Dear Canadian Tire – This Is How You Do It, Baby

Tags

business, Canadian business, Canadian Tire, climbers, customer service, play sets, Toys R Us

I have to say, my previous post was the first I have ever made about poor customer service which did not get an immediate response from the involved company’s social media representatives.

Even though I directly tweeted my post to Canadian Tire, no one from Canadian Tire has emailed me or tweeted back apologizing for the bad experience or offering a solution, which is what companies like Chapters and Future Shop did in the past.

I was hoping they would, because I still wanted that f*%^ing climber, and I still wanted to support a Canadian company.

But they didn’t.

So I went to Toys R Us.

Where everything was done right.

I’ve decided to break it down, so that in case Canadian Tire ever actually decides to try and leave the stone age, they will have a handy guide.

How To Sell A Product To A Customer.

Toys R Us happened to have the exact same climber that Canadian Tire had, but they also had more information – like the NAME OF THE MANUFACTURER. Turns out that it’s a Step2 product, like the Skyway Summit thing I was looking at. If the Canadian Tire site had mentioned that it was Step2, then I (OR THE CANADIAN TIRE EMPLOYEES) could have gotten the dimensions from the Step2 website.

Even better, we didn’t actually need the dimensions because Toys R Us not only had their climbers prominently on display, but actually set up so you could walk around them and SEE their dimensions.

Toys R Us had the product IN STOCK.

Toys R Us employees knew where the product was.

Toys R Us also had the product ON SALE. $100 off, in fact.

So there you have it – we confirmed that it could fit, and then brought home the climber we wanted (with some help from our awesome neighbours with the giant van) for cheaper.

WITHOUT ANY USELESS AT ALL.

I want to support Canadian businesses. I do. One by one, they’re going out of business or getting bought out by giant American box store brands.

But how can I support them when they don’t even seem to give a crap about getting my money, basically refusing to give me the product I want after I visit TWO locations AND tweet them about it… and then a big American company actually makes it easier and cheaper for me to get what I want?

Canadian Tire, if you go out of business some day, this is why. THIS. Right here. You don’t need to hire other companies to help you figure out what sucks. I’ve got it written down for you already.

Warning. Warning. Introvert Levels Dangerously Low.

Tags

extroversion, introversion, introvert, life, overwork, play, setting limits, toddlers, work

So, basically everything I said here still applies.

I am not depressed. I’m not even taking antidepressants any more.

But some mornings, in the first half hour or so that I am at work, I struggle to fight back tears.

It’s not sadness, per se, although I still feel like my life got derailed back in May, and often catch myself moping over might-have-beens.

But I think that that is more a symptom than the real disease.

The fact is that if I were a car, my fuel light would be blinking and the fuel gage would be dipped below the E line. Pretty soon I’m going to make a scary clunk and just stop altogether.

It’s no one’s fault except, arguably, my own.

Conversations With A Toddler Part The First

Tags

awkward conversations, parenting, toddlers

Talking to a toddler can be a strange adventure.

I’ve had some truly bizarre and awkward ones with Owl, who is now two and three quarters. I need to start documenting them, because if they seem weird to me, his doting mother, I can only imagine how bizarre they will sound to you.

Owl: Mommy…. what I doing?

Me: You’re putting your fingers on your nipples, honey.

Owl: Yeah. I am. I am putting my fingers on my nipples.

Me: Okay, step into your undies, please.

Owl: No. I busy. I busy putting my fingers on my nipples.

—

A few days later

Owl: Mommy… what I doing?

Me: You’re… you’re putting your finger in your foreskin, honey.

Owl: No.

Me: Yes, yes you are. Yup. That is your finger up your foreskin.

Owl: No I not. This my penis. Look. What I doing?

Me: Yes, that is your penis, and this PART of your penis is your foreskin, and you are putting your finger in it. Please step into your undies.

Owl: This my foreskin? I put my finger in it?

