Dear QLess:

Kansas Dept. of Vehicles is using your web-based software to "serve" customers who need license renewals and title work. It's a good concept--no more waiting in line! But in practice it's awful--About 45 minutes after "getting in line" online, I was sent a text that my estimated time until I'd get service was thirty minutes, but when I got to the motor vehicles office it ended up being an hour and a half. 

Q-less? More like Queue-max!

Time to tune up those time-estimating algorithms just a bit! I hope I won't be subject to them for a long time--the next time I have to register or title a vehicle.

I'm publishing this note on my consumer activism blog, and I'm sure people shopping for software like yours will find it. I'd be glad to publish your response, as well, if you can think of any possible way to defend yourself.

Squeaky Wheel Re-runs: The Kikkoman Incident

Since starting the eValue-ator, I have gotten several comments from friends and family recalling the letter I wrote to Kikkoman in 2007, decrying their soy sauce dispensing system. I always wondered if the day this clearly articulated gripe arrived in their inbox and started getting circulated throughout the office, if meetings were held and desks were cleaned out as an HR representative stood nearby. 

My ending is rather harsh, because I had not yet developed this blog and the concept of "allowing" the company to "write the last chapter" of the story, preferably by acknowledging the problem, promising to at least look into solving it, and providing some sort of compensation for the trouble endured and the letter written. In this case, Kikkoman sent me a standard apology letter and one of their classic glass decanters with the double pinhead-sized pour spouts on its plastic cap. This dispenser (at right, in the photo) works much better than their bottle at the table, but it comes up short in the refrigerator, where it could easily tip over and start dribbling out--or at the very least exposing the soy sauce to air through the two permanently open holes, thus making it lose freshness.

Dear Kikkoman.com: 

Our family have always been fans of Kikkoman soy sauce, but your 15-oz. bottle has put a dark cloud over our experience with your product.

The LAST bottle of Kikkoman we bought (probably a couple years ago), which was about a 10-12 oz. bottle, had an efficient, small-diameter cap insert that dispensed the sauce with a quick shake, exactly where you wanted it.

The new 15-oz. bottle has four large slots around the edge of the insert under the cap, and the sauce comes POURING out if you attempt to shake it onto food on a plate. If you carefully tip the bottle to coax just a few drops out while moving it around the food on your plate, it simply dribbles down the side of the bottle and onto the table.

Folks, this is not ketchup! Soy sauce is a concentrated, runny condiment that is delightful in small amounts but disgusting in large, splashy pools that overpower the subtle flavors of our homemade stir-fry. It's positively Kooky, man! 

What were you THINKING in making such a change?!? My GUESS is that you were thinking, "Hey, let's put bigger holes in the cap insert so that people can POUR it into measuring spoons for COOKING, and they'll WASTE even more attempting to dispense it at the TABLE, too, thus leading to higher sales."

Which middle manager of your organization came up with this foolish scheme? Which vice president signed off on it? Their short-term thinking for quick-term profits has led not only me, but undoubtedly many consumers, to think twice before buying another bottle of Kikkoman. Sentence the offenders to a week of waiting tables at a restaurant where Kikkoman in the 15-oz. bottle is served, and make them hear the curses of its users and clean up the stainy, sticky mess that results from ordinary table use.

Now I will BOYCOTT Kikkoman soy sauce and pass a copy of this letter on to EVERYONE on my personal e-mail list, warning them to avoid your needlessly gushy delivery system until we see a new badge on the Kikkoman label that says, "Now with NEW variable-flow dispenser cap!"

This boycott ended a year ago when my wife picked up another bottle of Kikkoman, apparently having forgotten my big position on this Crucial Issue of Our Era. And I regret to report that the stuff still comes gushing out of the bottle, and we'll have to switch back to our regional grocery store chain brand.

Five Easy (if Wordy) Things I Hate about the Dell Latitude E6510

I’m a Mac guy who has for the most part uncomplainingly used the Dell laptops my employer has supplied for seven years. I’ve gotten used to these Dull information appliances as a way to get the job done, however joylessly, but I’ve never hated a laptop with the white-hot intensity of the Dell Latitude E6510 I’m currently using—my third Dell for this job, and arguably the worst ever. Why?

1. Batteries and power non-management:

1.1: Laughably short battery life—The standard battery, that allows the unit to fit in my laptop bag, lasts about 45 minutes. 

1.2: A larger, higher-capacity battery is available, but the single battery bay (and zero backup power on main logic board) means the charger has to be plugged in to swap batteries—or you’ll lose everything currently in RAM. An annoyingly time-consuming restart follows each time. 

