The SoapBoxers

There are plenty of fine kiosk merchants at malls. The calendar people are great – you poke around looking for calendars, stop occassionally to ask where one is located, but your calendars, and leave. Essentially, an ideal customer experience.

Then there are the stalker merchants.

These tend to be lotion sellers. They will stray far from their kiosk in an attempt to lure customers (women) in. At first, my wife and I were a bit annoyed by them, but simply altered our path so that we veered sharply toward the edge of the mall walkway to avoid them. We were walking literally a foot from the edge of mall walkway (right next to the “regular” stores). The message really should have been quite clear – we were not interested in buying products from these folks.

They began to stalk us to the edge. One one occassion, there was a mild verbal altercation.

What kind of crazy people do this? If I am actively trying to avoid you, engaging in harassing behavior is probably not going to turn me into a customer.

That is when my wife discovered an interesting fact. The mall office actually did care about this. Not only that, but there was specific language in the merchant leases that forbid this sort of aggressive behavior, with fines for violation.

If you encounter this sort of behavior, fight back.

– Call the mall office, or visit them in person. The office is usually tucked away in a hidden corner of the mall (obviously, the mall operators don’t want to waste the prime retail slots on their offices), but it should be on the directory.

– If multiple people were affected, multiple people should complain. It is great to say that five people were in the group that was harassed, but having five different phone calls will leave a sttronger impression.

– Describe the incident accurately and honestly. It should not be necessarily to embellish your story, and these embellishments could get you into hot water. Stick to the facts.

– Describe how this may affect your future shopping habits. If there is a competing mall (with different management) in your metro area, the suggestion that you may shift shopping to that mall may hit home with the mall operators.

– If you continue to experience the harassing behavior, call back. Keep track of dates and times.

I was at the mall today. As I veered to avoid the lotion people, I realized that they were no longer there. Perhaps the merchant simply decided not to renew their lease … but I like to think that the mall non-renewed them because of their behavior.

Schedule of posts
Starting in January 2009, I will attempt to stick to this schedule each month. However, life may alter these plans at any time.

Day 1-5: Consumer experiences

Day 6-10: Book review (this will run heavilty toward mysteries and baseball books)

Day 11-15: A general news topic

Day 16-20: Sports – very likely to be heavy on baseball

Day 21 – end of the month: one or two posts on a variety of subjects

I once had a credit card through MBNA. I loved this card. It was an alumni card that proudly displayed my alma mater.

Then, Bank of America bought MBNA. Suddenly, things got bad. The web site functions no longer worked like they should. In particular, paying the card online became much more difficult. Many times, it didn’t work at all. Other times, it process the wrong amount (generally the minimum payment instead of the amount of the bill). I was double checking what I was doing, and clearly this was the fault of Bank of America. News stories at the time pointed to problems they were having with integration – apparently I was a victim.

One month, we didn’t get a bill. We didn’t notice until the next month, when we got a bill with the $29 late fee.

Typically, a credit card issuer will give you ONE freebie late fee. You simply call, and they will waive the fee.

This was not the case with Bank of Ameria. Not only did they refuse to waive the fee, but they refused to escalate our calls to a manager, and even hung up on me once (for no real apparent reason – I wasn’t using abusive language or anything, I was simply demanding to speak to a manager).

Finally, after repeated calls, we managed to get the fee waived. Honestly, I can remember exactly how this miracle occurred.

However, I was sick of Bank of America by this point. I cancelled by card. OK, we ran a fair amount of purchases through the card, so they lost a few bucks in transaction fees. No big loss, right?

We have our mortgage through CountryWide. As you know, CountryWide has been purchased by Bank of America. We are refinancing our mortgage on Monday (shaving 3/4 point off our rate). We are switching lenders. We didn’t even consider CountryWide/BofA as an option. We simply don’t trust Bank of America at this point. With all the problems we encountered with the credit cards, we have fears that they won’t handle the escrow properly or will make other errors.

Does anyone want to guess how much this will cost Bank of America over the course of the loan? It’s a rather large amount … certainly much larger than the $29 fee they fought to keep. If we had encountered positive customer service during the credit card debacle, we would probably be keeping our loan with CountryWide/BofA.

