Baby Dumpling's Poppa

Girls Assaulted on the School Bus

My wife informed me that our daughter is being harassed by a boy on the school bus. At first I thought it was just name calling, teasing, or something along those lines. It turns out this boy, who is about 2 years older and in a higher grade is trapping my daughter in her seat and kissing her.

It is hard to imagine that a sexual predator would be on a school bus, it is just as hard to imagine a boy who 8 years old is being a sexual predator. But that is exactly how I feel. Here is a male kissing my baby girl against her wishes. I want this boy flogged, caned, and beaten. Violence is not allowed, but it appears that forcing kisses on another is not considered to be bad enough to warrant severe punishment. I wonder if I gave my baby girl permission to punch this boy in the nose as hard as she can the next time he kisses her. To me that would be self defense because she told him to stop three times, but I am willing to bet that my baby girl will be punished for using violence to protect herself.

I am going to give my baby girl the green light to punch this boy in the nose as hard as she can the next time he kisses her. I figure a few things will be accomplished from this. First the boy will realize that when a girl says, "stop, I don't like that" he will respect that. Second my baby girl will be recognized as a person to be feared and boys will leave her alone.

The concern is who will be punished. I would claim self defense, but I suspect the school would consider violence of any kind unacceptable, regardless of the reason. Even though I have sent an email to the principal of the school, I have not gotten an acknowledgement or anything that would indicate that my concern has been received and is being taken care of.

I think it is important for my baby girl to defend herself in any way she can. I don't want her to grow up and become a victim. I want her to grow up with the confidence that she doesn't have to take abuse from a man just because she is a woman.

I wonder if kissing someone, against their will, is sexual assault? Or would someone see a young boy forcing his kissing on a young girl cute and acceptable?

I am lucky that I don't give a rats ass about what people think. Unwanted touching is an assault. Unwanted kissing is sexual harassment or unwanted sexual advances. This forced advanced should be met with quick, decisive action that has a clear message that it is not wanted nor will be tolerated.

The parents of boys really need to teach their sons some respect, because I will teach my baby girl how to break noses.

Choose Where to Spend Your Cash

I have recently had some very bad customer service at companies that I do business with. Although the company itself is not truly at fault for an employee providing poor service, but it seems to be more common that companies do nothing to correct these poor quality service issues.
 
In my opinion, if a company does nothing to correct poor customer service, then the company condones such behavior.
 
The companies that I have had issues with recently is Walmart and Discount Tires.
 
In the Walmart case I had a cashier be extremely rude to me, and a few months prior there was a cashier be extremely rude to my wife. In my case I requested, from a different employee, to speak with the manager. This employee decided that she would handle the issue, regardless of my repeated request. After explaining the problem the only thing this person could say was I will speak with the cashier. But she was not a manager of anything, so speaking with another employee would amount to nothing. There will be no correction in this behavior and the problem will still continue, meanwhile there was no resolution to my particular problem. I left the store and later that night I made a complaint to the corporate office. There has been no response to my complaint. So this could only mean that Walmart condones this behavior, and since their prices are the same or more than other local stores it makes sense that I will take my business to another store where I will be treated like a paying customer, or at least treated like a person. I have decided to take this one step further. I not only buy from the store but I also buy from Walmart.com, but since Walmart as a company does nothing to promote
quality customer service, and their prices are the same or more, I have chosen not to do business with Walmart as a whole company.
 
Another company that has treated me, and others, poorly is Discount Tires. When I go through the trouble of making an appointment, show up 10 minutes early only to find that they do not honor appointment times because they operate on a first come first serve basis. When I was investigating where to buy my last set of tires I was told that I could schedule appointments, and this would ensure I get in and out quickly. When I was given a survey on a visit I filled it out honestly, and indicated that I will not be inclined to do business with them in the future, nor would I refer anyone to Discount Tires because their after sale customer service is very poor.
I promptly got a call from the store manager, who made a bunch of excuses but denied making them. I told him that if it happens to me, then it happens to others and that is wrong. I expressed that waiting to get my tires rotated was longer than waiting for my doctor appointment to start. This was not an exaggeration. Normally a person could wait about 20 to 30 minutes for their doctor appointment to start. On my last visit to have my tires rotated my car was not pulled into the bay until 45 minutes after my schedule appointment time, which was 55 minutes after I arrived.
The manager told me that next time he will make sure I don't wait that long and to show how much he wants to retain my business, he offered me $150 off my next set of tires. I told him to keep $150 and fix the problem. Once I see the problem fixed then I will decide if they deserve my business. Too bad for Discount Tires, because my wife's van needs a new set of tires but because of their poor service they will not get my business. I have already paid for tire rotation on my car so I am stuck with Discount Tires, unless I want to pay for rotating and balancing.
 
