I am trying to enter my credit card information so that my data plan can renew automatically every month but I keep getting an error message asking me to validate my billing address. No matter what I do, AT & T will not accept where I live. They have cut off my service and everyone I have spoken to over the past few days cannot help me. They cannot even take my information over the phone because this is a “self serve account”.
When I am in the supermarket with Seth, we like to go through the Self Check-Out line where we scan, bag and pay ourselves.
Sweet!
I think the idea is great but I wonder if the cashiers will become as scarce as toll booth collectors since the rise of EZ Pass. However, you will always need to have a person standing by to help you out when something doesn’t scan properly, or if the machine cannot read the barcode.
To help you out.
So, imagine my shock when AT & T shut off my data plan because they needed 72 hours to find somebody to resolve on the problem.
Somebody?
I thought “self serve” means that iPad users manage their own accounts. That’s why the very nice people answering the phones could not fix the problem. Then who is the somebody who is going to fix it?
“I cannot take your information over the phone but I would be glad to walk through the self serve process with you again.” said the pleasant but useless AT & T service person on the phone with me.
Are you kidding?
Where is the person that fixes self serve problems? They always have one at the ready in the supermarkets.
Why doesn’t AT & T?
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I told the kids we were going out and coming back late.
I can’t believe I let him talk me into doing this. A casual suggestion to do a little something different, something unplanned, un peurisque for a midweek date -I am intrigued and worried at the same time. After twenty five years of marriage, three kids and a second opinions for every doctor’s appointment, for me an act of risk is going outside with my hair wet so of course, I said OK. We were on vacation, what could be so bad?
G00d, I don’t want them to know what we’re doing.
Or throw a party.
Exactly.
The place we’re going to is known locally as the No Tell Motel and we knew a woman from the neighborhood who told us that was where she and her lover would meet and now, here we are. Just like everybody else looking for a few private hours and just like everything in life, there is a method to this madness, a protocol of private affairs.
What better place for two exhausted nonprofit professionals to add a little zip to a relationship, to reboot a romance or simply escape into a getaway experience than your local cash only motel? So, do you walk in together? Do you say hello if you recognize someone – now that would be interesting! Someone should really write a field guide for situations like this.
Where do people park? Right in front of the place across the street from Bella Frutta? What if all those moms waiting for their kids at Fazio’s Dance Studio look out the window? Oh my God, they might see me and then what?!!? They’ll think we’re sneaking around.
But we’re married and sneaking around. That’s acceptable.
Did he really just say that?
Until you get caught. Men… you are all alike.
So, you want to wait in the parking lot?
Yes!
Seth got out to register leaving me surrounded by other women in parked cars checking their looks in the mirror and putting on dark sunglasses. One by one they picked up their cellphones and got out of their cars pivoting on their stilettos and disappearing into the back door of the motel. I made up a little game trying to guess what the story was behind each tryst. “She’s his secretary, no – his best friend’s secretary and he probably told his wife he was at a golf outing. And that one is thinking how clever he is, never going for a friend of his wife or a wife of a friend. ” My observations were cut short by the ringing of my cellphone. The woman in the car next to me smiled knowingly. How dare she think I was a cliche, one of those Other Women Waiting In Cars? I am a married woman, an executive director, and clearly someone indignant about being noticed as, well, a woman waiting for a phone call. I glared back and suddenly realized by the ring on her finger that she was married too – and probably a non profit arts administrator. We could exchange business cards. I barked an angry hello into my phone.
Wait til you see the room! It’s got this huge Jacuzzi and mirrors everywhere.
I asked the guy if you need to make reservations, he just smiled and said no. Its mostly a walk – in, short stays, bring your own champagne and cash kind of business.
You brought champagne?
Just a little something to relax us before I turn into a love machine, my darling.
Suddenly, Seth’s voice became a large growly sort of rumble. It slowly grew into a low roar.
I could not catch a single word he was saying.
What’s going on? Are you OK?
Sorry, that was the ice machine.
I’m doomed.
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Almost every day I hear someone say, “I want to be my own boss.”
To start a dance company, open a chain of pastry shops, create a web business, make art and sell it.
After I watched this video by Fred Wilson on this very topic, I would like to offer the following thoughts for anyone who is considering striking out on their own and being their own boss.
