My two-cents worth and then some. An online journal by LP Brown.

Posts Written By L Parker Brown

That’s Just Me

by on ·Blogging, Daylight Savings Time, Fashions, Friendships

Experts recommend that bloggers post a minimum of one-to-three times a week. I find that laughable. One-to-three times a month is more my speed. Some resourceful bloggers post daily. God bless ‘em!

As everyone knows, few things leave you more vulnerable than exposing yourself to public scrutiny. Being the author of an online journal certainly does that. Bloggers are known to be opinionated, and the cost of speaking our minds sometimes draws criticism, which means it helps to have a thick skin, a touch of chutzpah, or both. Nevertheless, we must still be wary of many things, including naming names or saying anything that might set off a wackadoodle or two in this crazy world (and it doesn’t take much).

That said, I’m trying to step up my game and post more frequently. If you think that is easy to do, slap yourself – twice. Bloggers may be opinionated, but putting our thoughts out for the world to see is not something a wise person does indiscriminately for numerous reasons. And if you need to analyze that statement, then slap yourself again.

So, for my regular readers who are wondering why this is my second post to pop up in your email box within a few days, consider it explained.

Some of you can relate to this: I struggled to make it through last week, but I did it! Every year Daylight Savings Time (DST) throws me off-kilter. This year is no different. It’s a week since DST began, and my episodes of suddenly nodding off and deliberately napping throughout the day have finally subsided. It’s bad enough that I rarely get the recommended amount of sleep. I can’t remember the last time I slept 7-to-8 hours a night.

A day or two after DST required that we move clocks ahead one hour, I heard Whoopi (on The View) and other television personalities lament the annual time change. One doesn’t have to be a specialist to realize that something strange happens to many of us during the twice-a-year time change. The fall-back change isn’t as bad as the spring-forward. I don’t know about anyone else, but the latter screws up my body and mind, beginning on the Monday after and for the days following. I can’t drink enough coffee to avoid frequently yawning and nodding off like a drug addict.

I learned that a bill is pending in congress to make Daylight Savings Time permanent. So this is one time I hope that legislators, if necessary, will vote across party lines and support a law that would eliminate the twice-yearly time change.

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Have fashion designers run out of ideas? I see styles trending back to those big, ugly shoulder pads in women’s clothing. I didn’t like them when they were stylish in the eighties, and I don’t like them now. Back then, I cut out some of those monstrosities from my blazers and blouses. Need I say that in some cases, that did not go well?

Nevertheless, if I were to buy something with shoulder pads now, which I would not, I’d remove them again. I have no problem with my tops revealing the natural slope of my shoulders. That’s just me. You all know what I always say, “Different strokes.”

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Some people go out of their way to make friends. I’m not one of them. However, ask anyone who knows me well, and they’ll likely tell you I am friendly once you get to know me. I’m just not what I’d call a people person. (That sounds contradictory, doesn’t it?)  I’m not inclined to walk over and introduce myself to someone at a social function or welcome a new neighbor to the hood with a gift basket of cookies or teacakes. I’d also be suspicious if a potential neighbor did that for me. I’ve probably watched too many episodes of Fear Thy Neighbor on the ID channel. But lest I am misunderstood, let me tell you that I have cultivated many genuine friendships over the years, including other bloggers.

Speaking of friendships. Here’s a question for the court of public opinion. Say you come home and find on your voicemail a message from a platonic friend whom you’ve known for several years. Then, you two fell out nearly a decade ago over an argument concerning a particular obnoxious politician. (Need I name names? LOL) The phone message left says, in short, “Hi. This is (I won’t reveal his name either). I’m just calling to see how you are doing. You can call me back (and he leaves his number unchanged from the one I already have in an old address book).

What would you do? Act as if nothing happened and return the call, resuming the friendship as it previously was, with periodic emails and phone calls, or would you ignore the message, and move on, leaving the acquaintance in the yesteryears (while in your mind wishing the former friend well)? I chose to do the latter, and that’s just me. What would you do?

 

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Blowing Leaves off Family Trees

by on ·Family, Genealogy

“We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.”

– Robert Frost, The Secret Sits

Ancestry.com is breaking up families, according to a segment today on The View. The cohosts discussed a case where a son requested a DNA kit from Ancestry.com and learned from the results that his dad is not his father. Instead, it turns out his father’s brother and his mom had an affair (the mom admitted it), and the man the boy thought was his uncle is his father. Upon hearing that, I felt like doing what one of the cohosts did: shout out to the uncle in my Maury Povich voice, “You are the baby’s daddy!” (LOL. I couldn’t resist.)

Revelations from Ancestry.com and enthusiastic genealogists everywhere expose secrets and blow more leaves off family trees than an F3 tornado.

