This Made Me Laugh

A lawyer runs a stop sign and gets pulled over by a sheriff’s deputy. He thinks that he is smarter than the deputy because he is a lawyer from California and is certain that he has a better education then any cop from Jerome , Idaho . He decides to prove this to himself and have some fun at the Idaho deputy’s expense.

The deputy says,’ License and registration, please.’

‘What for?’ says the lawyer.

The deputy says, ‘You didn’t come to a complete stop at the stop sign.

Then the lawyer says, ‘I slowed down, and no one was coming.’

‘You still didn’t come to a complete stop, Says the deputy. License and registration, please.’

The lawyer says, ‘What’s the difference?’

‘The difference is you have to come to complete stop, that’s the law. License and registration, please!’ the Deputy says.

Lawyer says, ‘If you can show me the legal difference between slow down and stop, I’ll give you my license and registration;
and you give me the ticket. If not, you let me go and don’t give me the ticket.’

‘That sounds fair. Please exit your vehicle, sir,’ the deputy says.

At this point, the deputy takes out his nightstick and starts beating the stuffing out of the lawyer and says, ‘Do you want me to stop, or just slow down?’

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I’m sure you’ve heard this joke before, but it reminded me that not everyone was blessed with common sense:

When I was working for Priceline, I had a call from a lawyer who felt he was above the rules and regulations of the terms of his agreement for a rental car (highly restricted), and wanted to argue over TWO DOLLARS! (He put in a bid for a rental car, and after he pressed the buy button, he changed his mind, and hit the back button to stop it, and feels he retracted his offer before acceptance, so she should get the difference of what he wanted. I’m no law student, but isn’t there a certain amount of time a party has to accept an offer, and it’s online, you’re a done deal anyhow) He had such an attitude and was extremely pompous and degrading saying something to the affect of him being smarter and making more money! THEN PAY THE FLIPPIN’ TWO DOLLARS!!!!!! I was so insulted, I went to college too, and am not just another pretty face, at least I am not an ass (didn’t say it, but wanted to)!!!! I wanted to get back at him, so I signed him up for a visit from the Jehovah Witnesses ( I know he needed God in his life if he’s gonna treat people in such a manner!!!!), and every email newsletter we could find (would you believe there’s sites where you can sign up for 30 at a time???) to flood his inbox, just something harmless that would irritate him a little! (Yes, I know, two wrongs don’t make a right)

Now, I understand lawyers study laws, but don’t you think that a huge corporation, such as priceline, already has a heck of a legal department to fight all the lawsuits people think they can get away with????? (For lack of a better phrase) DUH!!!! This jerk said Priceline would be out $2400 instead of just the $2 because of his time it would take to file all the paperwork (he used a bunch of legal lingo, and I failed Business Law in college, twice, so I couldn’t tell you half of what he said). Some people just have no common sense!!

So Depressing!

Gas prices are not looking good!!! I still don’t have a job, and my bills aren’t getting any lower!!!! What kills me is Bush goes to Saudi trying to get them to produce more gas, but the king asks where’s the demand, so it appears the US isn’t buying enough oil…I’m not all that educated in the politics of it, but I must say, it does seem awfully fishy when you have the the CEO’s chevron and other gas companies saying they reinvested the profits, yeah ok! The gov’t says they know we’re suffering, what does he do about it…blames other factors! the gov’t has to have more power than to let the gas companies gouge consumers, and up the prices on everything!!!!!

Even American Airlines (glad I don’t work for PCLN anymore) is about to implement a new policy of $15 fee for passenger’s first piece of checked baggage! I wasn’t happy when they started charging the same fee for reserving seats, but I understand why they did it, trying to cut down on phone calls, customers could reserve seats online for free, but as far as the baggage fee, it may hurt them more so, than if they hadn’t imposed it.
AA will already be cutting 10% of their flights as it is. The news did say that for ever $10/barrel of gas, it costs them millions of dollars, but still!!!! All I can say is pray for some relief!!!!!

2 Jobs in a Week!!

So, it’s now Sunday, I was fired from ACS on Tuesday, and just received word that I am not needed to go into work on Monday!!! Just my luck!!!! I’ll explain ACS in a moment, but the other job I had was working for a company called Metro Livery, which is basically an upscale cab company. The woman in the office liked me real well, had offered me the job when I applied while still working for ACS, however, they didn’t offer insurance, so I turned it down. I went back in the day I was let go, and explained my situation, was offered a job the next day, and showed up for work on Thursday. Apparently, what she told me when she called today was that I had made too many mistakes, and that I actually cost them business from one of the hotels. Apparently from day one, and two, I’m supposed to be just perfect, and I guess I’m not! I told her I entered all of the reservations in the computer and don’t know what could’ve happened! At least she saved me a whole trip into work, and back, but I feel I should be given another chance, it was my first two days of work!!! I figured there was something strange about how he paid me for Thursday and Friday, after I was told it’d be a week, but really didn’t think anything of it. Just incredibly disappointing!!!!!!!

