I am a person who suffers from first world blues. Viktor Kravchuk’s insights about the war in Ukraine, lifted from Jill Dennison’s blog, helps me with an attitude adjustment about slow net speeds, poor customer service, terrible drivers, and writing difficulties. Mr. Kravhuk’s comments commend an attitude that is too often lost, that it’s easy to despair and give up, but what’s the point of that? Better to pick up and keep going.
Mild Rant
Mindlessly net surfing, I encountered stories that mildly attracted me, just to see what they were about. They were probably among twenty stories of this kind that I encountered. These two, though, pressed my Rant button.
Take One: Atlanta home demolished
That’s what it says on the Bing search page. MSN, AP News, USA Today, and others are covering the tale with headlines like this one from AP.
Woman returns from vacation to find Atlanta home demolished
Makes it sound to me as if the destroyed home was the place she was living in. But no.
From the article: ‘“It’s been boarded up about 15 years, and we keep it boarded, covered, grass cut, and the yard is clean,” she said. “The taxes are paid and everything is up on it.”’
It’s been vacant and boarded up for fifteen years. While I admit that someone made a big mistake and demolished a vacant, boarded up home by accident, and that would be upsetting, I think the way the story is projected is wholly misleading.
Take Two: Former Teammates Now Opponents
Yes, this is what’s on ESPN/NFL’s page: a story about two NFL quarterbacks.
TEAMMATES TURNED OPPONENTS
DOLPHINS-EAGLES: 8:20 P.M. ET
The way this story is presented, they make it sound as if the NFL isn’t full of college teammates who get drafted by NFL teams and end up playing against one another.
This article focuses on Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa, quarterbacks who played at Alabama. Hurts was the starter. With a record of 28-2 and a national championship, he was highly regarded and respected, and definitely capable. But Alabama was being shut out. So he was pulled and Tua was put into the game.
Gosh, that never happens in a football! Coaches are always very careful about these things, putting players’ feelings and reputations above winning (yes, that is snark). I can’t think of any other time that a player who wasn’t doing well was benched so another player could be tried, neither in college or the pros. (Yes, that was more snark. It’s a snarky kind of day.)
Fast forward to this year. Hurts now plays for the Eagles and lost in the last Superbowl and Tagovailoa quarterbacks the Miami Dolphins. The two will meet again when their teams play today. Hence, the story.
Yes, I read both stories. Fortunately, they’re not major events. Sure, it’s upsetting to the woman to lose her vacant other home this way; I’d be pissed, too, if someone went to the wrong address and tore the place down. And the way the company has handled it (so far) does nothing to redeem them. But no one was hurt.
Likewise, the football story was a small distraction in an otherwise war-weary and politically numb world, a story significant or meaningful to some serious fans of the teams or players involved, but net fodder for the rest of us.
And yes, in a way, I’m doing the same thing: posting net fodder. But I’m doing it to distract myself from doing other things.
Hope it wasn’t too boring. Cheers
Sunday’s Wandering Thought
It happened again last night. We were watching a Brit mystery on our television. Not the biggest one, a mammoth 65-inch critter, curved screen digital and all that, but the smaller 36-in digital flat screen that’s in the snug. Most of our living is in the snug. The corner recliner is the number one place for man, woman, and cats. Woman has number one claim on it, chasing the rest of us with sharply worded orders to “Get out.”
But that’s beside the point. The TV screen is big enough and digitally sharp. Not sharp enough for the moment as a character holds up a cell phone to read a text.
“Here we go,” my wife says. “What’s that say? I can’t see that. How am I supposed to see that? And they take it away so fast, I can’t even focus on it before it’s gone.”
She’s got a point. Kind of weird of them to use things like that. They provide us captions FOR THE HARD OF HEARING, as they nicely put it. (Yes, that IS sarcasm.) Would it be so difficult to include the text messages in the captions?
Modern Complaints
Time for a rant. It’s been a while, right? I like to think of myself as Old Faithful, bursting forth with new complaints on a predictable schedule.
I studied my to-do list this morning.
Call Dad.
Schedule Mazda for service.
File income taxes.
Get coronavirus vaccine.
Buy condolence card.
I’d filed the income taxes so I marked that off. The condolence card needed to wait until I went out later.
Dad was back in the hospital. I decided to put that off to do other things that required less exertion.
I haven’t had our Mazda serviced in a year. Putting it in context, though, in the period between March 2020 and March 2021, we put about twelve hundred miles on the odometer. No warning lights are illuminated. I figured that as long as the car had oil and was functioning, I wasn’t going to rest taking it to a dealership or service station for routine stuff. This is also my philosophy for my body.
