Once Again Off Not by Choice

Unfortunately it happened yet again. I took an unexpected week off. This time I put the blame on a couple different things that happened. The big thing that happened was that my internet connection was interrupted because after receiving a postcard from Time Warner Cable stating that I would have to pay a $3.95 rental charge for my modem effective on the first of November, I decided to go out and purchase my own modem to avoid such charges. This was the smartest move I ever made since the modem I purchased is actually faster than the modem that it replaced. I highly recommend that anybody who has TWC Internet service get their own modem and chances are that the speed will improve for you as well.

The second problem was that the service that I received from TWC has suffered severely in the last week or so as the signal to my neighborhood has been going on and off. Sadly, the only thing that the automated phone line says “we are working on the problem no need to let us know of the problem”. How long does it take to fix a service problem anyway? It has been nearly 3 weeks with this same message.

Finally, third and most importantly, Microsoft released a couple of updates for Windows 7 that created havoc on my primary computer, which made the machine want to boot endlessly and wanted to update itself with the same updates over and over again. Apparently, Microsoft knew this was an issue and released a fix for it, but a new bug update has appeared with the release of Windows 8 to make older operating systems able to communicate with machines with the new Windows.

Overall, it seems that TWC and Microsoft hate me by adding new fees and updates that don’t work. Hopefully, I will be back with a new post either tomorrow or next week, depending on what other weird things happen next. Let’s cross our fingers and hope for the best.

Polls and Statistics - Twins of Evil Data Collecting

It seems as though every five minutes some group releases a new political poll in recent weeks. It has gone so bad that as many as a dozen or more different polls are released every day.

In each poll, one person is sometimes substantially ahead of their opponent and in another poll, the numbers favor the other person.

Of course every poll is skewed toward the group that produces the poll. For example, if a Democrat group takes a poll a Democratic candidate gets the better percentage. This is not by accident. It is done to purposely make people think that their candidate is the better person.

It is the number of people who are polled that is the important part of any poll. This sample size has to be large enough to represent the group it is supposed to represent, but not so large as to alter the results. This margin of error should be small enough to make the poll truthful and not favoring any particular result.

So at this point, you may be asking how does this relate to Staples?

Its simple. Staples used all of the customers to determine the amount of rewards cards that employee takes in during their shift. As the day goes on, the lower the percentage becomes. Early in the day and the percentage of customers with cards is high, at night customers rarely had the rewards cards.

So if Staples only took a random sample throughout the day of rewards cards, the numbers would be much more realistic as far as percentage of customers who actually had the cards. But like a crooked poll, Staples believes in the “poll everything” approach, which unfortunately gives an unfair advantage to those who worked later in the day like myself.

As we get closer to Election Day, everybody should pay close attention to the number of people polled and who does the polling. Chances are that the poll is as crooked as the group performing the polling. Just like Staples does everyday with every employee.

When Store Policy and Morals Clash

A little over a week ago, I got a post in my Facebook newsfeed that caught my interest.  The posting dealt with a customer at Walmart who was short of funds and the cashier used her own personal charge card to pay the roughly $8 remaining balance for the customer.

What was so interesting about this post is that many people said “God Bless” this employee or “Kudos to the employee”.  However, there were people like me who were realists that stated that the employee would get fired immediately for her actions.  Ironically, it was only a small handful of people, including myself, who threw the gasoline on this good deed.

But as they say, “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished”.  This must have been stated by a head of a retail company because many times moral values clash with store policy.  Most stores have the policy that employees cannot carry any money or charge cards on the sales floor.  If they did they would be reprimanded accordingly including up to termination.

However, over my 20+ years in retail, I saw this sort of thing happen 3 times.  There were some major similarities in all 3 instances:

• All 3 were done by females.
• All 3 were in some sort of management position.
• All 3 regretted their decision after performing the action even going as far as saying “Don’t ever do what I just did”.

Ironically, 2 of these were done at Staples and those women were more nervous than the one who performed the action at Woolworth.  Maybe its because Staples has no morals and doesn’t care about the customer.

What this brings me to is that over the nearly 13 years I worked at Staples, I performed several things that I felt were morally justified even though they went against Staples store policy.  I always believe that if something is in the best interest of oneself or a customer then it should be done.  Simply put, store policies should be a guideline, but common sense and good judgment (and good morals) should triumph in every case no exceptions ever.

Lewiston Mayor Gets It Right

It would almost seem that Lewiston Maine mayor Robert Macdonald is cut from the same cloth as the state's governor.  His recent remarks regarding Somalian people might be harsh, but I believe that they are truly justified.  It's bad to think that somebody though would actually say it publicly.  I believe that a lot of people probably feel the same way.

Let's face the reality.  We didn't invite these people into our country nor did we force them to come here.  This state along with other states got screwed into taking these people whether they like it or not.  The mayor is probably angry at the fact that these people are taking many city resources without giving anything back to the community.  It costs money to educate their children and to make matters worse to teach these people English as a second language.  Many probably don't care to learn the language and wish to rely on translators instead.  Again, this is an abuse to the system.

I remember going to the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) a couple of years ago to try to get on the MaineCare system.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get on because I had no kids and they were no longer accepting any new people to the program.  Unless of course you consider that the majority of the people there in the lobby were foreigners who didn't speak English and wish to get on some sort of state aid.  Why should they get onto a program when they have never worked in this country when somebody like me who needed it couldn't get it?  Certainly our system is messed up and the Lewiston mayor is probably fed up with them.  I feel that what he said was certainly not out of place nor do I feel it was wrong.  If these people are offended, I say too bad.