As for ACS, that job, I’d had for just over a year, I wasn’t happy there, but was a good agent, showed up for work everyday, worked a butt load of overtime, and should’ve been made supervisor, however, that’s another story! Apparently, the cause of my termination was that I hung up on a customer, and apparently, there’s a zero tolerance policy on that, which I was never made aware of. This woman called in about a refund status, and somehow, the agents that had her before me failed to hit the submit button on a refund request, therefore, it was never processed. I advised her I submitted it, and it could take up to 2 weeks before she hears anything. Well, she was pissed, and felt she should be compensated because she’s been waiting on the refund. I advised her I was unable to do that, she wanted the refund expedited, I told her there was no way for me to rush the process, by this time, she’s irate and wanting to speak with someone else, and with the department I’m in, there’s no one i can transfer her to, we just advise she needs to email our management team, that’s their next level of recourse if they don’t like what we have to say, and they’ll get back with the customer within a business day, but she didn’t like that option, and because we would’ve kept going around in circles, I had advised her of all her options, and couldn’t transfer her anywhere like she wanted, so i disconnected the call. As it turns out, she emailed management, and they requested the recording of the call, and then a week later, I was let go. What upsets me the most is that my friend actually knew I was being fired before I knew. I’m assuming a supervisor had told an agent, who then told her, and this was even before I walked in the damn door!! The SBU manager asked that I not advertise to the floor that I’d been terminated, however, it already had been! Obviously, there’s some confidentiality issues, which I plan on taking up with the HR department tomorrow!

They should’ve just made me supervisor, which my coworkers were surprised when I didn’t get it, because the bastard that was given the position isn’t good with people in general. He’s great on the phones because in the department I was in, sometimes you have to be stern if people aren’t listening to you, and basically point out these people are idiots for not having read their contract pages. He, in my mind, wasn’t a good choice…he is unstable, he’s called out numerous times because he said he was “emotionally drained” when his boyfriend, half his age, dumped him, and he’s come to work, on more than one occasion, intoxicated!!! I don’t believe he’s had any management or supervisory experience, he’s just been in call centers for years, yet, he’s only been at this one half of the time I have, and asks me questions about things!!! Just doesn’t make sense to me!!!! Oh well, I guess things happen for a reason, just waiting for this one to play out!!! I felt I was unfairly fired, people have done worst things, and have only been demoted back to the other department, and here it is, a good agent, loses their job because of one call!!! Apparently it trumps EVERYTHING GOOD that I’ve done for the company!!!!!!! I did email PRICELINE management with my side of the story, and haven’t heard back, not sure that I would anyhow, but not even a our decision remains the same response or anything. If I did have the job offered to me, I’d take it, only for the benefits, the pay wasn’t great, but seeing as I don’t have a job now, I’ll need something to get me through. What’s interesting is the day after I was fired, my name was up (apparently the only qualifier that week) for an incentive game, and anyone who worked 2nd shift would get a differential of $0.50/hour, and I always worked 2nd shift!!!!! Just my luck!!! All I know is I have 2 weeks to find me a new job, I’ll keep ya posted!!!!!!! Wish me luck, keep me in your prayers!!!!!!

How to get out of Priceline.com Reservations!!!!!!

Seeing as I worked customer service for Priceline, here is your guide to getting out of the reservations, so long as the date of the reservation hasn’t passed:

Name Your Own Price Reservations (where PCLN chooses your itinerary):

• Airline: If you don’t like your flight times, and just booked the flight, just claim you entered in the wrong name, and you’ll only be charged $7.45/ticket, and they’ll cancel it (so long as the airline is NOT Jet Blue, Spirit, ExpressJet, or Air Tran). If it’s been more than a day after you booked the reservation, you can claim miscarriage, or missing child. No documentation is required, and they’ll cancel it for you!
• Hotel: If you call and say someone died, just say a family member died, and find a funeral home in the phone book and give the name and phone # of the funeral home, they’ll claim “upon verification, your reservation will be cancelled”, but they don’t verify any information, you’ll get a full refund.
• Rental Car: Claim that you meant to book a one way reservation (picking up and dropping off in different locations) and they’ll issue full refund

