For Pamela

Today is my sister Pamela's birthday. I stole the day from my boss, called in sick and spent the day finding my energy again. A gift to me, from Pam. Or rather, the memory of Pam. She died in 1990 and I think of her all the time. We were very close, clinging together like the abandoned children we were. Our mother "gave us up" so I never knew my mom, but Pam knew her. I think Pam never got over being cut loose, being three and knowing that something wasn't right, helpless to do anything about it. I was a baby, 18 months, when the ties were finally broken. Such as they were. Family lore has it that Pam and I were outsourced to foster homes, in the way of our mother's struggle to make a new life with a new husband who didn't want her kids. And my father, who knows where he was or what he was doing during this time? He remains conveniently mum, because of course he had abandoned all of us, making a new life for himself with the woman who would become the only mother I knew. And she turned out to be crazy.

But today is really one of celebration. I walked along the river, nursing my foot into action, willing it to regain its ability to carry me along without pain. And it worked. When I got home, for some reason I can't explain, I was seized with the desire to clean up my two little back and side yard patios, too long left to the spiders and dirt. Every weekend for the past six or seven months I've said, "I really need to clean it up out there." And every weekend I'd find I was too tired, or it was too hot or windy, or I just didn't feel like making the effort. I'm chalking it up to recovery from the radiation therapy, not laziness.

Because today I managed to hose down everything, trim the plants, pull the weeds and nurture into niceness those two spaces that are like extra rooms, visible through windows from the living and dining rooms. Where I got the energy I do not know but it was great to get out there and sweat and make things right. It was all sort of an homage to Pam. And when I was hosing down the walls out back a bat flitted out, I think it was a bat and I was filled with gratitude for the blessing. "Oh please be a bat and not a bird," I prayed. "Oh please come back, I've cleaned your spot, please stay and bring me the luck and grace I know you can bestow." Having bats in your belfry (or your house) is considered an omen and a blessing in China so it works for me.

So on this day, Pam's birthday, I wish everyone good health, happiness and a sense of belonging. I think that sense of belonging is what eluded Pam and I both and why, in the end, she died of a broken heart. Her huge and generous heart just couldn't sustain the ravages she had put her body through nor the aching she'd had all her life for someone to take care of her. That's all we needed: someone to take care of us but at least we had each other. Happy Birthday, Pam. I love and miss you.

CVS Pharmacy: The Anti-Customer Company

This is a story of how not to treat customers and what happens when a business forgets why they are in business. I'm speaking of CVS Pharmacies, the guys who took over when the friendly neighborhood Long's Drugstores became history.

I get that there are usually bumps during a transition but none of that excuses how the store's personnel interact--or in this case, don't bother--with the customer. Case in point: A month or so ago I had a number of prescriptions to refill. I had taken the time to navigate a rather difficult and not particularly user-friendly CVS website where they had at least migrated my Long's prescriptions to the CVS data base. I clicked away and re-upped the ones I needed and a little sign popped up saying that they'd be filled and available for pick up by 4:00.

Great, I thought. So, after work I stop by and there's a really long line, the after-work-crowd. I notice that there are at least four people, I'm assuming at least one pharmacist and the rest pharmacy techs or clerks, milling around behind a glass partition, visible to us and of course, they can see us, if they look. No one is out front at the cash register and no one is asking, "May I help you?" The guy in front of me tries to get someone behind the counter's attention but is ignored. Finally, after ten minutes, one of the clerks walks out to the order area and meekly says, "Next."

For each of the transactions in front of me it takes a good 10 or so minutes. Neither the clerks nor the pharmacist seem to have a handle on their role, who's supposed to be doing what, and no one is taking charge, saying, "Hey, we've got a bunch of customers waiting in a growing line who are starting to look agitated. Let's at least greet them and ask what they need."

It gets to be so bad that the gentleman behind me and I strike up a conversation, trying to give them the benefit of the doubt but both acknowledging that this is no way to treat a customer. Sighs are getting audible and still the pharmacy personnel seem only capable of fielding one timid clerk while the other three stand around. Oh, and there are two cash registers so it's possible, if they had it in them, to double their effectiveness but that is apparently lost on them.

A couple of weeks later, I had to get another prescription filled. A similar story only this time I'm told by the pharmacist (a new guy) that he won't be able to fill my prescription between 1:00 and 1:30 because he'll be on his lunch hour. Ok. I understand. It's about 12:20 so I figure if I give him the script he'll have 40 minutes to fill it, stick it in the hopper for pick up and still get fed. Just then another pharmacist, a woman, grabs my script and says she has to see if they have it in stock.

They have it so I smile, and say, great, can you fill it now, so as to beat the 1:00 deadline, on account of I'm in a hurry? She bristles at this and starts to explain to me like I'm a five year old that she first has to check to see if it's covered by my insurance, process it and do all manner of red tape things before she can put the medicine in a plastic bottle, label it and hand it to me for purchase. I tell her it is covered, I've been coming to this store for 23 years, my insurance hasn't changed and permission to fill this Rx should be no problem. Her lips tighten as she clacks away at the computer, never acknowledging me or what I've said, annoyed because I've questioned her authority and her procedures.

