BookIt Follow Up

Well, well, well.  BookIt.  You thought you could quiet me down.  But you haven't.  

Did you know that the hotel actually contacted me?  Did you realize that they're going to their marketing people now to discuss this matter?  Did you know that I let them know of the forums and recent victims of your stupid bait and switch tactics and how you screwed all of us over? 

No, probably not because you don't answer tweets nor do you look at your Facebook comments.  But that's ok.  

Even if the hotel continues services with you, they're going to be more guarded now.  The seed of doubt has been planted in their mind.  And no offence, they're a large enough company that could make a dent in your company if they withdraw their services/contract with you.  

I continue on twitter and other mediums to confirm to others how crappy you are.  I have to admit, it's been kind of fun.  

I don't have much to lose and probably lots to gain...the satisfaction of putting doubts in people's mind of not booking with you.  

I'm sure you're grateful for having dealt with me.  LOL!

Wholesale

It's amazing that a family of my size (tiny) has to buy at wholesale places sometimes.  I love checking out the wholesale catalog for certain stores.  

But I need to be careful.  OMG.  Seriously.  Those things are money suckers!  Oh, I'll just a bit of that, a bit of this.  Next thing I know, a couple of hundred dollars down the drain!  Granted, I do use the items I buy...but still!  Forking out a couple of hundred dollars at once is scary.  

So I hope to keep browsing instead of continually buying!  

Apps

Half of the fun of a smart phone are all the apps you can download for it.  Some are great for productivity...but mostly, for entertainment.  

I recently downloaded one called Airendipity and I just love it.  For those that follow PostSecret, it's kind of the same idea.  Airendipity involves you writing a message and then "sending" it out to the universe in the form of a paper airplane.  Of course, this is all online so these airplanes always fly!  

You can send whatever you want.  I chose to send some messages that were positive and that were my mantras to go by.  And it's neat because you get to see where your messages have been seen and people can add their comments to it.  

I've been reading a lot of messages from others that I don't know and sometimes even compelled to answer them.  Some are fun.  Some messages are extremely sad.  Some are just neat experiments.  In the words of Forrest Gump, you never know what you're going to get.  

I like that I can respond as some are cries for help and some are just so funny that you can't help but respond.  But in all my messages, they've been positive ones.  I think that if you're going to put something out, why not something good?  

Always great to have more positive energy out there.....maybe you'll get my airplane?

BookIt SUCKS

BookIt is an online travel company that truly just sucks.  I've never had a problem before with online companies, but this company is bad news.  Bait and switch tactics.  Non existent customer service.  Not honouring anything we've paid for.  And outright lies, lies, lies.  

The funniest part about all of this is that they just don't care.  Considering all the tweets, facebook messages, etc., they have yet to respond to me.  I find that amusing. 

BUT having said that, it also shows how crappy of a company they are.  So I may be one small consumer.  But my power as a consumer can be big.  I've taken to Twitter, Facebook, Complaints Board, Better Business Bureau.   BookIt has blocked my tweets on their feed because heaven forbid, they don't want anything negative on their feed.  But others searching BookIt will see all my complaints as a starter. One retweet from a company...and those followers can retweet, etc.  

Social media is a pretty amazing thing but it can be detrimental as that news can spread just as quickly.  My friends start passing the information on and so forth.  

And maybe the impact won't be "huge".  But the word is out there saying they suck.  And if I can prevent one person from booking with them, that's one less person having to deal with this crappy company and their lies.  

So BookIt...bite me.  

Eyes

I went to the optometrist as I needed a new prescription to get some new contacts.  I broke mine (eeek!).  They're hard contacts and they were just smashed into pieces.  Did I want to spend hundreds of dollars today?  Not exactly.  But I'm thankful that the contact didn't break in my eyes!  

My optometrist has a lot of tests and machines she uses when doing my eye checks.  It does take a while, but I find them interesting.  If anything, she's thorough.  But at this one machine, I had to open my eyes wide.  "Open wider please"  Ummmm.  I'm opening them as wide as I can.  She made me try 4 times to open my eyes wider.  

She stopped and told me the bad news.  She was going to have to tape my eyes open.  What the...?!!!  Are my eyes THAT small that tape is needed to open my eyes?  

Sure enough, the tape kept my eyes wide enough so that the right pictures were taken.  Yeah, I was pretty special looking today at the optometrist's office.  

The good part is that there is nothing wrong with my eye per se.  Just a change in prescription.  

I'll never look at tape the same way again.  

Meeting

Been out of commission there for a bit.  Work was a bit busy leading up to a meeting for one of our business lines.  To me, it was a mini conference.  

I asked someone for some feedback today about something at the conference.  This person is honest but is great at giving feedback (good or bad).  I really respect that.   Even when I've received criticism from this person, I've never taken it personally as the information and advice was given for my benefit.  And every single time I've listened, it has served me well.  

Having said that, this person said something to me that made me know that they understood my role very well.   And that is why I continue to go to them for advice.  They said that my role was a difficult one as I'm only given so much in resources (let's say $0 folks...call it what it is) and when things are going well, no one notices.  But when things go bad, everybody will know my name.   And in this case, no one noticed me. 

I haven't read the evaluation sheets.  I was too tired to care today.  Tomorrow is a new day and I can read them over with fresh eyes.  Some things I'm just not going to be able to do anything about.  Some are totally out of control, i.e. it's against policy or if I have no resources, I can't get certain speakers.  It just is.  

Until the next one.  Oh wait, that's in a couple of weeks.  .....

Personalities

Sometimes, personalities just clash.  There's no rhyme or reason, but they just do.   And honestly, it just sucks.  It's just way more fun when all of us can get along.  

Every Wednesday, my kids have their activities.  At this one activity, this one instructor I have had encounters in the past.  She's very knowledgeable in her field but I also find that she can put people down because they don't know as much.  Or there is a sense of, "you don't volunteer and do as much as us" so I don't really count.   Or maybe I've done something and I've just totally offended her.  And really, sometimes I just feel like she thinks I'm trash.   

Ok, that's fine that she doesn't like me.  I'm cordial to her.  I say good evening to her everytime she opens the door and I'm there.   That's all I'm going to do.   Can't do much more.  

Can I say I like her?  I can't say she's on the top of my list.  I can respect the work she does with the kids.  I can respect her experience.  And I can respect that she is also a busy person with many things to do and I think she does them well.  

So we agree to just be "cordial."  There are days that I think that's even a stretch.  But I can't help it if someone doesn't like me.  And I can't help it if I don't feel strongly about them.  

It just is.