Customer Dissatisfaction

There's a music shop in Ottawa that I've always despised. The first reason was its location (it's on Rideau street and hard to get to). The second reason is the service. When I first started to visit the guys wouldn't even look at me. They'd pander to the regulars and professional musicians. Fair enough. But then I got older and had some money to burn. As soon as I had money to burn they were helpful, until I had to take said thing back.

Case #1 - The Tele

I didn't return my Telecaster. I never would. But when I bought it I was told to take it in sometime in the first six months for a full tune up as the intonation and other shit I didn't know shit about would need to be adjusted. Fair enough.

So I learned about intonation and shit and one day noticed the strings rattled and didn't before. So I took it in for the free tune up. They told me it would be ready in two days and I said, "I'm out of town until next Saturday, so I'll just pick it up then." Next Saturday being a week away.

Next Saturday arrives and I show up at the store. "Sorry sir, your guitar isn't ready." OK, I'm somewhat upset, but shit happens.

"Can I have it for Thursday? That's the next jam."

"Sure."

Thursday arrives. I call at noon to make sure I can pick it up at 6. "Is she ready?"

"No, but we'll have it ready by six."

I arrive at six and they can't find it. They scurry and scrounge and I look behind the counter and say, "that's it, did you fix it?"

"Yep, sure did."

"Can I try it?" I ask, recalling the 6th string rattle.

"Sure."

"It wasn't fixed." I say.

"Hey (insert name here), did you fix the black Tele?" the guy yells to the back.

No is the response from the distance. So they fix it there while I wait, which begs the question, couldn't they have done that the first time I was there?

Case #2 - The Recorder (no, not that kind of recorder)

We record some songs we play. We have this dual input thing that plugs into a Mac (half the problem) via USB. This means that we have to play the song 3 times to get all tracks recorded. Which is fine, I think professionals even do this, but it's time consuming.

A couple of days after the holidays I'm surfing this store's website, partly because I'm a sucker for punishment, but mainly because a cute girl said she wanted a guitar. Anyway, I see this recording device similar to ours except it has 8 inputs. 8! Perfect! I call the store and they have one in stock. I ask them to hold it and they do.

Saturday arrives and I head down to the store. My machine is waiting, but I'm nervous, it's so inexpensive, like beer at a Legion. "Are you sure this will work?" I ask, "And if not, can I take it back?"

"Yes" he says.

So I cancel drinking plans with football buddies. Wait, I move my drinking plans from my football buddies to my band buddies and head to the jam space to figure it out. We can't. But we're not worried, we're smart guys, we'll figure it out.

Fast forward to next week and after finally reading the instructions, it works. Woohoo, let's go grab a drink.

Fast forward to next jam night and we can't get it to work. Fast forward to next jam night and we still can't get it to work. We then test it out direct to amplifiers and it doesn't work. So I check the receipt, it's within 30 days and I take it back.

I talk to a guy at the counter and tell him my problem and he says, "we don't have another one in stock."

"That's fine," I say, "I didn't want another one anyway, I just want my money back."

"We don't give money back." he says.

"What? Why? It's within 30 days." I say.

"Well, that'd be just like renting. Nobody gives money back like that."

"Are you serious?" I say, "Everybody gives money back."

"...."

"Everybody."

"Well, I guess we don't, but you can have store credit."

"Fine, I'm missing Lucky Ron. Gimme the credit."

So now I have store credit at a store I don't want to visit. It's about $250, exactly the price I'd pay to fill that thing full of shotgun pellets.

Superheroes Without the Power and Motivation

I'm back!

I was uninspired for some time and this weekend an event occurred that I have to write about. But before I do that, I have to give all y'all some background.

I've been robbed a few times. At first it was somebody breaking into my car in Montreal and stealing all my CDs. Then, it was crackheads breaking into my car in my parking garage on a fairly regular basis. In fact, at one point the lock on my car door was busted and I decided not to lock it anymore to make sure my windows were never busted (side note - my uncle cracks up over one particular robbery. I called the police and told them about a break in. They asked me when it happened. I rarely drive my car so I say sometime in the past three months). The final (I think) theft was my bicycle, which wasn't even 6 months old at the time. So I've got a pretty negative outlook towards thieves.

