Shut the E-mail Down, America!*

Dear You, the Person Who's About to Reply to All in an E-mail,

Stop!  Before you hit send, is that e-mail relevant to everyone on the list?  Are you just talking to talk, or are you adding to the conversation?

If it's the former, please (PLEASE) think long and hard before you hit "reply to all."  Yes, sometimes joking is fun for everyone to read.  Yes, sometimes it's good to make the joke and let off a little steam, if you need to.  But if you're a habitual reply-to-all joke maker, maybe you should cut it down to maybe one joke every few days, instead of a few jokes every day.

Your recipients' inboxes will thank you for it.

Your pal,
Jill

*Giving credit where it's due: This phrase is slightly modified from one used by the awesome people at TBTL.

Flying High on a Response

NOTE:  I got this e-mail a while ago, but it's been buried in my inbox.  Still, it's great news!

February 1, 2011

Dear Mrs. J---:

Through the courtesy of the U.S. Department of Transportation, we've received a copy of the complaint that you filed with their office. We appreciate this opportunity to respond to your concerns of ticketing a reservation with the transportation voucher you received.

In reading your message, we appreciate your inquiry about using a paper transportation voucher to purchase a ticket. While service charges are allowed, I am pleased to tell you that the service charge we previously assessed for this type of transaction did not apply at the time of your ticketing. Our customers told us time and time again that this service charge was especially objectionable when applied to redeeming a transportation voucher. Consequently, we found a way to modify our internal process and eliminate this particular service charge for these transactions. Customer feedback about any of our policies and procedures is especially meaningful to us.

Still, we regret your belief that the collection applied. Accordingly, we reviewed the reservation transaction to ensure a mistake was not made. The original voucher held a $300 value. The new fare was a total of $216.44. A residual voucher of $83.56 was mailed to you. No additional collection of $20 was processed or deducted from the value of the voucher.

Mrs. J---, we appreciate you and your husband for volunteering to take an alternate flight last October. We are hopeful that this opportunity to expound upon some of our policies and procedures will help as you travel with us in the future. We look forward to welcoming you aboard again soon, and thank you for flying American.

Sincerely,

Wendy Scott
Customer Relations
American Airlines

cc: U.S. Department of Transportation

Your Not-So-Great Pal

Dear Readers,

Perhaps you're thinking, "What happened to my pal Jill?"  (Perhaps you're not.  That's OK too).  I honestly don't know where the time has gone....well, I think I have a couple of ideas:  Shoveling and roller derby.

We still have piles of snow outside, and it's still difficult for me to see around well enough to make turns at some intersections.  However, they're slowly melting (in fact, I think it's about time for me to chip some ice out of the driveway), and I hope that they'll be going away for good soon.  I hit the wall on winter this past week, and I'm ready to experience my first mud season in New England.

Roller derby's been my other major activity.  We are quickly coming upon our first bout, which is a doubleheader on the 26th:

Boston Massacre vs. Montreal New Skids on the Block

BDD Home Teams:  Nutcrackers vs. Cosmonaughties

This is going to be an awesome, awesome bout.  Montreal is a ton of fun to watch, and they've become a really competitive team (recently upset Rat City).  Boston is gunning to get back to the WFTDA Championships--by placing 4th in last year's regional tournament, they missed out.  This year they plan to be back.

My preparation for the bout has been a lot of training, organization, and stocking up.  We have a bunch of new officials, which is fantastic, not only because we have a lot of them, but also because they're excited, dedicated, and all around sharp.  They have a ton of great ideas and really want to improve our league and officiating team.  Every time I think about them, I get excited.

However, they all have to be trained, which takes time.  I've had to buy officiating supplies, which takes time.  I've had to try to get prepared for not only this first bout, but the entire season.  It's amazing how many details go into producing a roller derby bout.  My head spins just thinking about it.

I'm trying to generate new work too, which has been an ongoing learning process/ego bruiser.  Today I realized that I have to get back in the saddle and make something happen.  Nothing really just falls into your lap--it has to be right place/right time, and I have to get myself into those places.

Unfortunately, that means that the blog has taken a back seat, and I have to get myself back into the place of making this world a more sane/common sensical place.  It won't happen on its own--I need to do a little prodding.  If you've got any suggestions/have noticed some weird policies, let me know, and I'll look into it.  Or if you just want to let me know what you've been up to in the meantime, I'd love to hear it.

Your pal,
Jill

Snowy Wisdom

Dear Readers,

On this week's edition of "If It's Tuesday/Wednesday, It Must Be Snowing".....

We've had a serious amount of snow, and honestly, every week we have a big storm that involves spending major amounts of time shoveling and figuring out where to put the snow.  By now I feel like I'm supposed to have acquired some sort of sage wisdom that I can impart on all of you--wisdom so wonderful that even people in warm climates would wish they had snow storms and could gain this knowledge.

Sadly, I haven't.

But after another typical two-hour stint of shoveling during a storm, where once I've finished doing a pass, it doesn't look like I've even shoveled at all because the snow is coming down so hard, I do have one thought:

If I'm shoveling for two hours, I can eat and drink whatever I want.

That counts for something, right?

Off to eat a bit of whoopie pie.  Stay warm!

Your pal,
Jill