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Phone book publishers aren't cool

Here we go again. Geoff K over at Our PDX Network posted today about the continuing scourge of telephone book spam.

I know that not everyone looks to the internet to get their information and directory services, and that there will always be people who prefer the ole book. But isn’t it time we changed it from something sent out to everyone, to something only delivered to people who REQUEST it? I’ve tried many times to opt out of getting phone books, but it doesn’t matter, they come whether you want them or not. The guys chucking phone books this morning weren’t looking at any list or checking which houses got them, they just chucked them, house after house not really caring about much (a side note, the book nearly took out one of our Halloween decorations…).

Not much more to say. These spambook publishers need to be stopped and held to account for their waste and litter.

More info on telephone directory waste

Qwest DEX telephone directories: 2,162 pages of waste

Amazon.com falsifying product returns data

There are problems in the warehouse at Amazon.com and someone is trying to cover them up. I've written a couple times lately about how Amazon.com, for years the undisputed gold standard of how to run a business right, is suddenly showing some unsightly dings in their shiny paint job.

On February 6, I wrote about how Amazon.com is making costly mistakes by failing to package products adequately for shipping. I included a photo of a box full of Christmas presents that was nearly destroyed in transit because 1) it was poorly packaged in the first place and 2) it appears UPS ran over it with an entire convoy of fully-loaded delivery trucks before deciding it was in good enough shape to leave on my doorstep.

That box was one of three or four that I returned over the course of a month or so. I just assumed that Amazon.com was so overwhelmed with the volume of orders over the holidays that they had temporarily scaled back on their packaging—a costly mistake in the end. They may save a few minutes and a penny or two worth of paper on the initial order, but what they're failing to calculate is the enormous cumulative cost of the:

1. time of the customer service rep who has to process the return
2. box and packing material to ship the replacement
3. shipping for the item being returned
4. shipping for the replacement item
5. ding on their reputation for the bad customer experience

And then there is the enormous environmental impact of every botched order essentially having to be shipped three times...

So where does the falsifying of product returns data come in? I received two e-mails from Amazon.com this morning letting me know that my returns had been received and processed. I received one a few days ago, but just glanced at it briefly. I'll go back and look more closely now. For every single item I returned, I chose, "Product arrived damaged due to insufficient packaging" from their pull-down list of options in their online product return form. Apparently someone in shipping (or higher up) at Amazon.com didn't like what that would do to their numbers.

If you click on the image here, you can view a full-size version and find that Amazon.com changed every one of my stated reasons for returning each damaged item. One of them says, "Item is defective" and the other four say, "I accidentally ordered the wrong item." Seeing as how all five items were books and that they shipped the exact same five books to replace the ones damaged in the first shipment, this shouldn't even go unnoticed within the company. Why would you ship someone a replacement for an item that they accidentally ordered wrong? If this isn't throwing up red flags all over in Amazon.com's system then they're a much less sophisticated machine than I've always thought. And less honest, as well.

Oh, and the second e-mail I received today? It was also for a book that they'd shipped the exact same way. It arrived with one corner smashed and bent. For that return, I called and spoke with a customer service rep. She was very friendly and I explained the problem and expressed my frustration with the recent trend of poor packaging. She was very sympathetic and said she'd make a note of it in the system. But in the e-mail (which you can view by clicking on this image), the reason for my returning the book is listed as: "Product became damaged/defective after arrival."

Spend $25, save a bundle - and the environment

I bought a Brita filtered water pitcher the other day and it came with the refillable water bottle pictured here. I was ready for it to be a worthless throw-in item meant to just sell more product. Turns out it's a very cool, heavy-duty water bottle - the best I've ever used.

I went to the URL on the bottle and learned it's part of an environmental pledge program called Filter For Good:

Brita and Nalgene have partnered to present FilterForGood.

...if you purchase a FilterForGood refillable bottle, you'll also be supporting the Blue Planet Run Foundation, a nonprofit organization working to provide safe drinking water to 200 million people for the rest of their lives by 2027. For every FilterForGood refillable bottle purchased between August 10th, 2007 and February 29th, 2008 a donation of $4 will be made to the Blue Planet Run Foundation.

