The Final Countdown (da da daa da)

Great song and makes a great background track for this post so just hum it while you read. Trust me, it will make your experience that much better.

As I was running down the street today in nicely groomed neighborhood with painted houses, manicured yards, and paved streets, I realized that one week from now the setting for my not so frequent runs will have changed. Not only will I not be in any well groomed neighborhoods but I will be in Nicaragua, the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and will remain there for the next two years and twenty seven months of my life. For a lot of people, this realization would be scary or anxiety provoking, but for me, I just smiled, thought about how different life is going to be, and continued my jog.

I am so ready to go. Well, mentally ready at least. Physically ready, as in packed, purchased, and completed all last minute things…not so much. For the last week to ten days, apart from spending time with friends and sleeping a lot, I have been busy hustling around town to find everything that I thought I would need for the next two years. Some items, such as toiletries, belts, and electronics, were easy to get but other decisions were much harder. For example, should I buy a hiking backpack or just a travel pack and how dressed up I am supposed to be for work in Nicaragua? These two questions topped the list and were thought about extensively, to my parents chagrin.

For anyone that knows me, you know that there are two things that I hate in life. I actually would call them my two least favorite activities. Packing and shopping. Why, you ask? I hate packing because I am never quite sure what to bring with me and end up pondering over this black shirt or that red button down long enough until I end up staying up until 4am the night before I leave and just pack everything then. For a while, I just made up my mind that I was not even going to begin to think about packing until the last night. That way, there would be no over thinking and I would be forced to just pack and make my way to the airport, train, etc. Normally, this works well but since I am going away for a tad longer than I normally would, I thought I would be put in a lot more thought into this packing job. Anyways, I think it turned out to be the wrong idea because I am still not packed and have just thought about packing for the past week. Never a good combination. As always, I know I will at least be packed before I leave.

Travel pack and black shoes/dressy casual pants. The answers to the question way up there. I ended up deciding that I would just go with a cheaper travel pack that still had straps on it but without all the bells and whistles (not a big hiker anyways) and that I would try to actually look nice/professional for my teaching job. Meaning I am bringing black and brown dressy casual shoes along with khakis and gray pants. I honestly have no idea what I will end up wearing to teach but I figured that when you look nice it is hard to go wrong. I want the kids to respect me as an authority figure and think that I should dress the part. Still, I cant help picturing my first day of teaching/advising, looking suave in my gray pants and button down shirt, standing next to my Nicaraguan teaching counterpart in jeans and a tshirt. So, in the end, I could look out of place, but I will probably look out of place, being tall and white anyways, so I got nothing to lose.

Many people are probably wondering what is going through my head right now as I prepare to move to the unknown and make this leap in my life. And the answer that I have for you is not very exciting….not too much. I am very excited to go and just start and sick of waiting around the United States to leave. I wrote a while ago that I thought six weeks from invitation to departure would not be long enough but it has more than long enough. I have gotten to spend quality time with my family, friends, and members of the opposite sex (I am worried about the fact that I may become celibate in Nica), driven my car around town, hung out in Gainesville, played basketball, eaten great, fatty American fast food, gone to the beach, and enjoyed the Florida weather. I am really excited to get down to Nicaragua to begin my job, improve my Spanish, and just get settled into a stable environment.

Another post not about Peace Corps

I am sure that all of you are expecting more posts about Peace Corps, Nicaragua, Guatemala, how everything is coming along, etc but right now I am too stressed with buying and organizing everything to write about it. So…I will now follow up my ode to public transportation with a short ode to customer service. Customer service, in my opinion, is where it is at, it is where good companies become great, and where companies with no business competing in the marketplace end up competing. It is also something that most businesses perform very poorly. I could rant and rave all day about the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad service that cell phone companies provide but instead I am going to give a few shout outs to specific people and companies that have given me exceptional service in the past week. The list may surprise you…it surely surprised me.

The shoe salesman: I went to a shoe store in NYC to buy shoes and probably looked like a lost puppy as I generally do when I am shopping. This guy took me under his wing, did all the measurements on my foot, picked out shoes for me, and then wrote down the names of all the shoes that fit so I could go home and “think” about it or look on the internet for better prices. Turns out that the shoes were just too expensive but now that I am still looking for shoes one week later, I really wish I would have just bought them. Anyways, here to you shoe salesman.

