Pet peeve turned relationship observation...

Pet Peeve: When people sit next to you when you’re the only one around… in a movie theater, or in a coffee shop when you’re the only one in the comfy chairs and someone comes and sits right next to you for no other reason than just because. What?? I never go and sit next to someone if I can help it. I feel like it’s an intrusion of sorts, an invasion of their personal bubble. Maybe it’s just me and I’m weird and sort of anti-social, but I don’t think I’m alone in this. Whenever someone does this, I always feel like they’re reading over my shoulder or something, I can feel eyes on me and it creeps me out. Okay, so now I’m not only anti-social, but I’m paranoid as well.

Phew, they moved. I feel a lot better. Unfortunately, they are still within ear distance, and I can hear everything they are saying (as I said, the coffee shop is empty except for the three of us.) The chick is complaining to the guy about him being on his phone. “Who are you texting?!” She says, and he gives no answer. First of all, if you have to ask your boyfriend who he’s texting, you might want to question why you’re in the relationship to begin with. Especially when you use that ‘Are-you-texting-another-girl?’ tone. You know what I mean. You are suspicious of something, whether it’s a past indiscretion, or a present inkling, if there is that lack of trust, nothing good can come out of the relationship. Ever. That was a hard lesson I had to learn, a much needed lesson, but a rather painful and drawn out lesson that I will refrain from repeating in the near future.

Now I’m the creeper listening in on their conversation, but I can’t help it since they are quite loud and I’m sort of bored. (I tried to tune them out, I really did, but their voices are loud and a little obnoxious, so it’s rather difficult to not listen). Oh! Now they are kissing in public, well she’s kissing him, and she’s saying she’s sorry.  Also, not a good sign of a healthy relationship. I often wonder how so many people are obviously unhappy and mistrustful of their significant others and why they all stay together for so long. Is it because they are afraid of being alone and don’t want to be on their own? A friend suggested to me that it’s because they don’t know anything else, and that they think the feelings they have are natural.  Well, they aren’t. You really don’t have to stay in a relationship if the other person makes you miserable. Sometimes it takes a really long time to come to the realization that that’s what’s happening, but when you get to that point, please don’t stay just because it’s all you’ve known for years or because you’re afraid. It isn’t good for your mental health.

This is something that I’ve been exploring for the past couple of years. At the awful pinnacle of my last relationship, when I’d finally had enough of being mistreated (and yes, I understand there were things that I could have done differently, like standing up for myself and putting my foot down about the imbalance our relationship had for so long) but when I was done being lied to and cheated on, I finally said that I don’t care if I’m alone and scared. At that point, I would rather have been alone and scared than manipulated and lied to. There was a lot of psychological bullshit that went on for years, and I just took it because I thought I could change it, I could fix it. Let me tell you that no, you cannot change or fix a person, it will never happen the way you like. The only changes that will occur are the changes you really don’t want, and that could range from fidelity to infidelity, honesty to lying, kindheartedness to hard heartedness verging on cruelty. Inevitably things change, and it’s never in the way you want. Which is rather unfortunate. It’s never good to try and change who a person is because there’s a lot of resentment that can build which leads to the afore mentioned unwanted changes. (Believe me, I’ve seen this A LOT and it’s sad when the person who tries for so long to make the other person better fails… I watched my mom try to change my dad and it did not end in her favor). Needless to say, if you can’t stand who they are in the beginning, it won’t get better in the end.

I am by no means the ‘end-all be-all’ of relationship advice, but I do have experience and have an enormous opinion, and also an uncanny knack for seeing the truth about people. Remember, I’m not always right, just most of the time.

Writing on Writing: Amusing musings of the random ways I write.

So, it was suggested to me by a dear friend that I write more about writing (thanks, Alan!)… and upon further thought I’ve realized that it’s a very good idea, since I write all the time and therefore have a lot to say. Whether or not it’s worth listening to… well I’ll let you be the judge of that. So. Today, I’m working on a new book that I’ve started to develop around a first person POV (for those of you who don’t read a lot of books, it means Point of View) from a female main character. A little back story: I was driving in my car the other day on my way to work, and I started thinking. Shocking, I know. I had a thought and I went with it, I flipped my stereo off (No, I was not listening to Britney Spears’ new c.d.… okay, well perhaps I was singing my heart out to song number 5 when the idea hit…don’t judge) Anyway, I was on my way to work and had no way of writing the idea down, or recording it (although I do have a recorder that I’ve never used… note to self: learn how to use recorder) so I only had my memory. I am forgetful. There are few things that I will actually remember to do if they are outside of my usual routine, so I had to think really, really hard in order to remember the five characteristics that came to my mind about a main female character. In the silence of my car, I held my right hand up in the air and used my fingers to keep track of each characteristic. Pointer finger: Freak about time (can’t be late!!!). Middle finger: Easily irritated. Ring finger: Falls for the wrong guy every time. Pinky finger: Hates it when people do things for her. Thumb: Named Shae. I don’t know why my thumb came last, but it’s just the way it happened.