The FilterForGood campaign is proud to be a partner campaign with RefillNotLandfill, which Nalgene launched earlier this year.

If you don't drink as much water as you should, having a Brita filter and bottle will probably cause you to drink more. If you drink plenty of water now, but are buying disposable bottles, please switch to a filter and refillable bottle. These sites are packed with great facts and information; I'll share a few tidbits here:

• 8 out of 10 plastic water bottles used in the United States become garbage or end up in a landfill.
• In the United States in 2006, bottled water consumption reached a record 8.3 billion gallons, 185 million gallons of which was imported.The total amount spent on bottled water was over $11 billion.
• The energy we waste using bottled water would be enough to power 190,000 homes. But refilling your water bottle from the tap requires no expenditure of energy, and zero waste of resources.
• Making all of the bottles for the US requires more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually. That's enough to fuel 100,000 cars.
• Bottled water companies do not have to release their water-testing results to the public, whereas municipalities do.
• It costs more money to drink bottled water than to put gas in your car--up to five time more--due mainly to its packaging and transportation.
• In contrast to tap water, which is distributed through an energy-efficient infrastructure, transporting bottled water long distances involves burning massive quantities of fossil fuels. Nearly a quarter of all bottled water crosses national borders to reach consumers, transported by boat, train, and truck.

Link: www.filterforgood.com

Amazon.com going out of business?

They will if they continue on their current track. I received the rest of my order that I wrote about yesterday, including the book that arrived damaged the first time around. Despite the customer service rep telling me that she'd make a note that the book hadn't been properly packaged, this one arrived in the exact same packaging. By sheer luck, it was in good shape. Not so for the other three items in the order. I received two books and a Krups coffee grinder, each in a separate package. I'm returning all three due to damage caused in transit.

One of the books was just wrapped in cardboard and one corner is completely smashed. The other book was partially shrink wrapped around a piece of cardboard in a box—and one corner is completely smashed. Ironically, it appears the corner was smashed by the shrink wrapping. The Krups coffee grinder was in a box three times it's size with one small, half-inflated shipping pillow inside that is far too small to do any good (see the photo; click for a larger view). The product packaging is dirty, but not damaged. But there's something rattling around inside.

A friend of mine who worked for UPS once told me to never ship anything via UPS that I wouldn't drop from five feet in the air onto concrete. Because it happens fairly frequently. It's not that UPS is playing hockey with customer packages. It's just that these boxes go through all kinds of hands, conveyer belts, road trips, etc. in a volume that doesn't allow for kid gloves handling. It's up to the shipper to package things to withstand the trip. Amazon used to do a great job, but seems to have completely forgotten that fact in the last few months.

I'm not going to give up on Amazon.com yet, but if I ever have to return four products in two days again I'll be closing my more than decade-old account and taking my business to their successor. There's no way they'll stay in business if they continue like this.

**************************

Update - 2008.02.07 @ 10:03pm: Since posting the above, I've received a number of follow-up e-mails from Amazon letting me know that they've already shipped all the replacement items via next day air. That's pretty impressive. Their customer service is definitely the best in the business by far. They just need to fix their packaging problems so their customers don't have to contact customer service so often.

Amazon.com is making costly mistakes

Amazon.com is cutting costs in the wrong places and likely costing themselves customers and a great deal of money in the end. I try to shop local whenever I can and have given Powell's far more money than I'd ever want to know. But I do find Amazon indispensable from time to time.

They've always been great about packaging books and other products—sometimes almost going overboard on the amount of packing material inside the box. I actually thought about suggesting to them once that they cut back for environmental reasons. Well, they've done that and then some. Since last December, I've been receiving orders from them with no packing material in the box at all. The box in the photo here arrived exactly as it's shown. I have no idea how the UPS driver thought it was a good idea to leave it on my porch in that condition! It was partly Amazon's fault too, though, as there was no packing in the box to keep the items inside from rattling around and getting covered with dirt once there was a hole in the box. All five or six of the Christmas presents in the box were damaged and had to be returned. To Amazon's credit, there was no wait to talk with a customer service rep by phone and the replacement books arrived the next day.