Verizon, Jacksonville, FL: I HATE cell phone companies. They offer terrible service, rope you into pointless contracts, and generally try to screw you out of money in every way possible. If anyone is looking to open a profitable business, I highly recommend going into the telecommunications industry and if you offer good customer service, you will probably win the market quickly. Anyways, my phone’s camera stopped working so I took it into the store and the guy just told me to put it on his desk and come back in an hour and I would have a new phone with all my numbers transferred. Amazing. The guy was really busy so probably did not want to take a long time talking to me about the problem, but he did exactly what I wanted with no skin off his back.

Wachovia Bank, Jacksonville, FL: So I made a tiny mistake and overdrew my checking account. This is the first time it has ever happened in my life and the mistake just involved clicking on the wrong account to pay my credit card bill. I immediately put money into my checking account once I learned of my mistake and then called Wachovia. I talked to a woman who offered to refund 25 percent of the charge (6 dollars on a 22 dollar charge) because that was the percentage for which my account was eligible. I politely explained that I was looking for a complete refund and she said there was nothing she could do so I asked her to transfer me to someone who could do something. <<This is the effing problem with telephone customer service. They hire retards to answer the phones and give them absolute no authority to do anything except “help” customers by frustrating them to the point that they stop caring anymore and just accept their defeat. I am certain that this strategy as well as long wait times is employed in order to get people to hang up in disgust and just move on with their lives.>> So the woman transfered me to the refunds dept and I waited on hold for 45 minutes!!! 45 minutes! No one should ever wait on the phone for 45 minutes unless they are trying to get Gator football tickets. So I hung up and then went to the Wachovia branch nearby my house the next day. I calmly explained the situation and the very nice, attractive young woman brought me into her office and gave me a complete refund of the 22 dollars. She first looked at my file and remarked that I had declined the 6 dollar refund over the phone and said I would rather receive nothing than 6 dollars on an easy 22 dollar refund. Anyways, long story short, I have been a Wachovia customer for 4 years, made an honest mistake that was quickly fixed, had never overdrawn an account previously, and thankfully a reasonable, nice person saw the situation as it is and just refunded my money. So props to you, young, attractive woman at Wachovia.

Gazuza Bar, Washington DC: I realized just tonight that I had a charge of 34 dollars on my credit card when I was almost positive that I only charged 30 dollars to my credit card. Even though, I had a few drinks that night, it is pretty easy to remember when you charge an even amount to the card. I was sure of myself so called the bar, asked to speak to a manager, and let him know that I was charged 34 dollars when it should have been 30, and I knew it was a very small amount but just wanted to inform him that I believe the waitress may have tampered with the check. I actually dont think this has ever happened to me before but I have heard that servers change numbers on the tip in order to get more money. Anyways, the manager, Hector, told me that he was sorry and offered to buy me a drink next time I come into the bar. He then proceeded to look into the situation and called me back twice on my cell in the span of 30 minutes; the first time to let me know that the charge was for 34 dollars and the second time to let me know that they accidentally charged the other credit card 30 dollars and mine 34 dollars that night. Turns out there was no server tampering and just an honest mistake. Hector, this bud is for you!

As you can see, there are many great examples of good customer service, actually great customer service, but unfortunately they are surrounded by thousands of examples of piss poor customer service. Really it comes down to the employee being intelligent, reasonable, and a good listener, the company knowing how to train its employees to make the customer happy, and the customer treating the employee with respect and kindness. I firmly believe that the customer service industry is suffering in the States and needs to be repaired.

Thanks for reading my post not about the Peace Corps that I wrote when I should have been organizing my list of things I still need to purchase. I need some serious help with organization.

Public Transportation

Before praising public transportation, I would like everyone to take a second to remember the killings at Virginia Tech. Today marks the one year anniversary of the horrible tragedy that affected and touched people around the globe. In the death of the 33 students, all of humanity was united from the far reaches of the earth, looking for an explanation of what happened one year ago from today. Virginia Tech brought forth very powerful emotions in me as I sat there at work, followed the story, cried, and analyzed all of the school violence in the States. To this day, it chokes me up thinking about how our schools, which should be the safest of all places, have become tainted with violence. So please continue to remember Virginia Tech.