1.3: The battery bay is at the back of the unit, so the battery can’t be physically swapped out (say, from the small battery to the larger one, before a meeting) if the unit is on its docking stand. (My previous Dell had a small, permanent battery accessible from the underside, which was on all the time and kept RAM contents alive while swapping batteries on either side of the computer, easily accessible while on or off the docking station.)

1.4: I have played with my power management settings in Windows, but can’t get this thing to reliably give me a warning about low battery/time to plug in. It just dies. 

1.5: Even after reading and re-reading online help, I don’t get the difference between “sleep” and “hibernate,” particularly in relation to the laptop’s lid being open. Some combination of “sleep” and “hibernate” should allow the laptop, when on batteries, to go into a low-power-consumption mode on its own after a defined period of time, and manage its remaining power carefully enough to allow hours or days (depending on battery state) without losing what’s in RAM. It doesn’t work that way. 

1.6: “Resuming Windows”—If you’re lucky, you’ll get back to this laptop before it sucks the final electrons of energy from its battery. But even if you do, you’ll still wait about 30 seconds every time you come back, wake it up, and wait while it displays a bogus animation and the message “Resuming windows.” Why does an OS and hardware, that presumably keeps its last-used state in RAM while it hibernates or sleeps, need a time-consuming “resuming” step?

 2. Space heater: This laptop runs hot, and a fan blows this hot air out of a vent on the left side, right where I like to position my left hand when not typing. Even in the winter, the heat is so intense as to make you move your hand from where it naturally rests. If you set a cold drink over there, it will actually make it lukewarm after 15-20 minutes. If you lay a piece of chocolate nearby, it will melt.

3. Grime catcher: The speakers on either side of the keyboard sound pretty good, but the black perforated metal over them (serving as a grille) and extending far further than it needs to (for styling, I guess) appears to be almost designed to catch debris in its tiny holes, along with the various other gaping Catch-o-Matic™ cracks between subassemblies surrounding the keyboard. You know how the MacBook Pro has a smooth, seamless surface? This is the exact opposite, and I resent it.

4. Keyboard smarmyness: The last Dell laptop I was given had a lightly textured keyboard that showed a bit of smoothing/glossing on heavily used keys after three years, but this one has smooth keys that almost seem intended to show fingerprints/glossy wear/dust.

5. Beefy. This baby’s level of miniaturization is state of the art—for 1993. And this boat anchor ultimately does no more than the MacBook Air of a colleague who brought his featherweight laptop from his last job.

I am no fan of Microsoft or MS Windows, but in this case I’ve got to say that I actually feel Windows 7 Enterprise is being held back by the shoddy hardware it runs on.

American Cameo apples

A few weeks ago, I tried an apple I'd never heard of before and have been quite impressed: American Cameo.

Be sure to click on the "About Cameo" button on the left side of their site to see how they got started and what their goals for this apple were. Having one for lunch right now, and it truly appears to meet those goals: Crunch and flavor . . . Dah!

Every time I go to the store I am surprised that Red Delicious is still (judging by the size of the bins) so popular when it tastes so blah, bitter, and often mealy. I saw a story on the web a few years ago about how Red Delicious has been bred and changed and processed and stored to this point of non-deliciousness (I remember them being better when I was a kid). I guess a good brand name (and that bright red skin) somehow fools people into thinking they're still good, somehow. 

TurboTax Support: a Taxing Experience

Dear TurboTax Customer Support:


The TurboTax help agent I chatted with via instant messaging tonight, "18_Bonnie C", was very understanding, responsive, courteous, and helpful, and was able to resolve my issue.

The problem?

A. Your password reset system is apparently broken.

The evening started with me not remembering my user ID from last year, so I selected the "send me my user ID" option or some option with similar wording. That worked well. I was sent the user ID within a minute, then attempted to log in using what I thought was the password.

I tried several variations on the password, but none worked, so I clicked the "reset my password" option. It presented me with a challenge question, which I correctly answered, and then I waited for the email it said it would send me.

After waiting over an hour, I finally got on instant chat and got "18_Bonnie C" to fix the issue, even though she couldn't explain why the automated password resets weren't working. This leads me to my second point of what's wrong with your system:

B. The wait time for help is excessive. 

I probably spent nearly a half hour waiting for someone to help me. Understaffing a customer service organization may seem like a good way of saving money, but in the long run it will make longtime customers like me flee for greener pastures. In such a situation, you would lose my business not just for this year, but for countless more years to come. Is it really worth chintzing on customer service if tens of thousands of customers feel the same way, and leave you en masse?