I received a book today that was wrapped in cardboard with no plastic wrap or anything to protect it. The back cover is damaged in two different places. I contacted Amazon and they're sending a replacement. If they're trying to cut costs by cutting back on packaging, they're getting it all wrong. If my experience is any indication, they're having to ship a fairly high percentage of their orders twice, as well as pay costs for the return of the damaged products.

Voice recognition software is ready for prime time

This is absolutely amazing! Regular readers will know that I do not say that very often. The fact is, I patiently reserve it for things just like this.

I'm writing this blog entry without touching my computer. I'm sitting back in my chair listening to music and speaking into a microphone. And so far, the computer hasn't made a single mistake. Dragon Naturally Speaking dictation software was amazing when I used it briefly a few years ago and, as one might expect, it has improved dramatically since then. I've trained it for only 20 or 30 minutes after installing it this morning and it is already at least 95% accurate. The accuracy will continue to improve every time I use it. It will continue learning my vocabulary, accent and speech habits.

Perhaps the most important addition to my setup, however, is the microphone I'm using. I've written about it before. TheBoom microphone has revolutionized my mobility during my work day. I call it my magic microphone. Using it, I can sit in a coffee shop full of people talking, music blaring, and conduct important conference calls without anyone on the other end of the line having any idea that I'm not sitting in my office. The microphone picks up everything I say, even if I'm whispering, but doesn't pick up any of the background noise.

With the Dragon voice recognition software and my magic microphone, I can sit in my office with music blaring or a noisy coffee shop and dictate documents, e-mail, IM -- whatever.

If you do a lot of typing every day, Dragon could save you both time and pain. I started feeling pain in my hands and lower arms a couple years ago and knew that I had to do something. I have improved my posture, increased the frequency of my breaks from the computer, and added a Wacom tablet to the mix. But none of these have made nearly the difference that voice recognition software has already. At this very moment I am leaning back in my chair with my hands behind my head stretching as I dictate. I can literally do healing hand exercises as I write!

There are new technologies coming out every day and, while many of them are very neat, few of them truly amaze me anymore. It's refreshing and exciting to discover new technologies and new applications of existing technologies that have such a massive, positive impact on my every day life.

A smile amidst the chaos of flooding in England

I love this photo, found on the top page of NPR.com this morning.

Photo: Matt Cardy

A milkman delivers milk to a flooded home Monday in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, England. Flooding has caused widespread disruption across the country, with further regions braced for more floods.
Getty Images

Quoted from: NPR : Much of England Under Water After Heavy Rains

Katrina Recovery: This image says it all

A Google search brought up the official U.S. government page for their Katrina Recovery efforts. The page is housed within the DisasterHelp.gov site run by the Department of Homeland Security. Having attended a Katrina benefit recently, I decided to click over to see what the government is doing to help the tens of thousands of victims and remedy the nightmarish conditions that remain in many areas of the Gulf Coast.

The top page of the site summed up perfectly everything I've heard and learned about the Bush administration's complete failure around mitigating damage and then helping those suffering in the wake of Katrina.

Click on the image here to see a full-size screenshot that I grabbed on Saturday, June 2 at 3:51 PM.

The page headline reads, "Prepare Now for 2006 Hurricane Season." Hmmm... Probably just a typo. (An enormous, very embarrassing mistake, to be sure, but then that's the hallmark of this administration.) So I read further. The first sentence in the main paragraph reads, "With the latest predictions indicating another active hurricane season in 2006, now is the time for Gulf Coast residents to prepare for the potential threat of hurricanes."

I just about fell out of my chair. Not from surprise, though, but from another wave of disgust and anger at the complete, unrepentant neglect and incompetence shown by the Bush administration.

[Let's see how long it takes them to update the site.]

UPDATE - October 15, 2007: The site hasn't changed a bit! Unbelievable!

Katrina Recovery | DisasterHelp.gov

Technorati Tags: Bush, politics, Hurricane Katrina

Get involved: A comprehensive smoking ban is long overdue in Oregon

I had planned to post about this after seeing the post on BlueOregon yesterday. A post by Jeff over at Beervana today inspired me to go ahead and post, even though the topic is being covered well on BlueOregon and elsewhere.

I'm generally ambivalent about smoking bans. I have a pretty strong libertarian streak, and I don't believe in legislating behavior codes. In America, you don't have a right not to be offended.

