An Open Letter to Tanya Lee H.

Writer’s note: I am writing this week’s post to all my blogs as I feel that it is important not only to me, but also to those who have those long unanswered questions about me. Some of the information presented here may be offensive to some people. Reader discretion is advised.

Dear Tanya Lee H.:

In 11 days on May 25, 2014, you will be getting married in some place called Diamond Bar, California.

The bad news is that it is not to me.

The worse news is that I feel that it is a HUGE mistake.

Of course, you could say that I am jealous that it is not me that you are marrying.

However, after stalking your future husband’s Twitter and Facebook accounts, it appears that this guy is nothing but a self-centered jerk. I am basing this solely on what I have read and seen online of this guy. I feel that this wedding is more of a matter of social convenience rather than the true love that we (yes, us) could and should have had.

Let me now rewind the story back a few years ago when we first met.

I had been working with your brother Rob for a few years when you started working as a cashier at Staples. During your employment with Staples, we talked all the time when we weren’t busy.

We learned a lot about each other. So much so that I felt like we belonged together. I thought that possibly that you felt the same way.

But something bothered me.

There were some things that you said to me that disturbed me. While I don’t want to mention them here, I internally questioned your social stability.

After having been through other toxic relationships in the past, I was personally scared of what life would be like if we were alone together on a date or something like that. I really wanted to be with you, but felt that working together would violate company policy and I think you felt the same way.

Then the day came.

You decided to quit the company. I dreaded this day ever since I learned it was going to happen. I was bothered that I was losing my best friend and confidant.

It was on that last night together that you hugged me and gave me your telephone number.

This was actually 2 firsts. Nobody had ever hugged me before. Don’t laugh – it is true. The funny thing was I finally felt loved for the first time in my life.

The second first was that Tanya gave me her telephone number. Again nobody has ever given me their number before much less a female.

However, and it was a big however, was she said to me “call me if you want”. These words became etched in my head like as if she really was interested, but may not be interested.

To say I was confused by this would be an understatement. I was actually set back as if she was pushing me away while at the same time wanting me.

Then the worse thing happened. I lost her phone number. Make that I misplaced it and it got cleanly washed away.

So I could not call her. The phone number was not in the book and I had no way of reaching her. All of a sudden my life turned to crap.

For weeks, I was hoping that you would return back to Staples so that we could talk about getting together.

But it didn’t happen.

Disappointment was mounting.

Then one Tuesday, while at the mall, I saw you at the late Waldenbooks store sitting on one of the benches looking at a book with a female friend. I tried hard not to be seen by you as I did not want to embarrass you or your friend.

Luckily, I was able to leave the store without being seen.

About a half-hour later, my luck ran out. I was at Best Buy with my mother shopping and you were alone and noticed me. I remember I was looking at “The Mummy” DVDs and you focused your radar on me.

This is where everything went wrong. You asked me why I didn’t call you. I tried to be diplomatic in my conversation with you especially since I had my mother with me and she did not know about you. I tried to tell you that I wanted to talk later someplace alone. It appeared that you wanted none of that.

Then you stormed off out of the store.

At this point, I had a choice. I could leave my mother in the store alone (mistake) or I could chase after you and talk to you right then and there (possibly a bigger mistake). I decided to choose the former.

Sadly, at this point, I never saw you ever again. Over the next couple of weeks, I continued to spindle downward with no bottom in site.

Then it happened.

I was driving home one night from work and I was listening to the radio. This song came on the radio that struck me like lightning.

The song was “So Yesterday” by a girl named Hilary Duff. Suddenly, this song related to what happened between me and Tanya. This song wedged in my head so much that I could not shake it. The more I heard it over the next couple of days, the more I related to it.

At this point, I decided to learn more about this Hilary Duff girl. I found out that she was the star of a popular Disney Channel show “Lizzie McGuire”. I decided to watch an episode just to get a feeling for what this girl was really like.

Then it happened.

I was hooked on Hilary. Like a druggie, I could not get enough Duff. I bought CDs, DVDs, magazines, books and anything else with her in it.

I was obsessed. It became so bad that I asked Best Buy if I could have a large poster of her when they were finished using it. I did the same at f.y.e. with a poster they had as well. I also asked there if I could have the “Lizzie McGuire Movie” video display when they were done with it. They allowed me to have it.

At this point, it seemed that I was completely obsessed with Hilary, even going to the point of carrying the lyrics of “So Yesterday” in my pocket and reading them when I was depressed.