Then an email arrived from Mazda.
| MICHAEL SEIDEL, LET US TREAT YOUR MAZDA.We warmly invite you to enjoy complimentary Mazda service. Our factory-trained technicians are looking forward to providing the Full Circle Service and unmatched experience you deserve.Take advantage of this special, limited-time offer, available until April 30th, 2021. Contact us for details about this exclusive offer and schedule your appointment today. |
| THIS COMPLIMENTARY MAZDA SERVICE OFFER1 INCLUDES:•Oil change & tire rotation•Enhanced vehicle cleaning service*•Take the wheel of a complimentary loaner Mazda while we perform maintenance on your vehicle•Full Circle Inspection and vehicle health report card1 Service up to a $75 value. Offer valid for redemption by qualifying VINs at participating Dealers. Not transferable. Limit one (1) complimentary service offer. No cash value. Offer period is March 1, 2021 – April 30, 2021. Contact participating dealer for complete details. |
That’s a pretty good deal. As I had things on the schedule (or so I told myself), I tagged the email for later action.
Right now, I felt the COVID-19 vaccination was a higher priority. I’m 64 and lack the underlying conditions that render me a higher priority. That means I’m not eligible for the vaccination yet. I’m retired military member, sometimes called ‘a vet’. The Military Times just had an article informing us that all vets could get the vaccine at local VA facilities. Cool beans, right? That was followed up by a local television channel with a story telling us the same thing. Okay, I would call and request an appointment at my local VA facility in White City.
I’d bookmarked the news article and brought it up now.
“Even veterans who are not currently enrolled, we want you to call that number and we will do our best to get you enrolled so you can have access to the vaccine.” Christina Cellura who is the Chief of Staff for White City SORCC said.
To make an appointment, call 541-826-2111 extension 4440.’
I called the number and waited for the moment they told me to enter an extension. It didn’t come.
After listening to a laborious list of options, I selected 6 for COVID-19 information. Thus began a long, breathless recording about what I can and could do and how the VA would help. About two thirds of the way through, it said, ‘To make an appointment for a COVID-19 vaccination, call 541-826-2111 extension 4440.’
I looked at the number I’d dialed, confirming, that’s the number I dialed. Hanging up, I repeated the entire process, verifying that the number I’d dialed was telling me to call the number I’d dialed to make an appointment.
It seemed like either a cruel joke or terrible, circular logic.
Disppointed with that, I went to the Mazda email. I clicked on the link provided, as directed. I have an account there — I always take my car there, like a good soldier — so all my information was populated. I kept waiting for them to tell me about the deal, or to inform me that I wasn’t eligible.
They didn’t mention the deal.
Dismayed, I confirmed the appointment. Maybe they’d mention the deal in the confirming email.
Nope.
I sighed.
Next on the list would be to call Dad.
The way things were going, I wasn’t ready to take the chance.
Med Frustrations
Okay, gotta vent. This is one of those first world blues rants, the kind that deal with technology, systems, and customer service taken for granted that ends up failing and pissing me off.
I’m on two medical prescriptions these days. One is for my enlarged prostate and was prescribed for me when I experienced problems in peckerville in 2019. It’s all benign and is working well enough now.
The other prescription is for high-blood pressure. That was discovered as a result of my peckerville issues. I’d been borderline high pressure throughout my life but it was suddenly over two hundred thirty.
Changes were made in diet and exercise, and the prescription, Amlodipine, begun. I was always getting thirty day prescriptions. I shifted that to ninety day for convenience, and then, concurrent with COVID-19, I started using a mail service to refill my prescriptions back in February or so.
This was being done through Express Scripts. I set my meds up for auto-refill. All was going well. I was satisfied.
But, last week, I noticed I was down to nine Amlodipine pills. I hadn’t heard from Express Scripts. That surprised me. I went into my email and did a search to verify that I hadn’t received something from them. Nope. I logged into my account.
Finding the Amlodipine prescription, I noted that it wouldn’t be automatically refilled until 10/23. Well, that was too late. I put it in the cart and ordered it. Done and done. Went to my email. A confirmation email had been received. Wonderful. The system was working.
But…
Everyone expected the but. But what happened, I’m sure people are wondering, to set off the rant?
But, I didn’t hear anything else.
Days passed. I logged back into my online Express Scripts account after not receiving further emails. I checked my recent orders and shipments. Why, there are no recent orders and shipments. I searched via the order number they provided me. That order wasn’t found. I searched via the invoice number provided. Nothing.
WTH? I’d copied it from the email and pasted it in.
