Enchanting Juno

In which I have thoughts about customer service

So I took my car in for service yesterday.  My car is a 9 year old Jeep with 130K on the odometer. I feel guilty about its mpg but love it deeply.

I always knew I would have a jeep.

One of my uncles/cousins' girlfriends/wives (I was 7, I have no idea really.  She had short blond hair) showed up at a gathering at my Gammy's house in a cream colored Jeep (not unlike this one) and took all the little cousins for rides around the neighborhood.  She let us STAND UP WHILE IT WAS MOVING.  AND HOLD ONTO THE ROLLBAR.  WE GOT PULLED OVER BY THE POLICE.

Ecstasy. Hands down one of the highlights of my childhood (she was probably driving 7 miles an hour. It was still awesome).  Chrysler should make this into a commercial.

(Chrysler should also look into making those things more fuel efficient - my car at 9 years? Gets better mileage (tho not by much) than the sticker mileage on the current edition Liberty.) (I got hopped up on Dr. Pepper and Pop Tarts from the vending machine while waiting for them to finish the service and read all the spec sheets in the showroom.  They had one of these, which made me laugh)

Anyway, I imprinted on a Jeep at a very young age and despite the fact that I could HEAR my father rolling over in his grave (Get the Honda!  GET THE HONDA!) the first thing I did when I thought I could handle a new car payment was start looking at mini-trucks.  I TRIED to be sensible and get like, the Escape, which was really a Mazda.  But then I drove the Jeep and I knew we were meant to be.  Fuck sensible.

ANYWAY.

Last spring I had a major service done and she's not been quite right since then.  In the process of taking her back several times I discovered a) that the dealer where I bought her is no longer a Jeep dealer and they had not told me this, so this major service had not in fact been done by the official major service provider and b) I am really really tired of 50ish blue collar guys treating me like I'm stupid. 

(They rotated the tires without checking wear levels and the differential was overheating because the two back tires were not evenly worn. A new set of tires solved the major problem, but I felt there was some ongoing irregularity in the rear.)

I didn''t know enough about cars to know to check this - which IS my fault - the more you know, as they say.  But I KNEW something was wrong with the differential, it's a very distinct noise and I've experienced it before.  So I kept taking it back and they kept telling me I was imagining things, as a result of which I drove on an overheating differential for several weeks before I took it back AGAIN and they 'discovered' the tire problem.  Plus the new brakes were noisy and I asked them to identify the cause and in both cases I essentially got a pat on the head and an "it's nothing to worry about" and after my 5th differential problem related visit, also that it was fixed, any remaining noise was my imagination and also, not dangerous anyway and they were done talking about it.

I bought the car from them, they've been earning secondary income from me for 9 years and after yesterday, I will never go back. 

What happened yesterday? 

I went to the other Jeep dealer, the one that's still a Jeep dealer.  I needed to get the engine checked before the autumn's road trips and as I said, I've never quite trusted the car since the service debacle of the spring.  I needed an oil change, my blinker was damaged from this goose I killed a few months ago, I cracked a taillight parallel parking 20 minutes after my boyfriend and I broke up, but mostly, I needed someone who WASN'T one of those guys to reassure me that the car was roadworthy for a trip where I was not going to be 5 miles from civilization the whole time.

So you know, I went in. I've been putting it off because I hate being treated like I'm imagining things, but it had to be done.   They're open 24 hours during the week it turns out (me: so i can get an oil change at 1 am if I really want one?  He:  sure, you've got insomnia, we're here to help) .  The service guy got the mechanic out to listen to my differential tale of woe.  We went for a test drive, he asked specific questions to complete his understanding of the circumstances.  They took notes.  They listened with no appearance of polite contempt to my questions and descriptions. They laughed at the goose story.  They drove me to the office.  They also took 2 hours longer to finish the service than was ideal, so I had to cancel an after work appointment, which was a drag.