Fast forward to Saturday night. It was starting off as a pretty low key night. We went out for food and drinks and then back to the good doctor's place to hang with the newlyweds. As we left I convinced Greg (or was it the other way around) to grab a drink downtown before calling it a night. We were walking on Lewis Street towards Elgin (here's a map for the out of towners) and about halfway between O'Connor and Metcalfe there is a parking lot and you can see the next Street up, Gilmour. As we get to the parking lot we see a disturbance. Some guy is shoving this girl around and yanking at her purse. I point it out to Greg and he says "you go that way (straight through the parking lot) and I'll go this way (around the corner and up O'Connor)." So I beat it. I beat it like I've never beaten it before. (side note - my ankle held up great, I hadn't really tested it until then and I didn't even think about it until a day or so later). I get straight through the lot and run past the girl, who is still on the ground, following the purse snatcher when I hear her yell for help. So I stop, turn around, help her up, and ask if she's OK. She seems to be and says "get my purse." So, I turn back around and see the guy in the distance. I beat it again, but know this time he's out of my reach. But, as luck would have it, he turns left on O'Connor, running right into Greg. I slow my pace and continue on, hoping this doesn't turn ugly. Then I see Greg come around the corner with a huge smile on his face and the purse in his hands.

The rest of the story is from Greg, I've asked him to review and edit the following:

The guy runs down the middle of O'Connor Street and straight towards Greg. Greg stands there (Greg is a tall guy and can be imposing, unless you know him) arms spread wide and says "I got you, where you going, I got you. Let's do this. Come on." The guy tries to deke him a couple of times without success. Greg is matching his every move. Then he drops the purse and runs in the other direction. Superfrickinhero.

So Greg returns the purse to the girl and she is ecstatic. She's doing fine, although she has a few bruises on her arm from the incident. I ask her where she lives and she says just the other side of Elgin, which is where we were heading anyway so we tell her we'll walk her home. Greg recommends that she call the cops and she decides to go straight to the police station to report it ASAP. We walk her down Elgin to the Pump and suggest following her all the way to the police station but she declines as Elgin is a pretty busy and safe street.

So Greg and I finish our initial plan and grab a few pints and celebratory shots. Greg's a hero and worth rebooting the blog for.

Also, the girl was hammered and she had a full bottle of wine in the purse. I love centretown.

Bad Corporate Citizens

It's been a while since something really grinded my gears enough to blog about (in case you didn't notice) but I just saw an article regarding what Wal-Mart and H&M do with unsold clothing. Here, read it and then come back, I'll wait.

So, how do you like them apples? Wal-Mart and H&M destroy and toss out clothing they can't sell rather than donate the clothing to charity. This incenses me to no end. Even sports teams send off the losing championship game clothing to third world countries (poor Jian thinks the Bills won 4 SuperBowls in a row).

Donating the clothing does more than help the poor people of NYC; it creates an image of a good corporate citizen. While I understand that Wal-Mart's image as a corporate citizen is spotless (where's that sarcastic font?), you can really never be too nice in the corporate world.

I don't really have much else to say that wasn't said in the article but if you didn't already have enough reasons to not shop at Wal-Mart, there's another. As for H&M, I could never handle the lineups so it's not like I have to stop shopping there, but I certainly won't even consider it now.

For shame.

Defending the HST

So a lot of people out there are telling you that the Ontario and BC governments are raising your taxes. How you ask? The HST they tell you. Your (un)friendly neighbourhood curmudgeon is here to tell you otherwise. The HST will save businesses money. The HST will increase investment in Ontario and BC. The HST should drive consumer prices down overall.

