Tag: Chick-Fil-A

My Pleasure?

“Customer service is just someone on the phone telling you to do it yourself.” – Erica Rhodes (comedian), Twitter

I love Erica Rhodes. She is brilliant. I highly recommend watching one of her comedy specials, if you need a laugh today. Yesterday, after spending at least ten minutes banging on my keypad, trying desperately to not have to converse with a pointless robot, I finally got to a customer “service” person. At one point the customer service person at the other end of my phone literally said to me in a flat, disinterested voice, “with everything that you have going on with your bill” as if her own company had nothing to do with the graffiti art that is my cell phone statement every month. I honestly just started laughing, slightly maniacally, and she sounded confused but then started laughing along with me.

In all fairness, the other day, after opening up an oil soaked box from Bath & Bodyworks because whoever packed the box seemed to think that 2 inches of bubble wrap, total, was more than enough for 25 fragile glass fragrance bulbs, to be shipped in, all the way across the country (and this being the second time that I had experienced this fun-filled phenomenon in a row), I spoke to a Customer Service representative who was honestly, incredibly awesome. This CSR had probably started her career at Chick-Fil-A. (did you ever notice that everyone, at every company now says the Chick-Fil-A original line in a perky voice – “It’s my pleasure!”?!?) She was trained right. She had me diffused quicker than my stress-relief fragrance bulbs ever could. (on an aside, my family loves to watch me get all wound up and fiery, talking to customer service reps. I usually start out with, “Look I’m not being a “Karen” here . . . ” And then I hear snickers and whispers from my family, “But you kind of are . . . “) Seriously, this woman was so kind, so understanding, so good at listening and she went above and beyond, in order to rectify the situation. I honestly was stunned. I couldn’t believe that I was actually experiencing good, reasonable customer service. It had been so, so long since I had experienced excellent customer service. So, that’s when I asked to speak to her manager. I, of course, got her manager’s voicemail, but I left a long, enthusiastic, glowing review about my experience with this customer service person. My thought was, if I made the effort to let my unhappiness be known, I should also have the time and the decency to let my satisfaction be conveyed, as well.

Here are some of the more witty, relatable replies to Erica’s on-point tweet:

“Can I help you” has always been a funny opening line to me. -@CharlesScheer

Best ones are when you use a service’s website for guidance, but it makes no sense or is counterproductive. You get in touch with them and they send you the same link on the web chat or by email ? – @BotondHamori

Or transferring you back to the person who transferred your call to him/her. -@JPReisender

And then asking if you are satisfied with their help, and asking if there is anything else that they can help you with today …@nattybumpercar

If you’re lucky enough to get an actual Fking human! I almost always get Siri’s dropout cousin . . . . @BenekeBc

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Faking Adulthood Friday

Hi friends!! It’s Friday!! It’s Favorite Things Friday here at Adulting – Second Half. On Fridays, I forget about going deep. I leave “thought provoking” for the other days of the week. On Fridays, I typically list three favorite things or songs or books or food stuff that I particularly like. I ask you, my dear friends and readers, to share any of your special favorites in my Comments section. Focusing on favorite things is a great way to go into the weekend feeling good!

Here are my favorites for today:

Chick-Fil-A macaroni and cheese – This might be the best macaroni and cheese that I have ever eaten. Thinking that I was buying a large bowl of it the other day, we somehow ended up with a catering tray of it (subconscious “mistake” perhaps?), for just the three of us, at home. No one complained, and the whole tray of it only lasted us a few days. Just when you thought Chick-Fil-A couldn’t get any better, they perfected this delicacy. Eat more chicken (and eat more macaroni).

Delizza Patisserie Belgian Mini Cream Puffs – These cream puffs are divine. They have magnetic pull, they are that good. I haven’t purchased them in a while, and then my daughter talked me into buying them again, at Costco, the other day. I realize now why I try not to buy them, and bring them into the house. I just can’t leave them alone. The cream puffs are available in smaller sized boxes at Target. The cream inside of them is this achingly delicious concoction of just the perfect amount of sweet, sandwiched in flaky, tasty dough.

