Green Oak Landscaping: A$$HØГEZ of the Day

I was driving home today following a white F-250 pulling a black trailer toting 2 zero-turning mowers.  I thought nothing of following them UNTIL the passenger threw a giant handful of lunch trash out the window.

Who was this environmental hater?  It was none other than an employee (owner?) of Green Oak Landscaping, LLC Hard Scape Specialists, 221 West Old Liberty Road, Sykesville, Maryland, 21784.

If you'd like to let them know what you think of a Carroll County business throwing trash into the streets of Baltimore County, give them a call - (410) 274-1046.

Dell Must Hate Children With Cancer

You'll recall in March I wrote about how my Dell laptop died. I was unable to get through to Dell to get any help. They have a clever phone system that prevents people from asking for help.

I sent a letter to Dell asking for their assistance. It's been three weeks and I haven't even received a courtesy F-you response. My letter was not returned, so I must assume they received it.

One of my friends has a contact at Dell through his employer. Through my friend's inquisition, this person at Dell offered to repair the laptop for $350. I paid $499 for it. Is this a joke? For $350 I would expect a fully refurbished and upgraded laptop containing a folder with 8,000 digital images of scantily clad hot women.

Therefore, the only conclusion that I can logically determine is that Dell hates children with cancer and my recommendation is that no one should ever buy a laptop from Dell. I challenge Dell to convince me otherwise.

Here is the letter that I sent to Dell, which I think is a reasonable request. Even a response informing me that that would not help me would have been appropriate. Nope. The silent treatment.

February 29, 2012

Dell Inc.
One Dell Way
Round Rock, TX 78682

Dear Dell,

I am writing in regard to the Dell Inspiron M5030 (Service Tag 9865XM1) laptop that I purchased about 14 months ago.

In October of 2010 my 3 year old daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. She is being treated at the University of Maryland Medical Center under the care of Dr. Teresa York. Since she was in and out of the hospital I decided at Christmas that it would be best if we purchased a laptop for the family so that either my wife or I could stay in touch with the world while we were there. I didn't know much about laptops so I asked several friends for their recommendation. ALL of them recommended DELL. I then purchased the afore-mentioned DELL laptop at the Best Buy in Owings Mills, MD.

Unfortunately, last week the laptop seemed to stop operating. A series of seven beeps resulted when I attempted to turn on the computer. I "Googled" this and read that this means that the processor has failed. I attempted to contact DELL via your website, but learned that my warranty had expired about 2 months earlier. I then asked several tech-savvy friends how to go about replacing a processor in a laptop. All of them said it was not worth it and I'd be better off buying a new laptop.

When my daughter was diagnosed with leukemia, my wife made the decision to stop working so that she could care for her. And as you can imagine our medical bills are substantial, thus the double-whammy of a financial hit. When she was diagnosed with leukemia, we put our trust in our daughter's doctors. When we purchased a DELL we put our trust in your company. I am asking if there is anything DELL is willing to do to help us remedy the situation. I realize that I may have no rights whatsoever. However, I am hoping that you have some compassion to help us.

I appreciate your consideration and would appreciate a response.

Respectfully yours,

Chicken? You want chicken???

Father's Day is that special day where fathers get to do whatever their wives tell them they want to do. And this year was no different. After completing my assigned yard work tasks, I did get some time to watch TV. Finally in the evening my wife asks me what I want to do for dinner. My answer is usually, "Eat". I suggested Kentucky Fried Chicken in Eldersburg, or KFC as they want to be called, or did they go back to Kentucky Fried Chicken?

Anyway, I had 2 coupons - 3 piece meal for $3.99, which includes 2 sides, a biscuit, 2 breasts and a wing. My other coupon was for 3 pieces of dark meat - 2 thighs and a drum, 2 biscuits, and 2 sides, for $4.99. Why were the dark pieces more than the white? I'm not sure. I didn't think about that until today. And I also didn't think about the total until today. Add in a $3.99 kids meal for my son and my total came to $17. (4+5+4=17???) Perhaps Martin O'Malley signed a 23.5% fat tax on fast food. If so, I'm sure the Maryland General Assembly blindly thought it was a great idea.