First, a bit of a history lesson. The Ontario and BC governments announced plans to harmonize their provincial sales taxes with the federal goods and services tax to create a combined tax; the harmonized sales tax (HST). Everyone panicked and got all up in arms thinking the price of goods and services in Ontario and BC will go up. These people are ignoring the fact that harmonization already happened in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Quebec. And the overall consumer prices in those provinces are no worse off than they were before. A study by Michael Smart for the CD Howe Institute suggests otherwise; consumer prices fell. But most people west of Quebec fail to recognize there is anything east of Ottawa and began to create anxiety with wild stories of tax hikes and Armageddon.

The truth is the HST is going to be good for all of you. First, the cost of doing business in Ontario and British Columbia is going way down. Business owners currently pay 8% PST in Ontario and 7% PST in BC on items consumed in operating their business; generally anything that is not directly resold or further processed or manufactured. That 8% and 7% is not currently recoverable. Post harmonization, the PST going away and is being replaced, for the most part, by the fully recoverable HST. Most businesses will pay a combined 13% or 12% and will be entitled to an equal and offsetting credit. That means there will no longer be any unrecoverable sales taxes payable by businesses. So, businesses save money.

The tax savings realized by business will lead to more investment. With more money in hand, businesses will be able to invest more in new technology and new people. We will all benefit. It's the trickle down effect, the money businesses save and invest lead to more money for other businesses and that trickles down to me and you (hopefully more to me).

It is true that consumers will initially pay more direct sales tax than we currently do as things like houses and services are subject to tax at 13% in Ontario or 12% in BC rather than the current 5% GST rate. However, those houses and services have an indirect tax component (the 8% PST in Ontario and the 7% in BC) that we currently don't see, so the true tax increase is probably more like 2% (based on a study performed a long time ago in NFLD that I cannot share with you). That indirect tax is removed and, provided vendors pass those savings along, the true impact won't be that bad.

Now there are problems, of course, like charities, colleges, universities, hospitals, etc. will pay more taxes and they generally don't recover the HST they pay in the same way as ordinary businesses. I've studied the impact on a few of these organizations and found that, due to a gracious HST rebate mechanism, they will in fact be better off. This may not be true for all, granted, but I assume that the Province will provide additional funding for those organizations that it is required to fund.

I haven't gone into hardly any detail here (BTW, this is my area of expertise), but I hope to make two points to all of you. 1) it's all going to be OK, in fact, it will probably be better after the first few years; and 2) if you run a business, pass those Ontario PST savings along. This is crucial to all of us.

One final point on whether or not the HST is a tax hike. Ontario and BC are losing their PSTs; the HST is a federal tax. While there is a complicated formula that creates a transfer payment from Canada to Ontario and BC, the truth is, harmonization will result in Ontario and BC collecting less tax, even with the transfer payment. This is not a tax hike folks, it is a reduction in overall taxes collected. Look it up, it's in the Ontario budget papers. The reason to harmonize it is to increase investment in the provinces and make the provinces more competitive in the global marketplace.

Now, sit back and relax. It's going to be OK. The world didn't end in the Atlantic Provinces and Quebec and it's not going to end in Ontario and BC.

You Can't Buy "Being Green"

I wake up to the radio every morning. It annoys me and I'm not sure why I do it. I suppose I should just use an alarm sound, a CD, an MP3, or anything other than those 3 jerks on the Team 1200 who never talk about sports unless it's about the Swedish God Daniel Alfredsson. But my rant today isn't aimed at the Three Jerks on the Radio. No, today I've got a gripe with a particular advertisement that I hear every morning.

The ad is for a hot tub and the selling point is that this particular brand of hot tub is "green". I'm not going to name the company because they shouldn't get any free air. But I just don't see how buying a hot tub could ever be considered being green. If you buy a hot tub you are going to be using more water and energy than you currently use. Being green means consuming less energy and less water than you currently do. In fact, you should consume as little as possible. Being green does not mean buying a product that consumes less energy and water than its counterparts, especially when that particular product is one that you can live without.

Jerks.

Ottawa Does it Again

Since I moved into my new apartment in June of 2008, summer's have been a mess. The city of Ottawa has been renovating Bank Street, tearing out the old street, fixing whatever is wrong underneath and then repaving. It's created a mess of dust and a foul stench during the hot days of summer.

