Vacation (part 2)

It's impossible to write about everything in Yellowstone. We took some pictures, but not too many for the same reason... it's just impossible to fully capture what we saw, either in words or pictures. So I'm just going to touch on a few things.

First up: bison. We saw a lot of wildlife, but none so impressive as the bison. They're all over the place.

The first time we saw one walking down the road towards us, forcing us to stop, Heather was nervous (actually, that may be putting it kindly). There was nothing we could do but stop and wait while this huge animal (1000+ pounds?) walked slowly by us. Luckily, they are quite used to cars and it barely even glanced at us as it passed. By the second time it happened, Heather was taking picutures of it. The third time was the best though. We had pulled off to look at the Mud Volcano, and as we were getting out, a group of bison wandered onto the main road which was about 50 feet from us. So all of these cars were stopped and these animals kept walking back and forth in the road. They didn't appear to be going anywhere, and certainly weren't in any hurry, and there was at least one young one (calf?) so some of the adults were staying very close. So we sat and watched them for probably 10 minutes while traffic was backing up quite a ways in both directions. Elizabeth was laughing the whole time... I'm not sure what exactly she liked, but to her it was hysterical.

After leaving that area, we drove a short while longer and came to a river, and there was a huge herd of bison. The herd stretched out over probably a mile of river, and I'd guess there was somewhere around 1000 bison there. It was really impressive.

They were definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

Customer Service

This morning as I was biking in, I was reflecting on the financial and political situations that we are in, and I realized that I knew one important part of how we got here.

Several years ago, in my previous job, I was "asked" to go to a customer support class. Over time, several people had complained about my lack of "people skills", and my manager felt that I could benefit from learning some customer support skills. And boy did I learn! I learned lessons in that class that have stuck with me for years. It was probably the most eye-opening class I've ever attended. Let me tell you about it.

First off, let me tell you why I was asked to go. As I've mentioned before, I'm an engineer at heart. I like working on problems, and I dislike wasting time. My job was a system administrator, so most of my time was spent keepking computers up and running (and I feel that we did a very good job of it), but some of the time was spent in customer support or help desk type situations. People came to me and the other system administrators with questions. I was working in a computer science department, so the people who came with questions were people in the computer field (students, faculty, etc.), so I felt (and still feel) that it was reasonable to expect a certain level of competence from them. When people came to me with questions that demonstrated that they had spent time trying to figure something out, but were missing something important, or that depended on some other information that they didn't have, I was always happy to respond, and I don't believe that any of the complaints ever came from this group of customers. But when someone would come to me with a question of the type: I have a problem, and I didn't bother to research it, can you just tell me the answer; in that case, I was much less helpful. I'd resist answering the question and instead try to teach them something about finding the answer for themselves. I know that this was not always taken well (sometimes it was taken very badly), and I wasn't always the most patient about it either, which compounded the problem, but when someone who's career is based on computers will not spend the time to learn about computers, it really bothers me.

Anyway, after a certain number of complaints, it was off to customer support school. This was a day-long class to teach you customer support skills.

Early on, we broke into groups of about 8 to do some basic exercises. The first thing we had to do was think back to some "good customer experiences" we had had (as the customer) and tell some of the qualities that the customer support person had that provided us with the good experience. We came up with around a dozen qualities including things like good body language; professional appearance; competant; able to answer our questions; friendly; etc.

We were then asked to privately choose the 2 or 3 qualities most important of these and write them down. Then we went around and read them. I chose something like "competant" and "able to answer my questions". Without exception, everyone else in the group chose qualities related to the person being nice to them (friendly, smiled a lot, good body language). As this was happening, I was thinking to myself "what planet are these people from???".

Not to criticize them, but they were responding only to their feelings. They may have associated the "good experience" with a friendly support person, but would they have had a good experience if the person wasn't first and foremost able to help them?