Avi, where are you right now? Sometimes, I think it would be fun to let you know exactly where I am while writing all of my posts. It is usually a interesting place.  For example, right now I am writing from JFK Airport in NYC while using their free wireless. And I got here from the subway station in midtown Manhattan by taking subways, escalators, elevators, stairs, Airtrains, and walking a bit. I love the fact that it was so easy and cheap to get here even though the airport is way out in Queens. Now it did take a little over an hour but was relaxing, smooth, and I am happy that NYC finally connected JFK to the public transportation system (not talking about buses here, although buses can be good). Now they need to get La Guardia Airport on the grid.

So for the past week I have been in DC and NYC visiting old friends, enjoying memories while creating new ones, and eating some really good pizza. All the while, enjoying the amazing public transportation systems of the cities. Both systems are different, but both get the job done well. It is amazing to know that even though you can walk through these beautiful cities relatively easily, you can also get from end to end quite quickly via public transport. A few reasons why I love public transport.

1. No need for a car. This saves money and the environment at the same time.
2. You do not need to find a parking place. This goes along with number one but needs to be a separate reason why public transport is so amazing. There is nothing worse than trying to find a parking place in a city or downtown area.
3. Connects people. It allows everyone to be able to see everyone cheaply and efficiently without owning a car or walking extreme distances.
4. It is a great equalizer. This is by far my favorite reason and I could write an entire post on this topic alone. I love riding the subway, metro, tube, or whatever you want to call it and seeing people of all colors, ages, and socioeconomic classes in the same place. The million dollar guy in a business suit standing next to the minimum wage McDonalds worker. Black, white, Hispanic, Indian, all in the same place. It is truly beautiful. Because public transport is the most efficient system of travel, everyone must do it and it levels the playing field, even if only for fifteen minutes every day.

Flight is boarding….gotta go.

I am on a bus RIGHT NOW

I am now writing this while traveling at 65 mph on a bus between Washington DC and NYC. How friggin amazing is it that the bus has wireless! If we can get wireless on a fast moving vehicle, then anything is possible. Seriously anything. And if anyone is reading this who already knew that buses, trains, and other moving vehicles had wireless, and is wondering why I am so excited about this fact, I just have two words to say to you…. Having wireless on a bus is cool, really cool and I am excited to be able to use it right now. So not only am I traveling to NYC, the greatest city in the world, but I am actually making money while I am traveling as I am doing paid work online right now! And it gets better, this bus is not just equipped with wireless, but is very clean, very roomy, has electrical plugs in all the seats, plasma tvs, has a clean bathroom, and cost the same or less as other the other crowded, old chinatown buses. So now is the time for the plug… check it out on boltbus.com and if you are traveling between DC, NYC, or Boston, I highly recommend using this service. If you book early, you can even get one of the few $1 seats available on every trip. I actually was able to get a $1 seat for my buddy who is meeting me in NYC from Philly today. This is all very cool and now back to work. I should arrive in Manhattan in 45 minutes for a vacation from my permanent vacation.

Your tax dollars at work…

So I realize that I have not written nearly enough about Peace Corps, have not wrapped up my Guatemala experience, and generally have not made any upgrades to the site in some time, so I am just going to blame it all on the anesthesia. Bad anesthesia, bad. Honestly, that should all change as I am studying up a bit on web design and hope to add some cool stuff.

Booked my flight today to Washington DC for the staging event for Peace Corps that will take place on May 5-6 at the beautiful Holiday Inn in Georgetown. Peace Corps is already getting us ready to be isolated from the world (as we will be in training) by putting us at a hotel that is about the furthest possible distance from a metro as possible in DC. Still the event should be nice and am excited to meet all my fellow Peace Corps peeps.

So what’s with the title of this post, you ask? Well I just want to let you know how much my nonstop USAir flight to DC cost. Now I have taken this flight at least ten times while I was living in DC last year and I have never, ever paid more than 150 dollars one way (and that is when I waited until the last minute). So guess how much the US government/Peace Corps paid for the flight…200 dollars….nope higher….250…higher….275…higher… 284.50 dollars! Seeing this price in the email that was sent to me by Sato Travel, dropped my jaw. Are you freaking kidding me? So of course I go to check the USAir website to see how much that exact flight should cost. 130 dollars with taxes and all! Just imagine for a second how much useless money the government is spending when it books flights in this way. In my Peace Corps departure alone (38 people) with an average price difference of 150 dollars, they would be spending $5700 too much, probably equivalent to all of our Nicaraguan salaries for this next year. US Government/Peace Corps/Sato Travel take a bow. We appreciate how much you value our tax dollars.