Customer Service

Has anyone been noticing that the customer service we all receive has been steadily going downhill? Be it in an emergency room, grocery store, city bus, or the post office... 

Every time I am treated rudely I always curse in my head and wonder what is happening to people. But tonight I was given a reason to believe that not everyone in the service field is a complete idiot.

My husband and I thought we would try Cold Stone Creamery ice cream as a treat. The service from the guy working there was AMAZING!!! He explained nearly every item they carried, he let us sample all the flavors we wanted, he gave our daughter a free spoonful to snack on, and as we were leaving he ran out to give us a 1/2 pint of ice cream that he 'couldn't fit into a container' for free!!!

Needless to say, we will go back again. The ice cream sure is good, but the service is what will be bringing us back!

I LOVE THE DICTIONARY!!

For those people who have known me awhile, this will come to you as no surprise: I LOVE THE DICTIONARY!! I have read the Oxford Encyclopedic Dictionary (1991 Edition) cover to cover nearly 20 times, Tim and I use dictionary.com when we play scrabble (I know you not supposed to do that, but when you have 2 V's and 2 Z's you need a hand!) and sometimes when I am bored, I just look up words and their synonyms! 

Lately while going through my day to day life, my dictionary studies have flooded my mind. While a lot of people 'know' what words mean, they don't understand what they mean. So, to help people out, I thought I would put up 2 definitions and explain them out.  The two words I picked have been flooding my conversations and internal thoughts for a LONG time now....

RUDE – adjective, rud⋅er, rud⋅est.

1.	discourteous or impolite, esp. in a deliberate way: a rude reply.

2.	without culture, learning, or refinement: rude, illiterate peasants.

3.	rough in manners or behavior; unmannerly; uncouth.

4.	rough, harsh, or ungentle: rude hands.

5.	roughly wrought, built, or formed; of a crude construction or kind: a rude cottage.

6.	not properly or fully developed; raw; unevolved: a rude first stage of development.

7.	harsh to the ear: rude sounds.

8.	without artistic elegance; of a primitive simplicity: a rude design.

9.	violent or tempestuous, as the waves.

10.	robust, sturdy, or vigorous: rude strength.

11.	approximate or tentative: a rude first calculation of costs.

Synonyms:
1. uncivil, unmannerly, curt, brusque, impertinent, impudent, saucy, pert, fresh.  2. unrefined, uncultured, uncivilized, uncouth, coarse, vulgar, rough. 3. stormy, fierce, tumultuous, turbulent.

No one WANTS to be rude. It makes people not like you. It pushes people away. And most of all you lose respect from people you REALLY want it from.

AND

HYPOCRISY – noun, plural -sies.

1.	a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.

2.	a pretense of having some desirable or publicly approved attitude.

3.	an act or instance of hypocrisy.

Synonyms:
1. Deceit 

One of the most irritating things in this world is when people say how perfect they are, yet they have done 5 awful things that week. IMHO this is just another way to be rude. 

Maybe it's just me, but I hate how much the world is changing. I hate how "me me me" everyone is, and I hate how 'the village' has disappeared and how "the island" has taken over. I really wish that people would realize how much their actions effect all of those around them!! Who knows, maybe with my little English language lesson, I've helped people understand their actions! - lol - I think that is VERY wishful thinking on my part!!

 

"High School" Readers

ok, so I haven't written in awhile. Mainly this is due to the fact my daughter has been keeping me EXTREMELY busy! She has been crawling up a storm! 

The second reason is it seems I have a lot of "high school" readers who read my blog. You know, like the readers who read only parts of the book yet try to write a book report on it?!  Well anyway, these people read less than half of what I write, and then make up their minds about what I am saying without reading the rest. Not only is this irritating, but it is also insulting. If you are going to take the time to come read my blog, at least read it all!!

So from now, I will try to write as often as possible, but I'll try to keep my posts shorts so everyone read it.

New Favorite Website - sidetaker.com

So I thought I would share my new favorite website with everyone:  www.sidetaker.com 

SideTaker is a place to vent out your frustrations and see if you are justified. You can even have the two people who are in an argument tell their own sides and people vote on who is right and give advice. AMAZING!

Honestly, people bare it all on that site. From a woman wondering if after being cheated on should she give back the engagement ring, to a man wondering if he should tell his sister-in-law she is obese, to a man being upset that his roommate wants him to remove his sex machines, sex swings, and sex toys out of their basement... 

If ever in need for a good laugh, hit it up. A sure way to make you smile, because at least 1 person has a harder/weirder life than you!