Retail Reservations (where you choose your itinerary):

• Airline: Unfortunately, if it’s been more than a day since you booked the reservation, your best bet is to call the airline (go by the first 3#’s of your ticket # to determine which to call should you have an itinerary with multiple airlines), because they are most likely the merchant, and PCLN will charge a service fee/ticket.
• Hotel: If the reservation is prepaid, claim you entered the wrong date, you’ll only be charged $25/room to cancel. (With these reservations where you choose your hotel, you’ll always have a fee of at least $25 to cancel, no matter how far away your reservation is, but some cancellation policies aren’t cancellable at all)
• Rental Car: These reservations are not prepaid, you should be able to cancel no problem

Just Not The Brightest Crayons in The Box

So, as many of you know, I work in a call center working for an online travel site (won’t say which one, but it’s not hard to figure out).  I must say I never realized how dumb people really can be until I started here!!!  I can’t tell you how many calls I’ve had that people misspell their own names on airline tickets!!!  One man, in particular called in to get his money back because the airline wouldn’t allow him to board the plane, but he entered the passenger name as “Rrrr T Nnnn”!!!!!  His name was Waled something or another, certainly not all consenants!  I basically had to tell him he can call the a/l, but when they couldn’t help, he was SOL.  What a dummy! I had one kid call saying he booked a ticket for his mother, but didn’t put in her legal name, he said he put in her nickname, and wanted to know if that would be a problem, and of course it was if it wasn’t on her license!! DUH!!!!  My favorite, however, is when people think they’re just looking at prices for tickets or hotel rooms AFTER they enter in the credit card information!!!!!  Even I, and I’m not the sharpest at times, know you don’t have to enter in the credit card information to price shop.

Now, when you name your own price on a hotel, you don’t get the option to select your hotel, you just put in the criteria (area, dates, star level) and it selects a hotel for you.  I literally had one woman call because she had said she read bad reviews for her hotel, which happened to be a one-star!!! She must not have realized that you’re lucky if you get clean sheets w/ that star level!!!!  And one thing I can’t get over is when people use name your own price (NYOP) for their honeymoons!!!  Now, I’m all about getting the best rate, but would you really wanna take a chance on such an occasion????  I’ve had people call me upset that the hotel they got for their anniversaries are in bad parts of town, or just downright nasty, again, why would you book a 2-star for an anniversary???  I, personally, would rather stay home!

Last night, I had, by far, the strangest call I’ve ever had.  A woman called (she had an accent, I could tell she was Asian), and was so upset that the hotel she received on NYOP (looked like a beautiful 4-star hotel) only had their standard rooms facing a cemetery!  I advised she close the blinds, but she said it was a psychological issue!!  Her husband then got on the line, and he then decided to tell me that her not wanting to be near a cemetery is a cultural difference.  I did later look it up, and in some cultures, it is an issue, but the hotel was in Hong Kong!!!! Now, the hotel did offer her an opportunity to upgrade her room so she would be on another side of the building, but she didn’t feel she should be expected to pay more.  Let’s just say we didn’t exactly see eye to eye!  Anyhoo, the reservations are oh so restricted, and unless it’s pretty much life or death, we can’t cancel or change the reservation, of which customers think they can argue their way out of the contracts, and they really can’t!!!!  I have only been called a dumbass and a bitch once, but I’ve heard agents get verbally abused, and it just makes you wonder who these people think they are!!!  I would much rather deal with people on a face-to-face basis because people feel they are still fairly anonymous over the phone, and I know people wouldn’t act in that manner if they were in front of you!!!  Lately, I’ve been getting the customers asking how it is that I sleep at night working for such a lousy company, and I have been dying to say “just fine, I roll right over” and to be honest, I don’t think about this job whatsoever when I walk out the door!  When I went to the doctor, I was so suprised my blood pressure was normal, because there are some customers that get to me, and then a few minutes later, I’m fine, but this job has worn me down, I think I’ve become less sympathetic toward people, and that’s not a good thing, but as soon as I find another job where people aren’t so rude and blame me for their errors, I think I’ll be back to my normal, nice self….pray I find that job REAL SOON!!!!

I, honestly do think the NYOP option is great, as long as you don’t make any errors (they can be quite costly), and are EXTREMELY FLEXIBLE as to when you can travel, or where you stay!!!!  I’m actually going to try to get my dad a hotel using it when he comes into town, and if I end up not liking where he ends up, I can find a way out of it lol.

TIP FOR USING NYOP:  READ THE CONTRACT PAGE, IT’S NOT LONG, BUT IT DOES TELL YOU EVERYTHING!!!