I was also joining as many online groups as I could from Yahoo to feed my desire for pictures, comments or anything else related to Hilary.

It would be obvious at this point I was not only obsessed, but crazy about her. Some online groups shunned people like me for being “too old” for being a fan. I told them that real fans came in all ages. Certainly, I was not alone in my beliefs.

Then the big one happened.

Lizzie McGuire was done, but my obsession was not.

I had to find a new outlet for social relief.

So I started watching other Disney shows at the time such as “Suite Life of Zack and Cody”, “Hannah Montana” and “Wizards of Waverly Place” among others. I quickly became obsessed with these shows as well.

I would buy as many of the teen magazines as I possibly could every month even though I was really too old for them. It became apparent that I needed an intervention.

Before that would happen, I started watching shows on Nickelodeon as the shows on Disney Channel became stale. Once again, my obsession with kid and teen shows grew.

At this point, much of my thoughts had turned away from Tanya. However, one day while on the old MySpace, I decided to friend her out of the blue. It appeared she either rejected me or ignored me. At this point, I also noticed that she was living somewhere in the Midwest. This bothered me as it seemed she wanted nothing to with me at all anymore.

So with no future with Tanya and no intervention, I was further encouraged with my admiration for people like Hilary over the remainder of time that I remained employed at Staples.

After leaving Staples, I decided that I was finally going to join the new social media revolution. I signed up for Facebook and Twitter. Quickly some of my old work colleagues friended me on Facebook and soon I would be using Twitter extensively as well.

Then I decided one day to look up Tanya on Facebook and Twitter. I noticed on Facebook that she had since moved to Sherman Oaks California. On Twitter, she had an account, but she has never tweeted. I am only one of four of her followers. I wonder if she knows that I am following her there even though she has never tweeted anything. I also noticed that another one of her followers was a guy named Dave V.

So I decided to investigate him. What I saw I didn’t like. Then I did more and more reading about him, the less I liked.

This brings us up to the last couple of months. I decided to Google Tanya’s name and I found out that she was engaged to this Dave guy. Imagine the fact that I was completely heartbroken beyond belief.

So she moved 3,000 miles away to get away from me and then get engaged to someone else. It appeared that my chances with her were over.

However, I still needed an output for my emotions. So, a few months after starting my anti-Staples blog, I decided to start a new blog discussing virtually any other topic. Ironically, many of those postings have been about teen shows just to help me cope with my social loss. I know that many people have always been confused why I discuss these types of shows more than adult shows, but now I hopefully have cleared up the method behind my madness. It is just my way of producing my own intervention or something like it.

Overall, Tanya’s wedding will not have my blessing under any circumstances. I feel that I was shortchanged in this relationship as she refused to listen to me that I really wanted her, but I could not contact her because she was not found in the phonebook or any other method. I don’t feel that I was to be to blame for this relationship failure, but a huge misunderstanding between 2 people.

Lastly, I still have those posters of Hilary on my living room wall and the “Lizzie McGuire” is still in my bedroom filled with all those teen books and video tapes from back in the day.

Tanya, you may be so yesterday, but I still wish that you would be really part of my tomorrow.

I am hoping someday you will get to read this and know that I still really care about you despite being so far away. I wish I could right the wrongs of the past.

Sincerely,

Louis Brown

(your best friend from Staples)

End of Stores and Career

This week featured 2 interesting news stories.

The first one was the stepping down of Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel in the wake of the data breach during the holiday season last year. For someone who has been with the company for over 30 years, this departure seems rather odd.

According to reports, Steinhafel claims that he is personally responsible for what happened at the company.

Seriously.

The people who are really responsible for this nightmare are the people who ignored the fact that the breach even occurred and did nothing about it.

Not only should these people be fired, but should be held accountable for what happened.

Maybe the CEO resigned because there is a bigger problem that has yet to be uncovered and wants to run away fast before everything collapses around him and the company.

Certainly he may be playing damage control, but leaving suddenly just adds suspicion to any future damage that could happen.

I expect that we have not heard the end of the data breach and I still believe that there will be others that have yet revealed themselves.

The second story of the week was the closure of at least to 400 stores of Office Depot.

While it is not surprising of the store closures since the merger of Office Depot and OfficeMax, it is surprising by the number of stores to be closed. What is interesting is that the companies seem to be doing better as one, the massive number of closings leads suspicion of the health of the company.

