Life Lessons from a Bad V-Day flowers order

Over the last week, yours truly has experienced a most aggravation-filled situation regarding the a flower order with a reputable flower company in time for Valentine's Day that after much work and determination upon my part, resulted in some positive resolution.

The purpose of this post isn't a hit piece on one carrier of flowers vs another.

From the hundreds upon hundreds of negative feedback responses upon the Facebook pages of FTD, ProFlowers, Teleflora and 800-Flowers, all of them deserve most horrible grades for efficiency, keeping delivery promises, inaccuracies of their orders and overall poor phone customer service.

Instead I want to demonstrate from my ordeal, a couple life lessons that you can take with you and use in your everyday life if situations like this arise.

So a short summary of my ordeal:

On Saturday February 9th, I placed a couple orders (I'm witholding the company name because as I said before, all of them are terrible and I am not trying to make one seem worse) for flowers to be delivered on Feb 13th, the day before Valentine's Day.

One order -- a decorative flower arrangement representing a drink called a Cosmopolitan was to be delivered to my Mother in a different state i.e. florist from mine- it arrived on time and was perfect.

This is what hers looked like when delivered... lovely, isn't it...

The other order.. one for myself, was another flower arrangement representing a drink was called a Blue Hawaiian Margarita.  The pic below shows how the arrangement was supposed to look...

Yummy, right?

And while my order did arrive on time, it was not anything visually close to what the arrangement should have been.  Instead of a sapphire blue gel inside the acrylic glass, the local florist decided instead to fill with very dark green pebbles, making it look something more apropos for a cemetery.

The pic below shows what I received...

Take away the umbrella and it belongs on a headstone...

Now people make mistakes.. it happens.  And then what's usually supposed to happen next is you call customer service, get some kind of resolution then move forward to other things in your day..

What's not supposed to happen is constant calls over a 48 hour period because every person you speak with has broken english, can't understand you as you can't them, contradicts the previous person you spoke with and won't send any written confirmation to show changes or refund on that portion of the order.

I will not go into every one of the 9 calls I made over 2 full days to seek some level of comfort and resolution but just stick to the main points.

After receiving the arrangement at noonish, I called to express my dismay. The person I spoke to issued me a $20 credit on future order and said I would get the correct flowers that day.   It didn't come..  Called again.. next person promised it would arrive Thurs.   I called a little later because I wanted confirmation so I didn't waste a full day being home... That person said there was no order...

So after getting tired of the run around, I asked for a refund of the order.. it was granted (I think).  I asked for email receipt for my records..  Sure--right away...  Hours later.. nothing... Called again.. 'right away'... Nothing..  Again.. 'right away'.. nothing

After two full days I finally got some level of resolution this morning which I will explain how as part of the life lessons to take from this if things like this ever happen to you:

1)  Never give up- Especially on Yourself! --  It may be aggravating, time consuming and sometimes feel fruitless, but don't quit... don't ever quit.  It's your precious money that you spent for the product or service.  You have every right to expect it be in the condition and appearance you were shown via photograph before you ordered and every right to a refund.

It doesn't matter if its $50, $500 or $5, its all about what matters To YOU..And it certainly doesn't matter what anyone else thinks of you.. Bleep them!.. It's your money, and unless the person judging you is going to write you a check for the amount spent on the bad item to reimburse the loss, that person has no say in your decision to keep fighting.

2) Stay calm, even tempered & 'Detach' -- Some people give up.. its too much of a pain to keep trying..  Or the feel guilty or self conscious that they keep having to call.. Or get very angry and frustrated, and yell at the person on the phone resulting in being disconnected.

The key is to remain calm, professional and in a way detached as if you are calling to represent another in resolving an issue rather than you yourself the one affected.

The people you speak with on the phone-- they are limited in how they can help.  They are also detached themselves and couldn't care less.  They get paid $9/hr and many are working from home rather than a centralized office so there's no supervisor present to worry about if they simply hang up on you.

So the key is to not get emotionally caught up in the vocal tone of the person you're dealing with or the amount of time wasted thus far..  Just treat it like a job yourself... speak slowly.. calmly.. and in the back of your mind know that this will get resolved in your favor ultimately.

3)  Life's Road Blocks are merely Detours -- I tried getting resolution calling the customer service number...and after 9 attempts after two days, I realized this was getting me nowhere.  So instead, I looked up the company's corporate office on the internet and found a different phone number; one that was not published.

I called... spoke to someone within 30seconds (previously, my wait times on the main 800 number were 15-20min apiece)  She looked at everything... explained the refund would come and why it took so long for an email to be sent, etc..

By the time I was done, I felt good for the first time in days that some kind of resolution would be reached so I could move on to thinking on other things.

But let's say you call corporate office and get no resolution, what do you do-- what options are available?   The Better Business Bureau is one outlet though admittedly that's more to vent than anything else.  If its a local business, sometimes getting the media involved i.e. human interest story can embarrass the merchant into working with you..

Ultimately if paying by credit card, you can always file a dispute of charges, explaining your side and why you're requesting the refund.  The process may take a couple months so be patient.

