The so-called "technological age" is a joke! (Warning: Grumpy rant)

[Coventina]

Or, don't go to Office Max or Kinko's for help.

I'm finishing up my master's thesis, and part of that is securing copyright permission for my 65 images. (That's another rant). This means I'm contacting museums all over Europe.

Some of them require faxes, rather than email. So, I call my local Office Max and ask if they can fax internationally. Yes. Great.

I go down there and they say, we can fax internationally, but no one here knows how to do it.

So I then drive to my local Kinko's where the fax machine is self-service. I follow the directions posted, but for both numbers it starts ringing busy before the machine finishes dialing (one fax is going to France, the other to Russia).

I go to the counter and the following conversation ensues:

Me: Can someone help me with the fax machine? I'm trying to send some international faxes and it doesn't seem to be working.

Clerk: It's working just fine, your numbers must be wrong.

Me: Well, it's getting a busy signal before it stops dialing.

Clerk: Then their number must be busy.

Me: So....you're NOT going to help me?

Clerk: *heavy sigh* Well, I'll help, but I know the machine is fine.

So we go over to the fax machine, and the exact same thing happens.

Clerk: Well, if it's ringing busy like that, there must be something wrong with the line.

Me: Your line or the international line?

Clerk: It must be their line, because I know ours is fine.

Me: Fine I'll go someplace else.

:argh:

Funny thing is, I then went to a UPS store, and they were able to do it. So I guess "France" and "Russia" weren't "busy" after all....

[skygazer]

1. It's not the technological age that has problems

It's the big-box huge corporation age that fucks things up.

Seriously.

Go to an independent office supply store (if you can find one) and the people will actually know about the products they sell and how they work.

Go to an independent bookstore (if you can find one) and the people there actually know about the books they're selling.

Go to an independent furniture store, or toy store, or sporting goods store, or record store, or shoe store or hardware store or any other kind of store you can think of (if you can find one) and the people there actually know about their products, too.

But go to Wal Mart or Best Buy or Kinko's or any other huge corporate conglomerate and all you get are blank looks because the people there are just working for the place and nobody cares about the customer.

[Coventina]

2. Your qualifier "if you can find one" says it all.

I looked through the yellow pages & did an internet search.

Couldn't find anything resembling an independent office supply store.

*sigh*

[skygazer]

3. I just finished a book called Big Box Swindle

by Stacy Mitchell. Good book, recommended.

It was pretty much a breakdown of how the big box stores and nationwide chains have pretty much destroyed the independents of virtually every type and cleared out Main Streets across the country. They make their money not by making a profit at all their stores but by their very expansion - every time they open a new store, they make more money which makes their shareholders happy which is all that matters. Customer satisfaction is not important.

They leave a trail of empty boxes that are pretty much useless (there are hundreds of empty WalMarts across the country - they abandon them to build a larger one 2 blocks away) and they contribute to pollution because for one thing, people have to drive to get to them and for another, the runoff from their massive parking lots and roofs flows to the watersheds.

And yeah, it's almost impossible to find an independent of any sort in most urban areas and a whole lot of rural ones. Sad.

[hunter]

4. My neighborhood UPS store is very good.

They can do things I hadn't even thought about, and they understand that a much larger world exists beyond the borders of the United States.

[Coventina]

5. Yes, I thanked them for helping me.

The manager herself did the faxing because she said international faxes can be tricky and she wanted to make sure they went through.

A refreshing change from the other two places.

I suppose UPS is an evil corporation as well, but at least my local store has people who care. They have my business from now on.

[China_cat]

6. UPS does business all over the world so they need to know

how to do these things. I'd be out of luck, though, if I needed them for anything. Here in Charleston their phone number is unlisted and their address is missing from the phone book. All you can find is an 800 number to call. If you need to send something too big for their drop boxes you have to call the 800 number and arrange for pickup.