I do have to admit that I did cave on one offer with a major hotel chain. I wasn't upset I just did the survey and said there was nothing they could offer me that would get me to give them another chance. I naturally expected they would offer me a discount, I was wrong. After several emails the hotel manager asked if she could call me. I agreed and after speaking for a few minutes she request my address so a certificate for two free nights, tax not included, if I would give them another chance to prove that what happened to me was not normal. I took the offer and the hotel lived up to its reputation. I did email the manager when I returned home and told her that everything was good and I would consider staying at the hotel again in the future.
 
I feel as customers, we should be willing not to do business with companies that make billions of us
and treat us like garbage. Without the customers no one would get a paycheck and the company would be out of business. But businesses no longer see it that way, they feel you will spend your money on whatever they are selling regardless of how they treat you. I will no longer tolerate that. I will spend my money at companies that know I want to be treated like a human being, not garbage.
 
Walmart and Discount Tires don't need your business, they have enough money from people that want to be treated like garbage.

Safeway Pharmacy

My next contestant in the poor, unacceptable customer service compitition is Safeway Pharmacy.

Recently my wife went to our local Safeway pharmacy to inquire about some medication. She was told the pharmacy would transfer the current prescription from our regular pharmacy and call with the details.

The pharmacy did call and when my wife arrived she said the person that was helping her basically called her a lier because the prescription was not there to be picked up and Safeway Pharmacy would never make a promise regarding prescription details.

My wife said that after more than 15 minutes the person finally found the prescription filed under a different name, but still insisted that the details, meaning the experation date of the prescription would never be disclosed until the purchase was made.

When my wife wanted to speak with the person in charge, the accusations went from my wife not telling the truth to "there was just a misunderstanding and there is no need for the pharmacy manager to get involved."

I see three things wrong: First, and the worst, is mis-filing a prescription. What if the medication was urgently needed. Second was making the statement of calling or insinuating my wife was lieing about what she was told by the pharmacist. Third when the request was made to speak with a manager the claim of, "no need because it was just a misunderstanding" and no manager called to sort things out.

I told my wife that we do not have to do business with companies like that. Even if it costs $5 more it is better to go someplace where customers are treated with respect and kindness. Customers should feel needed to any business, they should never be made to feel they are bothering the people that are working their. Most businesses and their employees forget that without the customer, they don't get a paycheck.

So now Safeway pharmacy is added to the places I will not do business with again.

Just incase anyone is wondering about never do business with again. I was insulted by a Domino's Pizza manager because they couldn't get my order correct. Forgot olives, order rejected. Replacement forgot mushrooms and cut the pizza in squares when I requested normal pie cut. Then finally he decided to call me names and use the "F" word. I complained to the corporate office who had the regional manager handle it. He offered me $5 off my next order of a pepperoni pizza. That was in 1997, I have never had a Domino's pizza since. I refuse to do business with companies that treat me like garbage, I shouldn't have to put up with that. It is my money and they need my money to stay in business. If they make so much then fine. They don't need my money and I don't need to put up with horrible service.

Discount Tires

Since I have been complaining about poor customer service from companies that fail after you make the purchase, I would like to list Discount Tires as being extremely poor in customer service after you make your purchase.

When I purchased my tires they were really nice and made every effort to make me happy. Since then when I request an appointment to have my tires rotated and balanced I am treated as if I just walked in even though I took the time to schedule an appointment and showed up for my appointment 10-15 minutes early.

On most occasions they finally pull my car into the bay 30 minutes after my scheduled appointment time, but on a few occasions they didn't touch my car for 45 minutes after my scheduled appointment time.

I recently took their survey and conveyed my disappointment in their after purchase customer service. The manager of the local store called me, he made excuses and offered me $100 off my next set of tires.

There were a few things he said that didn't sit well. The one that really struck me was the statement that if a walk-in customer comes in 10 minutes before someone's scheduled appointment they will take care of the walk-in rather than hold the slot or bay open for the scheduled appointment that will be in 10 minutes.

So why does Discount Tires have appointment scheduling if the stores don't honor it? That answer doesn't exist, unless you think that Discount Tires offer appointment scheduling to give their customers a false feeling of importance. To me if a company doesn't really honor the appointment schedule then they should not have one. I told Discount Tires to keep their $100 on my next set of tires and start honoring the appointment times or stop offering them.

That generated another phone call, but this time the phone call came at 7:30 a.m. and I feel that business hours are from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and any business that calls someone should respect the fact that no business calls before 8 a.m. or after 6 p.m. unless they have explicit permission to do so. It shows a complete disrespect to any current or possible customer to violate the personal time.