All families have secrets. There are no exceptions; the rich, the famous, the poor, and the unknown have skeletons in the closet, and even pulverized bones sometimes yield secrets.

Years ago, when I took it upon myself to become the family genealogist, I began digging into my immediate and extended family history. I searched archival and other public records and solicited narratives from family members, who trusted me and divulged information on the condition that I bury it (and not in the pages of a book). Some of my sources are now deceased. Some writers would say that once the source dies, all bets are off. I’m not one of those.This sleuth unearthed revelations about a rape, a near-fatal abortion (not the rape victim), an ill-conceived and nearly disastrous intercontinental romance, out-of-wedlock births, and shotgun weddings. Decades ago, when morality and ethics were reverenced, some of those events were scandalous; today, many would not raise an eyebrow.

Unfortunately – or fortunately – depending on how you view it, all of our lives are an open book today, in many ways, thanks to Google. Who hasn’t done or experienced something we regret and hoped to conceal? It doesn’t matter whether the act occurred when we were young and dumb or old and foolish. In every family, remnants contributing to “the history of us” are everywhere. Even wrongdoings and foolish deeds that are not necessarily secretive await discovery. History can be covered up but not erased. It is stored in someone’s memory, logged in a journal, or tucked like a metaphorical note in a bottle waiting to be plucked from the ocean of time.

A family genealogist will inevitably come across some zits that are not secrets but are well-known truths, seldom discussed because they are embarrassing or unpleasant.

Just as there are two sides to every family, paternal and maternal, there are secrets aplenty. History. Herstory. Our stories.

Over the years, I’ve learned that before sharing “a secret,” one should think twice about the profound words of Benjamin Franklin, “Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.”

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Customer Service Woes: Your Call is (Not) Important (Part One of Two)

by on ·Customer Service

Everyone I know has a customer service nightmare story, and things seem to be worsening. Several months ago, one of my cousins began having a problem with her cell phone. She called her wireless carrier numerous times concerning the issue. Then, one day, she and a phone rep, whom I’ll call Agent Jekyll, had a quibble. Instead of handling the matter professionally and trying to resolve the problem, Agent Jekyll became agitated and transformed into Agent Hyde. Frustrated with the bickering, my cousin ended the call. Subsequently, Agent Hyde, perhaps still fuming, did something that might have gotten him fired when good customer service was standard. His action is proof that no matter the occupation, power in the wrong hands can be misused and damaging.

My cousin’s health issues make reliable phone service essential. So she bought a new phone and was baffled when she began experiencing connectivity problems with it. In the meantime, she would often use her daughter’s mobile, which is on her account. Finally, a few months after purchasing the new phone, my cousin inadvertently learned the source of the problem.

While out running an errand one day, her daughter tried to phone her mom and received a “No mobile connectivity” message from her mother’s phone. She rushed home and told her mom, who then used her daughter’s phone to contact the carrier. Fortunately, she lucked up and got a patient and empathetic agent to assist her at that time. After troubleshooting the issue, the agent discovered that (unbeknownst to my cousin) the last agent, Jekyll-Hyde, had disconnected her line. My cousin resolved to report the matter to the Corporate office.

Aside from my personal experiences, I learned from research and conversations with friends that lousy customer service is widespread in many companies. Unprofessional reps sometimes show poor judgment or malintent by doing something impractical, like disconnecting a customer’s phone line without justification.

As bad as my cousin’s phone episode was, I discovered, on sites like helpcrunch.com, examples of poor customer service that are even worse than what my cousin experienced. In one instance, an Amazon customer bought $90 worth of toilet paper and was charged more than $7000 in shipping costs. Getting that overcharge refunded was a major challenge.

An article on Forbes.com, “The Decline of Customer Service in America,” blames poor customer service on “a lack of training and failure by businesses to invest in basic customer service training skills.”

I know I am not the only one who longs to return to the days when providing excellent customer service was a business priority. Innovative companies know that providing good customer service helps retain customers and generates new business when satisfied customers spread the word about the service they received.

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Customer Service Woes: Hold-Time, One for the Record Book (Part Two of Two)

by on ·Customer Service

I called the Social Security office some months ago to ask a simple question. After several rings, someone finally picked up; only it wasn’t someone; it was an IVR, an Interactive Voice Response system (IVR). Laypeople like me prefer to call it an automated answering system or recorded message. As soon as I heard the telephone menu begin, I knew that getting a quick answer to an easy question might take a while, but since I had some time on my hands, I decided to wait.

