I am a firm believer in complaining to the management when something goes wrong and a fair resolution can’t be reached. I am also a believer in being nice to all retail workers. I’ll share with you an experience I had the other day that is a good tactic to get what you are owed while being nice. This works even for shy people.

I had purchased some expensive medication at my local Rite Aid Pharmacy. They dispensed 3 sealed packs (3 months) of it to me at once. I had a bad reaction to it, but only knew this by the time I was taking the second month of pills. My Doctor called the pharmacy to switch my medication.

This has happened before. What happens is that the pharmacy takes back the remaining sealed pack, gives you a refund and you buy the new medication.

Well, this time they refused to give me the refund and they took my unused pills back. I asked if I would get the refund, and they sad no. It seemed to me that no amount of talking would convince them. No manager was on site, either.

So, I went into the parking lot and emailed a polite complaint to the Rite Aid customer service. Within 3 business days I received a call from the store manager apologizing and asking me to come and get my refund tomorrow.

Sometimes competent people to solve your problem might not be on-site, but there is never a reason to scream or cause a problem. It turns out that they were short-staffed that day and some of the people there weren’t trained properly yet. You can almost always get a resolution by following up through customer service. In this case, there was no decision maker available that could have solved the problem. I’d much rather do it this way than spoil anyone’s day needlessly. In the past I would have left and not done anything, but not anymore. Never let a company rip you off, but be nice, too! :D

*sigh* Well, I guess it was inevitable. My tablet finally died after over 12 years of service.

Well, for your amusement, here is the comic sketched with a mouse… Yes, I am not good at drawing with a mouse. Much like playing pogo stick with your penis, it should never have to happen.

I’m shot. It’s been a long day of work as usual and I just can’t do any more tonight. I’ll get Harknell to look at the tablet tomorrow to see if it can be salvaged, but it doesn’t look likely. :/ I will get the comic done somehow, though!

It is so sad that Pete Steele passed away far too early. :( I’ll tell you all a story about back in the day when we used to listen to Type O like EVERY DAY.

When I was in High School and college we all listened to Typo O Negative. That was THE BAND. I can’t help but think of October Rust when I think of Fall and College.

My friends were a bunch of goth and metal people. In fact, I have visual proof. Here is a picture of me from about that time. It’s about 1999 or 2000:

Note the black lipstick and HUGE spiked collar. The spikes were like, an inch long! My hair is fire engine red, but that is hard to see in the photo. I don’t have many pictures from this time period. This is the actual size the photo is, since it’s from an old fake ID. (No, the fake ID never actually was used for anything. Heh.)

Yeah, we loved ToN. This was back before MP3s were really accessible, and we were poor, so the few albums we had got a lot of listening. My one friend had the biggest crush on Pete Steele. He had done some kind of nude photoshoot for Playgirl Magazine and she really wanted a copy of it because allegedly his penis was massive in the photo and just out there like the california raisins in a congo line. Today, you can probably just google it and find the picture, but back then things weren’t as plentiful online. I decided to try and order her the back issue of Playgirl for her birthday.

The Playgirl site made you sign in with a credit card before you could access anything or order anything. I thought that was weird, but my friend really wanted this magazine, so I gave my credit card number and signed in. It said clearly that I would not be charged anything and that it was just to verify that I was over 18.

Their website sucked. I never was able to order the magazine, so I just gave up. A few months later I find that they charged me like $50 for website membership anyway. I was like WTF. I did not subscribe to their site and the thing said I wouldn’t be charged. They wouldn’t refund it, either.

Well, eventually someone else filed a class action lawsuit against Playgirl for ripping people off, and I got sent my $50 refund.

I never got my friend the magazine, but I got a funny story out of it!

ToN is a great band and really was one of the bands that got us through college. Pete will be missed. It is the end of an era. :(

Pete Steele died last night of heart failure. He was only 48.

Thanks to DJKiltboy for the link.

Yay! Owl shirt!

Fossil makes it if you also want one, but it looks like they are sold out. :(