Quick Check-In

I’m sitting here trying to psych myself up to take a shower and get ready for work…yes, you heard right, work on Saturday.  My first Saturday of my full-time career.  Good thing I like what I’m doing, right?

I’m hoping to be home in time to watch Auburn take on the Care Bears…Rebel Black Bears…whatever.  I sure hope the team is ready and doesn’t have the big head from all the recent publicity related to the big #1 and Cam’s Heisman hopes.  It’s a game by game thing, but I’m afraid we won’t stop to smell how sweet it is at the top until it’s over.  Knock on wood and all that jazz…I’m becoming so superstitious!! :)

Ok.  It’s now the latest possible time that I told myself I could wait until to start getting ready.  Time to get to work so I can get home!

Busy Week

I’ve survived my first big deadline at work.  This was actually the third big deadline to pass since I started work, but the first one that I had any returns to prepare. 

I had most of my work done between Monday and Tuesday.  I kept getting new returns at the last minute, but that was ok.  They weren’t too complicated and it was nice to have something to do and be useful.  One return on Tuesday only had front pages of source documents and completely skipped some documents we knew we needed.  I requested what we needed and we were told we would have it by Fed.Ex on Thursday morning.  Of course, it was almost lunch before we got it.  The pages I needed were now front and back, but some items were missing.  Luckily, they were items that I could find based upon last year and published government information.

Also, on Thursday, we had lunch brought in.  Apparently, there are several Jim-n-Nicks in Tennessee.  It made my day to have some barbecue chicken, macaroni and cheese, cheese biscuits and of course, chocolate pie!  It’s funny how a little bit of Alabama really made my day.  Of course, after everything I ate, I was just about sick and needed to walk about ten miles to work off all the calories.  It was worth it though! :)

Friday, we had college recruits in the office to interview for internships and full-time positions.  I was assigned, along with two other people, to take two recruits to lunch.  I needed to drive and, of course, I had planned to buy gas on the way home from work.  Instead,  I got to leave work during the day to go get gas and it didn’t require me to take time off! :)  We went to lunch—unfortunately we had a miscommunication and two groups made reservations at the same place and we didn’t get to go where I really wanted to.  Oh, well…

After lunch, a client brought his information in around 2 and it had to be out the door before we left and in time to be postmarked with 10/15.  The return was quite simple, but the phone call after the return was prepared wasn’t quite as simple.  Luckily, I was more of an observer while the manager did most of the taking with the client.  We ended up conferencing in the firm manager (the partner in charge of all the other partners)—he is the signer for this return.  I hadn’t participated in client phone calls except to request information before, so this was a learning experience for me.  I’m grateful for the experience, but I hope not all conversations are that complicated.

After work, I raced home to take Emma out and then went back out to meet some of the girls from the Tax department at Cheekwood.  We went to see the Chihuly exhibit.  It was really pretty—even though we went off-roading nearly the entire time.  We weren’t too concerned with ropes and signs that pointed us in the “correct” direction! :)  I think it would have been nice to get to the exhibit before sunset so you could see the sculptures both in the light and lit up after dark.

All in all, it was a busy week, but good.  I survived a deadline and I feel a little more prepared for what’s to come in the spring.

I’ve got cleaning to do this weekend and I have promised to pay more attention to Emma this weekend since she’s been alone much more than usual this week between horrible traffic this week and my Friday night plans.  I’ll really miss her, but this week confirmed that she needs to vacation in Florence during busy season.  She’s a snow bird, so she’s going south!

My List of “Good Companies”

Lately I’ve been really frustrated with my experiences calling various companies and dealing with their customer service representatives.  You have already heard me rant about Charter.  Unfortunately, Comcast (my cable and internet provider in Nashville) is only marginally better.  I’m really hoping to get AT&T or DirecTv in my new house late next summer.  I haven’t heard anyone that I can think of complain about service from either of these companies.  I really like the idea of free HD and DVR from DirecTv.  I just can’t stand to pay Comcast any more, so I just have almost the most basic cable and internet service with no HD and no DVR.  Since I can watch almost everything on the internet, not having DVR isn’t that big of an issue—just a convenience thing.

Back to the subject of this post—good customer service.  About two weeks ago, I got a notice from Nashville Electric that my payment didn’t go through because my checking account showed closed.  I called immediately to try to fix the problem.  I found out that I didn’t enter my account number correctly and it was an easy fix with the help of a polite and friendly customer service representative.  So, about a week ago, I get another letter saying that I was being assessed a $15.00 charge for a returned payment.  I wasn’t happy about this, so I called to see if the fee could be waived since it was simply a first-payment mistake with my bank account.  The customer service representative was very nice and quickly got approval to waive the fee.  They didn’t have to waive the fee, but I felt like it was an honest mistake and not worthy of the fee.  Luckily, I was able to make them see my way and get out of the extra fee.

My second example of good customer service is at Banana Republic.  Specifically, Banana Republic online.  I placed an order maybe three weeks ago and the pants didn’t quite fit correctly.  I returned them yesterday, but the store didn’t have any to exchange.  I placed another order last night and had a 25% off plus free shipping coupon.  That coupon expired last night, so I had to use it before midnight.  This morning I woke up to a 30% off plus free shipping coupon.  Since the difference was over $10, I decided to call and see if they would adjust my bill or cancel the order so I could re-order with the additional savings.  The representative was polite and quickly got approval to adjust my bill.  I just have to wait until my order ships to make sure I was billed the correct amount.  I know it sounds silly to go through this trouble for less than $20, but, with my new “big girl” budget, every penny counts!

So anyway, I want to say “Thank You!” to Nashville Electric and Banana Republic for being polite, efficient and not raising my blood pressure to stroke levels.  I’m now on the lookout for other companies with good customer service—I’ll keep you updated!