Let me point out that Office Depot said “at least” 400 stores in the next 2 years (150 this year alone), which means that this could be a low number possibly a severely low number. While the 2 companies probably want to close stores in areas where they compete against themselves, it seems that the company may also want to close low performing stores just like Staples and RadioShack have announced in the past months.

So this leads me to this question: why do these companies announce how many stores they plan on closing in their earnings report?

Is it because they want to impress/depress their shareholders into what their future is whether it is good or bad? Or is it that they want to warn other retailers of their failings?

Either way, I don’t know why companies can’t just quietly closing stores a few at a time without making such a big deal of it.

I remember back when Woolworth announced that it was closing half of their stores, we got endless phone calls from the media asking if our location was one to close. Our response was “no, but further details can be obtained by calling our home office”. It took about 3 days for the attention to go away, but our store’s future was still questioned until the company finally went out of business.

So while Staples, RadioShack, and Office Depot announce massive store closings, the real question on everybody’s mind is which ones will be affected and what the future of the employees at that location is.

I believe that Mr. Steinhafel will have plenty of company on the unemployment line very soon.

However, all of them will have to get behind me as I am still there.

Going Postal at Staples

Last week I mailed back a catalog that was delivered.

It was the second time I sent this same catalog back.

Not only was the name on the catalog not mine, but neither was the street mine either.

The only thing that I had in common with the delivered address was the house number only.

How could the postal service make this dumbass move twice?

Since there was no postal bar code on the catalog somebody actually had to read the address on the actual catalog and prepare it for the right address.

But to get it wrong twice?

I really expect that the postal service to do better than this as far delivering my mail. It is bad enough that most magazines I receive come in a less than readable condition, but to make a move like this is just stupidity.

Now enter Staples.

Staples apparently is testing a pilot program to handle “traditional mail services”. What exactly this entails is not detailed to any degree that I could find, but given that the postal workers are protesting it, the services must be interfering with the core business of the postal service.

To me, this sounds like a great way to save the millions of dollars that the postal service have lost over the years and in years to come.

On the other hand, having Staples deal with the mail is much scarier than the postal service themselves. After all, does anybody really want a company known for scamming and lying to handle their day-to-day mail services?

Of course, Staples has been selling stamps for years and sending out packages by UPS since back before I started with the company. But this in no way gives them the path to handling and taking over the postal service.

I see this as a huge mistake as the hourly employees of Staples won’t care at all about the services and like their other endeavors will be a failure.

Unless, of course that Staples wants to go millions of dollars in debt like the postal service.

But then again maybe that may not be a bad thing.

Equal Opportunity Employer?

Writer’s warning: The following blog post may contain material that may be offensive to some readers. Reader discretion is advised.

Last week, I wrote that most Staples stores would be closed Easter Sunday. I never heard from any of my former colleagues or from any other Staples employee so I assumed that Staples in Maine was closed.

To find out for myself, I decided to call the local store that I used to work at. The phone message didn’t say that the store was closed and when I went to get transferred all I got was “all associates are with other customers”. I stayed on the line for about 3 minutes and assumed that the store was closed and someone didn’t fix the phone to say the store would be closed.

I would really hate to have been a real customer who thought the store was really busy and decided to go the store to go shopping for the day. Even if the store was really open, I would probably be part of very small minority of Caucasian people in the store.

In other words, the store would probably be filled with non-Christian customers.

Now, I know that I am opening a real can of worms here by saying that, but seriously any Christian person would probably spend the day with their family as opposed to going shopping. Even the big box stores like Target know better than to being open on one of the biggest religious holidays of the year.

As I pointed out in my last post, I was forced to use a personal day to offset the lost Sunday. I believe that this certainly violates not only freedom of religion rights but also their status as an equal opportunity employer.

Even if the company asked even one employee or if a Christian employee volunteered to work on Easter Sunday, it would be a true violation of the above mentioned rights.

So why would the company want to be open during a Christian holiday?

My thought points to the fact that 3 of the top people at Staples are non-Christian people (or at least that is what their names points). The most prominent one is Demos Pameros, President of the U.S. Staples stores. While I could not find an origin of this last name, my thought is that it is close to a Muslim based name. Again, this is an assumption which may or may not be true.

However, my point is that if Mr. Pameros is of non-Christian faith, it would not surprise me in the least to want to have stores open on one of the most religious holidays of the Christian calendar. His belief is probably that there would be enough non-Christian people out there to make it practical to be open.

Unfortunately, there is a big problem with this philosophy.

They need employees to work Easter/

I don’t believe that Staples have enough non-Christian employees to allow all Christian employees to have had the day off. Therefore, Staples violates freedom of religion and also is violating their “equal opportunity employer” status.