They found the noise in the brakes though, told me it was an expensive fix that was not mechanically necessary and EXPLAINED WHAT IT WAS so I could stop worrying about it (and also, seem to have fixed it anyway in the process.), changed my oil, fixed my blinker, quoted me on my poor cracked taillight (next month), employ women in the service department, and somehow, despite the fact that there was no engine service done, the Jeep is running quieter and more smoothly than she's done in 6 months.   I was THRILLED to give them my money.  And I'll be back for regular service, more regular than at the old place because....

Last spring when I did that major service I said to the service guy I really need this car to run for another 40K.  Money's tight, etc, etc.  And he shrugged.  Indifference?  Unlikely? It was hard to tell.

Yesterday, when I was talking to the new mechanic he asked me if I wanted a quote on the dent in the door (a deer hit me a few years ago.  I have lots of animal stories) and I said, eh, it's an old car, not sure its worth it...and he said, "there's NO WAY that car won't run for years more".

And I realize that my dislike for the way I was treated at the original dealer was subtly keeping me from making time to maintain the car.  They were always friendly, but the undertone was misogynist and actively discouraged me from having faith in the soundness of my car.  I hadn't really noticed it consciously, but it took me 6 months to get the car into someone else because I thought it'd be the same experience.

And yeah, I'm sure the new shop would be delighted to take my money to fix the dent, but I walked out of there with renewed faith in my car and without the grubby feeling of pushing a boulder uphill that is the act of being female in a man's world.  I don't even care if they're FAKING a better attitude, I'm going to use them again and my car probably WILL last a lot longer because I'll not be unconsciously avoiding the service desk.

Query:

I just read this and it kind of blew my mind:

"Most Americans do not know what their strengths are. When you ask them, they look at you with a blank stare, or they respond in terms of subject knowledge, which is the wrong answer." --Peter Drucker

(I saw it on this site - which I have no opinion about other than that someone whose writing I respect seemed to find the book useful.)

I'm trying to work out a more satisfying way to make a living and while I actually DO know a number of my strengths (9 years of therapy DOES get you some very useful places), I have been seriously, seriously hung up on Subject Knowledge, or as I have been calling it, expertise.  Things I can point to that would convince people to pay me.

So this was just a big old 2x4 to the tender area right above the nose.  Am I trying to quantify the wrong aspects of my experience?

Pete Drucker.  Who knew?  I always thought poorly of him because years ago when I was a bookseller the people who bought his books were INVARIABLY douche bags, yuppies and aspirational selfish assholes (same principles as the Ayn Rand Datability Test).  Or possibly am conflating him with other business book writing guru types.

I concede it is unfair to judge someone's worth as a thinker based only on those who warp their words to their own needs.

So. 

OK, blog.  There may only be a few of you left out there, but you've been reading for a while.  If you could hire me, what would like to hire me for?

A day in the life.

I just had the most amusing conversation with the census bureau.

She called - not that I think the census bureau is female, but this representative of it was.  She called because they sent me some damn survey a month ago. 

Which I ignored. 

Because it said census bureau not IRS, and who gives a fuck.  

It turns out it is mandatory (ish) and I have to fill it out every quarter for 8 quarters which is going to go SO well.

She started to make sure they had the correct mailing address and I said, no, no, I remembered it.  I put it in the pile of things I didn't really have to pay attention to.  Because of it not saying IRS on it. 

Which she thought was REFRESHINGLY honest.

I offered to move it to the pile of things to do AFTER I finish the pile of things I REALLY have to do.

But she said no.

And I said, so I really and truly have to remember to do this every quarter for the next eight quarters?  And she said YES

And I said AWESOME.

And she said I had a GREAT attitude.  Which made me laugh.

So I said I would put it on my pile of things I REALLY had to do SOON.

I kind of love her. 

I bet it only take 3 minutes to do.  Three minutes and a 1000 dead trees.

Postcard.

I tweeted the other day that I thought I had forgotten how to blog.  A kind soul emailed me and asked if I was depressed, but I don’t think that’s it. 

