A MESSAGE FOR ROBOTIC CALLERS AND IDIOTIC ANSWERING MACHINES:

By: Jake Jakubuwski

Copyright, 2012. All rights reserved

Personally, I DETEST auto answering devices and robotic voices telling me how important my call is — and then telling me that all “service representatives are currently busy with other customers and your call will be answered in the order in which it was received.” Great shades of Ernestine!

 My thoughts on the matter: I also know these ideas could be considered self-centered and maybe even arrogant. No doubt, if you’re inclined to be kind, you’ll simply consider my thinking archaic.

I am THE customer. I am the person that keeps you in business. Therefore, I think you owe me more consideration then a robotic voice, a verbal holding pattern and some idiotic “live” talk show excerpt while I am waiting to CONDUCT business with you! I certainly don’t want a “Push for” menu regarding how I want to spend my time waiting, when what I want to do is spend my money with you and not waste my time because of you.

 I am either trying to spend money with your company, or I am trying to resolve an issue that I have had with a purchase of goods or services from your company. For some reason, robotic voices telling me that someone will be with me as quickly as possible does not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. It does not increase my confidence/convenience quotient regarding my experience with your firm.

Even more irksome is when “The Voice” asks me for information. Stuff like; “If you are calling in reference to ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­__________ please give me your zip code, telephone number, the last four digits of your Social Security Number, you mother’s maiden name, your father’s middle initial, the serial and model number of the item you are inquiring about, the store number and date where it was purchased, or will be purchased and; the size of the speakers in the last boom box you saw!”

Then when a “representative” does connect with me the first thing they say is: “Hi! My name is __________, please give me your zip code, telephone number, etc.” And, all of that takes place before I can even begin to place an order or register a complaint. 

Then, God forbid! I get transferred to “Stacy” and Stacy asks me the same questions all over. This, in my opinion, is not marketing. It is a devilish program designed to make me take my business elsewhere, or cause me so much frustration trying to solve a warranty issue that I’ll throw the $%(*@## item away and buy a new one in a brick-and-mortar-store! I often wonder if the companies that resort to these tactics actually do have a desire to drive customers away… 

I understand voice mail. I use it myself when I have to be out of contact with customers, potential customers or contemporaries. My message is short and sweet: I’m not here. I will be back. Leave a number and I’ll call you when I return. No music, no radio, no sound effects and no “dead air.”

 nd, when I am “in the office”, I answer the phone! Essentially, I say something like: “Hello” or “Hi! This is Jake!” Recently, I had a caller say: “Wow! You actually answer your own phone?”

I may be in the minority but, when I answer the phone and that robotic voice says: “Please, hold. I have a very important call for you…” Or, “Let’s take a cruise!” (With a fog horn in the background) — I hang up! I also hang up when I answer the phone and a chirpy, smiley voice says: “Hi! I’m Audrey…How’s the weather this morning inOxford?”

So; How can your on-hold message provide an opportunity for you to market to me? It can’t.

Consequently, I suggest that you make it brief and forget asking me for information that I’m going to have to repeat to a “real” person anyway. Oh! Yeah! Did I mention this? Require a real person to answer the danged call after thirty seconds — max! Then you don’t have to worry about a sales message during the on-hold time…

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ANOTHER (!) Open Letter to:

Dr. Janet Kavandi,

Director of Flight Crew Operations

Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas

Dear Doctor Kavandi:

To say I am saddened in view of NASA’s seemingly total disregard of my letter of October 4, last year, regarding the new astronaut class that you were planning to begin is an understatement. The depth of my disappointment is so deep, it can only be considered catastrophic!

I was so eager and energized at the prospect of receiving an application for that class after reading the  article where you stated that  this was “…an exciting time to join the astronaut corps.”

I readily admitted, in my earlier letter, that since my back surgery I knew I was not a prime physical specimen and I told you that I have to sleep in a recliner. I really thought that since whatever you folks call the seats that the astronauts set in, they look enough like recliners that I would have probably fit right in. No pun intended.