The email also had a ‘click here for order status’ button. I clicked it.
It took me to the login page, where I went through the same thing as before.
WTF?
I did this several times, re-reading the email and tracing steps, trying to understand what went wrong. I couldn’t. I’m sure this wasn’t good for my blood pressure.
I reached out to them via an email and explained my issue.
That was Wednesday evening. I heard from them today, Friday. One was an email. Call us. Two was a phone call. ANONYMOUS.
I didn’t answer that call; I don’t talk to ANONYMOUS in this day of scams where everyone and their dog is trying to con me, asking for donations, or pleading for political contributions. Their message: call us.
I called them. They claimed that the order put in was for my other medication. That was ordered the 18th. It’d been canceled because it was an overfill. By the way, my Amlodipine isn’t on auto-refill. Do I want to put it on auto-refill?
Seriously.
I don’t think this exchange did my blood pressure any good.
My response: how did my Amlodipine go from auto-refill to non-auto if it wasn’t the one that I ordered the other day?
Two, if I ordered a prescription, whether it was overfill or not, why didn’t I receive an email notifying me that it’d been canceled? Didn’t they think there was a reason I was ordering it? Isn’t it just good customer service to notify a customer when an order is canceled?
Three, if I ordered it on the 18th, why did I have an email from them that I received on the 17th telling me that they were working the order?
Four, if the Amlodipine wasn’t on auto-refill and they don’t show me or anyone else changing it, how was the order previously automatically refilled? Was that just magic?
They didn’t have answers for any of these things.
Perhaps I did push a wrong button on the 17th when I was processing online. Given their system, I find it doubtful. The product must be selected. Then, it’s right there in front of my face. Perhaps I had a brain fart and shifted from thinking Amlodipine to the other one, Tamsulosin. I’m not infallible.
And, yeah, given time differences of one or two hours, I suppose I can accept the idea that the order I put in at ten PM on the 17th showed up as being received on the 18th. That doesn’t explain the rest, especially the lack of an email telling me that the order had been canceled.
And that sucks.
Fortunately, I have an excellent local pharmacy. I shifted from them mostly because of the whole COVID-19 thing. Getting my meds through the mail with auto-refills took a few things off my place, thereby reducing stress, and eliminated the need to leave the house to get refills.
I called that pharmacy today for a short term refill. They were understanding. They would need to call my doc for the prescription, but no problem, they would do that. They’re so nice, I feel bad about abandoning them.
Then I called my doc’s office to provide a heads-up that they would receive a request, and why.
Well, the rant is done. I don’t feel any better after ranting. Too many loose ends. It’s gonna take a while to get over it. Meanwhile, my trust in Express Scripts has dropped significantly. There are just too many open questions about what happened for me to have complete trust. It’ll take time, probably years, for them to earn that. That’s what happens when a trust is breached.
Thanks for reading. Hope you’re having a better one. Please wear your masks.
Cheers
Two Beefs
I know these are probably just me, but it’s a Monday and I feel the need to spleen.
Rant #1.
People are in line buying something, somewhere, and then wait until the cashier tells them the final before finding their wallet/billfold, money, whatev, to pay. Yes, I am an impatient person, but, really? Are you just doing that to annoy me? If I was a more paranoid person, say at the Donald J. Trump level, I’d suspect that there’s a secret society out there that are doing it just to frustrate me.
Rant #2.
Speaking of being impatient, I’m the second, third, fourth car in line, whatev, when we’re stopped at a red light. The signal changes to green but one of the preceding cars recognizes the light change so slowly, and then accelerates at a rate that would make molasses oozing out of a tree in winter look fast, that the light changes again before I can enter the intersection. Makes me want to shake my fist and shout, “Damn you.” Yeah, I know, it’s completely irrational, adding about ninety seconds to my commute. Hey, it’s a rant, you know?
What ’bout the rest of you? Any rants that you’d like to share? And don’t rant about the guy ranting on a blog post. I’ve read that one before.
#AWL
Time for a rant. Are you ready, boys and girls? Point of order, sir, but this is as much a whine as it is a rant.
Okay, point accepted. I’m full of complaints and do a lot of poor, poor, pity poor me first-world blues rants. This is another. That aside, let’s rant.
I’ve written fifteen novels.
People say, “Fifteen? Really?”
Yes, sure, but that’s a number. There’s a story behind the number. There’s an asterisk beside it.
The first novel, as with many writers, was five-star crap. In the crap world, five-stars means it’s the worse possible crap. There’s no crap that exceeds its crappiness. It was an experience, though, that helped me understand more about my writing process.
