November 22, 2005

Two quick recommendations.

First, food.

Vegan Red Chili frozen tamales by Tamale Molly are delicious. I found them in the frozen dinners aisle at Berkeley Bowl this weekend and oohed and aahed my way through them for dinner on Sunday. Delicious. A package contains 3 tamales, for about $4.25, and there are at least three vegan varieties available as well as some non-vegan. Eating an entire package in one sitting is unwise. I did it anyway and was painfully stuffed but deliriously happy. They're just spicy enough to make my eyes water (meaning they're far too mild for anyone else), and the corn filling is soft and sweet and mouthwateringly lovely. Besides, the company that makes them is apparently a nonprofit organization -- they donate 85% of their profits to the Tucson Food Bank and the other 15% to other community charities.

Second, agh.

If you, my reader, are ever placed in charge of selecting a multi-line phone system for a business, do not under any circumstances select Bizfon. They provide an easy-to-use, expandable system with individual voice mail and a large number of useful tools for forwarding, answering, remote access, directory assistance, et cetera. They also have the buggiest damn system I've ever tried to use, and their approach to dealing with it is to deny it by providing absolutely no troubleshooting resources. "In the unlikely event of a problem," the manuals cheerily suggest, "just call Customer Care!" It's a funny thing, but the first thing that happens when our phone system goes down is that my calls to Customer Care stop getting through. The second thing is that everyone clusters around me to tell me to fix the phones, which has an effect on my mood that makes it fortunate for Customer Care that I don't have access to them.

30 days from today will be my last day here. The phone, I will not miss.

Posted by dianna at November 22, 2005 04:15 PM
Comments

When I worked at the library as an SLE and patrons would approach me looking for guidance on where to find books, how to find books, how the compactors work, how to find the exit (actually happened once), how to fix the copiers, etc. I would grouse about it afterwards that I was not hired for my customer service skills.

Did you, perchance, include a line in your resume to the effect of "Proficient in phone system repair?"

Posted by: Zach S. at November 23, 2005 08:20 AM
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