So I learned several things. First off, customers just want to feel good. Competence is perceived as being of secondary importance. Smile at them and they'll overlook many other "real" problems (i.e. not being able to give them the help they need). Second, customers (people) are REALLY REALLY REALLY in need of a little stiffening of their back bone. I realize that there is absolutely no reason to be rude to people, but everyone has a bad day occasionally. If I'm at a bank teller and he/she is having the worst day of his/her life, and as a result, isn't the most polite to me, am I supposed to let that ruin MY day too? As long as they are able to help me, I have had a POSITIVE customer support experience. A smile may make it better... but in all honesty, that's secondary.

I'm sure that many people reading this are probably thinking "my he's cynical", and I would probably agree with you to a point, but in this day where we're told that being a couple of pounds overweight makes us as attractive as Quasimodo (and we believe it), and God forbid if we ever say something politically incorrect because it might offend someone (and as a whole, we embrace that), and by the way, if your breasts are a bit too small, or you have just hair just a little too sparse, no problem, we can fix that because you don't deserve to have that major hardship in your life (and we buy into it 100%).

Anyway, I DID learn from my customer support class. I actually did make a conscious effort to be more polite, more patient, and friendly to people, and as far as I know, it worked. At least, I never had any more complaints (that were brought to my attention). But even though I changed some of the outward stuff, I kept my style of answer the same. When people came to me with questions that they had not done their homework, I would still resist answering it... just more politely.

Anyway, I was thinking about all that this morning, and realized that this explained at least part of the problems going on now. Political leaders are NOT helping the country. Leaders of coorporations are bankrupting the companies. Financial leaders have led us into a recession. And how did they get to be where they are?

Probably because they had "good body language" and were "polite". They got people to support them, vote for them, hire them, because too many people are willing and able to overlook less-than-competent behaviors provided you're well groomed. And I'm sure that those leaders learned the same lesson... put on a good smile, and make people feel comfortable, and then you can do what you want, and they'll leave happy.

It's time to start evaluating people based on their abilities and competency, rather than how they look. Would you rather be in the grocery checkout line of the cashier who is ringing up groceries in a quiet, but very competent (and fast) manner, or the line where the cashier is smiling and happy, engaging everyone in friendly conversation... and taking three times as long. Would you rather have someone in a political office who is flawlessly groomed, impeccably tailored, and a master orator, or one who has run a small business and kept it in the black financially for years.

And on the other side of the coin, collectively as a society, we need to grow a spine! There was a time when men (and women) got out there and overcame problems, who took a country and turned it into the world leader in technology, education, and production. Now, we're so concerned about how much the razor will hurt our tender skin, or the unsightly psoriasis on our arm, that we are willing to spend our time and resource battling these life-threatening problems, and we're unwilling to face the discomforts that changing the current situation would entail. In short... we've become a bunch of sheep, led by anyone who will tell us "my what a nice wool coat you've got there".

Oh well... that's my rant for the day (week? month?).

Vacation (part 1)

We just got back from vacation yesterday. We spent time in Yellowstone and Utah (visiting my family). There's a lot to write about (and I won't get it all in one post).

Vacations mean a lot to me. I grew up in Utah, and my family went on a vacation almost every summer. Memories of some of the trips we went on stand out as the best memories of growing up. I want our children to have the same experience.

I can remember many different vacations we took. I'll have to write more about some of them later. I've never written them down. I remember swimming in a glacier fed lake and coming out shivering (my parents chose not to join us in the water for some reason :-). I remember the vacation where we took a ferry ride down the coast of British Columbia. I remember the time we were exploring a ghost town that was on a map in southern Utah and we spent all afternoon exploring, then we drove on and a short time later we saw a sign to the town we thought we'd been at, so we'd been exploring a ghost town that wasn't listed on the map. I'll write about some of these later.

Growing up in Utah, the vacations we took all had a similar theme: exploring the western US (primarily Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and into British Columbia), usually camping. For me, that is what a vacation is. I can enjoy visiting cities or museums, amusement parks or historic buildings, but that's not what a vacation is. A vacation is about being outside in the forest, mountains, desert, or beaches of the Pacific.