Knowing that it needed more attention and focus than I was willing to give it, I printed out the stack, along with editing notes, and put it on disks, and set it aside. Someday, I’ll return to you, I promised it.
“Point of order, sir, but, despite that quantity, maybe you’re not a very good writer.”
Thank you for pointing that out. You’re right. That might be the case. I’m trying to do the best that I can. I keep trying to improve.
“Another point, sir.”
What now?
“Isn’t this really about your laziness and unwillingness to learn?”
Excuse me, but who are you? How did you get in here? Out, out, damn you.
Being obstinate, I proceeded to write five more novels. They were probably three-star and four-star crap. I knew where they had problems and what needed to be fixed. I didn’t want to fix them, because I wanted to write more and I didn’t want to bother with editing and revising. I liked writing, not editing and revising. I promised, someday I’ll edit them, but I knew that model a novel and setting it aside for editing and revising at a date TBA was unsustainable.
The next novel that I wrote, I said, “I must edit and revise this one. I need to learn that discipline.”
So, I did it. Yea, me! Sure. I then sought agents. I followed all of their parameters for submitting to them in hopes of persuading them to represent me, find a publisher, and get the novel published.
After almost a year of dealing with that, going through five agents, I hated that process. Maybe, I convinced myself (without too much difficulty), self-publishing is the way to go.
So I did that.
It was another process to learn, with as many obstacles and challenges as Ninja Warrior. Yes, the book was published. Yes, I sold some copies, but not nearly as many as hoped. I knew that I would need to market the book.
Oh, boy, more to learn.
I wanted to write; I didn’t want to learn how to market myself and my wares.
I told myself, someday I will. Then I wrote and self-published three more books, with just as little notice and sales, reminding me again and again, you need to market these books.
But…but…but…
Yeah.
Here I am again, this time with a complete series of five novels. Here I am again at the crossroads. Find an agent? Self-publish? Screw it all and just keep writing?
Not wanting to, first, hunt down a cover designer, copy-editor, acquiring an agent drew me. That’s the original dream, to write a novel, find an agent, have the novel published. In a sense, I’m returning home by taking that route.
Yes, I was again easily persuaded because that self-publishing journey had been less than rewarding and satisfying. I’m hoping that this journey will be more so.
I began with the standard search process. Who is out there? What do they want?
Lo, Jane Friedman had a decent article about finding an agent, and pointed toward #MSWL – Manuscript Wish List. That’s helpful, I thought with new gleams of hope.
Hah.
I have such rose-colored glasses, they should be illegal so that we can all save time and energy.
#MSWL has a search engine. What genre do you want? Put it in. Here’s the results. Wow, pages of results. How exciting.
Not after reading a bit more.
I searched for science-fiction. #MSWL’s search results include whenever science-fiction is mentioned. This includes when agents say, “I don’t want to see any science-fiction.” Ah. That was certainly fucking useful.
I spent hours searching #MSWL and PublishersMarketPlace, seeking someone interested in someone like me. I found some promising folks.
Well, it’s the year’s end. Many of those agents aren’t accepting right now. Check back in a few days, weeks, or months, and then they’ll be happy to see your work.
What agents say they want on their website, in their Twitter blurts, in articles and interviews, and in #MSWL do not align. One will say that they’re looking for SFF or some science-fiction variant while the other locations won’t mention it. Yes, and I understand from my efforts that it’s hard updating everything and every place.
YA seems to remain the hot market, judging from the number of agents hunting for YA manuscripts.
Also clear is that most agents will reply to you if they’re interested. They’ll usually respond in two weeks. However, if they’re not interested, you’re not going to hear back from them. Do not, of course, submit multiple submissions or simultaneous submissions, or anything like that, because that’s not far to them, and please don’t follow-up to see what’s going on with your query. They’re busy, you know.
That was the stake through my heart last time, that one-sided dimension to this whole business. Sipping a glass of medicating wine last night, I reflected that I needed to start #AWL – Author’s Wish Lists. But hell, that’s a short list. We want an agent. We want published. We want a painless process. Who doesn’t? Well, I could stipulate that I want an agent who wants me, that I want an agent who will respond to me to tell me, no, thanks.
Yes, before anyone notifies me of the obvious, that this is a competitive business, and yes, I know how many struggling writers are out there trying to find agents and get published, and, yep, I’m aware that others have gone through this, and that agents have limited resources, so they’re very sorry, but that’s what the situation dictates.
Yes, I know.
My muses are awake. They want to write. Do you see how many stories are out there, waiting to be written?
Rant over. Back to whatever.
Michael Seidel, writer 