Philips Sonicare Rechargeable Toothbrushes – When you eat a lot of cream puffs, you need a good tooth brush. My son has been using his Sonicare toothbrush for about a year now and he has always raved about it. My husband and I finally broke down and bought ourselves each a Sonicare toothbrush and I am definitely hooked. It feels like I am polishing my teeth with a dentist’s tool. My teeth definitely feel incredibly clean after brushing. (Hint – don’t turn on the toothbrush until it is in your mouth. It took me a couple of times to get this straight and I ended up with gobs of toothpaste in my sink and on my shirt.)

Have a great weekend, my friends! See you tomorrow.

Meaningful Habits

This morning I got to thinking about rituals, routines and habits.

This is some information I found from the internet:

The difference between a routine and a ritual is not necessarily the action, but the attitude behind the action. To many, a routine is getting up every morning, eating breakfast, brushing your teeth, taking a shower, getting dressed, and going to work. … However, rituals are viewed as more meaningful practices.

A habit is an action we do often in a regular and repeated way. Routine is a regular way of doing things in a particular order. The main difference between habit and routine is that habit is a recurrent with little or no conscious thought whereas routine require a high degree of intention and effort.

I’m still a little confused.  I guess it is just a matter of degrees.  I got to thinking about all of this because my husband is on a business trip.  Because of this, our morning routines/rituals and our evening routines/rituals are shook up a little bit.

Our typical morning “routine” consists of my husband going to the gym freakishly early.  (He can have that part of the routine all to himself.)  When he arrives home from the gym, I saunter out to the kitchen, where our two youngest children are eating breakfast, gathering their stuff to head to school and either stressing about upcoming tests or joking about upcoming events, depending on the schedule.  I take out and feed our dogs and when I come back inside my husband has poured my coffee into one of our many mugs.  I like to think that he chooses “the mug of the day” deliberately and carefully as all of our mugs have some meaning to us.  We have collected them from vacations, our college, our children’s college, and sometimes just from quirky impulsive shopping days.  I recently purchased a mug that says, “T.J. Maxx is my spirit animal” on one of those more impulsive shopping excursions.

After kissing the kids and sending them on their way, we saunter back to our bedroom, where I read The Daily Skimm, some headline stories and our horoscopes to my husband while he gets ready for work.  After he leaves, I head out to my desk to start writing my blog.

I suppose that is just our morning “routine”, but considering how much I miss it when he is gone, I see it more as our morning “ritual.”  I have my own “rituals” when he is out of town, too.  Last night, we had Chick-Fil-A for dinner.  This meal is almost a given when my husband is out of town.  My kids put in their orders without even asking me “What’s for dinner?”  I also just reserved on Redbox a strange, indie documentary film for me to watch tonight.  I’m greatly looking forward to it and I am sure that my husband is relieved to not have to watch it with me.  We watch more traditional films when we are together, so I save my more “out of the box” film choices for when he is traveling.

Every year and every season our routines change a little bit.  I guess when what we do during a new routine becomes habitual, it becomes more meaningful to us.  When our habits and routines become more meaningful we see them more as “ritual”, almost becoming sacred to us.  I imagine if we really examined our everyday routines, our holiday traditions, our vacation and trip plans, etc. we would see just how much habit/routine/ritual plays into the big picture.  We usually don’t notice this, until a change-up occurs or when something unusual disrupts the flow, but it is really true that we are creatures of habit.  I think that the examining of our habits/routines/rituals is a smart thing to do, though.  Perhaps some things are just habits and perhaps they aren’t particularly meaningful or helpful or even healthy for us anymore.  Maybe little tweaks here and there to our every day practices could start a ripple effect, allowing even more creativity and excitement and anticipation to enter into our every day lives.  And at the very least, by examining the actions that have become like rituals to us, we can be thankful for all of the real meaning and comfort that we do have in our daily lives without even realizing it.