The Day Few Ever Notice

If you were a friend of mine on Facebook, did you notice last week?

Last week, I celebrated my birthday. Not that it is any big deal because I haven’t celebrated it in years (actually never).

My point is that there was a handful (a small group) who decided to wish me a happy birthday. What was strange was that some people who normally are usually part of this group completely ignored me this year.

Why?

Maybe it is because they are just too busy with their own interests or maybe they just simply don’t care about me in the first place. I know there are some people who I was once very close with who have friended me on Facebook and have NEVER sent me one message in the 3+ years I have been a member of the site. Does this mean that these people are not really friends or they just feel obliged to increase their own friend number?

Either way this is just more proof that people have no respect for others. You do remember that post from a couple of weeks ago, don’t you?

Even though my first and only birthday party was when I was 5 years ago and involved some strong hatred between my 2 grandmothers, this image still burns in my mind as a very bad experience. Yes, the fireworks between the 2 would make the Hatfields and McCoys look like a friendly game of checkers. Well, maybe not quite that bad but you probably get the idea.

In my later years, even though I had no parties I did occasionally receive gifts on the special day. Not often but it did happen. For just a moment, I felt like somebody remembered and might have actually cared. At least this is what I thought…

This feeling continued until my final year with Staples. It was the year that I was in the hospital for a week. Over the years from my days at Woolworth to Staples, whenever someone was out sick for a period of time, a get well card was sent to the person. This happened for everybody and everybody always signed it. That was until me. No card at all. Nothing at all whatsoever. Should I really have been surprised? Probably not at all.

When I returned and I casually asked a fellow employee why no card was sent, their response was that “NOBODY CARED!!”.

This response absolutely floored me. Why after the many cards I have signed over the years that anyone would have the audacity to say that statement to me. It was obvious that a reality check was in order.

Yep, I was being ignored even by the people I thought were my friends. For someone like me who thought that they may not even leave the hospital alive this was not a very reassuring statement or a very desirable either.

Over the last couple of years, I have had a few of my high school friends die. It is hard to believe that I have actually outlived them given that they always seemed to be in better health than me. I still wonder everyday why I am survivor and they weren’t. I have now learned to embrace what little health I have left (BLAME STAPLES for that) and realize how important every day really is.

I don’t know what it will take for the friends who feel that I am not important to them to realize that, but when you have been on the edge like I have everything changes and not necessarily for the better either.

I hope maybe next year some of those people will remember those two little words that mean so much: Happy Birthday!

Until then, I have cake to eat. Oh wait, nobody got me a cake! Oh darn it!

Why Maine SHOULD NOT Rush to Pay Hospitals

The state of Maine is a period of conflict. On one side, you have dumbass governor Paul LePage who refuses to pass any spending bill until hospitals are paid, and on the other side, you have the state congress who wants to add about 70,000 Mainers to the MaineCare system and also get bonds already approved by the voters placed in action. It seems that neither side is giving in anytime soon.

However, I believe that the governor is more in the wrong than the state congress. Here’s why:

When I was in the hospital for about a week a few years ago, I noticed that my bill had charges for things that I NEVER had done. The problem is that it is always the hospital’s word against yours. Since I had insurance at the time, I decided not to fight it and just accept what occurred on the bill. After the insurance was paid off, I still had nearly $1000 to pay on my own. Could more of this bill been covered by insurance if some of these charges didn’t exist? Quite possibly, but again I decided not to fight it. However, given that my bill was a 5-digit charge originally, it was still disheartening to pay as much as I had remaining. This brings me to my point. How much of the $400+ million is for services that were either not performed, overcharged for, or charged more than once for?

Another example of overbilling that I suffered from was that my own physician charged $200 every day for each visit even though he was neither treating me nor spending more than 5 minutes visiting me. These charges were added to my ever-increasing hospital bill.

I also wonder how much of the $400+ million is used to pay staff, board of directors, and CEOs. I don’t mind paying staff, but the other groups don’t need the money. Even worse than that is that many of the “local” hospitals are chains run by out-of-state companies. I found this out by seeing that the mailing address to send payments from my hospital went to Massachusetts, not a Maine address. Just how much money gets sucked out of state by all the states hospitals?