At this point, I still had about eight minutes before I would arrive at work and I had to keep those five characteristics in my mind. Might seem easy… actually very difficult. So what do I do when I’m trying to remember something for eight whole minutes? I repeat it to myself out loud over and over and over until I see the shiny green sign of my work and I can rush inside to rip a piece of paper out of the printer to write it all down. Ya. That’s how I roll. I barely acknowledged my friends as I burst inside and bolted to the back room, rude, but whatever, I had an idea and I couldn’t lose it. It’s amazing, really, the fact that five simple things can shape an entire person. Soon, her personality was completely developed, and her other qualities started to swim to the forefront of my mind. She’s Irish, but has lived in America most of her life, so she doesn’t have an accent. She’s a red head (duh, hence Irish) her perfectly straight hair never curls, so she doesn’t bother doing anything nice to it, and she’s rude. Or, rather, I like to think that she’s more a verbally accurate female who doesn’t mind telling it how it is, even if it might be deemed inappropriate by others. And by inappropriate, I mean socially unacceptable in any public situation, but whatever, she’s got a ‘tude and she knows it. This might seem like every other female character in an urban fantasy book, but I’m working on the things that make her herself and not someone else.  (That makes sense in my head.)

Anyway, so as the character is developed, the plot starts to bubble around in my brain. But, as it slowly comes together, I can’t help but think that this has been a plot line in a book I’ve read before. That happens sometimes where you think you might have an original idea, and then NOPE, it’s been done before. So, I must research the plot more…. even the name Shae sounds familiar to me, and I don’t know why. Perhaps I should Google it…

Alright, Google search came up with nothing on character named Shae, but a Shane was found… not similar in anyway. Good to go. The plot line also researched… found nothing on what I’m talking about, except for a few movies about a small town surrounded by a mysterious fog that hides a hideous monster, something about religion, and a curse on the local something or other. Definitely not what I’m thinking about, so I might go with the plot that I’m thinking about. Unless the niggle in the back of my mind persists and I find that I was actually wrong, don’t be so shocked it does happen, and then I will have to rewrite my entire plot and story outline to come up with something original, fresh, and interesting. It’s a lot more difficult than it seems, this idea of originality. There are many instances where I’ve come up with something only to find that I actually heard of it somewhere else and that I have to change what I’ve thought of… or not thought of in that case. It’s rather difficult. And frustrating.

This might be a completely random and psychotic way to go about writing a story and developing a character, but it’s the way that I do things. I would actually love to hear what other writers have to say about what works for them. I went to school for this shit, and I still don’t have it perfect. No matter how many classes I took (and might take in the future) they never taught a class on how to start a story, only classes on what you do when your story is finished, or how to develop characters so they aren’t one-dimensional boring words on the page. Nope, can’t remember a single class (and I took two straight years of creative writing and English at a University) that I can remember learning how to take what’s in your head and make sense of it.

Oh the journey of writing… It’s just as crazy and random as us writers. I will be the first to admit that my mind jumps to ten topics at once and sometimes (most of the time) my line of thought is so random that I’m the only one that can make sense of it. But, I love the chaos.

Bring it on, chaos, bring it on.

(Looking back on the post, I believe that I'm completely mental. Note to self: Try to curb the tangents. Another note to self: Might not be possible.)

Expedia and I are not friends.

My life, my job, is built around customer service. The simple fact that if I genuinely care for the concerns you have and let you walk away fully satisfied that the issue was addressed, you will come back and my job will continue to exist. Without customers, the company I work for wouldn’t survive. This is the general idea behind any customer service-based company, and it’s frustrating to experience such a company when they throw their customer service skills out the window and refuse to rectify their mistakes.

My friend Sarah and I are going on a trip to Scotland this year, and we’re extremely excited, as one might imagine. It’s not every day that two twenty-something girls get to travel to Europe on their own time, and on their own dime. So, naturally, when something, or in particular someone, gets in the way of enjoying a wonderful once-in-a-lifetime-experience, we’re going to get pissed off.

