Chase Mastercard has HORRIBLE customer service. I recommend you dump your cards.

That was for the Google alerts summary line, in case you were wondering. The real rant starts here.

Yesterday morning, Kris managed to get up early with me to pick up my car from the mechanics, then head off to Velocity to work out. I came back home to work and, unfortunately, to answer the phone which began ringing every 10 minutes after I arrived home. I made the mistake of answering the phone, I admit, because the only people who have our home number and use it are telemarketers, Jessica and Andy. Both Jessica and Andy know to call our cell phones if we don't pick up the house line, so we haven't missed calls from them yet (that we know of anyway).

So, each time I answered the phone yesterday, Chase Mastercard was calling. They wanted to speak to Kris. I told them he wasn't home, call back after 7. Didn't help. They called back about every 15 minutes for the first half of the day.

I should have disconnected the phone.

This morning, the calls started at 7:45 am.

In a house where we don't get up until 9:30 am, or are gone by 8:00 am for class.

I answered the first one, and hung up on the guy.

I answered the second one at 8:05 am, and told him to call back after 10.

I answered the third call at 8:20 am and told the caller I was Kris. Hell, why not? I'd like to know what the hell this call was about, because the previous callers refused to talk to me, it HAD to be Kris, despite the fact my name is on the card, too.

Well, there was the fact of this minimum payment due on the card.

On a card with the payment ONE DAY LATE.

ONE FUCKING DAY LATE.

The payment was in the mail, having been processed by the bank, and the funds already deducted from our account.

I hung up on the guy.

I answered the fourth call at 8:45 am. Kris had given up and gotten up out of bed. He was eating breakfast by this point. I told the woman on the line that they better stop fucking calling. Yes, I cursed at her, I was angry then and I'm angry now, as it was still before 10 am, as I requested them not to call before with the previous call.

I hung up on her and unplugged the phone, which is what I should have done in the first place. Phones are there for the receiver's convenience, and not the caller's convenience, a fact which is very easy to forget in these always-connected times.

What really gets me about this whole thing is that Kris and I (well, me, as I pay the bills, he just signs the checks) overpay our bills 80% of the time. Oh, the credit card bill is $400? Oh, I know I made another purchase on it, I'll pay $450 to cover that one, too. I do that most of the time, so our bills are almost always partially prepaid. Kris is annoyed by this habit of mine.

I let one bill slip, on the other hand, one fucking bill with FUCKING CHASE MASTERCARD (which sucks), and pay it ONE FUCKING DAY LATE (thank you, weekend, I did enjoy you, really, not that you can tell at this moment), and you get calls at 7 fucking 45 in the morning.

Chase Mastercard, you are fucking assholes.

I'll be cancelling these cards as soon as I can convince Kris just how much of a worthless piece of shit these cards are.

So, here I am, going along, reading a few articles while my brain tries to wrap itself around another difficult problem. It seems as if my last three months of work have all been particularly difficult problems, when, in fact, they've been exposure to areas I have neither expertise nor, in some cases, even experience. I've learned a lot, but, gosh, has it been slow, frustrating going to get here.

One of the articles I happened to read was this one, from OnStartups.com: Why Raising VC Funding does not equal success. What caught my attention was not the whoo $17 million raised for this company. Instead, what caught my attention was this paragraph:

Now that this milestone has passed, it is time to get back to (real) work. For me, that means increasing TDC (Total Delighted Customers). Right now, TC (Total Customers) = 401 and I'm not foolish enough to believe that TDC = TC.

401 customers.

401.

Four hundred and one customers.

Four hundred and one customers and seventeen million dollars in venture funding capital.

Oooohhhhhhkaaaaaaay.

So, what are the prices that 401 customers warrant $17,000,000 in funding, recalling that the investors are expecting at least $34,000,000 back out?

401 * 3000 = $1,203,000 minimum.

So, round this way and that way, and there's about a 20:1 investment to current year income ratio.

Yeah, my scale is way off, because that is so way not the numbers I would have expected. I wouldn't have expected either that pricing for the product (inexperience on my part contributes to that statement), or that amount of funding available for the product (ditto on the reason).

Off, like it is in just about everything these days.

Why is that?

Not much of a workout: done in less than 20 minutes today.

7 x 20m
5 x 40m
3 x 50m
3 x 90m

Sound familiar?

Just because Paul won't blog about how he can channel my anger and annoyance to do good, doesn't mean I won't.

Hey Kitt,

I saw your blog post about the "private event" at baylands. It also
pissed me off so I wrote to sunnyvale parks about the experience and
this is what they said. Thought you might be interested, but feel free
to ignore this :). My original email is at the bottom.

Paul

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nancy Steward
Date: Tue, May 13, 2008 at 6:19 PM
Subject: Re: Sunnyvale Baylands
To: Paul Youn

Hello Paul,

I am glad to know that you have had the opportunity to enjoy Baylands
Park and I am sorry that your most recent experience there was
frustrating. You are correct in suggesting that there was a
misunderstanding. While we do issue exclusive use permits for the
picnic areas, we do not allow groups to rent out the entire park at
any time, nor to we allow private groups to charge the public an
admission fee to enter the park. Unfortunately, the public safety
officer you spoke with was misinformed.

I appreciate you taking the time to let me know about your experience.
I can assure you that I will be following up with our public safety
department and the rental group as appropriate.

In the meantime, thank you again for contacting us about your
experience. I hope that you will continue to enjoy Baylands Park in
the future.

Best wishes,
Nancy Steward

Nancy Bolgard Steward
Superintendent of Recreation
City of Sunnyvale
Office: (408) 730-7342
Fax: (408) 730-7754
www.ci.sunnyvale.ca.us/recreation

Creating community through people, parks and programs.

>>> On 5/12/2008 at 9:14 PM, "Paul Youn" wrote:

Hello Nancy,

I received your voice mail. First of all, thanks for taking the time
to get in touch with me. The reason I'm contacting you is that I have
enjoyed the Sunnyvale Baylands park for many years, and was a little
saddened to have a frustrating experience there. It isn't the end of
the world, and it could very well be a misunderstanding. Regardless,
I'd appreciate any help to avoid such a situation in the future, which
could be as simple as telling me how I can determine if someone has
rented out the entire park on a particular day.

The experience started when I arrived at the park around 2 pm. I
parked near by and walked in next to the vehicle entrance with my
friend. At this point, I was stopped by a man who insisted that we
pay an entry fee. I asked why, and he explained that his group (I
believe West Coast Cars) had rented out the entire park. I resisted at
first because to my knowledge, the park is a public resource. Although
I should support the park by paying for parking (and often do) I
didn't think it was a requirement. However, a police officer who was
also there confirmed that they had rented the entire park for the day.
So, I retrieved my car, entered, and paid the $5. I'd be very
interested if this money made it to support the park, or if it went to
the group.

This in itself wasn't so bad, though I was a bit put off by the fact
that it looked like a private group was turning the public park into a
business on mothers day. On my way in, not only did I see people
littering, but my frustration mounted when I realized that cars had
parked along the fire lanes, reducing the traffic to one lane in the
parking lot. The cars were on display. In addition, cars would slowly
take the only lane of traffic, stopping frequently to talk to friends
while cars were stuck behind them. This repeated when we tried to exit
the park, which took somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes.

However, this all seemed legitimate because there were several police
officers at the park who weren't so much as asking them to "move it
along". At the same time, I know it isn't really the police's job to
make sure I'm not stuck in traffic...

Anyway, like I said, my frustration may just stem from my own
ignorance of the situation. Which is why I'd love to hear more about
park policies!

Thanks for taking the time to read this,

Paul Youn