Overall, I believe that before one penny is paid of the $400+ million owed that a line-by-line evaluation be given and each item be scrutinized to the fullest extent. Of course, the government regardless of being either state or federal, is known for wasting money anyway so I don’t expect to see any evaluation be done and instead a blank check be sent to the hospitals to pay their bills. It is clueless people like LePage who would waste state money as he has done since he has been in office. Sadly, there is no accountability in Augusta or Washington DC therefore we as state residents continue to get screwed on both ends with things like roads not getting fixed while the governor awaits to pay hospitals piles of cash. Mainers should be ashamed of the way this continuing on with no end in sight. Personally, I would rather see the stalemate continue then overpay the broken hospital system..

It’s All About Respect

As young children, we are usually taught to respect others. I say “usually” because not everybody gets it. Or maybe they just don’t care at all.

Consider this scenario from earlier this week:

I was out at the local Walmart (not my favorite place, by the way). I was in line at the self-service register when these 2 young guys in their early 20’s decided to step ahead of me and stand behind a customer just finishing their transaction and start using that register immediately.

Of course, they cut in line and didn’t care. So when I got my chance to use a register, I passed them and commented to them that I didn’t appreciate their rude behavior and they should have waited their appropriate turn. Their response was virtual silence except for a couple of grunts. It is sad that these 2 idiots showed no respect to me whatsoever and didn’t follow the rules. What’s worse about this was that the employee who was watching these registers never said a word to these guys and just ignored them. She certainly wasn’t doing her job as far as I was concerned.

After I finished my transaction and was walking out to my car, an elderly guy was backing out of a handicapped space without even realizing that I was walking behind his car. Yes, he almost ran me over, but thankfully I was able to get out of the way before I got hit.

Both of these incidents within minutes of each other made me wonder: Am I invisible to everyone or do people just don’t have any respect for me? It could be both but I think the latter is more of the truth.

Granted, given that this all happened at Walmart, the home of the welfare recipient, it was not surprising that people were out and out stupid. I dare anybody to get help in the store and get somebody who actually knows what they are talking about. It will never happen. Walmart is stupid and that is the customer is stupid.

Now consider when I go to anyplace and if I am walking behind someone, how many times I end up with a door in my face. Simply put, people don’t look to see if anybody is behind them to hold the door open for. Maybe they are too busy on their little phone or texting somebody or just not paying attention at all. So, where did all the respect go or was I just not seeing the reality until recently?

I feel that I was more blinded by reality when I was employed because I always felt that everybody should be respected and they respected you. It was also that if you treated a customer badly, chances were that the customer would make a complaint against you. Been there, done that way too many times while employed at Staples, but not hardly at all during my years at Woolworth. The reason is probably that the clientele at Woolworth was similar to that of Walmart, the blind-eyed uncaring customer.

So where does the respect disappear to? Is it a cultural thing or is it dependent on where a person is and who they are around? Sadly I have seen people who are really friendly when I worked with them, but when they are no longer employed they become unfriendly thus disrespectful. While I have tried to stay respectful to people, I can’t help but get angry when people are disrespectful to me. Do I see any change of this respectfulness in the near future? I believe not at all by a long shot as people will still disrespect everyone no matter what. This probably explains why Walmart has never hired me because I still respect people.

Background Checks at Staples Coming Soon?

Soon it may be required to get background checks at Staples now that 3d printers are now available through them at least online for now. It has been reported that the stores will start carrying the printers around mid-year at around $1300, which is the same price online now.

The problem that I have read about these printers, which I really don’t understand a lot about them anyway, is that they can make virtually any type of object that the user desires. This even includes a working gun that one person made and stupidly posted online the schematic of how to create it. Apparently somebody else even created an assault weapon with this type of printer as well.

Does this mean that we should be worried that some idiot who doesn’t get approved to buy a real gun will purchase a 3d printer and “build” their own instead? My answer is most definitely. To make matters worse, these “guns” don’t need to be registered obviously nor do they have or need any identifiable serial numbers on them.

Even worse than that is that people could possibly get past TSA security with their weapons especially if they are unassembled, reassemble them on a plane and cause all kinds of havoc. The big reason why these guns may pass is that they may look like colored plastic toys and not dangerous weapons. I could imagine if a child got a hold of one of these and decided to play with it.