This summer the city added a new wrinkle. You can no longer access Bank street from Lewis because Lewis is a one way street. To allow those folks who can only leave their houses from Lewis to legally drive to the next intersection the city temporarily made Lewis a two way street. It's a bit of an annoyance since the street is not built for two way traffic, but there isn't really a ton of traffic on the street and I walk or bike most places anyhow.

Today I read this article in the Ottawa Citizen. The city is fining people who park on Lewis facing west, which is the ordinary direction traffic flows when the street is a one way street. People are steaming and I don't blame them.

I'm going to sound like I'm mimicking the article's author, but that's because I fully agree with Hugh. Because of the reconstruction project Bank street businesses are hurting. If you fine people who decide to deal with the annoyance of walking down a dirt sidewalk to shop at the Herb and Spice store or grab a pint at the James Street Pub for facing the wrong direction in a parking spot, a wrong direction that is ordinarily the right direction, you are going to make people think twice about heading to Bank street. It's already a mess and a pain in the ass to navigate around. Adding a $35 fine is just the cherry on top.

I've had issues with Ottawa parking police in the past. I've fought every ticket and won each fight. I think it's because they are generally over-agressive. But this story just takes the cake.

Great job Ottawa. Way to help out the Bank street businesses.

Easy Target

These were the top two headlines for the Report on Business Section on the front page of theglobeandmail.com when I checked in after lunch on Tuesday:

• BMO profit rises to $557-million; and


• Number of EI recipients rises in June.

BMO's profits are up 6.9% from a year ago and have more than recovered from a drop that began in the fall. In contrast, there has been a 73% increase in EI recipients over the past year, the largest annual gain since the early 1980s.

Thank God the banks are doing well. I was really worried about them.

I know banks are easy targets and the goal in a capitalist society is to increase profits, but to see bank profits rise while more people are on pogie really irks me. Especially given the ridiculous fees banks charge their customers for the right to access their own money. There was a time when banks earned money by lending the money you kept in your account with them. Their profits were based on interest rates. Now banks make money charging you $10 a month for an account plus $1.50 per transaction at ABMs, Interact machines, etc. and even more if you go to the wrong bank.

They used to say there are two guarantees in life; death and taxes. I submit there are three; death, taxes and banks making money.

Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking

I've been out of the real world for the past week and a half attending bluesfest. I was alerted to this report by my friend Siobhan. Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase reported huge profits for the past quarter, less than a year after taking US taxpayer dollars to ensure their viability. The bailout numbers are staggering and are even hard to comprehend to someone who deals in 7 to 9 figures every day (not my own):

• Goldman Sachs received $13,000,000,000; and
  
• JP Morgan Chase received $25,000,000,000.

Not only did the US government provide the above aid to the financial institutions, they guaranteed the "toxic assets" held by the institutions. The toxic assets are essentially the loans that they, or other banks, made to people who couldn't afford to pay them back for overvalued homes.

Now, just a few short months later, each of the above banks is showing a profit for the last two quarters, as follows;

• Goldman Sachs - $1,800,000,000 and $3,440,000,000 for a total of $5,240,000,000; and
  
• JP Morgan Chase - $2,000,000,000 and $2,720,000,000 for a total of $4,720,000,000.

The banks that needed the bailout money so badly to ensure their viability turned a profit in just 8 months, which begs the question "did they really need the money?" Probably not, but the question that is baffling me right now is "where's the outrage?" Aside from some jokes from Letterman, Stewart and the rest of the late night gang, there's little to no reaction from the American public. What gives Yankees? Don't you care about how your government spends your money? Do you even know what's going on or are you too busy watching Lance Armstrong in a race you only care about because Lance Armstrong is in it?

I started this column wanting to complain about the banks in the US for pulling the wool over the eyes of the public and just being the dirty, rotten, filthy, stinking rich pigs they have always been. But now I think the public is dirty, rotten, filthy, stinkingly apathetic and if you keep letting them get away with it then you deserve it.

You Sold Out! Damn Right We Did.