Commendably you, or the folks that evaluate an applicants and their qualifications, have rigid criteria regarding education, reflexes and the applicant’s ability to hold their bladder in check for long periods of time.  If you felt that I fell short of your educational requirements — that’s one thing. If, on the other hand, if you rejected me on the basis of what you may consider my physical shortcomings or disabilities; then you, and NASA, may be in violation of the American’s With Disabilities Act of 1993!  

Actually, I can’t truthfully say why you disqualified me, or declined to consider me, since I never received an application or any other encouragement from NASA.

That brings me to another point. I mentioned John Glenn and his last trip into space at the age of 77 in my first letter and pointed out that I was (at the time) a full five years younger then John Glenn when he made his second historic flight.

In my effort to rationalize why you did not send me an application, or if you rejected me out of hand, because of my age, I need to put you on notice that I am a member, in good standing, of AARP! I’m sure that NASA would not want to become known as an agency that discriminates against the elderly and denies seniors the same opportunities they gave to younger folks.

I’m not making threats, Dr. Kavandi. I’m jes’ sayin’ that tickin’ off older folks is not a good idea.

In my earlier letter, I briefly outlined my flight experience. True, I have never piloted a jet, but I flew 150’s, 172’s and even a 182 on occasion. And, get this:  my actual flight experience goes back to 1957 when I flew in my first airplane — a Piper J3!  That’s fifty-five years of flying in, and piloting, a variety of aircraft!

Admittedly, I haven’t “flown” now for twenty-five years, or more, but the way I see it, it’s like riding a bike or swimming. Once you learn how, you never forget. Well, maybe I should carry an iPad with me just to take notes, do you think?

The experiences I have had as a passenger in the Piper taught me a lot about emergency procedures in the air. Duane Moffit, the pilot, ran out of gas (the J3 did not have a gas gauge on the instrument panel … it was a long thin wire that passed through the filler cap and floated in the tank on a cork).

We got lost. We landed in a farmer’s field and asked directions. We landed in a strip mine inPennsylvania and asked the watchman how to get to Altoona. Let me tell you — landing in a strip mine in a J3 is nowhere near as exciting as taking off from a strip mine in a J3!

And once, I sat in the copilot’s seat in a 747! True the plane was on the ground and the engines weren’t running but I knew that I was seeing the future!

Believe me, if there is an emergency in the air — in NASA’s case — in a shuttle, I know which buttons to push … leaving the one labeled “PANIC” to the very last. Of course, if I found myself in a life threatening situation, it would not take me long to work my way through the other buttons.

Dr. Kavandi, I won’t bore you with the rest of my qualifications as listed in my original letter to you. You can review them again, if you wish, at: http://www.purejake.com/category/humor/ with the date tag of October, 4.

Please do not construe anything that I have said here as being indicative of a desire on my part to pursue any litigation of your decision regarding my application to the class of 2013. My deep-seated disappointment and personal angst at what I feel was a brush off by NASA to a disabled (ADA) and elderly (AARP) American who only wishes a chance to serve his country is just that: disenchantment.

With best wishes to you, NASA and your next astronaut class, I remain…

 Sincerely,

Jake Jakubuwski

Oxford,North Carolina

 PS: Should you decide to reconsider my desire for an application and I was selected to be a member of the new class of astronauts, would whatever NASA pays me impact my current Social Security benefits?

 (Coyright, 2012, Jake Jakubuwski. All rights reserved.)

About twenty years ago, I wrote the following article for The Hednerson Daily Dispatch.

Recently on one Face Book, a group of locksmith friends began discussing “clients” that had old, locked, safes that they needed open and were sure there was treasure maps, forgotten money or valuable manuscripts inside and wanted the locksmith to open that safe for a share of the treasure that was hidden inside.

