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Wednesday, August 20, 2003
One-Hour Photo.
What a joke. Don’t be fooled by this cheap lure. The CVS Corporation is simply using the words in their window to draw you in like a moth to the flame.
I went to CVS yesterday to get a disposable camera developed. I wanted double prints with a picture disk, and walked into the store at 11:35 am. This is a recount of our conversation to the best of my recollection (which is pretty darn good):
“Here you go,” I say, handing her the red, glossy envelope stuffed with the plastic camera.
“What time would you like it, sir?” I caught a glint from her tongue stud.
I glanced up at the huge sign in the window, thinking I had read it wrong. Nope, it still said One-Hour Photo. “How about in an hour?”
She smiled and shook her head with an “even-though-I-only-work-at-CVS-I-still-wield-power-over-the-likes-of-you” expression. “Can’t have it by then,” she said.
“Well, how about two hours?”
She wrote 1:35 pm on the return ticket stub and handed it to me. “I guess so. See you later.”
Fast-forward two hours. In case you are curious, during that time I mowed the lawn, weed-whacked, skimmed the pond, fed the goldfish (who have had scads of baby fish incidentally), replaced a few light bulbs, took a shower, and read a few pages in Artemis Fowl.
When I returned, a different “photo professional” was behind the counter.
“Can I help you?” he asked, barely looking up from the stack of photos he was shuffling through.
“I’m here to pick up my photos. The name is Luper.” As I said my name, I saw that my red, glossy envelope was still sitting on the counter where the previous “photo professional” had placed it hours before. My stomach lurched in aggravation.
He looked through the metal bin, but of course could not find it.
“It’s right there,” I said, gesturing to the edge of the photo developer machine.
The photo professional loped over, looked in the envelope, and told me what I already knew. “It’s not ready yet.”
“When will it be ready?”
“Probably about a half hour or something,” he shrugged.
Fast-forward five hours. In case you are curious, I went to work, treated twelve patients, wrote two narrative reports, emailed a bunch of people, sent out my second completed manuscript to eight publishers, registered for a writing seminar in October, went to Home Depot for crabgrass killer, picked up a few pairs of gym shorts at the Champion Outlet, and bought a bottle of bourbon (I had a feeling I would need it).
Back at CVS, I picked up my double prints and picture disk. $15.99.
“Here you go.” It was the same photo professional as when I dropped off the film.
“Let me ask you a question,” I said. “When it says One-hour Photo on the sign in the window, what exactly does that mean?”
She looked at me with a vapid look in her eyes as though the guy who pierced her tongue went a little too deep with his hole-puncher and pierced her frontal lobe.
I clarified for her. “When it says One-hour Photo why does it take two or more hours to get my pictures back? Shouldn’t it say Same-Day Photo?”
She puffed up like a blowfish. “It’s one hour from when I decide to develop your film.”
Not to be outsnotted, I asked, “So, if you decide to develop my film next Tuesday, I’ll get my photos back one hour from next Tuesday?”
“That’s right.”
When I got home, I popped the picture disk into my computer and discovered that not only were all of the photos on the disk upside down, but they were horribly distorted, turning my entire family into some horrid funhouse freak show. The fact is, my family does a pretty good job of being a horrid funhouse freak show on their own, without the assistance of my photo professional at CVS.
Not to mention that I also got a photograph of a dog in my stack of pictures. That would be okay if I knew whose dog it was. The dog is gray and black and laying on a couch next to an ottoman with grapes and trees on it. Someone’s foot is also in the photo. I recognize neither the dog nor the foot.
I wrote CVS a few emails regarding my service and I will let you know what happens.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am a pretty reasonable guy. However, this is the third CVS that something like this has happened. CVS spends an awful lot of money to internally and externally market their photo processing. I can’t imagine that this is the service they wish to represent. Imagine a car wash putting circulars in the Sunday paper every week and when you go to get your car washed they dump a big bucket of mud on your Impala.
What a joke. Don’t be fooled by this cheap lure. The CVS Corporation is simply using the words in their window to draw you in like a moth to the flame.
I went to CVS yesterday to get a disposable camera developed. I wanted double prints with a picture disk, and walked into the store at 11:35 am. This is a recount of our conversation to the best of my recollection (which is pretty darn good):
“Here you go,” I say, handing her the red, glossy envelope stuffed with the plastic camera.
“What time would you like it, sir?” I caught a glint from her tongue stud.
I glanced up at the huge sign in the window, thinking I had read it wrong. Nope, it still said One-Hour Photo. “How about in an hour?”
She smiled and shook her head with an “even-though-I-only-work-at-CVS-I-still-wield-power-over-the-likes-of-you” expression. “Can’t have it by then,” she said.
“Well, how about two hours?”
She wrote 1:35 pm on the return ticket stub and handed it to me. “I guess so. See you later.”
Fast-forward two hours. In case you are curious, during that time I mowed the lawn, weed-whacked, skimmed the pond, fed the goldfish (who have had scads of baby fish incidentally), replaced a few light bulbs, took a shower, and read a few pages in Artemis Fowl.
When I returned, a different “photo professional” was behind the counter.
“Can I help you?” he asked, barely looking up from the stack of photos he was shuffling through.
“I’m here to pick up my photos. The name is Luper.” As I said my name, I saw that my red, glossy envelope was still sitting on the counter where the previous “photo professional” had placed it hours before. My stomach lurched in aggravation.
He looked through the metal bin, but of course could not find it.
“It’s right there,” I said, gesturing to the edge of the photo developer machine.
The photo professional loped over, looked in the envelope, and told me what I already knew. “It’s not ready yet.”
“When will it be ready?”
“Probably about a half hour or something,” he shrugged.