Research by Velaro and other companies that have studied customer hold times shows that 60% of patrons hang up after one minute. I know from experience that government agencies are notorious for long hold times, so I expected to be in the hold cue for several minutes. But, I didn’t expect to become a hostage in the IVR jail where the messages played intermittently and the same information looped repeatedly. To avoid repetition in this post, I’ve indicated (in parenthesis) the frequency with which some messages played. Let me take you back to that day.

Ring. Ring.

After the second ring, I hear a click and think, I can’t believe someone picked up immediately. But then I hear this.

IVR: “Your wait period is approximately 50 minutes.”

Me:  FIFTY MINUTES! They’ve got to be kidding me. I think that perhaps I misheard, and tell myself the message said 15 minutes, not 50, so I waited. The time is 8:55 a.m.

Keeping the phone pressed to my ear, I lean back in my chair, grab the TV remote with my free hand and begin channel surfing. And then I hear.

IVR (9:09 a.m.): “Thank you for holding. We appreciate your patience. We are assisting other people and will help you as soon as we can.” (This message repeated at 9:15 and 9:22 a.m.)

At 9:10, I put the phone on speaker, set it on my desk, began filing my nails, and reflected on the days when customer service meant person-to-person, not person-to-computer. Usually, after the second ring, the third at most, a real person would answer the phone, sometimes even in government offices.

Everyone knows that holding the phone for an extended period is frustrating, but you don’t dare hang up and call back only to have to start again.

It used to be that a caller could press zero to bypass the gibberish and immediately be connected to a live person. But businesses eliminated the zero feature, leaving time-pressed callers no choice but to wait.

Some companies now place callers in a phone queue, sort of a virtual waiting room, and offer them the option of holding or receiving a callback. But unfortunately, the Social Security system did not offer that option. And so, instead of twiddling my thumbs, I busied myself playing online word games, scrolling my social media pages, and reading emails. Occasionally, I read the news tickers at the bottom of the muted TV screen.

IVR (9:16 a.m.): “We apologize for this delay if you are calling for general information. If you are applying for retirement, disability, or spousal benefits, you may want to visit us at www.social security.gov.” (This message repeated at 9:21 a.m.)

ME: Thinking. If someone in the freaking office would answer the phone, I will tell you that I tried unsuccessfully to log on to the website. Several times. 

IVR (9:17 a.m.): “We regret that you have waited so long.”

ME: No, you don’t.

IVR: “We are doing our best to answer your call. Social Security provides benefits to more than 50 million. We are taking calls in the order in which they came.”

ME:  Sarcastically. In which they came. Where did they come from? And what’s my position in line now, number 49 million?

IVR (9:18 a.m.): “Thank you for holding. We appreciate your patience. We are assisting other people and will help you as soon as we possibly can.”

IVR (9:19 a.m.): “At the conclusion of your call, we would like you to participate in a short survey and tell us about your experience. If you would like to participate in the survey, please stay on the line after the agent hangs up.” (This message repeated at 9:24 a.m.)

ME: You’d better believe it. I’ve got plenty to say on your lame survey.

Following the 9:19 IVR message, I hear something different. Four fast beeps. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

ME: That beeping. It’s surely a sign that someone is about to pick up. So I wait, and wait, and watch the numbers on my digital clock flip over. And then a different message plays.

IVR (9:20 a.m.): “Thank you for waiting. Someone will assist you shortly. Please have handy your Social Security number and any recent mail we have sent you. Having this information will help us to serve you better.”

ME:  Here we go. Pick up the phone. I perk up. But then.

At 9;22 a,m. the message that played at 9:17 repeats.

ME: I can’t believe I’ve been holding on for nearly 30 minutes. Surely, I’ve set a Guinness Book record. Joking aside, frustration sets in. This is the first and last time I’ll do this again. I tell myself.

IVR (9:23 a.m.): I hear the four beeps again, and then – a pause.

ME: I’m sure someone is going to pick up now. I’m preparing to stand up and do a happy dance. When, for the third time, I hear…

IVR: “Thank you for holding. We appreciate your patience. We are assisting other people and will help you as soon as we can.”

9:25 – 9:55 a.m. All of the IVR messages continue to play intermittently. And then, just as I am about to wave a white flag and hang up, a real live human voice says, “May I help you?”

I take a deep breath and slowly exhale. I refuse to fly off the handle because the SS employee might expect that, and I don’t want him to hang up on me. So I unclench my teeth, fake cheerfulness in my voice, and say …

Me: “Good Morning. I’m calling to inquire about my 1099 form.”

I barely finish the sentence before the human says in a robotic tone, “The 1099 forms are being mailed from headquarters throughout the month of January. You should receive yours before the end of the month. Is there anything else I can help with?”

ME: “Thank you. No.” I hang up and scream, “AHHHHH!”