So, Discount Tires has securely lost my repeat business because they are not respectful of my private time, nor are they honest about honor promises they make. They can keep their $100 because they will need to make up for the set of tires I am buying for my mini van this month as well as when I need to replace the set of tires that are on my car.

Radio Control Boat Racing Groups Owns Snohomish County Governement

The organizations that hold these races must own the local and county politicians in my area. Every year the county allows the boat races on a small local lake. I understand these overgrown kids need to do something with their weekends, but I think it isn't fair for everyone else that uses these public areas.

First the organizations have the entire beach reserved for them on several weekends, either Saturday, Sunday, or both. What these people do is post signs that say the lake is closed to the public, they park large RV's and trailers so no parking space is available for anyone who is not part of their group. These activities start the day before these groups are schedule to take control of a small portion of the lake. According to the county posted special event calendar these groups get the east side of the lake from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on a specific day from March through October. These groups do not honor that schedule. I have seen them actually go up to people that were sitting on the beach watching the birds and/or fishing and tell them the lake is closed and they have to leave. When I saw this I checked the schedule and found that this group did not have that area reserved until the next morning at 8 a.m. but they wanted to set up early afternoon the day before.

The next time I saw this group take control of the lake the day before their scheduled event, I took pictures and sent an email to the department that is in control of these public lakes. I got no response and these groups are still allowed to carry on with what they are doing. I then sent an email explaining that not only are they kicking people out, taking the parking spaces, but they are leaving trash, oil, and fuel on the beach and in the water. This is bad for the fish, the bald eagles that eat those fish, the geese, ducks, and basically all the wild life that call this area home. Still no response from the county.

I finally figured that these organizations must own the local and county politicians, because if any other person were to pollute the lake like that they would have a lot of trouble.

These groups must have a lot of political power for being so small. Usually there are only about 10-15 poeple that take part in these races, there are no people that actually come to watch

This is a clear sign that local and county governements can be bought by small special interest groups and be allowed to what ever they want with public land, then have the tax payers clean up their mess.

In this case the beach sand is usually removed and new sand is put down every couple of years.

AT&T Wireless Customer Service Does Not Exist Anymore

For almost two weeks I have been trying to upgrade my wife's phone with AT&T. First I picked the phone, then I was informed by their website that my current plan is not compatible with my choice. Don't know why, but o.k. I changed plans, but still not compatible. I go to the online chat only to be insulted by some jerk, so I sent an email complaining about the jerk. I got a good response and a promise to make things right. I was told that the plan I changed to is compatible with the device but they need verification from my to make the change, understandable. I provide my phone number and tell them the best time to contact me.

I first reported the online jerk 9 days ago, I provided contact number and time of day. Still no resolution to my initial problem. They did not call, even after sending me an email stating that they would call at the proper time. Heck, they didn't even call at a bad time.

I have been with AT&T since they took over Cingular, so I have been a long time customer. I haven't had issues until now. Too bad because a lot of companies are offering good deals on the phone my wife wants and I can keep my phone and the prices are about the same. Since I am not under any type of contract with AT&T and their service level has dropped off a cliff, I think AT&T has lost a long time customer.

I would strongly advise anyone to be careful of the 2 year contract, I never really liked them for this reason.

 

 

Fix the Deficit, Fix unemployment made Simple

The private sector won't provide jobs because they are allowed to import without paying taxes. A large part of the jobs that disappeared during 2000 - 2009 were telephone service and technical jobs. The private sector does not have to pay an import tax on those services. They dumped those working Americans into the unemployment pit, but claimed that none of them lost their jobs because they were sent overseas. Those jobs were lost because the private sector created 2 identical departments. The existing, or original, department was here in the U.S. the newly created was overseas. After the overseas people were trained, by the U.S. workers, the companies said they had to reduce redundant departments to become more profitable. They eliminated the U.S. department and kept the one overseas. Now they get to bring in the money they made at a reduced tax rate, meanwhile they are in no way responsible to pay for those that had their jobs shipped out of the country.
The way to end the unemployment problem or pay for extended benefits is make these companies pay a set price for every phone call made by someone overseas to a location in the U.S., such as your bank trying to sell you something. Make them pay for you calling technical support and speaking to someone that is overseas. Make them pay for every piece of computer code that is used on computers here in the U.S. by means of remote access. Make it too expensive for these companies to have the jobs overseas. They will bring them back, people will have jobs, these people will pay taxes, the deficit will be reduced, and congress can give themselves a pay raise.

Girl Scouts

My daughter is in Girl Scouts and for the first time I dropped in on their meeting to relieve the person who watches over my daughter.

Upon arrival I saw they were giving all the children cupcakes, the frosting was larger than the cupcakes and these were packed full of sugar. This happened at 6:30 p.m. Since when would any sane parent allow their child to become hyped up on sugar either before or just after dinner. I allow my daughter to have something sweet after dinner, but I know how much sugar is in the sweets that I let her have in the evening. It seems that at Girl Scouts they don't even ask, they just give it to the kids.

