My Fabulous Facebook Birthday

I have always loved my birthday. What’s not to love? As a Halloween baby, I spent my birthdays opening presents (oooh), dressing up in costumes (yeah!) eating pumpkin-shaped birthday cakes and, as if that wasn’t enough fun, heading out for massive candy donations from every door I could get to.

Really, as a kid AND the Queen of the Sweet Tooth, what could be better?

Fortunately, as I so intently live the motto “You’re only young once, but can be immature indefinitely” not a lot has changed.

I still get presents and eat more than my fill of birthday cake. And, while I don’t dress up any differently than whatever I scratch together any other day, I still get plenty of candy. Some by overbuying for the anticipated trick-or-treaters, and some given to me by friends and family who know that the way to my heart is through a bag of Baby Ruths, or Butterfingers, or Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups or M&M’s or… well, you get the idea.

But this year I got something more. On top of cakes and the candy and the presents. This year I got a gianormous virtual hug from my facebook friends. And it was spectacular.

In years past, I’ve gotten cards, phone calls, visits and email flooding me with appreciation for the people who color my life and make it so satisfying. But this year, the first as a member of the ever-expanding facebook community, I logged on birthday morning to find my page covered with wishes, greetings, virtual gifts and even a link to the singing Corgis on YouTube.

Of course, facebook makes it so easy to know who’s birthday is coming up (look, the list is over there in the right column) and all you have to do, really, is click and type and you’ve met the birthday obligation. But that doesn’t minimize the impact of a page covered with Birthday messages. And in spite of the ease and seemingly mindless act of sending off a greeting, I’m learning that sending feels almost as good as being on the receiving page.

Assuming that most of your ‘friends’ are actually people that you know in one way or another, in taking the moment to construct the message, you’re focusing on them, who they are and their place in your life. And in that moment of connection and recollection, you also experience a wave of gratitude and that warm, fuzzy feeling triggered by a memory with meaning. So as you’re typing “Happy Birthday”, it is less of a pat greeting than of a wish from your heart.

That’s what it’s like for me. I’m grateful that facebook gives me that little nudge to take a minute to reconnect and share a tiny slice of that emotion. And as I read through the birthday greetings posted by my facebook friends, I see them as more than a couple of keystrokes triggered by a computer reminder. I feel them as a virtual hug transmitted not so much via broadband but through our emotional connection.

So to all my facebook friends, thank you. And you should know that you got your wish. Your posts, and a bag of Baby Ruths, made it a very happy birthday.

Now if I could just figure out how to share all this leftover candy...

Welcome to Voicemail Hell. Satan will be with you shortly.

Voicemail. Sometimes I get paid to do it and sometimes I feel I’m paying with my soul to use it. I should be a bigger fan of the technology, given that it has supplied me, and many of my fellow voiceover artists, with a lot of work. But truth be told, I can’t stand it.

I like speaking with a real person and doing business with companies that have some of those real people answering the phones. If your business is too big, or you just can’t afford to pay someone to man (or woman) the phones, I beg you, at least keep it simple.

Aside from the time it takes to sit through a long greeting and sort through a longer menu, if you’re calling with a problem you’re usually feeling a little impatient to start. So you know how it feels when you get this:

Thank you for calling our great big company. (insert a few words or lines defining just how great said business is, here) In an effort to serve you better, please make your selection from the following menu:
If you’re calling about this, press or say; that
If you’re calling about that, press or say; this
If you’re calling about something else, try another button.
If you’re calling about whatever, well then you can press another button.
If you have haven’t heard anything that relates to what you’re calling about, press this or that or another one.
If you still haven’t figured out what button to press, please press 0 to repeat this menu. Cause that’ll help.

If you do use voicemail, keep the greeting and menu options short. And if you really want to make your callers happy, give them the option to speak to a person right away. (Kudos to Delta Airlines who recently added that choice to their initial menu of options)

Even more maddening is the multiple answer quiz by corporations who give you the distinct impression they really don’t want to serve you at all. Companies like Verizon, a phone company that ironically doesn’t answer their own phones. The message begins with the same open; company name, brief plug, salute to the ever important customer (that would be you). Only now you’ve really got to be paying attention because this is a test and one wrong answer will send you back to the start of the game.

Are you calling about flight times/international service/seat assignments… home/business/internet service? Rounds two and three further narrow down the reason for your call. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth round, you’re asked to speak or enter your account or phone number so that we ‘pull up your records to serve you better”. Whew… batting 1000, you’ve passed and are now told you’ll be put through to the next available representative.

But you’ve only passed the multiple choice portion. Now they’re going to test your endurance. “Your hold time is approximately… TWENTY-TWO… minutes.”

Voicemail breakthrough tip number one: Don’t hang up. Figure everyone else is hanging up. They’re either making up the number to clear the lines or the hold time is actually twenty-two minutes or more. If they’re just trying to scare off calls, you should be on with a real person within three minutes… Once you’ve gone beyond three… well, hopefully you have a speakerphone and a good book.

I rarely ever make it to the end of the menu. Somewhere between the warm greeting and the folksy suggestion that I should listen to the entire list before making my selection, I’m alternately hitting “0” and screaming “AGENT! AGENT! AGENT!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you. Let’s start over. Are you calling about a business or home account? For business, press one…”

I’ll let you in on a secret. I’ve discovered that if you scream an obscenity or even shout the name of your dog or just make a really loud noise, some systems will immediately transfer you to a live person. I guess some companies have learned it’s not good to push the limits of their customers.

There’s also an excellent website www.GetHuman.com that has a list of how to bypass voicemail systems and get right to a real live person. The more trickstery companies have opted not to use “0” because that would make it too easy to reach their representatives.

Here’s another secret. If nothing else works and the menu offers a chance to enter ‘your party’s extension’, just starting trying random numbers that might potentially be extensions. And if you can’t crack the extension code, do a google search for press releases/media relations for that company. At the very least, you may find an inside number and get you on the phone with someone who just might care that you’re having a problem.

But short of cracking codes, following links and having your patience and articulation skills challenged, shouldn’t we just be able to speak to a company we’re doing business with, without having to pass a test?

If you have a dog named Rosie, press or say one.
If you had a hot dog yesterday and then were immediately sorry, press or say two.
If you’ve unlocked the secret of the pyramids, please press or say three.
If you’re sitting at your desk right now, banging your head against the keyboard so that they’re making little square impressions on your forehead that all your co-workers will laugh at later, press or say four.
Or hang up and dial the number of a company who cares.
Good bye.

You have a CAR in your garage????

In response to Nancy and her moving diatribe about her overstuffed garage (http://www.nanpatience.com/?p=625), I have this to say:

Nan! I hear ya, sister.

It's a fight to get the garage door open wide enough to fling something more on top of the pile.

But that is today. Tomorrow at this time there will be floor space and no more piles (or at least smaller ones) because tomorrow I. Am. Having. A. Yard. Sale.

I will try to convince the passersby to stop and the stoppers to load up their wagons, SUVS or bicycle baskets with the stuff I just had to have (that little espresso maker is going, mark my words) but can no longer justify the space they take up in my house.

I long for order, for less to dust, for fewer THINGS, but then I stop in Homegoods or TJMaxx and -would-ya-look-at-that? Isn't it just darling?? Something I must bring home... which will someday find its way to a future yard sale.

And thanks to your inspiration, I'm going to take before and after photos of the garage, the front porch and even here in my little office... where the piles of bags and boxes are spending their last night with me.

I hope.