Fast-forward five hours. In case you are curious, I went to work, treated twelve patients, wrote two narrative reports, emailed a bunch of people, sent out my second completed manuscript to eight publishers, registered for a writing seminar in October, went to Home Depot for crabgrass killer, picked up a few pairs of gym shorts at the Champion Outlet, and bought a bottle of bourbon (I had a feeling I would need it).
Back at CVS, I picked up my double prints and picture disk. $15.99.
“Here you go.” It was the same photo professional as when I dropped off the film.
“Let me ask you a question,” I said. “When it says One-hour Photo on the sign in the window, what exactly does that mean?”
She looked at me with a vapid look in her eyes as though the guy who pierced her tongue went a little too deep with his hole-puncher and pierced her frontal lobe.
I clarified for her. “When it says One-hour Photo why does it take two or more hours to get my pictures back? Shouldn’t it say Same-Day Photo?”
She puffed up like a blowfish. “It’s one hour from when I decide to develop your film.”
Not to be outsnotted, I asked, “So, if you decide to develop my film next Tuesday, I’ll get my photos back one hour from next Tuesday?”
“That’s right.”
When I got home, I popped the picture disk into my computer and discovered that not only were all of the photos on the disk upside down, but they were horribly distorted, turning my entire family into some horrid funhouse freak show. The fact is, my family does a pretty good job of being a horrid funhouse freak show on their own, without the assistance of my photo professional at CVS.
Not to mention that I also got a photograph of a dog in my stack of pictures. That would be okay if I knew whose dog it was. The dog is gray and black and laying on a couch next to an ottoman with grapes and trees on it. Someone’s foot is also in the photo. I recognize neither the dog nor the foot.
I wrote CVS a few emails regarding my service and I will let you know what happens.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am a pretty reasonable guy. However, this is the third CVS that something like this has happened. CVS spends an awful lot of money to internally and externally market their photo processing. I can’t imagine that this is the service they wish to represent. Imagine a car wash putting circulars in the Sunday paper every week and when you go to get your car washed they dump a big bucket of mud on your Impala.
Friday, August 01, 2003
Someone once said if you put an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters, one of them is bound to write The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
I beg to differ.
Let’s suspend out disbelief here. Even if obtaining an infinite number of monkeys and an infinite number of typewriters were a reasonable task, there are so many issues regarding this idea that its enactment would be impossible.
First off, purchasing an infinite number of typewriters would make Smith Corona the biggest corporate entity on the face of the earth. Smith Corona would topple small countries and send the world’s economies into a tailspin. We would all be cast into poverty. Except, of course, for those few who owned stock in Smith Corona. Those people would become powerful warlords.
But don’t go calling your broker to buy stock with dreams of weiding unlimited power over your fellow man just yet.
We have the issue of all those animal rights freaks. Despite the profound scientific benefit this research would provide, they would be running around saying that chaining the monkeys to their desks is inhumane. Imagine the protests. How do they expect these monkeys to concentrate with all that protesting going on?
Of course, we could avoid the whole mess by paying the monkeys competitive salaries, retirement plans, and health benefits. Health benefits, another problem. Offering health benefits would bring up the issue of transgender monkeys clamoring for Blue Cross Blue Shield to pay for sex changes and the like. Do you see how this just gets more and more complex?
Now, anyone who’s been to Monkey Jungle (or any zoo) knows that monkeys can’t seem to stop touching themselves. They also hump anything that moves and most things that don’t move. Human resources (or in this case Simian Resources) would be mired down in sexual harassment suits. The monkeys would then have to go for sensitivity training, further hindering creative output.
Of course, all of this goes without saying.
Then we get into poop flinging. I would have to say if you put an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters, one of them is bound to fling its own poop, which would result in a poop flinging riot. An infinitely large room filled with poop flinging monkeys is not an environment in which The Complete Works of William Shakespeare could possibly be written.
And the smell. Good god, the smell.
So, lets leave the writing of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare to William Shakespeare. To the monkeys we can leave the poop flinging.
I beg to differ.
Let’s suspend out disbelief here. Even if obtaining an infinite number of monkeys and an infinite number of typewriters were a reasonable task, there are so many issues regarding this idea that its enactment would be impossible.
First off, purchasing an infinite number of typewriters would make Smith Corona the biggest corporate entity on the face of the earth. Smith Corona would topple small countries and send the world’s economies into a tailspin. We would all be cast into poverty. Except, of course, for those few who owned stock in Smith Corona. Those people would become powerful warlords.
But don’t go calling your broker to buy stock with dreams of weiding unlimited power over your fellow man just yet.
We have the issue of all those animal rights freaks. Despite the profound scientific benefit this research would provide, they would be running around saying that chaining the monkeys to their desks is inhumane. Imagine the protests. How do they expect these monkeys to concentrate with all that protesting going on?
Of course, we could avoid the whole mess by paying the monkeys competitive salaries, retirement plans, and health benefits. Health benefits, another problem. Offering health benefits would bring up the issue of transgender monkeys clamoring for Blue Cross Blue Shield to pay for sex changes and the like. Do you see how this just gets more and more complex?
Now, anyone who’s been to Monkey Jungle (or any zoo) knows that monkeys can’t seem to stop touching themselves. They also hump anything that moves and most things that don’t move. Human resources (or in this case Simian Resources) would be mired down in sexual harassment suits. The monkeys would then have to go for sensitivity training, further hindering creative output.
Of course, all of this goes without saying.
Then we get into poop flinging. I would have to say if you put an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters, one of them is bound to fling its own poop, which would result in a poop flinging riot. An infinitely large room filled with poop flinging monkeys is not an environment in which The Complete Works of William Shakespeare could possibly be written.
And the smell. Good god, the smell.
So, lets leave the writing of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare to William Shakespeare. To the monkeys we can leave the poop flinging.