So I requested that the white meat be crispy and the dark meat be original recipe. (Now say this as a pimply-face skinny teenager with a horrible haircut, an earring , and his voice crackling as it changes because he's a little late getting to puberty) "We're all out of breasts." "Out or do not have any ready?" "they're cooking on the fryer. They'll be about 14 more minutes. The previous shift didn't leave us any." "I'll wait the 14 minutes." "Okay. And we're out of original recipe. " "Okay, I'll take the crispy."

Next customer. "I'd like a bucket of 1o pieces." "We don't have buckets." "Well, what do the 10 pieces come in?" "It's in a box. We're out of buckets." "Okay, whatever. And I'd like original recipe." "Okay. It'll be a few minutes. They're still cooking. The previous shift didn't leave us any." Note my increased interest in this conversation. He just told me they didn't have any original recipe chicken.

I jump over the counter, grab the kid's shirt with my fist and say, "Why does she get original recipe, but you make my take crispy?!!!!" "Oh, you want original? It'll be a couple minutes!" "Well, if I'm waiting 14 minutes for the breast meat, don't you think I'll wait 2 minutes for original? And can you not put everything together until the breasts are done? Otherwise the biscuits and mashed potatoes will be cold." "Okay, sir."

So finally the chicken is ready. The 18 year old store manager hands me my order and gives me a free 1800 calorie chocolate chip cake for the inconvenience. (And it's really 1800 calories. Look it up!) Fortunately the previous shift didn't hide all the cakes.

So having been to KFC before, I know that you check your order first before you leave. Guess what? It's ALL original recipe chicken. I return to the counter to state my complaint and I can hear their frustration with me under their breath. "Stupid ass customers keep changing their minds. Customers are so dumb. Hey, we're out of chicken. What should we do???"

Chicken? You want chicken? From a chicken restaurant?

Good Customer Service

Good customer service is hard to come by. When you do get good customer service, you need to tell people. We always tell people when a company sucks. Let's tell people when they don't suck. And I am telling my story.

In early September, I got a letter in the mail from Citibank accompanying 2 new credit cards. "This is odd", I thought. The cards don't expire for another year. I read the letter and it explained that they had loaned my account information to some computer hackers in China and then later determined that they might try to compromise my account to purchase classified military specs during the upcoming Clinton Administration.

"Okay", I thought. Not that big of a deal, I guess. A couple of weeks later I realized that it's been a while since I got any email notifications from Citibank. You see I set up my account to let me know when the new statements were ready and also to let me know when payments were due. What a great arrangement!

Unfortunately, as I logged onto my account, a message informed me that it was directing me to my new account. The next screen revealed that my payment was due a couple of days earlier. I immediately called Citibank and explained my story. They said the account options do not transfer when a new account is open. Therefore it was necessary to reset the email notifications that I wanted. The CRS (customer service representative) took a check-by-phone and I paid my balance-in-full as I always do. I asked if there was going to be a late fee and she said probably not.

Probably so. The next statement came (by email notification!) and ta-da! A $30 late fee. Ugh!!! I called up Citibank. After 20 minutes of navigating through their fun-filled "speak menus", I finally caught up with Drew. I quickly gave him the background and requested leniency. You see, not only did I miss this payment, but because I also have my Exxon Speed Pass and my Cingular autopay tied to my credit card, I missed those payments, too. In 2.1 seconds he responded, "Done, I've removed the fee from your account."

Hooray!!! That was quick and awesome. As you may remember from an older post titled, "Companies That Suck", I didn't have quite the same experience with Advanta.

And a quick More Companies That Suck, let's add Hop's restaurant. There is one in Owings Mills, MD. If you go there for lunch, give yourself an hour and a half. If you go with 4 people, don't expect to return to work on the same day. If you're thirsty, bring your own beverages. They'll give you the first one, but there's only one blind work-release waitress on duty and she ain't got time for you! "He can't tell me what to do!" is a common expression heard.

I have been there about 3 times in the past few months, each organized by someone else and attended by me under protest. The last time we gave ourselves an hour and a half. At the end of that time, we informed the manager (for the 4th time) that we were leaving. He kept insisting that it would be out shortly. I could have walked to Red Robin and cooked it myself, eaten it, and walked back in this amount of time. This is the worst restaurant in Owings Mills and possibly in all surrounding zip codes.