Like many of my locksmith friends, I have been approached by folks that have bought safes at auctions, or found a safe in Grandpa’s basement and suddenly dreams of lost fortunes dance through their heads…

Alth9ugh there really have been treasures found in old safes, the chances of stumbling across one is, in my opinion, about the same as winning  big money in the state lottery…

So, I thought my readers and locksmith friends might enjoy the following:

Buying An Old Safe May Lock Up Unforeseen Costs

By Jake Jakubuwski

 Copyright, 1992 – 2012

            I imagine that on the average, I get at least one call a month from folks that are either buying or have bought “a really old safe.”  They want to know what I will charge them to get the safe open or find the combination.  When I quote our minimum price for opening a locked safe, the next statement is generally, “Gee, I only paid “x” number of dollars for it, and the fellow who sold It to me said any locksmith could open it for a few bucks.”

            The seller was good.  He sold the buyer a big box that no one has a key to.  A basically useless, big, heavy, securely locked old steel box because:  it is unopenable (without ruining it) by an unskilled person.

            The buyer, either because he really needs a safe, or thinks that after it is “restored,” that old steel box will be a valuable antique, purchases it.  Then, after much strain, aggravation, two out of six friends with a strained back, one pickup truck with a busted spring, and a chunk of concrete knocked out of his driveway, he finally get the safe into his basement or garage.  Then he calls a locksmith and finds out, that depending on what is required to open it, the price for opening it can run into serious bucks.

            Why does it cost so much to open a locked safe?  After all, we have all watched TV and seen how easily the good guys, and bad alike, can open them.  They put their ear against the door, turn the dial, listen to “the tumblers fall” (actually, there are no “tumblers” in a safes’ combination lock), turn the handle, and it is open.  Two, three minutes…tops.  I hate to disillusion everyone, but it just doesn’t work that way!

         The reason it costs so much to open a locked safe, without ruining it, is that it takes a great deal of knowledge, training, effort, proper equipment, skill, concentration and a smidgin of luck to open one…period!

            Consider this:  the average safe has three wheels, with 100 numbers on each wheel.  Theoretically, that lock has 1 million possible combinations (that’s 100 to the third power!).  Realistically, because various characteristics of a combination lock “forbid” using certain combinations, the actual number is considerably less…only 700,000 or so.  It is from these 700,000 possibilities that our safe buyer wants me to find the combination to his safe!  By no means impossible…just difficult and time consuming, provided…

            The combination lock on this old safe is functioning properly, and that the bolt work has not frozen up from disuse, and the relockers (security devices to thwart burglars, found on many safes) have not been activated by all the moving, thumping, and dropping onto concrete driveways!  If everything is within “normal” parameters, and I’m having a pretty good day, I can probably open the safe within an hour or two, without drilling, banging, burning or chiseling.

            If all is not well within the confines of that big, heavy, securely locked, old steel box, I’ll have to resort to “methods of penetration” , i.e., drilling, etc.  Then comes the repairs (always needed after drilling), and possibly a new lock, dial and dial ring.  All of which add to the cost of the opening.

             If you’re planning on buying an old safe, whether you need it to store documents in, or keep valuables in, or you just want to “restore” it for its antique value, make sure you buy one that has a known combination, or is open.  Otherwise, that big, heavy, securely locked, old steel box, might be better used as a boat anchor…provided you have a big enough boat and your friends are willing to help you move that monster again!

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SPECIAL NOTE TO ALL OF MY LOCKSMITH FRIENDS

As of February 20, 20012 PURE JAKE BOOKS & VIDEOS are available through the ALOA (Associated Locksmiths of America) Book store. If you are a member, visit www.aloa.org for some great buys on eBooks, videos and PowerPoint presentations

ALSO: ClearStar Security Network (CSN) www.clearstar.com has become a PURE JAKE BOOKS & VIDEO affiliate and is offering my books and stuff (In instantly downloadable files) for sale to CSN members.

Many thanks to ALOA and CSN for their participation and support.  By the way: both organizations are members only, secured sites.