Ask yourself:
What kind of place would you like to spend the next ten years of your life working in?
Who would you like spending time with – you, a partner, a small group, large company?
What kind of money do you need to make?
What lifestyle do you want to have?
He advises people to think carefully about these questions, then work backwards and plan accordingly. He describes ten examples of being your own boss so that you can compare notes with yourself to see which of those suits your particular set of goals.
I would add another question to the list above:
How can you create a better world?
It seems to me that any endeavor with that question running through its DNA is destined to rally community, and customers.
Enjoy the video.
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It is up to me to look out for dolphins and whales and, to document their frolicking on my camera phone. And all this at 5:30 am.
When I tell people about this, it is not the animals that seizes their imaginations. It is that I am up at 5:30 am.
I do things. I run on the beach at this hour because it is that magical time when you are suspended between a morning moon and a rising sun. Simple.
I read a post by Chris Brogan about doing things that sums up how I feel about my morning run. Here’s the part I like:
“We are either doing, or we’re talking about it.
Three Phases of Doing
There are probably a gazillion ways to skin how one considers the steps of execution, but I’m going to give you a rather simplistic one that Julien Smith and I talked about the other day, in preparation for the new book we’re writing together. In our model, we think there are three stages to doing:
Experimenting – which is often done in private.
Executing – which is the doing part.
Extending – building a community around the effort.
Companies do this. They have R&D departments. They then bring a product to market. If the product takes off, a community of sorts forms (if they’re lucky). That last step isn’t a guarantee, but it’s a lovely thing when it happens.
When you experiment, do it privately, if that helps. I’ve helped some companies get started with blogging, but suggesting they blog way off topic, without any name brands, so that they can get the feel for what blogging really is and isn’t. That’s experimenting for them, so that they can get comfortable. We all experiment around our kitchen tables, don’t we?
When you execute, that’s how you know it works or not. I’ve talked about this in the difference between recipe and restaurant. If you’re just collecting ideas but not testing them out, all you have are recipes.”
I like executing, doing stuff, running. It makes me feel good. And I want to extend and build a community around my efforts. You may be a creative entrepreneur with a desire to launch a business, an emerging leader who wants to start a nonprofit to make the world a better place, a baker who wants to market a new line of pastries. In this particular moment, my community is my friend Andrea who runs with me, a school of dolphins and a whale, and all of you.
Why does the sight of these creatures inspire me?
In a way, I am in awe of the bigness of it all. The ocean that is there every morning, eternal yet ever changing. My toeprints in the sand that I leave running towards Breezy Point that greet me on my return remind me that what we do in a day is washed away with the tides. That I should run with every sunrise towards the best day of my life which will be waiting for me on the beach under a fading moon.
Are you talking about something that you should be doing? Just do it.
Here’s a sunrise for you.
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I was being interviewed for a cable show by an extremely attractive woman who managed to capture a sound byte from everyone she wanted at a crowded press conference.
“You are really good.” I said, very impressed by how she worked the room.
“Handling people? This is easy compared to the job I retired from.” She tossed her head and laughed, “When I was a police officer, I was always packing and people always listened to me if they knew what was good for them.”
Retired? Police officer? Packing? OK, now she had my complete attention. She was dressed in a classy dark suit with a string of pearls in the most un-law enforcement style.
“I still pack a gun to get people to listen to me, I just wear it better if you know what I mean.” She grinned and winked as she moved in on her next unsuspecting interviewee. “People love to be listened to so that’s what I really do. I listen to them and boom! – they fall in love with me and then they listen to everything I tell them. Happens all the time.”
Roz happens to be right. Give someone your total attention, no cellphone, no alerts, no interruptions and see how quickly that person will open up and spill their life story. Someone who cares enough to listen and focus solely on you is someone you can fall in love with and bare your soul to. Imagine!
People are natural storytellers. They are not as interested in being told what to do, or what’s best for them. Much better to ask a question and just listen carefully to where the answer goes. That is what most of us humans like doing – telling stories about ourselves to anyone who will listen.
And for all of you smart listeners, here’s one of my favorite quotes from Agatha Christie:
“Conversation reveals all.”
Now how sexy is that?
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I am a momspy, artspy and nonprofit knitter. Hi! Welcome to hoongyee.com, my blog where you will find style notes for people who change the world. read more>
photo by Neato Coolville