Me: PLEASE STEP INTO YOUR UNDIES BEFORE I COUNT TO THREE.

Dear Canadian Tire. I have money. I would like to exchange it for goods and services.

Tags

bad customer service, business, Canadian Tire, climbers, play sets, Step 2, Toys R Us

Now that our yard is almost habitable (there’s still the ant problem, but we’re working on it) PH and I are beginning to dream big – like, maybe, we could put something out there for Owl to play on.

We’ve talked a lot about what that might be, but we are constricted by two things:

1. Our yard has the dimensions of a postage stamp

and

2. Our yard is built four feet up on a retaining wall, and the fence blows in the breeze:

So we need something that will fit in our yard without giving Owl the opportunity of tumbling directly into or over our fence.

Everything we have looked at has either been not awesome enough, or FAR TOO AWESOME for our yard.

Got Mulch

Tags

back yard, gardening, mulch, weeds

Last long weekend, I found myself with two consecutive days in which I was neither working at the vet clinic, nor training dogs. And the weather was beautiful.

What should I do with all this time?

When a friend offered to take Owl for the morning to play with her kids, I realized what I finally had time to do – MULCH THE BACK YARD.

Last year, after yet another fruitless assault on the weeds in our lawn, PH and I decided to just mulch it all. We could cover the weeds and the bare patches alike and leave little green islands of decorative plants, which were currently being choked out by the monstrous dandelions.

Thus having made such a monumental decision, we proceeded to do absolutely nothing about it for a year.

In the meantime, our back yard was basically unusable, except as a back-up place to put the dog when he needed to pee.

The weeds, fed by Vancouver rains, grew so high that we were afraid to walk out there, lest we step in a hidden dog turd. Weed whacking would tame things temporarily, but leave the yard looking rough and patchy.

Basically, given the combination of too-well drained soil and living in a rainforest, our choices were either a bald yard, or a yard that made me feel like a character from Day Of The Triffids.

So I hied myself to the gardening centre, and picked up bags and bags and bags of mulch. I brought them home and we laid down newspaper and cardboard (supposed to be a biodegradable way to block out light and prevent weeds from regrowing) and covered them with mulch.

It took two days of sweating in the sun and three trips to buy more mulch before we finished.

But it was totally worth it. Check it out:

Know Thyself. Know Thy Tomato Preferences.

Tags

cooking, dislikes, likes, spaghetti sauce, taste, tomato sauce

I’ve been thinking, and I’m beginning to wonder if I secretly dislike tomato sauce.

If so, I have kept it a very good secret from myself. I buy it frequently, always have. Spaghetti sauce is something we keep in large quantities, and use in several different recipes.

Many of my favourite foods involve tomato sauce – pizza, spaghetti, lasagna.

If you said to me, “here, taste this tomato sauce”, I’d say “sure!” and happily open wide.

And I like tomatoes. I like ketchup. I am friendly with all variations of this  member of the nightshade family.

But you wouldn’t know it from my food preferences.

When I order pasta in a restaurant, I hardly ever get something in a tomato based sauce. I get an alfredo, or a clear sauce.

I consider it a great treat when we order pizza with a pesto sauce (for a friend who is allergic to tomatoes) or simply lacking in sauce (perogie pizza is a favourite of mine).

If we are out of spaghetti sauce, PH discounts pasta as an option, but I am quite happy, when left to my own devices, to simply add cheese and garlic butter. In fact, I think I actually prefer it that way.

In fact, when I really think about it, there is very little that we add tomato sauce to that I would not eat just as happily or MORE happily without tomato sauce.

When I do eat things with tomato sauce on them, I DROWN them in cheese. I don’t really ENJOY foods like spaghetti unless I have cheese to go with them. Meanwhile, I rarely add cheese to an alfredo, unless it is just a sprinkle of parmesan.

So, if I prefer foods without tomato sauce to foods with tomato sauce, and if I mute tomato sauce with cheese whenever possible…

How much can I really like tomato sauce?