Title VIII. Odd. Why?  Is that where the spending cuts were supposed to be?
• Title IX, section 901, "Strategic Delivery Systems" has the following provision: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013, is amended—
  (1) by striking ‘‘that’’ before ‘‘the Russian Federation’’ and inserting ‘‘whether’’; and
  (2) by inserting ‘‘strategic’’ before ‘‘arms control obligations’’.
  What does this mean?  Why is it part of this bill?
• Title IX, Section 902 denies Congress a cost of living pay raise in 2013. Good. 
• Title X is the "kick the can down the road" section, extending spending authorizations in large, vague buckets, (Section 1001), a seemingly random modification of one rule about Roth IRA accounts (Section 1002) and most significantly, absolving Congress of accountability for the balanced budget effect of the bill (Section 1011):
  (a) PAYGO SCORECARD.—The budgetary effects of this Act shall not be entered on either PAYGO scorecard maintained pursuant to section 4(d) of the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010.
  (b) SENATE PAYGO SCORECARD.—The budgetary effects of this Act shall not be entered on any PAYGO scorecard maintained for purposes of section 201 of S. Con. Res. 21 (110th Congress).

A Personal Reaction

It's time for both parties, the White House, and both houses of Congress to stop campaigning and start governing. Is this the best they can do, beyond the last minute, with two years to work on it? We, the people, deserve a better work product from our government leaders. They are simply not doing their job.

Read It For Yourself

You can find the full PDF of the bill here.

What Gun Control?

I really don't want to wade into the gun control debate.  I just have a few observations that I'd like to share.

• There is no gun control. There are a lot of guns out there. Many of them are in the wrong hands. Whether you believe gun control should exist, or should not exist, the fact is, it doesn't exist in any effective form.
• According to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Connecticut, where yesterday's horrific tragic took place, and its neighboring states of Massachusetts and New York are all among the more restrictive states with regard to gun ownership. (Brady, 2012)
• According to some studies, violent crime varies INVERSELY with legal gun sales. Virginia Commonwealth University Professor Thomas Baker has crunched the numbers in the state of Virginia, and has determined that gun sales in the state have climbed 73% since 2006, while the number of violent crimes involving guns has declined by more than 27%. (NRA, 2012)
• A loophole in the federal law requiring criminal background checks allows sales at gun shows to go forward without a check. This accounts for 40% of all U.S. private gun sales. That's just a poor work product from the legislature. (CSGV, 2012)
• Fortunately, there are "not enough" mass shooting incidents to draw reliable statistical correlations with anything. (I know. PLEASE don't take the first words of that sentence out of context.) Common sense might say otherwise, but the numbers aren't there to draw sound quantitatively-based conclusions about violent media exposure and other potential influences. 
• Mass shooting incidents, especially in the otherwise comfortable affluent suburbs get in-depth media attention, but they are statistically insignificant compared to the scourge of gun violence on our city streets. The daily killings in our cities receive relatively little attention in most outlets.  A notable exception is the Huffington Post's Chicago Gun Violence stream. (Huffington, 2012a).  
• On a single night in Chicago (Monday, 12/3/12), there were 11 shootings overnight. November shootings in Chicago were up 49 percent over 2011. Through 11 months, shootings were up 11 percent and homicides were up 21 percent. (Huffington, 2012b)
• Guns are designed to kill.  Don't create specious arguments against gun control by comparing gun violence deaths with traffic fatalities, for example. Cars do not have a lethal primary purpose.
• "Guns don't kill people. People kill people." may be a time-worn cliché but it has some basis in fact. We cannot blame inanimate objects for the evil actions of broken people and the soul-sickness to which we are all susceptible.

References

Brady (2012). Brady 2011 state scorecards. Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
Retrieved from http://www.bradycampaign.org/stategunlaws/

CSGV (2012). Gun show loophole. Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.
Retrieved from  http://www.csgv.org/issues-and-campaigns/gun-show-loophole

NRA (2012). Wayne's commentary (11/27/12), more guns, less crime in Virginia. The National Rifle Association of America.
Retrieved from  http://home.nra.org/#/nraorg

Huffington (2012a) Chicago gun violence. The Huffington Post.
Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/chicago-gun-violence

Huffington (2012b). Shot waiting for bus: Chicago bystanders among 11 shot overnight after violent weekend. The Huffington Post.
Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/04/shot-waiting-for-bus-chic_n_2237596.html

Happy Thanksdoing!