The whole situation with the Illinois governor makes me wonder … when a member of congress leaves his/her seat for a better job (President, Vice President, cabinet, etc) why don’t we simply let them pick their successor?

After all, if I voted for Senator X, I want a person who very closely fits Senator X’s profile to fill that role. Who better to make such a decision that Senator X. If the governor is from the opposing party and selects someone from that party, I might get the exact opposite of Senator X – definitely not what I wanted when I voted.

Of course, there would need to be an exception for situations where a person resigns in disgrace – and a way to split hairs of what is or is not disgrace.

This will likely become a mini-series … statistics are great, but can be abused.

Today’s focus is on the “transitive” property of statistics. My example will be an issue that many people are well aware of. The issue is important and is a problematic societal issue. I am definitely not suggesting that the problem doesn’t exist – but I am suggesting that the arguments have at times been twisted to say things that the number don’t necessarily support.

Fact 1: Members of group A are paid less than members Group B for the same work
Fact 2: Members of group A, on average, have salaries that are 50% of those of members of group B

thus, the creation of
“fact” 3
Members of group A on average make, on average, 50% of members of group B, for the same work.

The only problem with this is that this is overly simplistic. You cannot blend the first two facts. Too many other variables exist.

Let’s illustrate:

Group A, 100 people
6 brain surgeons @ 135,000 = 810,000
94 engineers @ 45,000 = 4,230,000
Total = 5,040,000

Group B, 100 people
50 brain surgeons @ 150,000 = 7,500,000
50 engineers @ 50,000 = 2,500,000
Total = 10M

Let’s test facts 1 and 2

Fact 1: Are members of group A paid less than members of group B for the same work? Yes. They make 10% less.
Fact 2: Are members of group A, on average, paid ~50% of the salary of members of group B? Yes. 50.4%

But when we come to “fact” 3:
Members of group A on average make, on average, 50% of members of group B, for the same work.

This is not true. Members of group A make 90% of what members of group B make for the same work.

Keep an eye open and you’ll see occasional use of the “transitive” property by otherwise reputable sources. Why? Either because the person doesn’t know any better, or because it’s easier than delving deeper to find the “split” statistics – and 90% of people aren’t going to see the problem. The key point here – when you read the news, you should not only scrutinize the facts for accuracy, but also the logic used to piece the story together. The best statistics in the world cannot undo the harm of illogical thinking.

End note: With this particular example, there is the issue of why members of group A tend to have less than members of group B. Is this due to personal preference, lifestyle choices, or a lack of opportunity. This is a good topic for discussion, but it is beyond the point of this article – that people need to analyze the statistics more closely.

[Note: this is intended to be a humorous parody of the relatively short delay in declaring a winner in the Oregon senate race. It is not intended to be an accurate representation of the state’s election process.]

As we trot toward the festivities of Thanksgiving, the diligent election workers in the state of Oregon continue their thankless job of counting the votes. We expect a winner to be declared in the senate race any day now.

TCO caught up with Joe Saycanusi of the Oregon Secretary of State’s office.

TCO: Joe – Do you mind if I call you Joe? It is now 2 weeks past election day and we’re still waiting for a winner in the Merkley/Smith Senate race. What, exactly, is causing the delay?

JS: Well, TCO, we are experiencing multiple issues. As you know, all voting in Oregon is done through the mail. This year, we have had a bit of a West Nile epidemic, and this has really put a strain on the herd.

TCO: Er, what’s that? Do you mean that the mail in Oregon is actually delivered via pony express?

JS: Of course. What else would we use? Oxen are strong, but they’re pretty slow. We had a second health issue as well – several of the horses came down with constipation. Believe me, when a horse is waiting to take a crap, you’re just going to have to wait it out. Really, I don’t see what the big fuss is all about. The new congress doesn’t start work for a while yet. As long as we’ve declared a winner by then, everything is cool.

TCO: Well, Joe, that’s very fascinating. Thank you for enlightening us.

TCO: We were also cable to catch up with a precinct captain in Multnomah County. We are pleased to speak to John Morgan.

TCO: Captain Morgan – how are you feeling this morning?

CM: Aye, a bit hung over, to be honest. We’ve been doing this bloody counting for umpteen days now. It’s enough to drive you a bit mad after a while, so I went on a bit of a bender last night.