Top 5 Reasons I Couldn't Live In A Small Town (again)

Before I moved to Calgary at the age of 14, I lived in a small town with a population of 226. I went to school 15 minutes away in a 'metropolis' with a population of roughly 3500. While this was fine when I was young and didn't know of anything different, I would simply go crazy if I had to live there again.

So, here are the Top 5 Reasons I Couldn't Live In A Small Town (again):

#5 - Relatives

The smaller the town, the more people you are related to. The more people you're related to, the more people you have to be nice to (even if you don't like it). The more people you are forced to be nice to, the more you want to blow your brains out... you see where this is going

#4 - EVERYONE knows you

or your parents, or grandparents... and trust me, if you 'step out of line', your parents and/or grandparents are going to find out. And forget going to the grocery store wearing your sweats, because you WILL see someone you know, and they WILL talk about you

#3 - NO 7-11's or Macs', or anything else that is open 24hr a day

I NEED to know that if I wake up in the middle of the night and want a hotdog that my lovely husband can drive to get me one. Or that I can pick up aspirin at 6am, instead of waiting until 9 or 10am for the drug store to open

#2 - No Walmart

I NEED A PLACE TO GET GREAT THINGS FOR BEYOND CHEAP. And this 'place' needs to be 20 minutes or less away from me. That is all.

#1 - GOOD internet.

Honestly, every time I go 'home' I feel as though I am going to die without my internet. I'm not used to get booted off and having bad internet at certain times of the day anymore. Without being able to check my e-mail, be in facebook, and watch a youtube video all at the same time, I will explode. Call it snobby, but it's my addiction. I put up with all your guy's alcoholism, drug use and smoking, so you can handle my internet!!!

Top 5 Reasons I Dislike Calgary

I moved to Calgary when I was 14. While I enjoyed growing up in a small town in Newfoundland (honestly, 250 people, 75% elderly), I was pretty happy to have my teenage years in a city. It didn't matter that it was Calgary, just a city. Somewhere to stretch my wings and become my own person. Somewhere that had a 7-11, a movie theater that had more than one screen and more than one playing time per day, a place that had groceries stores open on Sunday's, etc....

I say, 'just a city', because I actually really dislike Calgary. While most of mine and my husband's immediate family live here, which is great, I find this city revolting. Everyday I say to myself or my husband, "I HATE THIS CITY! WE HAVE TO MOVE!!".

So that you can feel my pain, here are the "Top 5 Reasons I Dislike Calgary"

5. CONSTRUCTION
Calgary is constantly under construction... roads, condos, developing neighborhoods, you name it! You can not drive anywhere in the city without seeing it or it slowing you down. The projects NEVER seem to end, and when they do, the project needs to be "updated" because it took so long to finish!

4. 3 1/2 HOURS OF RUSH HOUR
In this city of 1.5 million people, rush hour lasts from 3:30pm until roughly 7pm. City planners really dropped the ball when it came to developing the roads here. And the thing is, it isn't just Monday-Friday. There is still rush hour on the weekends, it just doesn't last as long. YUCK!

3. POOR CITY PLANNING
When new communities are developed,  schools, fire stations, and ems stations are after thoughts. Some new communities don't get schools for 5+years after being developed... This makes NO sense! Who moves to new communities: FAMILIES. These kids have to go to school somewhere, and busing them up to 45 minutes is unacceptable!

2. SNOW REMOVAL
Or should I say LACK of snow removal? You'd think an oil town could get their acts together and have clean roads, but no. It's too much money to clean the roads, but lets spend obscene amounts of money on a footbridge!

1. THE CALGARY STAMPEDE
For 12 days the entire city, along with it's thousands of tourists turn into drunken cowboys. People who are 'fashionistas' all year long bring out the Wranglers, cowboy hats and boots, bad western shirts, shirts with sayings like "save a horse ride a cowboy', and all that cheesy crap! As if that isn't bad enough, everyone drinks until they pass out, and then they drink again. Crime spikes, emergency response teams are over-worked, the city looks like a dump, and smells like urine. This one time of year is Calgary's sad attempt at culture, and it makes me so sad. Calgary has a reputation or being a closed minded, conservative, stuck in the past city, and Stampede only reinforces this idea. You can't go anywhere to escape it. EVERYWHERE is decked in western crap! City Transit is packed and basically un-usable for the duration of the Stampede. The only good thing this 'event' offers is free Stampede Breakfasts, and even that isn't enough to make up for anything else. Honestly, I just want to stay in my house for 12 days... it's disgusting!

Disclaimer

OK, I thought I had already did this, TWICE.... but I guess I need to make it VERY PROMINENT! 

THIS BLOG IS MY WAY OF VENTING MY STRESS. 

If I have to keep all this in, I will lose my mind! If you don't like what I write, don't read it! All you have to do is close your screen.