People are committed to being miserable AF

MAN ALIVE people are committed to being absolutely fucking miserable and spreading that misery around like manure, hoping to grow more misery. I don't accept that energy.

Do you remember a time when your only way to complain was to bitch to a few friends about something then move on with your life because you'd gotten it out or your friends told you to get over yourself? Sidenote: you don't have real friends who will check you when you're being outrageous, I suggest getting some immediately.

With social media, people who are committed to their misery now have a platform to bitch to untold amounts of people at any time and lord people are taking advantage of that and creating a minefield of Chicken Little The World is Ending posts because someone cut them off in traffic or cursed within earshot of them in public and it is on my absolute last nerve (yes, I see the irony of me writing a post complaining about people complaining). 

Serious complaints are absolutely valid and necessary - nothing changes without complaints and plans of action. Complaining here and there fine, even funny, depending on the presentation but when people are constant complainers it's like fucking STOP. I’m not talking about the random WTF, life, complaints - it’s human nature, we all do it, but we’re generally spending most time not complaining. 

Miserable people are only happy when they’re complaining, Miserable people will find something to complain about a picnic in heaven, that’s how committed they are to being perpetually unhappy and dissatisfied. They create a negative vortex where every small annoyance means the world is hell, everyone is a rude law breaker, no child is being raised right, there is no respect, no one has any regard for the property of others, and it's better just to stay inside our houses behind little glowing screens. And when we hear or read misery all the time it wriggles its way into our brain and attempts to drop an anchor in there.

Last year once summer hit I snoozed all Ocean City Facebook pages except two and did the same this year. Every post on those pages was about how awful it was in town and how people are rude. I am there every weekend and people are fine. What I was reading was not what I was experiencing. The pages ABOUT Ocean City where people were endlessly complaining and being miserable AF were the only things making my actual time IN Ocean City a bad experience. That's wild and a testament to how miserable people impact their surroundings - even/especially the virtual surroundings.

The phrase misery loves company actually means misery NEEDS company - miserable people must justify their misery so they're going to keep going until they've converted you to being a miserable asshole too. Avoid that at all costs by avoiding them. 

Well adjusted people are always looking inward to evaluate and improve themselves before they turn their gaze outward. Miserable people are always looking outward to evaluate and judge others so they can avoid the hard internal work required to exist in this world as a fallible human.

Miserable people are soul suckers. Don’t be a soul sucker and don’t entertain soul suckers. 

Thursday Thoughts - people are people

1. Any questions? A lot of them died this week for no reason. I don't have questions, but I have feelings. I'm tired. I'm sick of trying to think of ways to combat fear and hate. I'm sick of the sudden experts on guns (honestly? everyone shove your guns up your fucking ass and just stop it for a minute) and terrorism and religion and mental illness and a host of other subjects. I'm sick of everyone ripping each other to shreds - newsflash - none of us are the smartest people in the world so let's step down the pontificating on both sides. I'm sick of people hating other people based on gross generalizations. I'm sick of people saying don't politicize this or make it about sexuality - every fucking thing about the lives of LGBTQ people has been politicized, from who they should love to where they can marry to when they can donate blood to where they can pee - you better believe shooting them up in one of their community's safe places is going to be politicized, as it should be...because allowing a hateful society to perpetuate manifests in this way. Mostly I'm sick of us offering thoughts and prayers and going about our days. Thoughts and prayers are beautiful things but they don't change the world. Action does. That requires us to participate in our government, to make phone calls and write letters and demonstrate, to push for what we want. To say ENOUGH. To get our eyes off of screens and turned outward into the world. To remember that life is not to be lived on social media. To have real conversations, hard conversations, with each other. To look each other in the eye and really see each other. To not accept mass shootings as the norm in this country when they are not the norm anywhere else in the civilized world. To respect each other, to be kind when we can be, and most of all to mind our own fucking business when people who live lifestyles different than us but not harmful to themselves or others are living in ways that we don't agree with. To not forget these victims (photos from this album on facebook). To not forget any of the victims because we are so focused on the killer.

2. I actually felt represented as a constituent yesterday with the Senate floor filibuster. Thanks Senator Casey from PA for joining. I feel like these people are working for once.

3.  Why do you do this, HomeGoods? Whyyyy.

4. The most expensive dog of the week award goes to...Mae. Vet visit Tuesday for vomiting all over the house for six days in a row with a scan and bloodwork + dental work with anesthesia on Wednesday. Who wants to hire one of these dogs to do something? They need to start earning money.