Attitude In Action

Attitude drives behavior. Behavior creates and reinforces attitude. Does your behavior demonstrate your gratitude? Beyond mere words, what do you do to show yourself grateful? As you profess an attitude of gratitude, today is a good day to think about how you put it into action.

Be Specific

Is it possible to be "generally thankful"? Perhaps. Attitude is important, and a propensity to be thankful is an attractive and healthful personality trait, but being constructively thankful involves being giving thanks to someone for something specific. Fifty-three Plymouth colonists, along with 90 Native Americans, did not celebrate that "First Thanksgiving" in 1621 because it seemed like a good party theme.They were thankful for the harvest, for their new lives in the new world, and for life itself. In the United States, Thanksgiving Day has been officially observed since 1863. While the nation was plunging into some of its darkest days during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens". Today is a good day to express your gratitude to somebody specific, in heaven or on Earth, for something specific.

Just Say "You're Welcome"

When somebody says "thank you", do you say "no problem" or "it was nothing"? Don't. That devalues whatever you did to earn the "thank you." It says, "well, if it had been the least bit hard or inconvenient for me, I would not have done it for you". It says, "your gratitude is unimportant, because what I did for you was unimportant to me." Don't do that. When somebody says "thank you", assume that they mean it. Let it mean something to you. If you were happy to help, say so, or just say "you're welcome."

Thanksgiving is Thanksdoing

As you are able, show yourself grateful through more than words, do something for another that they cannot possibly repay. Create situations for others to be thankful. Just do it. Happy Thanksdoing!

Random Stuff From The BookShelf

Inspired by the recent postings on Facebook in honor of International Book Week, I followed a slightly different procedure. Starting at a random spot on my bookshelves, I found the first three sentences from the second paragraph on page 52 and recorded it below.  Then I skipped three books on the shelf and found three more sentences in the same way.  If they relate in any way to the previous book, you'll see them here. Otherwise, I skipped that book and moved along until I found something that connected, until I had gathered the fifteen sentences, below.  I find the result surprisingly interesting. It doesn't prove much of anything, but I had fun revisiting some old friends on the bookshelves.

Choices between lies and truthful statements, therefore, exhibit the difficulties often thought to beset utilitarianism as a method for coping with moral conflict. But the problems mentioned so far might in principle be counteracted within utilitarianism. They need not invalidate the general effort to weigh factors in a moral problem. (1)  

Emotional appeals can also work as a way of supporting actual claims made in an argument. Quite often the emotion is laid atop logical propositions to make them stronger or more memorable. The technique is tricky, however. (2)  

Often, though, it is the most basic things that distract your audience. In 1954, humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow defined five basic human needs that we all try to satisfy in priority order. These five needs are: physiological. safety, belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization. (3)  

It is instructive to remind ourselves that professional persuaders, who realize that the public at large does not always behave rationally, try themselves to arrive rationally at the persuasive techniques they apply on the "non-rational" citizen. The advertiser who sells soap or cars carefully and objectively analyzes the public "taste", its whims and fancies, its buying habits, and carefully tailors his advertising to appeal to those "whims and fancies." (4) 

Give people reasons to listen. We listen to ideas that seem tied to our lives. We want to know why we should pay attention to someone else's words. (5)

References:
(1) Lying, Sissela Bok
(2) Everything's An Argument, Andrea A. Lunsford, John J. Ruskiewicz, Keith Walters
(3) Kruschev's Shoe, Roy Underhill
(4) Ethics of Speech Communication, Thomas R. Nielsen
(5) Public Speeking for Personal Success, Michael S. Hanna, Dick L. Stine, James W. Gibson

I Promise

May we please have less name calling and a little more open discussion?

• If I think you are wrong, I will not call you names. I will not say that you are an idiot, or insane, or evil.
• Your logic is probably sound. We start from different core values and first principles. We may have different loyalties. We base our conclusions on a different set of facts. 
• I take none of these things as permission to attack you personally or to question your intentions. I won’t. I promise. I ask only for the same.

I hate it that I even felt a need to write this but if you spend any time at all on social media, especially Facebook, you've no doubt seen the steady stream, from both the left and the right, of goofy pictures, statements used out of context, rants with little substance, angry and hateful comments thrown at entire groups of good people because of a different idea about something, and so on, and on, and on. So far, the social media communication revolution has done very little to improve public discourse. It has simply made us more efficient muckrakers, complainers, and name callers.  Shame on us!

That's my opinion. If you have a different one, you're wrong. You're not stupid, or insane, or evil. You're just wrong. Let's discuss it.

k only for the same.