Brobdingnagian Lumberhulks

What’s interesting about this post is that we are good tippers. In a restaurant, if the bill is $32.50, we round up to $35 and tip $7. That seems excessive, but worth it. Besides whatever unknown force that is karma provides us, we have given our server adequate sustenance and a nod at a job well done. After all, they had to bring drinks, run to the kitchen, add sauces and garnish, and get yelled at by the cook. Everyone gets yelled at by the methamphetamine-fueled cook who, without question, calls himself a “chef,” although he never attended culinary school. That in itself is worth a 25% tip for these unfortunate souls.

But pizza delivery? Yes, all of us once delivered pizzas, and even envisioned spitting on the pizza when we’d arrive at a fairly well-to-do house where the tip would be the remainder of a dollar. So we know what’s it like to get screwed and loathe the consumer. But we worked for Pizza Hut, and in those days, there was no delivery charge.

Nowadays, there is at least a $2 delivery charge. What is this charge for? The pizza drivers claim it is for the convenience and that they receive none of it, and we believe them. They still deserve recompense. The forums for delivery drivers – yes, there are actually such forums, welcome to the Internet – claim the same, and advise that you tip the driver. The argument is that the company is taking that money for themselves and the driver deserves reward. And we have always followed that. Tipping $5 on a $15 delivery, etc. But why should we get involved in their struggles? Some social-liberal viewpoint?

The last time we received a pie it took nearly an hour and a half. We said to the driver, “Hey, we always tip you guys like 30%.” We were all slightly intoxicated, but we had a valid point. “We deserve some consideration!” we wailed.

“Unethical,” the wispy-bearded adolescent responded. We swear, that’s what he said. “It would be unethical to give preferential treatment based on tips.”

Reasonable, even applaudable. But irrational. The point of tips is to commend for good service. We’ve already paid for good service with an included gratuity, just like in restaurants. And if you wispy-bearded adolescents refuse to acknowledge that, we won’t tip you extra. Even for exemplary service. If you want more than the already added gratuity, there better be whistles, clowns, and blowjobs.

And yet, there really isn’t good service. Multiple times, oh yes, multiple times, drivers come without pens. Without pens! They give the credit slip without pens! And just now, faithful reader, just now, the delivery woman comes to the door with a $15 bill and we begin our well-planned monologue of why she doesn’t get a tip. We intend to examine the entire system but her weary eyes betray only resentment. During our explanation of why she deserves no tip and should take it up with her capitalist oppressors, rather than hurl everything upon the end user, she says, “Oh, I need change,” and walks to her car. We wait at least 2 minutes until she returns with the change.

The lesson, boys and girls? Be prepared. This is Boy Scout shit now. We now refuse to tip pizza delivery drivers, and fully expect the pizza to be delivered on time, with correct change abilities, pens, hot pizza with no spit, and gratitude. Problems with the fact that we don’t tip? Take it up with your capitalist masters.

We will no longer be the whipping children of this society. Work for a company who allows its drivers to be tipped or go elsewhere. We won’t take the silent berating of a warped system. Why should we, the consumers, be made to feel that we are the villains when the conglomerates are the ones demanding payment for terrible service? This gauntlet should not be hurled upon the witless consumer. We just want fresh pizza, delivered on time and with respect, much like a server.

Problems with this? Don’t work for the companies who refuse to pay you what you deserve. We, the consumers, are not the enemy here. Your delivery-charging bosses are the problem. Stop railing against us and boycott them.

You constantly hear arguments that NPs are destroying medicine. And doctors will blatantly flaunt the idea that they are the real experts on patient care. Even intelligent doctors, at times, will use words like “supervision.” It is all very tiring.

I do not even bother to compare NPs and MDs. Their models differ. One is not better than the other. The schooling – minus the residency – is nearly equivalent in terms of time spent. The problem is that NPs don’t get a long enough residency. If you take a NP and a MD, both with 20 years clinical experience, the MD does not know more than the NP. Sure, he had a few extra classes 20 years ago – which he does not remember – but that’s about it.

NPs are not trying to steal MD meal tickets, they are attempting to better serve patients. Research has shown irrefutable proof that patient satisfaction and outcomes are just as high, if not higher in certain cases, when being treated by a NP rather than a MD. Some of this data is no doubt skewed because many MDs are so overwhelmed with patient loads that they simply cannot spend the time to provide competent care, but I see that as the fault of the MD for taking on too much.