When I worked at Staples, the most number of employees that I believe that were non-Christian was 4. This is certainly not enough to cover all the hours on Easter even if they were still employed with the company. I don’t think that there is any store in the company that has enough non-Christian employees to even be open for even 1 hour much less a full day.

So why does Staples enjoy violating people’s rights?

The simple answer is that they lie.

Are you surprised about that?

How about discriminate as well?

Yes, they do that to as I am the perfect example of that.

Briefly put, when I became disabled during my final year at the company, I was constantly harassed by the management as to when I would be able to stop using a stool that was allowed by my doctor. In fact, my doctor was harassed by having to fill out what seemed to be endless paperwork stating my disability. In the end, I was terminated because of my disability whether Staples believes that or not. I will have much more to say about that in future posts.

So if Staples can discriminate to me because of a disability and can make employees work on a religious holiday are they really an “Equal Opportunity Employer” or as what I have been writing about in this blog as a bunch of liars?

I will leave that for you, the reader to decide. I already know my answer.

Easter and Ink

First off, let me say “Happy Easter” to all of you readers out there.

Now for the bad news: most of the Staples stores will be open on Easter Sunday with limited hours of 12noon to 5pm. On average, this is about 4 hours shorter than a normal Sunday.

The keyword here is “most” as I believe that the stores here in Maine will NOT be open as the state has a form of blue laws that would prevent it from opening on that holiday. I may be wrong about that, but I expect to hear from one of my local friends to correct me on that if this is true or not.

My point to all of this is that I believe that this year is the first year that they have tried being open on the holiday. I feel that this is a huge mistake for both religious and non-religious people alike.

When I was employed with the company, they were insistent that I either work one of my regular days off or else I would have to use one of my personal days so that I would maintain my fulltime status. The management would not allow me to just lose the time because I normally worked every Sunday and I preferred to keep my normal days off intact.

Certainly this would be great for me now if I was still employed with the company, but I feel sorry for those who don’t want or for religious reasons refuse to work on that day. I wonder how many employees will be forced that day against their beliefs. Given Staples past record of how to treat employees and how they celebrate the holidays, I bet there will be much friction between employees and managers, including threats of termination that were even used against me.

This is just more proof of a company that is desperate for business.

Speaking of desperation, the dreaded Ink & Toner Savings Pass is back.

The last time I wrote about this card last year, I garnished the most comments of any blog post I had ever written. Some of them were critical, some pointed to the same conflicting information, and a couple of people had decided to insult me.

So here are the details as I know them (from their most current flyer):

· The cost of the card is $20 this year up from the $15 of last year making it even less of a bargain than last year.

· All (yes ALL) brands of ink are included unlike last year that seemed to exclude HP inks, but was eventually included that brand.

· The discount is still 10%. However, that amount is actually less if you consider sales tax that reduces the actual discount offset. Here in Maine that means that the REAL discount is approximately 4.5%.

· The card is good through May 31, 2015.

Overall, this card is NOT a good deal at all especially since the card is now $20. This mean that you must buy at least $200 worth of ink (more if your state has a sales tax) before you break even. I believe that anytime you have to pay for a discount it is a bad deal no matter what.

My advice: stay away from this card.

However, this doesn’t mean that bargains can’t be found at other retailers.

For example, this week Target is offering 5% off HP multipacks on its cartwheel website. While this may not be a huge savings, you don’t need to spend $20 to get the discount. I highly recommend the cartwheel website as they always have specials ranging from 5% up to 50% off certain items every week. I have used the site many times to save quite a bit of money at Target.

At Best Buy, if you buy multiple cartridges at the same time, you can save as much as 15% off the entire purchase of cartridges. Again, no special card is necessary to get the savings, not even their rewards card. Most importantly, you don’t spend $20 unnecessarily.

Overall, better deals than Staples are out there. You just have to look for them.

And for those of you working on Easter, I expect that you will have a boring day since it is a family day.

Best Buy’s Stupid Check Policy

Last week, I had a very strange experience while shopping at the local Best Buy stores.

The elderly lady customer in front of me was writing out a check as would many customers in any store.

What surprised me was exactly how this check was being processed by the cashier.

He first put the check in facedown and the check was read by the register. He then did this a second time. Afterwards he turned the check to the reverse side and did it again twice more.

What the real surprise was that after all this scanning of the check; she was required to sign her name on the credit card pin pad. Now of course, if you are thinking like me, then this is raising a HUGE red flag!