5. I worked from home yesterday finishing out a year+ huge project and cleared a bunch of other shit off of my plate with zero interruptions. I love doing that. MFD delivered lunch to me, I got to talk to the vet about Mae, I took a break outside, and I dealt with a dryer that's still not working a month and a half after it was "fixed" and after spending additional money on professional vent cleaning. Next up: sledgehammer.

6. Summer Concert Series #1 Fail: I missed Dolly Parton last night. I had to give my tickets away. Mae's dental surgery was behind so I couldn't pick her up until after 7:45. Rage does not begin to cover it.

7. Instead of going to Dolly last night, I cleaned out my closets and hung clothes to dry all over the basement like a washer woman and listened to the filibuster. Sing it with me: she likes to lead the Glamorous Life

8. I tried Amazon Fresh this week for the first time and loved it. I typically order from Peapod (Giant) or Instacart (Whole Foods) for grocery delivery. I've had more than six issues with Peapod arriving over an hour late, and scheduling ahead of time is important and sometimes I forget to to that. Instacart is good, but they often make substitutions and it can be pricey. Amazon Fresh was priced well, delivered exactly when they said they would, and everything was packaged nicely in reusable totes I return to them next time I get a delivery. The lower delivery rate (what amounts to $4 a week) is easier to swallow too even though you pay it all up front. To me, time is money. I will spend money to save time. If you want to try it, they do a 30 day trial.

9. Don't forget! Tomorrow is the Seasonal Goals linkup with me & Sara from Journey of Doing.

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10. E-card of the week:

Why I like your Instagram feed

There are a lot of articles and blog posts out there about Instagram and how to use it. How I use Instagram is by posting photos that make me happy or that make me laugh or that show what I'm doing at the time or offer commentary on it, so I can't really help you on how best to use it to achieve Internets fame and I don't want to. When I'm reading those posts, I never see any of the reasons I personally really enjoy someone's Instagram, so I thought I'd list them here. I like your Instagram feed because...

1. There's color! I love photos that are a riot of color.

2. You show me your dogs, cats, and kids doing cute things. Not your dogs, cats, and kids doing cute things with very little difference between the photo you justthisminute posted and the photo you posted of your dog, cat, or kid doing that cute thing 30 seconds ago.

3. Your photo depicts what you're doing right now, not what you did last night or yesterday. Because it is INSTA-gram, not Sometime Later Whenever I Feel Like It-gram. This doesn't count if you're on vacation with no Wifi. By all means, latergram away once you get back in the zone. It obviously doesn't count for quotes and photos you're using to advertise a blog post or a sale or a charity event either.

4. You recognize vacations as a great opportunity to over-gram. I want to know if I might want to put your vacation spot on my places to go list. I can't know that if you don't show me what a great time you're having on vacation.

5. You don't gather a bunch of items together that are unrelated to each other or your caption, photograph them, and share them as if you have that stuff just laying around in proximity to you while you're taking a photo. I don't really have anything to follow this up with because I seriously don't get why this is being done.

6. You see value in landscapes. Deserts, beaches, open road, lakes, ponds, ocean, national parks, fields, mountains...just nature as you see it, whatever's in front of you. We had no cameras to shoot the landscape is no longer a thing. Show me the beautiful world around you and I will love you forever.

7. You keep the hashtags under 10. The unflattering term hashtag whore exists for a reason.

8. When you participate in throwback Thursday, you actually throw that shit back to years ago. Not like two weeks or six months ago.

9. You share urban scenes. Specifically street art or abandoned buildings or great viewpoints. I dig it.

10. You show me your real life. Not a life you think someone wants to see or a life that's curated or a life that will make you popular on the internet...but your actual life. Sometimes it's neat in the background and sometimes it's not. Sometimes you look smashing and sometimes you look like you just clawed your way through a bitch of a Tuesday. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's complain-y. The accounts I love best always reflect the personality of their owners.

What do you love to see on Instagram?

Happy birthday to my fabulous sister-in-law. Love you Aub!

It's not a coincidence that American Horror Story and AmericanHomeShield share the same initials

I had a big long post with a timeline of this entire Life in the Tundra: Surviving Without Heat for Eight Days shitshow typed out but I deleted it. No one wants a blow by blow account of me being without heat from 8 pm on Thursday, January 8, until 7:30 pm on Friday, January 16. If you do, email me and I will give you one but you'll be sorry. It'll be whinier than Grandpa Joe laid up in bed in Willy Wonka.

We have a home warranty with American Home Shield. We've been customers for two years and have had satisfactory dealings with them in the past. Our previous claims have been small. This one was big. And they shit the bed handling it.

What I want you to take away from this blog post if you're a business person is that customer service is important, and what I want you to take away from this blog post if you're a consumer is that you do not want to sign up for a home warranty with American Home Shield.

