PeopleareParked.com

We, in Red Sox Nation are still hungover from the late night games, soused by the excitement, but most of all, happy as clams. The 2007 Red Sox team gave us a lot to cheer about all season and delivered the ultimate gift once again. No talk of breaking the curse this time, just pure talent and teamwork brought home the well-deserved trophy.

Thanks from your fans at Parked Nation. There’s nothing parked about the World Series winners, unless you’re a Rockies fan.

In a previous post, I mentioned the lack of German beer at Oktoberfest. Well, that was nothing compared to the waiter we had that night. He was one of those people who thought he was doing us a favor by being there and that his job doesn’t include an ounce of customer service. I have worked in a customer service job for many years and yes, we all have bad days, but try not to take it out on undeserving people.

I really don’t think that his bad attitude was the result of a bad day or being “busy”. I think he is just a bad waiter with a chip on his shoulder.

OK, so what did he do?
He never smiled, even when greeting us;
Gave us quick, emotionless responses to our questions;
Made us wait for our drinks too long - we could see them sitting on the bar, waiting to be served - twice;
Everyone around us was served their entrees first, even if we arrived before them. When asked about it, this parked waiter said they were coming out now - no explanation or apology;

Here’s a tip that I’m sure most waiters are aware of - if the food is not coming out as quickly as expected, don’t make customers wait for drinks also. This keeps people happy!

Speaking of tips, the worst part after the bad service, was that the waiter had hand-written an 18% tip into the bill. When questioned about it, he said that yes he did that and no, it was not a required amount for a party of five. I usually tip at least 20%, even if the service is not exceptional, but when someone is rude without provocation, they will not get anywhere near that amount.

We later heard from another worker there that our waiter was just chatting away with someone in the back, so he was a slacker. She felt bad for our poor service and said she would mention it to the management. I also wrote an email to them. That guy was beyond parked and needs to learn customer service or get another job.

Only parked thing here is the late starting time of the games. Go Sox!

The other day, five of us went to a restaurant that turns their menu into an Oktoberfest celebration for the month of October. They had live German music and even had chefs come from the motherland for this special occasion. Needless to say, the food was fantastic, but where was the German beer? Silly me, but I was looking forward to a nice frothy mug of beer with my meal. I enjoy trying beers from different regions or countries (When in Rome…).

First of all they had no German beer on draft, although they did have the other popular everyday brands. I prefer draft beer anyhow to cans or bottles, but would settle for German beer in a bottle. Ordered Spaten, then was told they were out, so ordered Paulaner. It was pretty good, and looked forward to a second, but they also ran out of that one.

Of course, I could find other types of beer that I like, being a bit of a beer connoisseur, but it was Oktoberfest and there was another whole week of it! Poor planning, but the food and music gave us something to Oom-Pah about.  Ein Prosit!

Don’t get me started on the waiter that night. Will save that for another post…

I got an email the other day from an address I didn’t know, but opened it anyhow, since it didn’t look like SPAM. Turns out it was from a friend who was sending a newsletter to multiple recipients about her new business. You could tell she put some good effort into the design and content of it, but addressed it to multiple recipients with everyone’s address showing. Talk about opening up a can of SPAM!

Like I said, she’s a good friend, so I chalked it up to inexperience, but she got a reply from one angry person about taking her off the email list and using Bcc in emails. This woman had some valid complaints, but was really nasty about it.

Here are some things I’ve learned about multiple recipient emails that might help other people and avoid nasty replies.

1. If you must send an email to multiple recipients, make sure you have their permission to receive these from you. Most newsletters have sign-ups or opt-in features.
2. Have an opt-out feature, where recipients can email you to remove them from your list.
3. Always use Bcc, instead of Cc or To. This way, no one can see each other’s email addresses, even if you think they are all friends.
4. Many Internet Service Providers (ISP’s), like Comcast and Verizon, will see you as a spammer if multiple emails are being sent out from the same address. If they do, they will block your address from sending to any of their accounts. This is a real pain to recover from and be taken off their blacklist.
5. If it’s a once in awhile email, you might get away with multiple recipients. We all get jokes etc. from well-meaning friends, but a business sending frequent newsletter emails is taking a chance.
6. If you reply to an email with multiple recipients, don’t use “reply all”, as I don’t want to hear from people I don’t know. I may have known the original sender, but not all the others. Many times, it’s a personal note anyhow.
7. Instead of mass emailings, use a newsletter service, like Constant Contact. They are very serious about not allowing SPAM and as a result respected more by ISP’s. It’s a great program with newsletter templates, mailing lists, opt-in and opt-out features, but does have a cost. It used to be free for up to 50 recipients, but they now charge a nominal fee, which might be worth it for businesses.

Hope that helps shed some light on the subject.  Keep your emails friendly!

Yeah, the internet has a wealth of information. Thousands and thousands of web sites, blogs, and databases, but it can be overwhelming to search for that information if you don’t know how. Even, if you do know your way around everyone has a catch. Usually it’s a monthly fee, or your email address.

