The other collections experience was being told right off the bat they were taking me to court over my unpaid cell phone bill. Only thing was at that time I had never had a cell phone. That took a very long phone call to resolve.

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Worst collections guy I ever had to deal with was one of the many who have been chasing after my student loan over the years.

This guy, though, whew! Comes on to me all hostile, which...fine. I offer to start a payment plan and he's all "I'll get back to you."

Then he calls my mother and presents himself as an "officer of the State of Michigan" in some fictitious student loan department. (Government loan, kids...federal, not state) and informs my mother that he "can and will take your house away" if this approximately $3000.00 loan is not paid immediately.

So she calls me, we compare notes and discover that John Asswipe from Asswipe Collections is the same John Asswipe "Officer of the State of Michigan" that harassed my mom.

So my mom calls the Michigan State Attorney General.

John Asswipe no longer works for Asswipe Collections.

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The funnest collection call I ever got was when I was behind on one of my student loans. As my roommate gave me the phone, he did and/or said something really funny. As the collections lady was going through her spiel, I burst out laughing. She immediately got angry and said, "THIS ISN'T FUNNY!"

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I saw this headline at the WashPost Chimps Seen Making Weapons and my first thought, I'm not kidding, was that they have nukes like Iran and North Korea!

It may be time to go home. Since I lose the network in 11 minutes, I think I shall.

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Heh. They just had a story on NPR where they basically said the problem with hybrid cars is that they need more cowbell.

I t heart my Prius more than I can say. I commute 60 miles round trip every work day...but I only spend about $80 a month on gas and get to use the HOV lane.

(And though I certainly wouldn't want to hit a blind person, I have to say that it's really fun to sneak up on irritating pedestrians or people wandering around parking lots. It is also possible that I start humming the Jaws theme every time I do so.)

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I would have responded to the woman in the cafe thusly:

"I'm so sorry you felt Mike was rude. This is new for us - we've not had a complaint about Mike before! If you could step over here and tell me the specifics, that would help me out a lot. How does that sound?"

No blame either way, getting information, and leading them towards agreeing with me. Also manipulative as hell, but I haven't worked this long in serving & retail for nothing.

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...If you could step over here and tell me the specifics, that would help me out a lot. How does that sound?"

Step over here... a little further... NOW! OPEN THE TRAP DOOR!!

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On the way home I saw a car with the license plate: IM DEAF. Which I thought was brilliant.

And I must say that one of the reason I'm very happy giving RCN an awful lot of money is that their customer service has been amazing. I don't think I've ever been on hold for more than a minute when I called, their contractors have always been on time and fantastically nice. That may be because they're trying to move into this area and beat back Comcast, since I've heard they're not so great in other areas, but currently they're golden in my book.

So in general, I think if a waiter or waitress has no complaints and one person gets her hackles up, she's probably wrong. It's an assumption, sure, but there you go.

Yeah, but the point of the article isn't that the customer is always right. He didn't say the owner should have immediately fired the waiter, just that he should have listened to her complaint instead of getting defensive. You can say, "I'm sorry to hear that, tell me what happened and I'll speak to him about it," and then when she's gone, you can tell the waiter, "Don't worry about it; she's nuts."

I'm not saying it's easy to react calmly when someone's venting at you. But I don't think it's bad advice.

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Oh, collections people. One student loan hunter told me that he could garnish my wages for Hubby's old loan. I told him that I didn't even know Hubby existed when that loan came into being and that I was in no way liable. "You're his wife." "This isn't a community property state, and the loan was incurred before the marriage in any case." "We can still garnish your wages." "No, you can't." "Yes, we can." It honestly took me two repetitions to realize I'd just descended to a kindergarten argument. "Try it," I finally said, and I hung up. Unsurprisingly, my wages were never garnished.

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Hey Strega - did you just get home? You often seem to show up here around 4:45 Central (just before I usually go home).

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