When did everything become such a Pain In The A**??

True story... went out my door to do 2 errands today, and had 3 bad outcomes!!!

How is this possible? I am asking myself the same question. But here's how it all went down...

First up... ordered a drink at the local fast food hut. Got the wrong drink. Takes a minute to exchange it, people are busy, and no big deal.

Until I went to the pharmacy to pick up my daughter's yearly in-case-of-emergency prescription.
Got to the window, asked for the prescription, associate hands it over. Its only half filled. Both the associate and the pharmacist come over and look at me like I must be trying to screw them over. I ask politely, please pull up the scan of the original scrip, lets take a look, please." Reluctantly, they do. Surprise! I did know what was ordered after all.

So they void the original and fill it correctly. Now we're cookin'!

They ring me up, I present my Health Savings Account card, and they tell me "balance due". Uh, no. I checked the balance online before I left, havent bought anything with the card yet this year. The account has 3 times the funds needed to cover the scrip. (This yearly expense is a big reason I have the damn account and contribute religiously).


So seriously, all this technology around us, and it makes companies LESS able to get it right, not more.

And if you question the machine, people look at you like "Who do you think you are?"

I have to spend my time (which i dont have an abundance of) convincing people I am paying to give me the product I ordered with money I diligently planned ahead to pay for to get it right.

There's no efficiency in that! There's no happy customer there. Even the service providers cant possibly be happy about getting it so wrong so often.

Its like a story I read in an Econ 101 text in college... a particular large country with many intelligent and motivated people in it consistently took resources into their manufacturing plants and made the final product so shoddily that it was worth less than the sum of its inputs.

The point of that story was that CENTRAL PLANNING DOESNT WORK!!

Yet all we have now in this country seems to be mega box corporations who have a central office who strive to make numbers on a spreadsheet look good whether the service they provide is worth a damn or not.

I was born in America, which was capitalist at one point. Where did all the capitalists go?

a reply to: CantStandIt

I have to spend my time (which i dont have an abundance of) convincing people I am paying to give me the product I ordered with money I diligently planned ahead to pay for to get it right.

To be fair, from being on the other side of that counter.
If the cpu says the money isn't there or the card is not working for some reason, you can't really do much about it.

It is not the person working the registers fault personally, well generally it isn't anyway.

I hear ya...

but in direct answer to the thread's title question...

when's your birthday?

Sounds like you had one of those days. I hope tomorrow goes a lot better for you. Technology is great, when it works. We really do rely on computers way to much these days. I think of the dozens of emails I get everyday at the office and wonder how in the hell we communicated before email?

Bad news.. This is capitalism. We all experience a drop in service levels, quality of products, lowered anything which could be lowered and get sold by the same price.

- Ever tried to find an update to an older hardware, lets say... from Zyxel? Good luck, you will need it.
- I rely on a digital based telephone-service for my landline (ISDN). The telcos are trying to get rid of it, as the extra hardware structure is costing them money. It would be working without electricity in my home. VOIP (Voice over IP, you would only need ADSL or VDSL) is having trouble every week in my company. I don't want the newer, but much faultier system.
- My car is equipped with more hardware and software than all my computers at home combined. I dread the day this extra-complicated machine encounters a "blue screen". Did you know that the first "modern" BMWs (7xx) were prone to locking their passengers inside, without any way to open the locked doors?

Not every new technique is getting worse, but everywhere the production can be simplified (usually by using less expensive material) this way of cost-reduction will be used.

Whatfore? The stakeholders gleaming eyes, off course.

a reply to: CantStandIt

It sucks, but remember you are arguing with minimum wage employees. I don't know if you've ever worked minimum wage or close to it, but when I did, I never felt like the company paid me to give a # about you and your problems. If I messed up, fix it and get out of my face. Sorry, but that is the way things are. Company required customer service only goes so far when the pay is so low.

a reply to: Sremmos80

Hi Sremmons,

You are 1000% right, I didnt intend to leave the impression the associate was at fault for the balance issue.

In that case, clearly the linkups between the hsa management company and the pharmacy (and however many other entities are involved) are not fully functional, which in my head says "Too Complicated!".

Thanks for letting me clarify.

a reply to: Baddogma

Lol, a long time ago, when disco was king. Yeah, I have officially become my mother.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Hi KrazySh0t,

Yeah, for the tea, I get that.
That was just the beginning.

Pretty sure the pharmacist that filled the scrip and the contractors that cooked up the franken-system that should show the correct balance on my hsa to the pharmacy make more than minimum wage, though. Probably more than I make, yet its my time I have to take to convince them I have the correct info, or to sort it out with whomever.

Thus my rant. I am sure they have their own axes to grind with how many scrips they have to fill, what other duties besides what they went to school for they are having to do.

I get it, and I dont normally rant. Needed to today. Thank you for listening :-)

a reply to: ManFromEurope

Well, thats my point. Isnt the whole point of capitalism to take inputs, add capital, provide value and make a profit while adding value?

When the service advertised isnt the service delivered, wheres the added value?

I know, I am clearly living in a dream world.

a reply to: warpig69

Lol, hey, me too!

a reply to: CantStandIt

When you got out of bed it seems and before that the day you picked this name!

a reply to: CantStandIt

This world went to hell in a handbasket the day John Wayne died.

originally posted by: CantStandIt
True story... went out my door to do 2 errands today, and had 3 bad outcomes!!!


There's no efficiency in that! There's no happy customer there. Even the service providers cant possibly be happy about getting it so wrong so often.

Its like a story I read in an Econ 101 text in college... a particular large country with many intelligent and motivated people in it consistently took resources into their manufacturing plants and made the final product so shoddily that it was worth less than the sum of its inputs.

The point of that story was that CENTRAL PLANNING DOESNT WORK!!

It isn't about 'efficiency' or 'quality' it is about measurable production. Oh - and profit.

How you got from that to Centralized Planning I don't follow.

I think you mean - policies and practices - being 'handed down from above' without regard to 'realities in the field' I hartily agree. But isn't that the whole 'franchise' business model. I understand that Home Depot headquarters now sets the thermostats in all there stores from a central location without regard to anything but temperature. Madness. But employees and consumers alike are expendable.

a reply to: FyreByrd

Yes, exactly my meaning, thank you!

And I guess that explains why it is hot as Hades in the local Home Depot!

a reply to: CantStandIt

Hotter than the hinges of hell these days!

a reply to: FyreByrd

Went to Costco today. Hubby commented temp was not as cool inside as usual. "Stingy on the AC".

It's this mentality...the concept that us "have nots" can be easily disregarded, when in truth, it is US who "make" THEM.

What caused this is greed.

a reply to: Ultralight

I have a friend who works at our local Wal Mart. Last summer I commented to her that it was really "stuffy".
It wasn't hot exactly but...she said that the managers get a bonus for saving on utilities. I wonder if that's why the bathrooms are always "closed for cleaning" yet never appear clean...

Anyways, I imagine it is difficult to keep air flowing with the doors opening and closing all of the time, the metal roof, all that jazz....

a reply to: CantStandIt

Yea, everyone has a bad day. Maybe the pharmacists where having one of those days just like you.

a reply to: TNMockingbird

It was 105 here yesterday and predicted the same today, tomorrow, but a cooling trend down to 102 on Sunday.

I am paying more for less product and I want more AC when I part with my money!