Had I not recorded the times and automated messages, I would not have believed that I engaged in a one-hour hold-time marathon for a conversation that lasted about 20 seconds.

And for fear that Big Brother might snatch my SS check if I left some profane remarks, I did not take the survey.

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Reflecting on the Dark Side

by on ·Black Lives, BLM, Lifestyle and Culture, Opinion

 Co-written with David White

My cousin, David, is a deep thinker, much more so than I am. I often marvel at his insight and what I see as his skill at analyzing situations. He is also very modest, so I’m sure he will admonish me for gushing over him in this post. But I call it as I see it. In addition to many things my cousin and I have in common, our intense dislike for small talk and delight in engaging in stimulating conversations often lead us into deep discussions, usually about politics and social issues. And since at least one (moi – and perhaps both) of us dislikes marathon phone conversations, we primarily correspond via email.

Yesterday, inadvertently, on the eve of Black History month, our topic was the Tyre Nichols tragedy. I did not watch and have no plans to watch the infamous video. Whenever a newscast predictively includes a portion of the videos, I change the channel or mute the TV and look away. I DON’T WANT TO SEE IT. The whole situation has become a repeat of an ongoing practice that keeps many of us (black people) in a perpetual state of sorrow for the victims and their families. The needless killings keep repeating like reruns of old TV shows.

Copicide, as I call it, is a modern-day Shakespearean-type tragedy not made for TV. Here’s how I described the plot of the ongoing series on my FB page: “Unwarranted murder by cop. Heartbreak and outrage expressed by the family. Calls for justice by Crump and Sharpton. Protests by activists. Expressions of regret and condolences to the family by city officials. Calls for reform by those same officials and politicians. Hashtag, here we go again. Second verse same as the first.”

As he often does, my cousin impressed me when he laid out his perspective.

I could write a dissertation on my feelings regarding the Tyre Nichols situation. It is so painful. But humans who feel they are licensed to hierarchize human life on a scale of “more or less worthy of humane treatment ” leads to this – one of the reasons (among many) I’m against the death penalty. Once you deem someone else’s life worthy of less respect than you would give your own, it logically proceeds that things like this happen. It gives [carte-blanche, my two cents] the authority and power to act on those prejudices.

I didn’t watch all of the videos but [saw] enough to know what it was about … Everyone intuitively knows that if that young man had been white and every other circumstance were the same, there would have been a totally different outcome, if any incident at all. 

I worked at a prison, and I know how easy it is for people to be depersonalized and dehumanized. And, to get into the racial part … Eddie Glaude on MSNBC alluded to a Baldwin citation, which I can only attempt to paraphrase. [He said] that racism becomes a systemic way to view others, and blacks can easily assimilate that same racist attitude given the right conditions. It makes it much more painful because many black people are oblivious to how we have adapted and internalized the attitudes we ostensibly rebuke.

I will never forget how hurt and ashamed I felt while walking the historic campus grounds at the predominantly white University of North Carolina. I passed a large group of black students in front of the main library and heard one female approach another person (a male, I believe) and, with a smile, greet him with “Hey nigger.”

Keep in mind that scores of students (mostly white) were making their way to and from classes at that time. I wanted to find Star Trek’s Scottie and have him beam me to my dorm and erase the memory. I’m sure they [the black students] thought they were being hip, cool, and defiant by uttering such an offensive word, and in their mind, making it powerless or some mark of distinction. But I know what they were really saying is “You may be at a white school, you might be academically gifted, but I see you the same way a lot of these white folks see you.”

That’s the sentiment that comes to mind when I hear about [the Nichols tragedy].  

 I know I’m going to sound like an old fogey, but whenever I hear the N-word, it jangles me. I will never be comfortable with that word, and it pains me when I see young people blasting their music, and every other word in the song is N-word this and N-word that, and white and black [people in proximity] hear this. I feel [that those who use the N-word] have an [warped] idea about what racism is and what it is not. For example, some think that a particular effect, attitude, and worldview make you “black.” And if you don’t conform to [that way of thinking], then you’re not really black.

When I was in college, many students dropped a class if they didn’t see any other black students taking the course because they had assimilated the idea that there are certain places where they don’t “belong;” not because anyone overtly told them that but because they had been acculturated to believe it. That’s why [some people] can treat a black stranger entirely differently from a white stranger and not see how that is a form of racism.  

Not to throw fuel on an eternal flame, I’m piggybacking on David’s thoughts about the intricacy of racism and the angst it causes by adding one more thing. I did watch the video showing an intruder’s break-in at the home of now-former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. When the door opened, the police saw a hefty-looking white guy grasping the arm of Peloski’s elderly husband with one hand while welding a hammer in his other hand, and the intruder still lives to talk about it. I’ll leave that right there.

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