If that wasn't bad enough, my daughter has a sever nut allergy. Girl Scouts knows all about this, but did they ask before giving the snack? The answer is NO. Were there ingredients listed on the package so they could verify? NO. These cupcakes were purchased at a bakery, so no ingredients listed on the box.

I can only see this as one thing. Girl Scouts has what they call troop leaders. These troop leaders are not trained or they don't care about verifying with parents if certain snacks are acceptable. In this case we were lucky that nothing happened, but if there were nuts in these cupcakes I would not be writing this. I would most likely be in the emergency room hoping and praying that my daughter lives.

This is complete and utterly not acceptable, and to add even more injury to insult my daughter is expected to peddle cookies, and I have to pay for her. So, I pay for someone to take risks with my child's life. I have to pay so my child can be forced into child labor. Then if she doesn't sell enough the Troop Leader makes her feel bad for not selling enough.

Something is wrong with this picture. It is becoming obvious that Girl Scouts really only wants your daughters so they can force them into free labor and make them feel bad if they don't peddle their cookies, while they hype them up on sugar and take chances with their lives.

Six Flags Amusement Parks

I am planning a vacation and since Baby Dumpling is interested in roller coasters I thought it would be a great thing to take her to the roller coaster park I went to growing up.

I visited the site and discovered that on some rides it specified additional fees. I thought that was crazy so I wanted to inquire about these additional fees per ride. I went to the "contact us" part of the webpage but because there was no available option regarding my specific question I chose to to visit the corporate site. That was even worse. I couldn't even view a topic.

Bottom line is this. Six Flags has lost me as a returning customer, but they have lost my business for family vacations for years to come, possibly for my daughter's family vacations as well because she will know the reason we don't go there is because they hide additional fees after you pay the ticket price. I don't do business with dishonest companies or people and I make sure my daughter understands that companies and people that are not honest will always steal from you, so you should never associate with them because if you do business with dishonest companies all you are doing is giving them more money so they can steal more money from other people.

Congratulations Six Flags, you have lost my business and my daughters future business because your Web Designer is is negligent and your company is giving the impression of being dishonest.

If a company appears to be dishonest, they most likely are dishonest.

Parenting is Easy

Recently we have been having trouble with Baby Dumpling making a mess in the bathroom after bath or shower. The problem is too much water on the floor.

Now Baby Dumpling is a very smart child. Started kindergarten last September and in January was moved into the first grade. She reads at a second grade level, her math level is up there as well. Her vocabulary is that of a young adult. All these are wonderful along with her maturity level.

These good things also can be misleading. Often times people will look at a child who is bright and more mature than their age and forget that they are still children. A child that is 6, but presents themselves as a 10 year old, is still a 6 year old and will have 6 year old mistakes.

This is where I think parenting is easy. If a child is 6, or whatever age, the first most important thing to remember is their age. Then expect them to do things that are appropriate for their age. As parents we need to watch the same programs as our child so we can see what our children are learning from the idiot box. If they watch programs like Wild Kratts, Word Girl, My Little Pony, Magic School Bus, those type of programs then you are pretty safe about what they are learning. It doesn't end there.

Making things easier on us, as parents, we need to make little suggestions. Suggestions that will save arguments or extra work for us later on. Sure it's great that a child knows how to take a bath by themselves, but they will forget about the shower curtain or put too much water in the tub before getting in. Take the time to check on them, remind them about the shower curtain. There is no need to yell or expect them to remember these simple things that, as adults, we already know.

Make taking a bath an educational thing. When the bath water reaches a certain level, turn off the water and explain to the child about displacement. When they get in the water level will rise, then ask if they know why the water level went up. Allow them to discover why you don't fill the tub up to the top then get in. These are things adults take for granted, and we often times forget how we learned them. A lot of learning is by trial and error, or cause and effect. Unfortunately this method often creates work for us parents, and unfortunately our frustration or anger often comes out in the form of disappointment about our children, or raising our voice to our children, maybe even sometimes sending them to the corner to think about it. Think about what? They don't have a clue what happened, all they know is the water went on to the floor and they ended up in the corner.

With a shower curtain explain how the shower curtain works, and what is the purpose of this shower curtain. These are little things that can make things easier for us parents, but at the same time it will educate your children in some of the basic concepts of how the world around them works.

You can stretch this into why we don't put large objects into the toilet by explaining the pipes and their sizes. Explain about how water flows. Liquidity is a good WII game to help the explanation of water flowing.

Sometimes all we need to do is put a little thought into preventing problems and educating our children at the same time.