Open Letter

Dear Customer who paid with PayPal online and then returned merchandise and was issued a credit via PayPal:

At first when you said you didn't see the credit on your account, I took you seriously--because the guy who does returns around here is useless and never tells the right person to go into our PayPal account and issue a credit when he is doing a PayPal credit. So I just figured that once again, he had forgotten--so I left a note on Geoff's desk, telling him to see if a credit was given to you and if not--to put it through and let me know ASAP so I can call you back and tell you that the credit has now been applied. Boy was I wrong about you.

Geoff printed me a copy of the credit transaction that was issued 2 days ago. I figured maybe for some reason you just couldn't see it on there yet--still giving you the benefit of the doubt. So I dialed your number, ready with the information that it was issued and should be there. You answered and I was happy to give you the good news.

But my happiness was very quickly transformed into confusion, then into amazement. Because your reply was, "Yes, I can see that it is in my PayPal account, but why isn't it back in my bank account yet?" This is where the confusion occurred. I explained that you would have to do whatever it was you wanted to do with your credit funds now sitting in your PayPal account, yourself--and if that was transferring it to your bank account, you would have do this from PayPal, yourself. I thought that my tone made it pretty clear that we had nothing to do with anything after crediting it back to your PayPal account, but apparently for you, this was not clear.

Entering my amazement phase of this experience. You proceeded to ask me how to transfer the funds into your bank account from PayPal. Well, I know how to do this, but only because I use PayPal for personal use--and it is not my job at all to explain to you how to use websites for personal reasons, so I just repeated that you have to transfer the funds from your PayPal account into your bank account. You then told me your PayPal account doesn't give you the authority to do such a thing. How in the past, you placed an order using PayPal and had a return and got a credit--and it went right back into your bank account and you didn't have to transfer the funds. I guess the transfer fairy must have done that for you back then. I don't know. I told you that it is your responsibility to transfer your funds to your bank account, and at this point I am so amazed, annoyed and amused, all at the same time--then I just broke down and said something like, "It's easy, you just go to transfer funds, type in the amount, choose your bank account and submit." Your silence led me to believe you did not grasp this concept at all. You then gave up on it, I don't even know what you were trying to do--get me to transfer your funds on PayPal for you somehow?--and you said, "Well alright then, I will try to figger this out." You said this in a tone like I was the stupid, crazy, confused one. Then you hung up.

Later on, I was on a call with a normal customer, helping them place an order, and I heard Melissa take a call from you. She forwarded your call to Geoff. After interviewing Geoff on the matter, I am told that you went to paypal.com, logged in, and looked at your transaction history, and saw "Payment to TragicScarf.com, 866-XXX-XXXX, so you called us, figuring it was our problem because our phone number was listed. ...Huh? You just called me, at the Magic Scarf, at the same number--so why would you call again? Never mind all the obvious stuff, like how this is just the description of the transaction and has nothing to do with you transferring your money to your bank account on your own. If I hadn't been clear about it being your own problem, Geoff was. He was off the phone in seconds.

I wonder if you'll call back. If you don't, I will go on living my life, believing that $24.00 is still sitting in your PayPal account, untransfered, until the day I die. I am left with just one question: How in the world did you ever set up your PayPal account and link it to your checking account in the first place?

I just wanted to say, thank you for giving me something to believe in.

Your friend,

--"Bett-ney"

Dear Gamestop

Dear Gamestop.com:

I use your website to view “New Releases” for the Nintendo DS and the Nintendo Wii, mostly, so I can download the ROMs for new games when they come out. I will go through the list of new releases and anything that looks remotely interesting—I right click and open in a new tab. When I reach one I’ve already seen on your site before, I stop and then go through the tabs of each one that I had been remotely interested in. This is where the problem comes in.

I would have to say that a good 80% of the newest results are lacking in the area of screen shots. Of the 20% that do have screen shots, 80% of the results with screen shots, only have only a couple, and most of them are not of game-play, but of the title screen or a map screen or something else completely unhelpful.