We were at the KISS show on Wednesday night and my friend remarked "those guys are nothing but product." I suppose it's true, but they've always been; they had KISS dolls in the 70s, KISS movies, etc. So it got me thinking about sell-outs.

I remember discovering Metallica in the 80s, not discovering them like Dr. Dre discovered Eminem, but hearing them for the first time. I had no idea they even existed. You have to understand living in a small village in New Brunswick does not lend itself to discovering music that isn't on the country or classic rock radio stations or MuchMusic (ah, the Pepsi Power Hour and the New Music). So when I met some headbangers listening to Master of Puppets, I was immediately hooked.

I bought And Justice For All the first day it was released and wore that cassette out. Then Metallica released a video for One (a video?!). I recall my friends at the time immediately calling them sell-outs. "Metallica doesn't need a video" they'd say. I think they feared the mainstream music fans (though Metallica was arguably mainstream for the metal genre at the time) would jump on the band wagon. Not long after Metallica hired Bob Rock (Bob Rock, the guy from the Payollas?!?!) to produce the follow up to And Justice For All, the Black Album (actually, it was untitled, but it was all black save for a bit of lighter black in the shape of a snake). If you were a Metallica fan and didn't believe they sold out with the video for One, you almost certainly believed they did with the release of the Black Album.

Fast forward to today and selling out is de rigeur. Bands sell out all the time. Look at U2, selling ads for not only Apple (the original black Ipod), but now for one of Apple's major competitors Research in Motion (the Blackberry). Kings of Leon sold their song "Molly's Chamber" to Volkswagen. Feist practically made her career selling her song to Apple.

Not only do artists sell themselves for advertising, you get guys like Flavor Flav, Vince Neil, Bret Michaels, Gene Simmons (though he arguably never sold-out since they've always been all about the marketing), Snoop Dogg, and countless others starring in reality shows. The list goes on and on and on and nobody even bats an eye. What the hell happened?

Some may say that bands started selling out when we started stealing music. They stopped making money selling records and were forced to find new revenue streams. So you might think it's our fault at least in part. Screw that, I'm not taking responsibility for some cheesy 80s hair metal singer signing his name to star in "I'm a Celebrity and You Want to Sleep With Me".

The most common definition of selling out is to do something that makes you more successful and more money that you wouldn't ordinarily do. Like Metallica making a video or hiring Bob Rock, like U2 and Feist pimping Ipods, like KISS putting their name on anything that doesn't move. But wait, isn't that the point? Don't bands want to become successful and make money? Aren't bands sell outs the second they decide make a living as a band. It continues on to the point they sign with a major label and it never ends (see KISS and 2, U). While they may be considered "artists", they're still in it for success and money; that's the whole point isn't it?

Even Kurt Cobain, the man who many think killed himself to avoid being the record company's pawn and selling out, was a sell-out from the start. He claims his first concert was a Melvins show when it was Sammy Haggar. He claims he used to live under a bridge, which he didn't. He privately complained about MTV not playing Smells Like Teen Spirit enough while publicly complaining about being a rock star. He carefully cultivated his image, but, from the start, he always wanted to be a rock star. Check out Heavier Than Heaven if you don't believe me. Don't read Come As You Are as fact, Cobain had a hand in writing it. It was used as a vehicle to cultivate his image.

Don't get me wrong, I love Cobain and think the music was great. But he was the same as every other guy or gal in a band; he wanted to succeed and to be a star.

Bands always have been and always will be sell-outs. It's all about the benjamins and at least Puff Daddy had the guts to tell you so.

Money - A Follow Up

So a rich man, Donte Stallworth, kills a pedestrian and gets 30 days in jail and a whole bunch of probation. One crime, one victim.

Bernie Madoff steals millions from many and gets 150 years in prison. One crime as well, though I understand there were many charges (one for each victim of his scheme).

This leaves a really sour taste in my mouth. It isn't fair that Madoff gets more jail time than Stallworth. Listen, I think Madoff should be punished, but isn't a crime that results in the death of a person a worse crime than stealing? Shouldn't Stallworth get more jail time for driving drunk and killing a pedestrian than Madoff gets for stealing?