Consider also that if we went to visit their country, women would be required to where their garbs and dress accordingly.  Why they can't comply to our customs is beyond me?  After all, it is a two-way street.  Unfortunately, these people are all take and no give.  

Feel angry is you ever felt like you lost a job to one of them -- guaranteed it will happen if it hasn't happened already.  The U.S. needs to get serious on immigration reform and stop the flow of people into this country.  This is causing more problems than any other problem in our economy.  Why is nobody addressing this problem?  Are they afraid of offending anybody..certainly the Lewiston mayor wasn't at all?  Kudos to him...this country needs more people like that in politics.

First Sprint Now Verizon–Another Identity Theft

I don’t own a cellphone.  However, given all the problems I have had with cellphone companies, I never plan to either.

I mentioned a few months ago that Sprint was sending me bills through my Gmail account for somebody else’s cellphone account.  After several months, I finally got this straightened out and am no longer getting billed from them.

Now, this week, through this same Gmail account, I started receiving notices of cellphone charges from Verizon.  After going through nearly a week of emailing back and forth with them, they finally said that they will be “taking care of the situation”.  Of course, I will believe that when I stop getting emails from them. 

It seems that somebody has been using my Gmail account as their point of reference to send their e-bills to just so they think they wouldn’t be responsible for the bill.  What’s worse is that in both of these cases, identity theft is prominent.  Yet, the biggest problem is that there is NO WAY to contact Google to let them know that this is happening.  I eventually did send an email to Google about my email problem and got back the canned response that sometimes accounts that have periods in them confuse accounts and thus route email incorrectly.  This wasn’t even what I was asking!  Of course that was over 6 months ago and I never heard from them again over this form of identity theft.

As I mentioned in a previous post awhile ago, Staples also used my email account (a different account,though) linking it to a credit card purchase that my mother made in one of their stores last year during the holiday season.  Unfortunately, after contacting the Better Business Bureau (a waste of time, by the way), Staples WOULD DO NOTHING even though they were guilty of identity theft.  Of course, Staples is king of the lying and identity theft.  Thankfully, other companies are a little bit better than they are when identity theft is called into question.  Sadly Staples will never learn.

New Home Up and Running..

This is a great day for those who follow this blog…my new site is up and running.

For those familiar with my other WordPress site, the layout is exactly the same.  The reason for this is that I wish to have consistency between my blogs.  I will mirror entries to this site as long as it remains feasible, but I expect it to be phased out eventually.  However, I have no timetable as to when it will end.  Until then enjoy the new site.

The link to the new site is louisbrowntruths.wordpress.com.

You may also notice that the title has changed slightly as to reflect the new site.

Important Change–Move/Expansion to new site

Within the next week, this blog will be expanding/moving to a new home.  The new home will be with Wordpress.  The biggest reason why is that this site just has not had any comments since it started over a year ago.  I feel that moving the blog to Wordpress will allow for a much larger audience and will spread the messages that I want to tell. 

I have yet to decide if this site will continue on or just be discontinued completely.  My thought was to mirror the two sites while feasible then at some point ending this blog site.  This is not in the immediate future however.

My disappoint with Blogger is compounded by the fact that the current version of Windows Live Writer has been not as cooperative as I would like it to be.  It is still a better editor than many of them out there and most importantly it is FREE.  Until I find a free alternative to WLW, I will continue to use it to post to this site.

Again, my plans are not to shut down this site for now but mirror it until further notice.  I will be giving the URL as soon as I get it active.

Let me remind everybody that comments are always welcome and hopefully the change will reach a much larger audience.  I feel it is the best for everyone.

Q & A

I love the site where it is.  Why the change?

People.  I want more people to read the blog and I feel it is the right move.

What happens to the old posts?

I will be moving the old posts to the new site possibly, but this site will remain an archive for all the old posts.

What will the new layout look like?

If you have read my other Wordpress blog, then the layout will look familiar.  They both will use the same layout to standardize my approach to blogs.  I was never really happy with the Blogger layout, but it was the best from what there was to choose from.

Can I comment on this change before it goes into effect?

Yes.  The comment period starts now and will continue through the end of September.  However, the new site will be active before the end of the month.  Comments will be in consideration of whether to continue the site here or mirror the two sites.

Why such short notice of this change?  Shouldn’t it have been a longer period of time?

I have been giving this a lot thought for a long time and with the overwhelming success of my other blog, it was a no-brainer decision.  I wanted to implement the change as soon as possible.

Can I still follow like I did on Blogger?

Most definitely as I expect even more followers within a few months.

Can I become an author of your blog as I have a lot to say as well?

Just send me an email at the address on the right side or send me a message on Facebook and we can discuss it.  I am always open for the input of others on retail topics.

Will there be more frequent updates?

My plan for this blog and my other blog is to write at least one post per week sometimes more depending on what comes to mind.  Hopefully, I will get that one per week at least accomplished, but things do happen which may delay some postings.

Can I use any information I get from your blogs for my own use?

I do not limit the use of information of my blogs.  All I ask is that if you use the information give me the respect to credit me to the information used.  However, information that I use from others will be used anonymously as to protect the identities of their providers.

Can I cry now?

Go ahead and do it.  Its going to be a rough road ahead for years to come.