90% of the results don’t have a video game trailer. This is okay, because if I need to screen shots first, before I decide to commit to watching any kind of trailer. 90% of the results with “trailers” involve little to no game-play footage, anyway, so I would be going elsewhere to view a trailer.

90% of the results have no “Recommendation” (this is where you usually keep the game’s user rating, review-wise). If you guys suck that bad at getting buyer reviews, maybe you should at least add a “Gamestop thinks” and put a number there. Give us something to go on!

I also go through the new releases under the “Download Now” section. This is where Gamestop sells you games you can buy and download and play on your PC. 80% of all these games, not just the new releases, all of them—have no screen shots, no trailers, no reviews. Very encouraging.

The reason I use your website to view new releases is because it is the simplest one in the way of just giving me a list of the newest games out for whatever console. IGN.com is too cluttered and confusing and every 5 click I get an ad and have to click “skip this ad and continue”. That is annoying. I really haven’t bothered to browse around and find another site to use for the purpose I use yours. I should. I don’t know why I haven’t. I am going to very soon if you don’t get on top of this stuff. The only thing your company is supposed to be doing with your website is trying to get me, the consumer, to buy new games. I say new games, because if we want used games and we are stupid enough to not buy them on Ebay and shop with you, we’re going to an actual store location to get a lower, used, price. If you want us to buy these new games, you’re going to have to give me some information. And don’t give me the “Well the game just came out, we don’t have that information/content yet” bullshit. If IGN can have screen shots and reviews up months before a game is out, so can you.

So why don’t you?

Sincerely,

Person who no longer buys anything from you on or offline.

I missed the best Woot shirt ever.

GOD DAMN IT.

LOVE.

My Most Favoritist Internet Video of All Time

Red Pen Power Trip

For someone that does a whole lot of nothing around here, the little man is making quite the underhanded comments about Geoff in his absense, in front of our boss. He is constantly projecting his voice, and talking to no one in particular, in such an obvious attempt to point out the supposed shortcomings of others to the boss. But the amusing thing about the whole situation is that he is pointing out things that would accuse others of doing the very thing he is so blatantly doing—nothing productive. Over and over again, restating that he is just trying to “do his job” and “get his job done”. What job? What are you doing aside from walking around, celebrating your last week’s victory of convincing the owner that you NEEDED you own desk. Now he’s knocked a wall down to give you an area for this desk, because no one else wanted your desk near them, and soon you will have no excuse for not getting your returns done in a timely manner. You have no excuse now, but you will have no fabricated excuse then.

I see your returns sitting in a pile next to what used to be the desk you sat at to process them. What the hell are you doing right now that is preventing these from getting done. I see you walking around with a red pen behind your ear, but I know that if I sorted through every last piece of paper used here in the last week, I would see none with red pen on them. Because you don’t use the pen behind your ear, do you? It’s just part of your ego-trip. To make it seem like you’re so busy that you have to store the pen there. You don’t even have enough free time to carry around that clipboard these days, do you?

I think I might go ahead and do those returns sitting next to your old stomping grounds… and I think I might pick them up and comment, “Well I just figured they need to be done and I didn’t have anything pressing, and they are so important so I will just do them.” Of course, I will wait until the boss is in the room to do this. And believe me, I am the last person you want making these kind of comments in front of him.

I like it when people who do nothing around my workplace walk around with clipboards, or pens behind their ears... or empty tool belts.

Disco Biscuits - Magellan

 

I used to spend a lot of time playing this game, back when I had Prodigy Classic and chatting on their quality, browser-based chat rooms with a bunch of anonymous people got to be too monotonous. This video perfectly describes the subconscious, but second-nature reasoning anyone who has ever actually played the game occasionally enough to know how it works would have while playing it. Love it.

Now playing: NOFX - Philthy Phil Philanthropist