I <heart> Corporate America

We use Yahoo Messenger at work. A lot. Maybe even too much. But it allows a team of developers to be scattered around the country, if not the globe, and still keep in touch. It's also a huge distraction in meetings when half the people are paying more attention to their laptops and using YM for side conversations, but that's another story.

A lot of people use Yahoo avatars as the display image in the IM windows, but I chose to use a small graphic that I'd gotten from a friend, because I thought it was funny. This is it:




Yesterday in the midst of an IM discussion, I was told by a management type "you'll have to take down your avatar." (First clue he was management - he couldn't tell the difference beween an avatar and an image.) I didn't even bother to ask why, although I was sorely tempted to reply "WTF?"

I suppose a phrase that can be heard on broadcast TV is just too horrible to be seen in a corporate environment.

C'mooooon, Lotto numbers!

More follow-ups

First the good:

After getting yet another unrequested weekly ad from Tom Leonard's Farmers Market, I sent him an email saying "please stop spamming me." His initial response was rather petulant "I'm sorry you don't like me store." I wanted to drive over there and slap him around and tell him to stop whining, but instead I replied "Hey, I love your store. What I don't like is being asked for comments, having my comment ignored, and being placed on a bulk email list." We then got into a protracted email conversation and ended up with a peaceful resolution. We even (finally) discussed multiple-item pricing, and although it's not going away, and I still don't like it, at least the topic of my original comment card was addressed.

Now, about the overpriced "hardware" store:

Not a single word in response to my letter. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip. So I'm comfortable in saying that Restoration Hardware does not seem to care about its customers. I'll have to repeat that a few times, and get some friends to link to my page here so that the phrase creeps up in the Google rankings.

On the other hand, I got a perfectly servicable mirror at IKEA the other day for only $19.99, so I saved well over $100 anyway.

It's Just A Jump To The Left

I got a form letter from my local Nissan dealer the other day.

If you currently drive a 1990 NISSAN, Victory Nissan will issue you a DOWN PAYMENT ASSISTANCE VOUCHER FOR UP TO $2,000 so that you can trade in your car today, even if you thought it was too soon or you thought you owed too much on your vehicle.

Ummm, yeah, Victory Nissan, I think it is too soon to trade in my FIFTEEN AND A HALF YEAR OLD CAR, the one with over 114,000 miles on it! And paying ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for a car payment since I don't know when is too much!!

There are other graphics on the letter that are supposed to make me think that my car is a (if not the) MOST REQUESTED VEHICLE. Uh huh.

Jebus. They didn't really put a lot of thought into screening the mailing list for that letter, did they?

Morons.