One of my goals is to take a family vacation at least every other year so that my family has those same experiences. Of course, living in Florida, the places I want to go are a lot harder to get to than they were growing up in Utah, so I don't think we'll be able to go every single year, but at least every other year should be possible.

Two years ago, I took Heather to Bryce canyon. This year was Yellowstone. In a couple of years... who knows.

I'll write about Yellowstone in another post.

Buying a Van

Well, we're now the happy owners of a Toyota Sienna. We bought it on Monday. A lot of factors combined to get us to this decision... but overall, I think it was a good decision.

Factor 1: having a reliable primary vehicle

Heather's car was a 10-year old Honda Civic. It was actually relatively low mileage (only 125K), but it was showing some wear. Our only other vehicle is my truck, and it's 16 years old. I'm definitely of the mindset to drive a car into the ground, but especially for long trips, it's nice to have one that we don't have to have any concerns about whether or not it will make the trip with no problems. My truck is actually doing well... but I'd be uncomfortable driving it on a several hundred mile trip. For around town stuff, it's just fine, and I plan on driving it until it really becomes too much trouble to keep it running.

Factor 2: we'll be doing more driving

Another factor is that it looks like we'll be doing more driving in the future. In the past, the economics of travelling favored flying most of the time. Although marginally more expensive for two people to fly somewhere then to drive, when you throw in the time involved, flying made a lot of sense. Unfortunately, this year, so many things are changing. Plane tickets have doubled in price (by the time you throw in all the extra charges that are being charged, it may be more than that). And in December, Elizabeth turns 2, and at that point, we have to buy a ticket for her. So, flying this Christmas would cost 6 times what it cost last Christmas! Unfortunately, that shifts the economics strongly towards driving. Add in the advantages of not dealing with the severe luggage restrictions that you now face, not having to deal with the TSA rules, not having to get a rental car, etc., and it becomes quite compelling to drive. We'll save almost $1000 by driving this Christmas instead of flying.

Note to Airline companies: I'm sure that I'm not the only one to have figured out these economics! Yes, I'd rather fly. It's faster. But there are so many forces involved which make the costs outweigh the benefits. So many of those forces are beyond your control (the price of gas, the incredibly annoying procedures involved in getting past security, etc.), that you REALLY need to pay attention to the ones that you DO control. Your prices need to rise to offset the gas... but don't turn around and nickle and dime us with hidden costs that make it impossible to calculate the true cost of flying. Don't skimp on the costs that really are irrelevant (removing snacks which weigh virtually nothing, not letting people choose where they sit, raising fees to change tickets, etc.). Yes you can make it appear as if flying were "cheaper" by charging extra for these things... but when you get right down to it, the flying experience has gotten more and more frustrating. The airline companies need to make it more and more enjoyable (within the limitations placed on them by gas prices and regulations), and most of them are failing miserably. It doesn't matter how much you "cut costs". If nobody is flying... you're losing!

Factor 3: car seats

Heather and I hope to have a second child. One car seat in a Honda Civic isn't too bad (though it's certainly not trivial... as Elizabeth gets bigger and bigger, it's gotten harder getting her into the seat). Two will just be more hassle than it's worth, not to mention that that effectively removes our ability to take anyone with us. One adult could sit in the back with the two car seats, but it wouldn't be comfortable. The van can seat 8. That means that we can put Heather and I and two car seats in, and still take four other adults comfortably. That's nice.

Factor 4: safety

Let's face it. If you're going to be in a wreck, it's better to be in a modern van with air bags everywhere, then in a 10 year old compact car which only had air bags in front. This is definitely a case of bigger/newer is better.

Factor 5: the timing

With the end-of-year clearances (coupled with the fact that we got the van on Labor day with extra sales going on), the timing seemed to be as close to ideal as possible. We could afford it.

Anyway, I'll probably post more as we get used to the van.