Why in the world would anybody need to sign their name on an electronic device after they had signed their name on the check they just presented?

My thought is that Best Buy wishes to capture as much information about its customers in a transaction as possible whether legal or not.

When I got to have my transaction, I asked the cashier why the customer had to sign on the electronic pad when she signed her check. His response was that the check is electronically stored and that the signature was needed for processing the check.

Huh?!?

Since when is a double signature needed for any processing of any type of payment especially since credit card transactions under $50 require no signature at all?

It seems apparent to me that the cashier is completely clueless as far as how transactions are handled and given how Best Buy requires and stores personal information; it appears that this cashier falls in line with being the type of employee the company loves.

What really surprises me is that Best Buy’s privacy policy doesn’t guarantee that the personal information given is protected or that they will give it out to any third party that they wish to. To opt out of their stupid policy, you must either write an old fashioned letter to them or email them of your desires. I find these two approaches highly undesirable as neither gives the type of satisfaction of that gives immediate results.

I try not to make any transaction over $50 when I shop there (I always with a credit card). I try never to make a return as I wish not to give out my license to them. I also try to keep under the radar so that none of my personal information is tracked unlike what companies like Staples has done to me in the past.

What finally set me back at the end of the lady’s transaction was when she asked the cashier where Staples was located. When he couldn’t tell her, I almost felt like telling her, but I figured she already had her identity stolen once today, she didn’t need it stolen twice. And why in the world would I ever want to give Staples any business anymore anyway?

The Windows E-XP-losion

Writer’s Note: This week’s writing is being put into all my blogs as I feel it is important enough to be posted for all to read. Hopefully, you all agree with that.

We all survived the Y2K problem or so we hoped.

However, next week on April 8^th, a new threat is going to happen.

The threat is the end of support for Windows XP.

Now some of you are probably thinking that you haven’t used this operating system for years, but many of the things that we come in contact with everyday does.

If you go to your favorite store, chances are that their register system uses some form of it.

If you use an ATM, it probably has it as well.

If you go to a doctor, he/she probably uses it to keep track of your medical records or look up other information.

In other words, at some point, you will come in contact with a machine running WinXP.

So why is all this important?

The hackers are lining up to attack these systems because Microsoft is no longer releasing monthly security patches to this operating system. Nobody is safe.

Let me repeat that: NOBODY IS SAFE!

Of course, Microsoft offers solutions to the problem. You can upgrade your system to either Windows 7 or 8. That is if your system can handle it.

Case in point: I have a Windows XP machine that I use all the time which is hooked up to my network. However, my machine doesn’t anywhere near meet the system requirements of either Win 7 or 8. Of course, I have no intention on dumping my perfectly good machine just because Microsoft is ending its love for it.

Another alternative I have read is to install a form of Linux on the machine. If I don’t want any of my existing software to work again, this is a great suggestion. I would do this as much as I would perform open heart surgery on myself.

Finally, one could go out and buy themselves a new computer. This is almost as bad the previous suggestion as many older programs would not work under the new operating systems. I know this for a fact as I try to use some of my older programs on Win7 machine. No gratification for the amount of frustration, it is to port an older program to a newer OS.

So what about everyone else doing one of the things listed above to save themselves and others?

I don’t expect it to happen as any of these options would take years to implement. Yes, I said “years” as upgrading is not an option in most cases.

The biggest threat in all this is the protection of personal information. Any information that you give to anybody and they input into a computer is not safe whatsoever.

I know from firsthand experience that companies store your private information together. In other words, if you write a check at your local store and give them a driver’s license for it, the information about your check and driver’s license are stored on the store’s computers together. This is the perfect way of storage for a hacker to grab your identity.

As a victim of identity theft myself, I can attest to the fact that a company can and will let any information about you become freely available if they want.

And many of these companies will comply to hackers because they use outdated operating systems and unsecure connections.

So how can one save themselves from this nightmare?

Most importantly is to question why identification is needed for any reason like a return or a purchase. I recommend refusing giving this information out because most of the time it is not needed. If a person is determined for identification, ask them the following questions:

· How long is my information stored? Honestly, the answer should be “not at all”, but they would be lying if they said otherwise.

· Is my information encrypted? Again, they will lie and tell you it is, when most information is hardly ever encrypted.

· What information do you take from me? If they can’t detail what they take, just say no.

Overall, the end of Windows XP is less than a week away and nobody is safe.

Nobody at all.