The story: On a whim, Sarah looked up our flight information through Yapta.com. Its function is to notify her when the ticket prices go down so that we may get a better deal, since we’ve already purchased our tickets through Expedia.com. When she clicked on our flight information, it took her to a page that told her our flights no longer existed. Confused, she logged onto Expedia to find that there had been a change on the flight itinerary, but there was no explanation as to what those changes entailed. This was on March, 30^th, 2011. She had received e-mails from Expedia before for clarification of our flight times and dates, and when she went to check her e-mail about the changed flights, her inbox was empty. So Sarah, being the proactive person she is, called up Expedia and waited for 45 minutes for a woman to tell her that the dates were changed and that they didn’t know why an e-mail hadn’t been sent. She said she was sorry that there had been no notification, but there was nothing she could do about it, and then we had a choice between different dates or cancelling the flights altogether. Sarah picked the later dates and asked that she ensure an e-mail would be sent to her for any future notifications and implied that she wasn’t very happy with their lack of communication. After getting off the phone with her, she called me and we discussed their lapse in customer recovery and professionalism.  Not notifying a customer when their flight is cancelled and then telling them they have a choice between different dates or cancelling the trip, and then not buffering the situation in any way is not a way to maintain said customer. Just saying.

So, after our little discussion, she called them back. Sarah doesn’t get incensed. It’s just not in her nature. But, oh boy, after the second conversation with a different Expedia person, she was hell-bent on getting their attention and letting them know that their customer service is not as it should be.

Second part of the story: When she called back she asked if there was something they could do for us since they had changed our entire trip without notifying us, and they said no. She asked if they were sure if there was nothing they could do for us since we’ve had to make other arrangements and switch our schedules, and they offered her a $25 voucher for future hotel bookings through Expedia. Need I say that the offer was laughable? Well, I just did, and it was. At this point, Sarah just comes out with a suggestion, which, in my mind, isn’t all that far-off from what they should have offered to begin with. She asked if they could bump our seats up for the trouble. They said no. He told her that our tickets were purchased too far in advance to tell us of the flight change, which was information they had neglected to tell her the first time she called. Sarah politely asked when they would have notified us. He said they send a trip itinerary three days in advance. (pause for silence….) So, Sarah said, you’re basically telling me that we would have found out three days prior to us departing that our flights had been cancelled and that we would have to change our dates three days before our trip? Riiiiiiight, because that makes perfect sense. Here we are, making our plans and arrangements six months in advance because it’s the responsible thing to do, and we’re getting flack for it? Thanks, Expedia man, thank you very much. Rude.

Now, I was pretty impressed by her calm reaction to the rude employee, because I probably would have given up and hung up unhappy and irritated. She asked to speak to his supervisor. I thought things like that only happened in movies! But here it is, Sarah asking to speak to his supervisor, and they actually put her on the phone. At this point, Sarah decided to ask what exactly was the issue and why the flight got cancelled in the first place. The woman gave her some lame excuse about weather and underselling tickets. Uh, okay. Sarah then asked about the lack of e-mail, and the woman told her that they had just learned that day that the flight had been cancelled, implying that an e-mail was in the process. That mollified Sarah’s edge a little, but she still wanted to know what they could do for us. The woman offered her a $50 voucher for future Expedia hotel bookings. Wow. Just, wow. The question of if they could bump up our seats was repeated, and again Sarah was answered with a big fat ‘no’. Awesome. At this point, Sarah’s basically done and the conversation ends with us thinking they’re the rudest people imaginable, and us still having to change around our trip and arrangements, and having a gaping hole in their story since one person told us one thing, and the supervisor another. So, Sarah decides to call Icelandair.

The story continues: Basically, they are the nicest people ever. There wasn’t anything they could do for us, considering we’d booked through Expedia and not them, which was what we were expecting, but they did happen to mention that the flight wasn’t cancelled on the 30^th of March, it was in fact cancelled on the 14^th of March, 16 days prior, and plenty of time to send an e-mail to unsuspecting travelers to inform them that their trip had been altered. Hmm…. So, Expedia lied. Not cool, Expedia, not cool.

Moral of the story: What’s the customer supposed to do when they receive awful customer service? My thoughts automatically jump to not going there or using that service any longer. People have bad days, we all do, but I can’t help but think that all three people that were spoken to couldn’t have all been having the same bad day. Is there a line between what’s a reasonable request and an outrageous demand? Yes, absolutely, but I believe that there was nothing unreasonable being asked, and there was definitely no cause for lying. I’m not a fan of liars. Miscommunications happen, but this was an outright lie. Bad form, Expedia, bad form.