The monthly fee thing bugs me because the internet is free - right? Besides, before anyone gets my credit card number I want more then a 30 day trial. How do I know the information is good? If the site stinks where’s the link that lets me cancel my account. I’ll tell you where - no where to be found, that’s where.

OK, so I’m a little cheap. Instead I’ll use my email address. Well, this in itself is an issue because I don’t want to use my very private and guarded personal email address, so I sign up for one of those free web accounts from Google, Yahoo, or maybe Hotmail. Now, to avoid getting too much stuff in one email account I decide to have multiple web mail accounts and that brings me to subject of logon names, and passwords. How many creative “handles” can I come up with? Who the heck thinks I’m going to remember x%#ddy! as my assigned password? Oh, by the way do you remember which email address I used to research that thing I was looking for????

Alright, I have my email accounts pretty organized and a I have a bunch of passwords I can remember, so now you’re asking what could be the problem if I’ve got it all down pat. Well, SPAM is my problem. Once you sign up for some of these things they “share” your email address and the next thing you know I’m getting all kinds of invitations and offers. Gee golly!

So, where does that leave me? As soon as I check out the 124, 853, 790,743,825,222 links that came up with my Google search I’ll let you know.

OK, I admit it, I was parked. It happens to the best of us and for me, it happened at the grocery store. Maybe I was trying to rush, get my food, get home, finish chores - all before the Patriots game. I was getting through my list quickly and was almost able to checkout, when I found that I forgot something on the total opposite end of the store. When I got there, a load of food boxes was blocking an aisle, so I parked my cart and walked around it. After not finding what I wanted, I took the cart and went on my way.

I had already weaved through most of the fruit and vegetable aisle toward the checkout when I looked down and noticed it wasn’t my cart! It was the grocery clerk’s cart with price sticker tool in it. Couldn’t believe I did that and had wondered why my cart felt a little lighter. Well, I raced back to the area where I mistakenly took the cart and returned it before anyone was the wiser. Thankfully my cart with food was still in place. I felt pretty silly and chuckled to myself about doing such a parked thing.

If you saw the Patriots-Browns game on Sunday, you probably saw Junior Seau make a brilliant interception and start to run it back. About halfway down the field, he raises his arms in celebration with ball in outstretched hands. I could understand his excitement, but he wasn’t even close to the goal line. In fact, he was very close to the other team’s players and could’ve easily had it taken away. I love Junior and am impressed with his drive and agility, but he made a bad decision.

Just goes to show you that even great football players can have parked moments. Wonder what Belichick had to say in their Monday meeting.

It really bugs me when people don’t use their signals when turning. Not only would it keep them safer, but all the other drivers around them. Sure, I shouldn’t be driving too closely behind another car and would be my fault if I hit someone from behind, but help me out a little here, give me some warning!

Just the other day, I was driving behind someone who was traveling at a good clip, then all of a sudden braked and took a right turn - of course, without signaling. If they were going slower it would’ve been easier to react, but thankfully I was far enough behind to brake in time. If you don’t know where you’re going at least drive a little slower.

Here’s another example of poor signal usage. We have rotaries where we live and drivers in the rotary have the right of way. The ones entering it are supposed to yield. Of course, some think they have the right of way wherever they drive, so will forever remain parked. Anyhow, when I’m driving in the rotary, I find that people entering will yield to me if I have my turn signal on indicating that I’m leaving the rotary near where they want to enter. It actually works most of the time. Lots of drivers are scary, so I figure anything I can do to warn them of my presence is the way to go. These parked types of people need any help they can get.

In a recent conversation with someone, who by the way is quite savvy, we got on the subject of passwords. We were ordering a computer part online and she was concerned that her password would be kept on file on the site. I said yes, but they don’t share them or at least say they don’t. Then it dawned on me that she was using the same password for every sign-up, site, online bank access etc. and didn’t want to give that one out.

I guess I just took this fact for granted that everyone knew they should have many different passwords, but maybe I learned it from being in the computer industry. It’s OK and highly encouraged to use different passwords for every different site. If someone gained access to your Facebook account password, it would make it easier for them to know your bank account password, if it was the same. Now, just because someone knows a password, doesn’t mean they could get into your bank account. Thankfully, there are other safeguards, like unique usernames, security questions etc. so a password in and of itself wouldn’t allow access. I just wouldn’t want to make it easier for someone.

Here are some suggestions for password types. For bank accounts, use the more secure form that includes letters(uppercase and lowercase) along with number combinations. Example: 84XtiR32Y - very secure, very hard to remember, so you would have to write them down to keep track. For fun sites, I use throwaway passwords, or things I can remember, like my dog’s name with numbers. Another good idea is to change them every so often for the same site.

Hope that helps you surf safer or remember to help our less savvy surfing buddies.