TCO: I believe that you had a bit of a problem with some votes in one of your precincts. Can you explain what happened?

CM: Well, the middle of last week, our cleaning people came in at night to scrub the place down. Unfortunately, when our counters got in the next morning, they discovered an absolute tragedy. Our permanent record of the vote counting had been destroyed – the blackboard was scrubbed clean! Even worse, the ballots had been thrown out with the trash!

TCO: Wow. That’s horrible. Yet, you are expecting to have complete results …

CM: I know what you’re thinking. No, we didn’t just make up some numbers. We grabbed our boots and headed out to the dump. After two days in the dump, we recovered every single ballot. Then we went work, removing chewing gum and taco sauce from the ballots. It was hard work, but I am confident that every single vote has been tallied correctly.

TCO: Wow, that’s quite the ballot tale, captain Morgan. That’s it for this installment of the news. Join us next time as we oversee the counting of ballots in the Alaska senate race.

This is geared more toward moderates rather than partisan voters.

Let’s say that you care about five issues (listed in order of importance)

Issue 1: Candidate A agrees with you. 90% of congress is on your side.
Issue 2: Candidate A agrees with you. 80% of congress is on your side.
Issue 3: Candidate B agrees with you. 50% of congress is on your side.
Issue 4: Candidate A agrees with you. 30% of congress is on your side.
Issue 5: Candidate A agrees with you. 20% of congress is on your side.

Who should you vote for? Candidate A, right? After all, candidate A agrees with you on four of your five most important issues, including the two that are most near and dear to your heart.

Wrong. You should vote for candidate B.

Issues 1 and 2 are safe, since congress overwhelmingly agrees with you. Conversely, issues 4 and 5 are hopeless for you at this point in time, as they simply don’t have enough support. The one issue where your vote makes the largest difference is issue 3 – which is teetering on the brink of having enough congressional support.

Keep this in mind the next time you vote. Which issues are teetering on the brink?

I got a call from a telemarketer last week. It was one of those calls where you can chop the interest rate on your credit card. I decided to tell the caller that they were in violation of the “Do not call” list and that I would refer subsequent calls to the attorney general’s office – so I hit the button to talk to a human.

Then the call got weird.

I hear a woman in the background. “Can we get some soy sauce with that? A lot of soy sauce. We both like soy sauce. Can we get like ten each?”

The conversation goes on like this for a bit – clearly she is using her cell phone to order lunch while she is supposed to be answering calls. Eventually, my one year old daughter makes a sound in the background. The call realizes what has happened and focuses her attention on me in the only way possible.

Yep, she hung up on me. Hopefully this was one of those calls that is being recorded for training purposes.

A literary icon of our generation has passed away. The great writer Michael Crichton ended his battle with cancer at the age of 66 on November 4.

Crichton is best known for his masterpiece, Jurassic Park. As a bit of a dinophile, this became one of my favorite books. Over the years, I read many other Crichton books – Congo, Sphere, Airframe, Timeline, Prey, and Next among them. Crichton also wrote Twister and created the television show ER. I await the final Crichton novel, now scheduled for release on May 4, 2009.

Thank you for everything, Michael, and enjoy your eternal reward. You deserve it.

Did you stay away from the polls because you didn’t think your vote counted? One effect of the apathy caused by the electoral college is the down-ticket effect. If you are a Democrat in Texas or a Republican in California, you are correct that your presidential vote would not have swung the state. However, your vote may have changed the results of local races – and this can also have an impact on you. In my state, a candidate in one race currently holds a lead of 6 votes.

If you don’t like the electoral college, there is a way to fix it. Contrary to popular belief, a state does not need to award their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote in that state. The state has complete control over how their votes are awarded.

There is currently an effort underway to functionally abolish the electoral college. A number of states have formed an agreement to cast their electoral votes for the winner of the national popular vote. This will only occur once enough states have joined to ensure 270 electoral votes (meaning that if a candidate won the popular vote and had this bloc of states give him/her their electoral votes, he/she would achieve an automatic electoral college majority.. Until then, the states will continue to assign electoral votes via the current method.

Read more at this web site:
http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/index.php

Contact your state legislators regarding this.