Because American Home Shield dicked around looking for a non-existent part for a 20 year old heater for over two DAYS while we froze in our home. Hey American Home Shield, you had ONE job. 

It being January in Pennsylvania, temperatures were below 30 for seven out of eight days the heat was off (except the day heat was restored, naturally) with windchill in the single digits a few of those days. When I asked their reps if they would be comfortable in a 46 degree house, I was met with silence on the other end of the line. More than once. 

My main complaints against American Home Shield:

1. The contractor came out early on Monday (our choice, not an up front delay), contacted American Home Shield and told them what part was needed. As of Thursday, AHS was still looking for the part. No lie. Oh yes, still looking. Really?  REALLY? Still looking even with your vast supplier reach? I don't fucking think so. Remember the temperatures, everyone. Anyone with a brain knows that it doesn't take more than two days to find a freaking part. If you couldn't find it by noon on Tuesday, you probably weren't going to find it. Which means they dragged their feet on this issue because it was expensive for them. Even though it meant we froze.

2. Four different AHS agents asked me, "Is this your only source of heat?" SERIOUSLY? First of all, YES, secondly, WHY? You have a responsibility to fix the heater in a timely manner regardless of if I'm sleeping in a bed of hot coals. We had space heaters lent to us and there was no way I was telling them that - if I did we'd probably still be without heat.

3. They were VERY fucking lackadaisical about us being without heat for so long. Like oh, nothing more we can do except look for the part, laid back and relaxed, probably sitting in an 80 degree office in a tank top while I was wearing two layers and freaking out about the possibility of the pipes bursting in our house.

4. They waited until Wednesday - SIX DAYS after my initial call - to tell me I could spend up to $100 on space heaters and be reimbursed. Thank you, I will, even though the three space heaters I can buy with that allotment will warm my three story house about as much as a hot fart would.

5. Six days without heat and countless phone calls in, I finally lost my faith that AHS was going to do right by me. I am a quick tempered impatient asshole most days, and I really held my zen on this for six long, cold days (with Laura out of the country, and she is usually the person telling me to remain sane).

I was proud. I felt good and patient. And on the sixth day, I lost it.

In order to get the customer service I was entitled to being a contract holder, I had to mount a social media campaign (if you helped, thank you). AHS flat out deleted two of my posts on their facebook page, and deleted many comments from others on my one post that remained. That is a major red flag and social media no no for businesses. If you cannot stand tall and respond to customer complaints and work to fix issues, you're doing it wrong. All it does is tell people you have something to hide.

Fortunately for me you can't delete tweets, and I learned through twitter that another woman named Stephanie in Philadelphia has been without repair on her heater for SIX WEEKS. I thought we had it bad. That is a fucking disgrace. Even worse? The AHS policy of repair band aiding instead of replacement caused a fire and she had to run out of her house with her baby. All totally avoidable. And they are STILL looking for parts in her case. How about replace the entire thing especially since it was already on fire once? COME ON. There's a baby and a dog in that house, not to mention adults. Twitter friends, please help this lady out. I'd ask you to help her out on Facebook, but the below took place last night and as of today they've blocked her from commenting on their facebook page. No lie. These people are unbelievable.

Found beneath my post on the American Home Shield Facebook page

AHS is looking for replacement parts for this heater...that was on fire from previous band aid fixes

5. On the seventh day they finally assigned me a handler, someone who called me, gave me her number, and told me she'd be working with me all day. She proceeded to never return two of my phone calls later that afternoon. She called MFD instead. Was I flashing up on their phone systems as DANGEROUS CALL by that time? Probably. Guess what? I don't care. You invoked my wrath and now you have to deal with it. But since she didn't, back to Twitter I went. The pressure worked and the very next day our heater was replaced, less than 24 hours after I started pointing out to the world wide web how fucked up it was that by taking no action, American Home Shield was basically giving off the vibe that they didn't care if we froze.

I'm sorry that what we thought would be a small repair ended up costing them thousands. But that's their very business and dragging their feet because they didn't want to make the big repair is unforgivable. Even though they did the right thing in the end, their handling of this incident left a bad taste in my mouth. I feel like I was lied to on more than a few occasions. I feel like they half assed it at our expense, and they're out there doing it to other customers as we speak. 

If you have a mind to, please share this post on Facebook and/or Twitter so no other families find themselves with no heat and at the mercy of this company in the dead of winter. I know they need to watch their bottom line, but not at the expense of the health and well being of their customers. That's not a sustainable business model. 

Sorry AHS, I'm not an idiot, and you abused my patience so I had to release the hounds on you. People shouldn't have to do that in order for you to do your job. 

Linking up with Shanna