Usually the credit card company will put a hold on that dollar amount meaning you don't have to repay until its resolved but I don't trust credit cards so I pay the amount and then when I win, I simply get reimbursed a credit. This prevents the card company from mistakenly charging me interest.

So in this situation, who is the Ant and who is the Grasshopper?

The Ant is the person who never quits until resolution or every avenue open to them is closed...and the Ant still does not give up.    The Grasshopper just shrugs, goes 'Oh well' and la di da continues the dancing and fiddling

Which would you be in this situation?

The Need for a Two-Tiered Minimum Wage

We at A&G didn't bother to watch President Obama's State of the Union last night..

It was nothing personal, just.. well, what is he going to say other than its 'good' or 'strong' or some other complimentary adjective.

And to the masses of people who get their news from Twitter, who see Dow 14,000 and a multitude of statistical card tricks being played about as 'recovery', how could the common throng of the clueless think any different.

One proposal the President did mention last night which we found addressed in a news article this morning and got our interest, involved possibly increasing the minimum wage from $7.25 where it is currently to $9/hr.

From AP:  "White House officials say the move is aimed at addressing poverty and helping low-income Americans.  But the proposal likely will be opposed by Republicans and business groups, which have traditionally said raising the minimum wage discourages companies from hiring low-skilled workers.

Mr. Obama's proposal would raise the minimum wage by 2015 in several stages. After that, there would be an annual increase pegged to inflation. "

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2011, 1.7 million workers earned exactly the prevailing Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.  This represents 2.5% of all those in the US work force...

The notion that companies will hire less and jobs will be killed as a result of minimum wage going up is not true.

No corporation is going to spite their nose to save their face --  If its profitable for a company to expand its workforce in order to manufacture, distribute or sell its products or services, it will do so and simply try to sneakily defray the costs to the consumer or receive larger tax breaks.

So what does it mean to have a legal minimum wage?

Bluntly it means this-- if corporations could, they would offer low skilled work positions at salaries that are fractions of what they pay out now... $5/hr.. $2/hr...  maybe $1/day like in 3rd world nations..

And you best believe it-- if allowed, the corporations could easily find a work pool of people who would happily accept less than minimum wage.

Examples include people with little to no education desperate for any legal income, those needing any first job to help them get experience for other jobs, people seeking a 2nd or 3rd job, the elderly or retired simply looking to alleviate boredom and salary is secondary, etc..

And from that, you essentially have a bidding war among the uneducated and unskilled to see how low a wage will they accept..  And the corporate fat cats overwhelmed with joy..

But whether Obama's proposal passes or not, its really just a skipping stone ripple among a much larger pond.  Any chance this nation has to survive as we all know it and remember it growing up, depends upon the middle class, and specifically those entering the work force to acquire middle-class level salaries.

What really should be occurring is a two-tier minimum wage.  One for unskilled ($9/hr) and one for skilled i.e. college educated ($15/hr i.e. $31,200/yr.

People can debate the practicalities and realities of such a plan being implemented, but considering the average degree acquiring college graduate leaves with over $30k in debt as he/she turns 21, that person needs at minimum a $15/hr job to repay the loans, live for the present have have even a couple dollars left over to save for a future.

Because if there's little to no chance of a college educated person making a sincere income to start out, what's the point of even attending college?   Wal Mart and Target will still hire you if you're a high-school graduate to stock their shelves...

We'll end this post with a personal experience.. One that we're sure many, many out there have dealt with at some point in their professional lives.

So many many moons ago, yours truly was at a job interview, and all was going smashingly..  The prospective employer liked what I had to say about his company, and he was impressed with my work ethic, prior experiences, attitude, etc...

But he noticed on the job application under salary demands, I left it blank.

He asked me about it.. what salary did I seek?  I explained it didn't matter what I sought.. What mattered was what he wished to pay since if he had in his mind $8/hr and I had $50/hr, guess who wins that argument?

So after some hemming and hawing on my part, I stated a salary demand.  Sarcastically, I said I would accept $1/hr.

~ Every employee's dream-- private time w their boss

He looked at me with annoyance and said something to the effect of  'Be serious..I can't pay you below minimum wage... Just tell me your salary demand'

I then said with a smile, "Yes but I'm sure you'd like to if you could".. I received a very small grin in return..

Then I stated the truth.. I wanted "X" per hour as my salary... The reply I received was.. "No sorry, that's a bit too much.. We pay "Y"

By this point I was quite irate and for better or worse my temper got the best of me.. I exclaimed 'Did you really need to be a bastard about this?  Couldn't you honestly say the salary was 'Y' per hour without the games??

Needless to say the interview ended instantly and with both of us feeling ill will toward the other..

But as you can tell, I certainly had no regrets calling the guy out then and absolutely none presently..

Corporations/companies are Evil.. they simply are.  If they could get away with hiring you for 5 cents an hour, 12hrs a day and with zero benefits they would happily do so and know they could find someone desperate if patient enough.

The only thing preventing them are laws making such actions illegal.

To save the American worker from continually collapsing salaries and a greater dependence upon debt i.e. credit cards to make up the difference, there needs to be a two-tiered Minimum Wage... for both the unskilled and college educated.