This all leads to my point of responsible technology. I believe that the printer companies should have some sort of registration program to upload anything to the manufacturer’s secured website before it is printed on the user’s printer. If the printer company finds something wrong with what it is about to be printed, the item won’t be printed. Of course, somebody would find a way around this, but if the printer would only work when “approved” items are to be printed then the threat of possible weaponry would be greatly reduced.

It should be the responsibility of the printer companies to have proper registration of the units, but stores like Staples should also act responsibly if they hear anybody wanting to use these printers in any way that could be dangerous or malicious. Given Staples past ability to act responsibly means that they may sell a lot of printers just for the purpose of weapons manufacturing. Staples probably would not care how many deaths could come from somebody creating something that they shouldn’t.

All we can hope for is that Staples won’t sell many of these printers just for the sake of safety.

Clarifications

I am writing this special post early in the week because I was disturbed by a comment last week regarding a couple of my posts. Basically the person was calling me a liar.

I DO NOT ACCEPT this accusation as this blog is based solely on the lies and scams that Staples and other retailers do and have done. I believe in telling the truth in all cases.

However, one piece of information of my last post was based solely upon the information that I had based upon a misprint in the sales flyer that I had in possession.

The problem was that the Ink Savings card has an expiration of May 2014 not the May 2013 as I stated. Let me assure all the readers out there that I was going with information that I had at my disposal at the time and AT NO TIME did I try to make any deception of this part of the program. However, I still stand behind the rest of the posting as being accurate as this information is in their most current flyer and also on their website. Staples does have the legal right to change any information at any time and correct any typographical errors as they did online with their flawed flyer that I had at the time.

Also, a few weeks back I discussed the new rewards cards and issued links to the programs. Since these links are still valid and the information has not changed, I stand behind the information whether it is valid by the company or not. Again, it is up to Staples to correct their errors accordingly and since then, they haven’t.

On a positive note, they did clearly state that the “everything” does have exceptions and they are now clearly listed in large print in their ad. At least, they did something right.

In conclusion, let me say that I don’t take being called a liar lightly as there are those people out there who are such strong supporters of the company that they will never believe any written here because they are so brainwashed by how the company operates. To be honest, I used to be that way too until I got terminated and finally woke up and saw the reality, which is where I am today. I certainly will continue to post as many non-offensive comments as possible because no matter how wrong the “Staples lovers” are, they still deserve to be heard here.

Staples’ Ink and Toner Pass Scam

Last year, Staples created the Back to School shopping pass. Basically this scam was that you pay Staples to get a 10% discount on your back to school merchandise. I believe the price of this card was $15 but I really don’t remember because I didn’t write about it last year. I don’t know why I didn’t because this was a scam.

Now Staples is back with another money making scam: the Ink & Toner Savings Pass. It started running in the ad that began last Sunday. It is prominently featured on the cover of the flyer with the dreaded asterisk after the title. Basically, it gives a 10% discount on ink and toner purchases or so they say.

The dreaded asterisk points to the center of the flyer at the bottom in EXTREMELY SMALL print. But with a magnifier in hand, I got the awful details:

• The card costs $15. This means you have to spend at least $150 in ink just to get the value of the card back. If you figure sales tax into this, you have to spend even more depending on what your state’s tax rate is.
• It is only good through May 31, 2013. This means you have to get your ink FAST before this offer expires.
• It is NOT good on HP ink and toner. Since the majority of ink sold is this brand, this eliminates many customers from taking advantage of this offer.
• It is not good on remanufactured cartridges. This is less of a problem than it seems as many manufacturers don’t sell these anymore.
• It is NOT valid on online orders or by-phone. Basically, if the store doesn’t carry it or it is out of stock you are screwed.
• Pass can only be used once per day. So if a customer forgets a cartridge and has to come back to the store, it is tough luck on using the card on the same day. Given how evil Staples works, they probably track this and stop a customer cold if they try to use it again even if it is at a different location.

Given all these restrictions is there any wonder why anybody would ever want one these “discount cards” at all? This is yet another way for Staples to rip off the customer, make a profit at the customer’s expense, and most importantly lie to the customer.

I would really be curious if cashiers or other employees have to try and sell this card and if they expect any quotas of sales from these cards. If they do, my suggestion is to stop selling these cards immediately. If I was still employed with them, I would never sell them in the first place, but then again I never participated in ANY of their scams, which is why I am no longer with them.