The manhattan judge Chin said he wanted to send a message. The message I'm getting is that stealing money is a worse crime than driving drunk and killing someone.

It's all Your Fault

Want to know why we're currently in a recession? Take a look in the mirror, the answer is probably staring you in the face. Now I know that the world economy is way too complex to point the finger at all of you good readers, but there are a few reasons that you should shoulder some of the blame.

First, one of the main reasons for the financial crisis/recession/there will be blood situation that we are currently in is banks lending money to people for houses they couldn't afford. Banks are in the business of lending money and maybe they should have known better than to lend Johnny Poorboy $500,000 when he only makes $50,000 a year. But maybe Johnny Poorboy shouldn't have tried to buy that $500,000 McMansion. Maybe Johnny Poorboy should have settled for a more suitable home for his income, maybe a $200,000 town house or bungalow.

But the banks lent Johnny the money. Johnny couldn't afford the payments. The house isn't worth what the bank though it was and we're all in a mess. Everybody is blaming the banks and while they deserve a lot of the blame, I'm also blaming Johnny Poorboy. He should have chosen a more affordable home, but given the state of the economy at the time, Johnny went out and bought a house beyond his means, which was the way things were done.

We lived through the most prosperous time in, well, ever (note, this is not based on any research, though I do recall reading it in MacLeans at the dentist the other day). During our time of prosperity, we began living high on the hog. Buying $300 blue jeans, $500 ipods, $3,000 TVs, $60,000 cars, $1,000 suits, and who knows how much on shoes that Carrie Bradshaw wore or t-shirts that Johnny Drama wore. Basically, we were accustomed to living beyond our means. Credit was readily available so we used it.

Now, in the current state of affairs, frugal is the new black. Credit is not so readily available. People are finding ways to save money, buying less expensive cuts of meat, taking staycations, shopping at thrift stores, and generally getting a kick out of finding ways to save money. Google "frugal is the new" and you'll find over 1,000,000 hits for ...new black ...new cool ...new chic. What I've been doing all my life is now en vogue. Some people used to call me cheap. My uncle joked that difference between cheap and frugal is that the word cheap is reserved for people you don't like. My definition is that a frugal person will spend money, but spend it wisely, always finding a deal. A cheap person is tight with money. A classic example is tipping. A cheap person is a bad tipper. A frugal person tips well, but doesn't eat out a lot.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that you all have joined my frugal-edge lifestyle. But I believe if you had always been frugal, or at least less spendaholicy, this recession wouldn't be so drastic or last as long. I'm not so arrogant to say that if you all lived like me that we wouldn't be in a recession, but one of the main drivers of the economy is consumer spending. If we spend more, the economy does well. If we spend less the economy does worse. This is well known, and best exemplified after those planes hit those buildings and that often mocked president urged Americans to go shopping to beat the terrorists. It sounded kind of silly, but when you boil it down, it was pretty smart and had its basis in sound economics.

When you were all living high on the hog, consumer spending was beyond what it should have been. It created an economy that was over-inflated. Now that we're all being frugal, the economy is probably somewhere below where it should be and is over-deflated (I may include over-deflated in my Me Fail English post). Had we all exercised a bit of restraint and spent only within our means in the past, we'd have more money saved today to even out the spending through the good and bad times. You wouldn't have to be as frugal as you are today. The economy may not have tanked as much as it did and would likely recover faster since consumer spending wouldn't have taken the drastic drop it did.

Some of you may not have changed your spending habits. Good for you. But this recent Globe and Mail article says otherwise of the general populace. Hoarding cash is not a good way combat the recession.

There are others to blame, like the banks and the press for their "the sky is falling" headlines. There actually was an article in the Globe and Mail saying that the recession would end in a civil war. Great job guys, way to keep consumer confidence high.

My advice to all of you is to be frugal, not only now, but in the future as well when times get better. But my guess is that you are being overly frugal now, spend a bit more today and a bit less when things get better. Smooth out your spending habits. You'll do your savings some good and the economy some good at the same time.