This has been a year full of stress and it’s easy to point the finger at The Economy but it is slowly seeping into my awareness that perhaps this is just a time of evolution MASKED by the shitty business climate.  Or brought into focus.

I wanna run away from home.  Except being me I want to run with a wagon full of books and yarn and fabric and a computer and 78 pairs of impractical shoes.  The TV can stay behind though.  I’m not good at letting go, at leaping.
What I mean is that I want a different life and I’ve kept digging away at it for years and years and changing and learning and taking up new activities until my life is utterly unrecognizable
and all that is so very great and yet, it is not enough.  I keep looking around and going, 'there's nothing for me here'.  There’s going to have to be a leap, I think.

I keep having dreams where I am massively stressed out by my forthcoming college graduation (which took place 18 years ago) - packing my dorm room and not having enough boxes, not knowing where to send them.  Waiting hungover in line to pick up my cap and gown and then not being able to make it to the ceremony in time......my sleeping mind is using the bluntest of instruments to get my attention.  Apparently I am working towards making decisions about who I am that are more typically made by those in their early 20s.  I’ve always been a late bloomer, what can I say?

I went to Rhinebeck and bought no fiber or yarn, I had a cigarette and found it utterly disgusting and unsmokable, I finished a sweater that fits perfectly and is exactly what I wanted, I keep eating things I think I like and finding them inedibly salty, I take vitamins now, I dyed my hair red, which I have been letting people talk me out of for 22 years.  What I am saying is...I hardly recognize myself in some ways.   I THINK it’s good, but we’ll see.

I’d love to say I’ll write more, but all this building force toward something feels private and banal in this weirdly complicated way, so it might be a lie.  It's not depression though - there's a vibrant kind of tension to it is way too energetic for that. 

What's up with y'all?

Hi! I'm a progressive.

I like that better than Democrat -which, as we have discussed, I am not really - or liberal which I am, but which is primarily, I think, social & intellectual in its application rather than political.  

I think government is useful to regulate and support human endeavor and human society and while I am not at all anti-business, I am opposed to unchecked free markets because people are greedy and short-sighted in fairly predictable ways over the long term and free markets are a pretty accurate reflection of this.

I'm not good at arguing though - I haven't enough historical fact at my finger tips and I tend to get mad and froth at the mouth and frown stubbornly over the underlying ethics of policy, without necessarily having an ability to turn my thoughts and feelings into words (I know the difference between single payer and socialized health-care, but I can't always express it under pressure, for example).

I had dinner with friends Saturday, spent the evening arguing - in a friendly way - with M.  While he says he is a Republican, I would say he is in fact a free market conservative of the old school, rather than a modern Republican (I keep waiting for him to notice his party has abandoned him).  We agree about nothing, but I think in a respectful way.  It was fun.

I thought I would share some of the things I have been reading that left me saying - Dammit, THAT'S what I MEANT - since then. 

Jon Carroll on Rachel Maddow:  My love is not quite so true, but I do appreciate her for saying things with humor and impeccable calm and well informed decency. 

Obsidian Wings (a fantastic site) on the role of progressive politics in creating a society we can enjoy living in.  

Shakesville on misogyny and the Pennsylvania gym murders:  If I read one more thing that paints the shooter as having been victimized by sexual rejection I will spit upon who said it.  I expect he had trouble getting dates because he was exactly the kind of psychiatrically ill person who would say, commit murder to make a point, and was creepy as fuck.  Blaming the 30 million women (right) who turned him down is just another way of avoiding taking responsibility for his own life and actions; women are not to blame any more than the Easter Bunny was.  Feministing on the same.

Shakesville on the media complicity in breeding poorly informed hysteria about health care change:  WORD

Lance Mannion on civility and disagreement:  follow the links if you have time.

FiveThirtyEight.com on the conservative/liberal political distribution in the US, kind of fascinating.

I am noticing that Paul Krugman is a recurring theme in all of this.  Excuse me while I go follow his blog.

