She had an identification card for the implants that is used to prove that the implants are an actual medical device, but the TSA agent would not let Lori show her the card. The TSA agent was extremely rude, humiliating her in front of other travelers and showing zero compassion for her situation.

Laughing Squid: TSA Requires Breast Cancer Patient To Submit To Pat Down After Scan

When will it stop?

Cull out your best customers, the repeaters who make the airline profitable. Then throw obstacles in their path, demonstrate your inefficiencies, put in surprise restrictions, and do your best to drive those good customers away.

Jay Cross – United Breaks Relationships

Contrast Jay’s story with that of Peter Shankman’s:

That meant that in just under three hours, someone at Morton’s Corporate had to see my tweet, get authorization to do this stunt, get in touch with Morton’s Hackensack, and place the order. Then Morton’s Hackensack had to cook the order, get it boxed up, and get a server to get in his car, and drive to Newark Airport (never an easy task, no matter where you’re coming from) then, (and this is the part the continues to blow me away,) while all this was happening, track down my flight, where I was landing, and be there when I walked out of security!

Peter Shankman – The Greatest Customer Service Story Ever Told

These days, it seems we’re all numb to stories like Jay’s, because we experience them more and more frequently. Stories like Peter’s are more amazing because of how rare they have become. And, it’s not like we don’t hear about the good ones because they’re not shared. The days of people only sharing bad experiences are over — we’re now in the era of over-sharing. Now we hear about every experience, good or bad.

Peter goes on to say:

Customer service is no longer about telling people how great you are. It’s about producing amazing moments in time, and letting those moments become the focal point of how amazing you are, told not by you, but by the customer who you thrilled.

People are going to share their experiences. What kind of story do you want your customers to tell?

Because who wants to drop $800 on a “work in progress?

- Ben Brooks

My thoughts, exactly. All these new tablets coming out seem to be rushed to market and considerably buggy. And, as Gruber asks, the most important question is, “why would anyone buy this instead of an iPad?”

** I wrote the above before the iPad 2 announcement last week, but didn’t get a chance to post it.

This morning, I noticed this article on Google News.

With the official release of the iPad 2 last week, Apple has managed to refresh its flagship product to provide a sensible match for rival tablets, including its most formidable one, the Motorola Xoom.

WTF?! Seriously?

From the same article:

The iPad 2 is also slimmer than the Xoom by around a third which makes a difference when you try to lift the tablet with one hand.

The iPad 2 is the one catching up?

And, then, this gem:

When it comes to pricing the Motorola Xoom is likely to win hands down because, like the Galaxy Tab, it is not the market leader; Apple will still sell loads of tablets at the current market price (£429 for the cheapest model and close to £700 for the most expensive one).

Wait. The Xoom wins hands down on price? How? When? Please tell me this is a typo.

Poor, poor reporting.

This is the kind of thing that makes Flash absolutely worthless to me.

The movies look great. But at such a high practicality cost, many people won’t (and shouldn’t) bother.

-Marco Arment

Unless you have a really decked out system that fully capitalizes on the benefits of Blu-Ray, why would you buy it? I will probably never buy another movie that’s on a disk. If I do, I will immediately rip it so I don’t have to deal with menus, FBI warnings, etc. I just want to watch the movie. On-demand is not the future, it’s the present. I’ll take a hit in quality for instant access.

Jason Scott:

Yahoo! actually went on the offensive and claimed they weren’t going to kill Delicious but sell it, which makes me laugh, because no such thing could be true – the most glaring reason being that Yahoo’s authentication system infests every one of their properties, and a lot of people on Delicious are using Yahoo IDs. Another is that Yahoo are incompetent assholes.

(via Marco)

Points I agree with:

• Interruption-free environment: whether this is allowing employees to work remotely on occasion, setting rules in the office like “no-talk Thursdays,” or some other solution, give your employees time to do their jobs without interruption.
• Fewer, better meetings: meetings are necessary. But not in the traditional format. Not all meetings have to be 30 minutes or an hour. Have a goal for your meetings, and accomplish it, with no other distractions or discussion points. If it takes three minutes to accomplish the goal, then your meeting is over after three minutes.
• Focus on the real distractions: it isn’t Facebook or Twitter that’s keeping people from being productive. It’s the fact that they can’t access what they need to in order to do their job better, or it’s because a coworker or manager disrupted them while they were in the “zone.” Facebook, Twitter, E-mail, IM, etc. are all voluntary distractions. Managers and meetings (and coworkers) are involuntary distractions. Avoid them (or avoid being them).
• Work stages are like sleep stages: for some workers, this might not be the case, but for many (knowledge workers, designers, etc.) this is spot on. It takes a while to get through the initial stages of a work session and really get into the zone. Sure, some can work well enough in short bursts, but we are missing out on the best they have to offer if they are never allowed to get into the zone.

Watch this video, then do what you can to provide a better working environment. Arguments and comments are welcome, of course!

Why Work Doesn’t Happen at Work

More from Jason on Big Think: “Interruption and collaboration are different things.”

If you touch my junk, I’ll have you arrested.

This is getting out of hand. Would this be allowed anywhere else? There are better ways to reduce threats.

(via Gruber)

Don’t make me wait, because I won’t.