So I go grocery shopping, whizzing through the store so I can get back to CVS before 1:00 and avoid the customer black out period. There's a line and there they are, the man and the woman pharmacists, doing nothing. Not eating. Not working at a computer. Not stuffing pills into containers. They are talking. For a long, long time. Ignoring the growing line. No one, including the two clerks, come out to say, "May we help you?" or "I'll be right with you." The line is getting restless, peeved to be ignored, wondering what the hold up is. I point to the sign that says that the pharmacist will be eating from 1:00 to 1:30 but it isn't 1:00 yet.

At this point I'm near the break point, thinking, I'm so out of this store forever. Rite Aid here I come. But it isn't until today, when I need to buy eye wash for my allergy-ravaged eyes, when I go to the CVS near the optometrist's office, that I experience the last straw. It's early morning. There's hardly anyone in the store. I approach the counter and there are four people milling around behind the glass. They see me waiting patiently at the counter. But no one comes out to see about me until I finally raise my voice to one of the women milling past and say politely, "Excuse me. I just have a quick question." She stares at me. I continue, "I'm looking for an eye wash and have a few questions. Could you help me?" She continues to stare and then says, "You'll have to speak to the pharmacist."

Just then, this older guy who has seen me standing there for about 10 minutes and who is doing nothing, walks along his side of the glass partition, picks up the phone and makes a call. The rest of the people behind the counter continue to ignore me, don't ask how they might help or say it will just be a minute. They just leave me standing there wondering if I'll ever be served.

And just like that I pivot and walk out. I'm pretty sure my face telegraphed my disgust, mostly at the realization that the bad service at the CVS by my house was endemic to all CVS stores and that the CVS culture was to essentially ignore the customer until you bleet out a desperate call for help. Whatever, it speaks to a place of business that basically has and expresses contempt for the customer.

So today I had all my prescriptions moved to Rite Aid, still in the neighborhood but a little longer drive. Well worth it. When I went in to get eye wash and confirm that my Rx's had been transferred, I was greeted immediately, treated with courtesy and care and even escorted to the eye care products aisle by the pharmacist who wanted to make sure he answered any questions. Now THAT's customer service!

And in case you were thinking that my CVS experiences were just me being bitchy, here are some links to customer complaints ("terrible experience") and evidence of CVS being a bad actor in the industry. I'm not at all surprised. I suggest we all just vote with our feet a boycott this awful business.

Beautiful

California's budget revision finished up in an anti-climatic mush last Friday. The legislators were wobbly and a bit cranky after pulling an all-day-nighter. The ink from the Governor's pen isn't dry let alone applied yet and the state's finances are already out of whack. Man, but this makes me feel so bad that they can't--and won't--get it together.

I was kind of down today, coming back to work after spending a really nice weekend in Berkeley, trying to figure out what the legislators actually voted on so that I could inform the clients, be all insightful and clear. I stretched the day as best I could, having a real hard time keeping a hopeful attitude, mumbling to myself that the work I do for my boss and his clients is somehow valuable. Certainly it's worth more than I'm paid, of that I'm sure.

So as I was dragging my sad ass around, looking for anything to pull me from these desperate thoughts and times, I happened on an Off Topic from Good Morning Silicon Valley, "Nora the piano playing cat." A concerto, written and performed around the piano playing of a really smart and well-trained cat. Made me smile, for the first time in days. It was beautiful. So. Thank you Universe for the Up. Here it is to share.

Rock With You

It's only just hitting me that Michael Jackson won't be around to amaze us anymore. Yeah, yeah, I know all about the weirdness but...he was at his heart...a giver. A Virgo. Someone who cared deeply about the condition of the world and who cried out in that high pitched hiccup of a voice that we were killing ourselves and that it had to stop. Sort of like what he was doing to himself.

I started reading some homages to him in The Root and clicked through to videos of him dancing and was suddenly yanked back into my youth, remembering the jaw-dropping amazement I felt watching him gyrate and spin, stomping both feet at the end of a rhythmic riff, like a period to end a wonderful sentence. He'd just send anyone watching into a can't-stop-'til-you-get-enough place. Preternatural, really. Like no one before nor will there be again.

But his gift was more than entertainment. That's just a place he went where he could be safe, where he knew his talent was unassailable. His gift was caring about what shape the human condition was in and making us pay attention. His What About Us? paints the bleakest of pictures, the planet a sorry mess, and even under the anger and pointing out, there is still hope and...caring.

And this is what makes me saddest of all that he has passed because it's getting so hard to find anyone who really cares about things. There is a dominant ethos now of "So What?" or worse, "Whatever...." I see me and what I am about slipping away, an anachronism because I still feel really bad that the Legislature can't pass a budget, that power has become so corrupting, that people who should have a voice don't and the ones doing all the shouting care only about their narrow self-interests. This isn't naivete. It's the reminder that people who care, pay a price. And even with all his wealth and material self-indulgence, Michael Jackson never had to shop for his soul.