Shakesville on the potential for fascism in the US.  For the record, I find this extreme, but it's very interesting, and an idea worth incorporating into your mental filter.

Ta-Nahesi Coates - who may just be my favorite blogger of all time - on the intersection of fear/racism/misogyny that drives explosions of violent resistance to change.

We do live in interesting times.

A step at a time.

I have noticed this before, but it is so worth noticing again - you all are terrific.   I find it awfully heartening to find out that there are (obviously brilliant and perceptive!) people out there, ones who know me in real life, and ones who only know me from the blog, who think well for me, as well as of me. In such a beautifully thoughtful way.

Nobody better ever pick on the Internet around me, because I tell you, it has brought me more than I can ever possibly measure.

Spent the week paring the corners off my budget and exploring different ways to expand my business.  I have some ideas and got some notions from others; unfortunately everything takes time, so let us hope for slightly looser pocket strings in my existing customer base while I try this out.  
Oddly, I feel better.  Faced this set of my own failings, working on a plan....if it succeeds that's great, and if it doesn't, well......then I'll have a new life.  And that will be OK too.  Transition sucks, but you know me well enough now to know how I love me some evolution.  Plus I had a revelation while thinking about it, a good one, though that's a post for another day.

And I stand corrected.  I am a creative person.   I will make sure not to doubt that again.

In the meantime, I went for a walk this weekend.   I have such a mixed relationship with walking.   The very first time I ever walked in the woods I was in first grade and I went with Rob-from-my-class and his family and by the end of the day I had a gorgeous worm-eaten walking stick that I kept for years and a crush on Rob, which was more likely a crush on Rob's mom, who was the yoga-teaching hippy mom at my school.  They lived by the lake and fed the geese and thought about the environment and were the first people I ever knew who had those 5 gallon bottles of water for drinking and cooking.  It was like going to another, very, very cool planet. 

But other than that first experience, and walking by the ocean at my aunt's house - I hated it.  Walking out of doors?  With the bugs and stuff?  And sweat?  (I was a very girly little girl).  Even when I was young and limber and well able to walk the lead for a day, I got through hiking by shutting my head down and going on auto pilot.   Which kind of misses the point, yes?   Walking in NY is ok, cause there is ALWAYS stuff to be amused by and usually friends - walking and talking is great.  

These days the bugs don't bother me so, and I have rediscovered the beauty of discovering what might be under a leaf, but I am older and creakier and less fit - it takes a half an hour for my hip to loosen up and stop hurting and about an hour UNTIL my foot starts to ache.  So I have tended to avoid.   But more and more I hate being limited to 'indoor girl' and the aches and pains which once seemed like a reason NOT to do things now seem more like a reason to DO something. 

Ferociously determined is just another way of saying obstinate as a pig and 40 can bite me in the ass if it thinks its going to make me LESS.  Not that I have a plan.  More an inclination.  I like inclinations better than plans anyway.

So I went for a walk in the park near the canal with a friend and had a fine time and my foot never even really hurt much after an hour and a quarter which is huge thing and it was only a little bit sore this morning and we saw naked trees and people with happy wet dogs and geese and ducks and no squirrels which is odd, and reproduction Durham boats and a spinning wheel through a window and watched the river current and I wore her son's hat cause I forgot my own (bad knitter!) and it kept sliding up until I looked a complete dork, and that was funny too.   And at the end we were walking by the canal and there were three ducks, one white and two green headed, and the white one was diving for something tasty and I do not think there is much in the world I like better than a duck's ass pointed at the sky with his little orange feet paddling hard to balance him.

Which led to me calling out to the duck - loud - "do it again, baby".  And then to his friends, "Give me some mallard ass, lemme see your duck ass".   Which they did.

My friend, needless to say, laughed.  But seriously.  What is better than diving-duck butt? 

I'll tell you what's better, is a few minutes later when a small group of four landed in formation, wings back breaking and slicing the water like art.