Anyhow, I’ll get to the point. Don’t be a chump. Don’t wait for a bailout. Pay back your debt, and do it in this order:

1. Friends: because you don’t want to be “that” guy.
2. Family: because you may need them to loan it back in the future.
3. Credit Cards: because they are brutal.
4. Automobile: because car payments suck.
5. Other (mortgage, student loans, etc.): because they are, typically, fair and manageable investments.

“How do I do this?” You might ask. Easy:

• Buy a used car. (And join a credit union so you’ll get a better rate).
• Go out to eat (or, especially, drink) one or two fewer times per week.
• Quit with the Starbucks (or variation). Brew at home, and buy a nice to-go cup. Like the specialty drinks? Have you seen the flavors the creamer companies have come out with recently. Buy some.
• Drop the gym membership. Be honest, you don’t really use it, anyway (if you’re in the 5% who actually do, kudos to you). Do some pushups and crunches, jump rope, ride a bike. Do yoga at home.
• Get a cell plan that fits your usage. One should never EVER pay overage fees or excessive texting fees.

Keep it simple. There are plenty of ways to save a few bucks here and there so you can take care of that pesky debt. Get creative. Most importantly, do it. However you have to. Do it.

Sadly, Monday is the day I leave Wells Fargo completely as my main banking institution. I have been with Wells Fargo (or some variation) since 1994. First I was with Cattleman’s State Bank (in Austin), which was bought by Norwest, which was bought by Wells Fargo.

I’ve never had any major issues with WF, and almost all of the time I have very nice experiences in their branch locations, which are in very convenient locations for me. They hire very good branch employees.

However, they charge for everything. Almost every bank I know of had free online bill pay for years before Wells Fargo finally gave in more recently. ATM fees? Of course.

I kept my accounts with them because we had our mortgage through them, and it was very nice to see a big picture of our overall financial status. Now, with services like Mint, this is not a differentiator. In addition, I’ve been very happy with USAA banking, despite no physical locations. They refund every ATM fee, they give a decent % interest on personal checking, and they have superb customer service. So, all my personal accounts are now going to USAA.

Now, for business. I recently had the grand idea that, gee, wouldn’t it be great if I had all my accounts under one roof, including business? I was sure that by adding business checking, savings and credit to my already existing personal, student loan, and mortgage accounts, I’d be given a pretty good deal. WRONG.

I opened up accounts for Duce Enterprises. Had to have a $500 minimum average daily balance to avoid a $6 service fee. Annoying, but not a huge deal. So I opened the account with $100. Two days later I deposited $400 to bring it to $500. Because I didn’t have $500 in there from the beginning, and didn’t compensate by depositing more later in the month, I was dinged for $6. Ridiculous.

Then, I was looking at my transactions, and there’s a very inviting link to “View Details.”

I clicked on it, thinking “what a great feature,” only to get this message:

Sorry, but I’ve grown very tired of Wells Fargo, and all their nickel and diming for every little thing. I’m done. They have enough customers that I’m sure these fees net them a considerable revenue, so I guess from a pure business/profit standpoint, I can’t blame them. But, as a customer, and a loyal long-term customer, I expect more, and I will get more, from someone else.

</rant >

The Senate voted on Monday to delay next month’s transition to digital television until June 12 because some viewers would not be ready for the switch.

Senate Approves Digital TV Delay – NYTimes.com

Oh, and thanks for taking more of my money to advertise this transition (again) to the idiots who haven’t been paying attention for the last 18 months. I’m happy to see my tax money being put to good use, once again.

I’m tiring quickly of all this crap. Washington needs to be paying attention to the important issues, not worrying about bailing out its constituents all the time. Pucking folitics.

I don’t always agree with Arrington, but this is pretty good.

This time, Wall Street and our government screwed everything up all on their own while we minded our own business and acquired our own instead of going public at crazy valuations.

The picture is great. The article is good.

My take on 2.0: I’m tired of the “Web X.X” nomenclature. Get over it, it’s just technology. The web is not a dot release. It’s a living, evolving, ridiculously huge and powerful entity.

We’ll look back in later years and think of this most recent boom as the Web 2.0 period, when we were wowed by the magic of user generated content, copyright violations on a massive scale, and neat little widgety things that used Javascript and Flash to turn web pages into pretty close equivalents to the old desktop apps. Of course there were other evolutions as well. Advertising technology has advanced steadily, particularly in tailoring ads to an individuals needs, and tracking them properly. This is the period that social networking as we think of it today was born, and we’ll never be rid of it in our lifetimes.

Also silly is the video in this post – be sure to head to the site to watch it (it’s at the bottom of Arrington’s post). Hilarious frivolity.

(Via Brent)

(Via DF via Rands)

…or so I thought:

FAIL!

iPhone apps for toddlers

I went to Plaxo help, and of the Top 25 articles, how to delete my account was #1!

So, unless you really, really love Plaxo and don’t mind them sharing your email address with the entire world, then I would go delete your account.

Update: Plaxo has a history of screwups.

Update 2: Officially deleted.

I’m just sick of the whole mess that is the U.S. Government. How about we take all the ridiculous campaign financing and end poverty or something else that’s a helluva lot more useful.