Jeff goes on to cite another post by Kari Chisholm on BlueOregon today that gives yet another reason why we must rally to make sure this smoking ban makes it across the finish line:

But for high-school dropouts, especially middle-aged women with minimal skills, there are very few jobs out there that pay a living wage. One of the few is serving food and drinks, a job that combines the minimum wage with tips.

Many under-educated older women have very few occupational options -- and working in smoky bars pays comparatively well. Right now, we're asking them to trade their health for a living wage.

Jeff makes a great observation beyond that:

I'd add that working the late shift is good for moms who don't want to be away from their kids too long. So, on balance, I guess I'll back the legislation. Mostly I go to non-smoking bars, anyway.

Jeff and Kari are being far more logical and level-headed on this than I'm inclined to be -- and I respect their restraint. For me it has nothing to do with not having the right to not be offended. It has everything to do with what I see and smell every single day. I see one or two smokers standing at a bus stop puffing away in the middle of a crowd of ten people who aren't smoking. And then throwing their smoking butts on the ground before they board the bus. I sit behind cars in traffic where the drivers are blowing smoke out their window -- and into mine. Before they throw their butts out onto the street. I go to see bands I don't want to miss and then wake up the next morning feeling like I have a head cold -- as I take my rancid-smelling clothes to the laundry. And the list goes on. And on.

I know there are plenty of perfectly courteous smokers out there, but like so many things in society, it's the few jerks who ruin it for everyone else. And when the jerks become enough of a hazard to society, the courteous, law-abiding masses get pissed and a law is passed. Such is the situation in Oregon around smokers.

It shows how tolerant and forgiving Oregonians are that we've put this legislation off for so long -- far too long in my opinion. It's time to get the job done and get our service workers and everyone else affected by smoking out of harm's way.

I can't say it better than Kari said it in his post yesterday so I'll wrap up with that:

Time to call your State Representatives. You know they will be hearing from loads of tavern owners, and the cigarette industry will definitely pull out all the stops lobbying against this bill. Our Legislators shouldn't give another inch to restaurant and bar owners. They already get one of the sweetest and most ridiculous state subsidies ever devised (about 25% of the gambling profits from every machine), and frankly, the case that a smoking ban will actually lower their profits is flimsy.

Ban Smoking in Oregon Bars? | Beervana

Technorati Tags: Oregon, politics, Portland, smoking, smoking ban, tobacco

Republican State Senator Ted Ferrioli is Pro Choice

"People have the right to make choices, even if you think those choices are bad," said State Sen. Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day. "Oregonians don't need their senators to make their choices for them."

Well, that is unless you want to choose not to have a 50% higher likelihood of getting lung cancer because you work in a tobacco smoke-filled workplace.

Ferrioli was talking specifically about Senate Bill 571 (SB571) which passed the Oregon State Senate today.

Lighting up a cigarette in Oregon bars and taverns would be prohibited under a bill that passed the Oregon Senate Tuesday on an 18-12 vote. 

It is expected to undergo changes in the Oregon House, where exemptions for cigar bars, tobacco shops and the Portland Meadows racetrack could be stripped away. 

Most Senate Democrats united behind the proposal, saying it would protect the 35,000 Oregonians who work in bars and taverns from the well-documented dangers of secondhand smoke, including an increased risk of asthma and lung cancer. 

"The right to a healthy life is endangered by the presence of secondhand smoke in many indoor places," said Sen. Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, who sponsored the bill. "Bar and restaurant workers are 50 percent more likely to get lung cancer than those who work in nonsmoking areas." 

Most Republicans, meanwhile, voted against the plan, saying it would take away the freedom of adults to make their own choices, in venues that are off-limits to children. 

Of course, I'm sure Republican State Senator Ted Ferrioli's take on this isn't at all affected by the fact that he received three cash donations from three different tobacco companies in 2000 (the latest information I can find):

RJ REYNOLDS TOBACCO CO: $2,500.00

BROWN & WILLIAMSON TOBACCO CORP: $400.00

PHILIP MORRIS: $1,500.00

Nah—I'm sure that couldn't have anything to do with it.

Oregon smoking ban passes Senate, could change in House | OPB News