Finally, I laughed when I read comments on various web sites about “once there was a gold standard – the physician.” That was no doubt true. Unfortunately, it’s not NPs that tarnished that reputation. It’s the fact that nearly 60% of practicing MDs got their degrees in unknown schools in Pakistan, India, or China. Then they did a residency in the U.S. These “physicians” can barely speak English, and if they provide good patient care, the patient certainly doesn’t know it. Next you have the American MDs who went to some Caribbean University for a 6 year medical degree. MDs straight out of reputable schools like Duke or Harvard or Washington University are a rarity these days.

Very soon, the idea that NPs are somehow “less” than MDs will change. A doctor is any learned person with an advanced degree such as a Phd, DNP, etc., and MDs are simply doctors of medicine. Eventually, when the Board of Healing Arts collapses in its ridiculous battles to slow NP progress, only patients will benefit. And NPs will no longer be asked, “Damn, you spent more time in school than a doctor. Why didn’t you go to med school?”

The answer will be obvious.

We’ve all had this happen. It’s absolutely ubiquitous at this point. You call up your bank, your loan holder, any government office, the gas company, your cellphone provider, or nearly any other company, and you are greeted with an inevitably slow-speaking, loquacious recording ticking off your options.

“Please push or say your 9 digit account number.” Okay, I think, that makes sense that they’d want that. Then, when they route the call, they’ll already have it. So I type it in. (Speaking it inevitably leads to the dreaded, “I’m sorry, I did not understand your account number. Please type or say your 9 digit account number.”)

Now I’ve got my account number punched in and I’m given a list of about 10 choices. I have to listen to the entire list because, almost invariably, the choice for a customer service representative, if it even exists, is somewhere near the end and is rarely “0,” because that would be too easy for people to guess.

As I listen to all the choices, I can’t help but wonder how many people they have working at this place. Do they really have this many divisions? Do your choices really make any difference? I’m betting that there is only one customer service division and it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference which buttons you push. Except, of course, that they’re hoping you’ll push one of the buttons which leads you to an automated system. You wouldn’t want to be foolish enough to press any buttons regarding the current status of anything, or requesting a mailing address, or anything that they could have recorded.

I generally choose that I want to make a payment, assuming that they’d be willing to have a rep talk with me if it involves getting my money. That can be risky, though, and I could get funneled into an entirely new menu filled with hellish requests for long strings of digits.

There’s no choice for a representative this time, so I choose “5,” which happens to be “Any other questions.” Maybe I’ll be routed to a human! No such luck. Now I’m greeted with a sub-menu. Within this sub-menu there are at least 5 choices and a choice to go back to the previous menu. Still no choice for a customer service representative. I go back.

I spend about three minutes searching through various menus until I find the choice for a customer representative, which they’ve cleverly embedded in a place no sane person would look. Eureka! I beat them, I think to myself, as I rub my hands in anticipation. I should note down the labyrinthian path and make an Excel spreadsheet of every company’s Machiavellian tactics, but I don’t.

The rep gets on the line and immediately asks me for my account number. I politely respond, “I already punched it in, don’t you have it?”

“No sir,” she says, “It doesn’t come through to us.” The obvious reply would be to ask why the hell we have to punch it in if they don’t get it, but madness lies that way, so I wisely refuse to pursue that line of questioning.

What We’re Doing About It:

Brobdingnagian Lumberhulks have almost perfected a machine which will enable us to go back in time and assassinate the person who conceived of automated customer service. We assume this person was thinking it would save time and cut down on having to pay people to man the phones. This idea would make sense if you simply hated your customers and were plotting to destroy their minds. The difficulty with the idea’s execution is that most problems can’t be solved by haphazardly pushing tiny buttons.

Until the machine is finished, if we ever find a customer service department in a large company filled with reps who actually answer the phone within three rings, we’re going to immediately give them all our money and clothes. We’ll mail them wrinkled, cute puppies and 4,000 pints of Ben and Jerry’s. We’ll wash their windows and scrub their floors and hire them private masseuses. We’ll even send large breasted prostitutes to continuously fellate them.