August 31, 2021
Random Acts… If 9/11 brought us together, why not COVID?
Twenty years have passed since 9/11, yet in many ways, it feels like just yesterday.
I was in Washington, D.C. when the planes hit the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pa. Like many around the world, I watched the scenes unfold on television as the planes that al Qaeda terrorists had hijacked crashed, killing all on board and nearly 3,000 people on the ground.
In the days that followed, the shock of what had occurred could be seen on faces everywhere. Military tanks lined the streets of D.C., ready for ground attacks. When I was finally able to get on a plane back to Los Angeles, there was almost no one on the plane.
Before getting on the plane, an officer snapped off the tiny metal file on my nail clipper, removing what he thought could become a weapon. I ended up sitting next to a federal air marshal, who said we would never be the same again.
This week, National Geographic premieres “9/11: ONE DAY IN AMERICA,” an in-depth, emotional look at September 11, using archives and first-person interviews with survivors and first-responders. The six-part documentary series, done in collaboration with the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, honors those we lost, and the bravery of those who survived.
Watching the footage from 20 years ago is heart-wrenching. The fear felt that day is still palpable. Yet through it all, ordinary people rose to help others in need. Many sacrificed their lives to save strangers.
This week, the last American troops to leave Afghanistan leave behind an uncertain future for the Afghans who aided our military in the fight against Al Qaeda and terrorism. The Taliban, now in control there, seem intent on a never-ending war for the soul of their own country.
Here at home, fingers are pointing in every direction for who’s to blame for a chaotic exit and abrupt end to the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
Yet looking back at 9/11, all I can think about is… what happened to all the goodwill that emerged from that day? We pulled together as one country – indeed, as one world – to help the injured and mourn the dead.
Today, the enemy is COVID-19, and we are tearing this country apart with partisan rhetoric over wearing face masks and getting vaccinations that would save lives. Who benefits from that? Not the 631,440 people, and counting, who have died from COVID in the United States to date, according to the CDC.
Watch “9/11: ONE DAY IN AMERICA,” and maybe it will remind you of our vulnerability as human beings. Maybe it will awaken a sense of hope for the future. If we survived 9/11, maybe one day, we will see ourselves as one country again.
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“9/11: ONE DAY IN AMERICA can be seen on National Geographic and on HULU.
August 13, 2021
Random Acts… Technical glitches no excuse for poor customer service
I live in a neighborhood where there are virtually no big box stores, only local merchants. Yes, there are a few chain restaurants and grocery stores, but none so big that the cashier doesn’t know my name.
Now that the pandemic has forced most of us online for our shopping needs, I value those local merchants even more. Sadly, it’s the big guys with the most market share who disappoint the most.
First example of bad service: UPS. I shipped a package by creating the shipping label online and dropping the package off at a UPS store. The cost was reasonable because of a discount that lowered prices almost by half if you did the work yourself at home.
Unfortunately, the discount code (thRivE) doesn’t work. When you create the shipping label, the website shows the discounted price and the published price all the way until you go to input your credit card for payment. Once you input the credit card, the discounted price disappears and you are charged the full price.
Since I needed to send the package right away, I paid the full price and wrote to UPS customer service, asking to be refunded the difference. After a short run-around, the customer service rep refunded the difference and told me to be sure to continually hit “discounted price” over and over on the website the next time to avoid this error.
Next shipment, same thing happened. But instead of going through with the payment, I called UPS customer service to get some technical support. After half an hour of being put on hold, disconnected, then shuffled to another department, the web tech told me to go to the “classic” version of their website to try to create a shipment label at the discounted price.
When that didn’t work, and several error messages kept popping up, she said I could just pay the full price and request a refund later. For every shipment, I asked? Apparently, UPS can’t figure out how to make its website work, so it’s making customers do the work if they want the advertised discounted price.
I gave up and shipped the box with FedEx. (Their website works, and the price was cheaper, too.)
Then there’s AT&T. After adding some services to my landline, I went online to make sure I was billed the correct amount. The billed amount looked fine, but the website would not display my services. Spent an hour getting shuffled from one department to the next until a sympathetic customer service rep told me to just look at the information on my paper bill when it comes, which should list my services.
So what’s the point of doing business online? It was impossible to contact technical support for AT&T’s website through their automated voice prompt system, which kept sending me to the wrong department. When the human beings who finally answered the line continually sent me to another toll-free automated system, I just gave up.
Clearly, that’s the point of AT&T’s automated system. Frustrate a customer enough, and they’ll just give up. As far as I’m concerned, any company that’s too big to service its customers should be broken up. Period.
Sure, there’s always something to complain about when you’re dealing with large corporations. But when they listen to you, they deserve kudos.
So here’s some praise for United Airlines, whose CEO Scott Kirby announced that the company would be requiring all employees to be fully vaccinated this fall against COVID-19, a move to help ensure the health and safety of employees and the flying public.
In this never-ending pandemic, that’s the kind of proactive customer service every company should be offering.
Dinah Eng 