Needed When The California Budget Passes

I spent the better part of five hours today in two different legislative hearings on how the State of California's inability to pass a budget--to have some semblance of courage and fortitude--was screwing just about everyone in the rest of the state. Mostly it was the local governments, special districts and transportation projects (think j-o-b-s) but also the guys supposedly hefting those shovel-ready projects if they ever manage to get off the ground who are taking it in a sensitive place too.

Sorry. This isn't a time for delicacy. I was struck with how years and years of program partying--well intended but irresponsibly legislated, managed and monitored programs--have gotten out of hand. Too many people, too much need, not enough resources and a systemic and structural deficit that is made so much worse by the economy's meltdown with nary a flicker of light in sight for at least a year, probably more. Let's also not forget chronic avoidance of the obvious.

The Big 5--the Governor and the leaders of the two houses and both parties--have been meeting in secret, fearful that if the word gets out about how badly they are going to have to stick it to everyone to finally get a grip on the problem, the organized, well-heeled and not very altruistic groups will come out and what...scare them into submission? Make them stay in stalemate so that the yammering on both sides of the same, stale arguments can keep the political strangleholds they have enjoyed so long--at everyone who isn't them's expense?

I'm sick of it. And while sitting there during one of the more somber moments, with a witness giving public testimony, his voice cracking and eyes welling and the Members of the legislative committee doing their best to look engaged and concerned I thought, "This is what comes from letting ideology get out in front of common sense. This is what happens when you spend one-time windfalls on long-term programs, never check to see if they're working or needed, and then the economy hits the fan. What happens is pain to people who are the collateral damage of stupid decisions, of policy making by fear and political thuggery."

And it all rolls down hill. So the cities and counties, and the taxpayers and the immigrants and kids and the schools and all of the big fat mess we've made of things will have to take one for the team. As the hearing was winding down, I turned to my friend who said, "This is going to hurt. It's just a matter of whether they give us lube or not."

So here's a little gift from the Big 5 and the Budget Mushroom Caucus everyone. Enjoy the ride!

The Trouble Ahead

At 8:15 a.m. Friday morning I stood waiting, the only customer in a quiet, cold and beautiful Art Deco Post Office building, waiting for someone to show up on the other side of the counter.  There was someone in front of me, another customer, already at the counter but he too had been waiting.  Finally, an older, trim and prim black woman emerged silently from the sorting room behind the counter.  Her movements were slow, deliberate and graceful but she wouldn't make eye contact and barely managed a "That will be...." whatever the amount owed for the transaction.  It had taken her 15 minutes to do that customer's business.

Finally, it was my turn.  I needed to buy 435 $.59 stamps.  Again, she made no eye contact and seemed a bit annoyed at my request.  Without saying anything, she disappeared into another part of the area behind the counter and was gone for at least 10 minutes.  I was counting by now because I was urgently needed back at my office, so that I could hold down the fort for my co-workers who had to leave to go to San Francisco, asap.

The postal clerk then made her way back to me and proceeded to count out and UPC-read each sheet of the 20-stamps-to-a-page, for a total of 435 stamps.  It was interminable.  She never spoke the entire time except for a soft, "That's  20, that's 40," and so on.  She never smiled either.  Then I had to give her a check from my boss, show her my driver's license since the check wasn't mine.  Slowly she began scanning a 100-page collection of names, looking for me, making sure I wasn't someone who had foisted bad checks onto the Federal Government.  This process took another 7 minutes.  It was all I could do to not sigh rudely or to say something.  I knew if I did, she'd probably slow it down even more.  Despite my sunny attempts to smile encouragement her way, the entire transaction, from my first approach to the counter to walking out those automatic doors took 27 minutes.  To buy stamps.  Stamps that are probably going to go up in price any minute now as the federal government grapples with deficits and unemployment and salaries and unions.

As I left the counter, my precious stamps in hand, I glanced back to see that there were 8 people waiting in line.  Even though you could see other postal personnel milling around in the back, in the sorting room, at no time did anyone bother to poke their head out and ask, "May I help you?"

This, I fear, is pretty emblematic of most government bureaucracies, especially those that have direct interface with the public and who are supposedly providing services.  What I've seen and experienced first hand is that those jobs have become bureaucratic entitlements, that the focus is not on service but rather passing time in a 9-hour day (1 hour for lunch, 2 15-minute breaks).  With rigid work rules, little else to do but certain exact things, and innovation or short-cuts anathema (boat rocking), is it any wonder that tax payers are getting a little irritable or that the Internet, FedEx and UPS are making the USPS obsolete?

Here's the thing: our country is in a world of hurt.  Unemployment is now 7.2% and growing.  The idea that someone can keep their job, even when they provide such slow, almost arrogantly indifferent service, seems to me the highest form of disrespect.  To all of us customers but also to themselves and their co-workers. 

And what most people don't want to admit is that it's those folks in the bureaucracies who just don't give a fuck who will prevent the capital "C" change Obama and the newer breed of leaders and we, their followers are calling for.  The bureaucrats who can't be fired just want to do their job, at their pace and on their terms and the rest of us can just kiss their civil service ass.