"18_Bonnie C" was very nice, but I am reluctant about continuing with Turbotax for this season's returns considering these two factors. I could just as easily switch to H&R Block's online tax product.

I am posting this letter on my consumer blog for other people to read, and I hope many of them carefully consider whether they want to try, or stick with, a company that has such a dicey password reset system--They might wonder, "What else might be broken on Turbotax?"--a legitimate question, I'd say.

You can write the final chapter of this story. I will share your response with my readers, too, and if you don't respond, I will make note of that, as well. 

Why should I stick with TurboTax?

Vege-Bargain

Back in my day, a four-pack of classic Worthington vegeburgers (sold in limited venues during the 70s as "Sizzle Burgers" and "Fri-Pats") was never more than $2 a box--probably around $1.50 in the 1980s, and you typically had to go to the Adventist Book Center or wait for campmeeting to find them.

As the 80s and 90s wore on, there were advances in regard to satisfying sudden vegeburger cravings at home: First, the arrival of cheap microwaves (how did we heat them before?) and second, the marketing of Worthington's nearly perfect fake-burger patty as "Grillers" under the "Morningstar Farms" label. This went along with much wider availability, including the freezer of our local grocer (the regional chain Hy-Vee). Fast-forward to our vege-enlightened day and age, and you can walk into any Walmart or Target and pick up a pack.

Of course, the normal course of inflation has done its thing, so a box of these artificially flavored wonders of the post-space age can now easily run four dollars and change. Still . . . a buck a puck isn't bad when you consider what even the cheapest commercially sourced sandwich goes for these days. Walmart typically has them a bit cheaper, but Target may now become my favorite source for vege-meats with what I'm calling their VFVW (Vege-Food Value of the Week!) deal:

Check the freezer case at your local Target ASAP--Not sure if it's true throughout the country, but our KC-area Target currently has every Morningstar product in the regular size for $3.29 right now. Now that's a good solid value, but it gets even better . . .

Right beside the normal Griller Original four-packs (and don't get me started on the "Grillers Prime" variation--blechhh!) is a brand-new Grillers Original EIGHT-Pack, also for $3.29! That's 41 cents a patty. It looks like a classic "loss leader" to me, so if you like these highly processed little soy-based discs as much as I do once in a while, stock up now!

(Yes, I like black-bean burgers, and garden burgers, and lentil burgers at home and in restaurants, and am glad to see options like these becoming almost universal in mainstream eateries. It's also true that there's nothing quite like home-made vegeburgers if you have a good recipe and the time to make them. But once or twice a week I like a regular Grillers Original on a toasted soft bagel with mayo, hot mustard, ketchup, and chopped onions and jalapenos!)

What kind of vegeburgers do you like, and how do you prepare them? Leave your comments below.

Showers of Coupons

I don't write the eValue-ator to get free (or discounted) stuff, but it never hurts when a company attempts to placate me with freebies (or discounts) as they try to figure out if my complaints are those of a one-off crackpot or the first ripples of a market-share-shrinking tsunami of customer resentment. After all, I did fork over cash for a product whose packaging asserts the presence of certain positive attributes. And the comments I am submitting  represent data that should have some value to them, as such information could at least theoretically help the manufacturer make their product better live up to the attributes their packaging claims. So, since I've never gotten an immediate response of "We'll immediately stop the production line and address the issue you raised", I will accept coupons as one step up from no response, though a step below an outright refund.

In the case of the Tia Rosa Tortillas problem, parent company Bimbo Bakeries (I'm not making that name up) left a nice message on my answering machine and sent two $1 coupons for any Tia Rosa product--within about three days of leaving a comment on their site. And since this was only a packaging-related issue, I will probably apply them to more of their tortillas and double-wrap before switching back to another brand with functional packaging (probably Azteca). The important thing is that they thank me for taking time to contact them, value my comments, welcome my suggestions, and strive to produce quality products that meet my expectations.

Dakota Style insisted in a follow-up email that there is no way their meaty-tasting sunflower seeds have actual meat in them. Though this little South Dakota company sells their own brand of beef jerky, they claim it is not made in the same facility. They sent four dollar-off coupons, which will allow me to cover four bags of their previously excellent sunflower seeds and hope that they've finally cleared up whatever problem they had with what they call accidental "over roasting."

Informing companies that we have a problem, so they can get better and thrive . . . It's a heavy responsibility, but one that the eValue-ator will never slack on.