A Few Thoughts

Self Service

It seems that all companies are now self service, or more like no service. When was the last time you called a business and talked first to a real person. Call just about any business, and you get into a maze of computer generated questions and answers, all designed to keep you from getting to talk to a living human being. And many times, when you finally get through, you hear this nice voice tell you it will be half a lifetime wait, but “don't hang up as your call is important to us”. Now one of the big things is self service check out. Like the new Lowe's by where I live. It has all sorts of check out registers, but they seem to never have checkers. Instead you have to self checkout. At least most stores give you the option of using self checkout, for now anyway. So what started this rant. Oregon's gas stations. They have attendants who pump your gas. Not only are you discouraged from pumping your own gas, it's illegal. Now granted, they don't clean your windows, check your oil, or, check your tires like I did as a teenager working at gas stations. But you don't have to get out of your car. When I was a gas attendant, there was this guy who had his teenage daughters “man the pumps”. They were cute! They had to wear the proper oil company attire, designed for guys, but they had the habit of not having the top few buttons fastened. I wonder if their dad knew about this. On second thought, he probably put them up to it. All the teenage boys in town seemed to frequent that station. I didn't of course since I worked for the competition down the street.

Eating Out

Since my forced bachelorhood, I hate going out to a sit down restaurant. If it isn't fast food, I'll probably avoid it. It occurred to me why. I have to sit there, by myself, with nothing to do, while the food is prepared, etc. They should all have wifi or something like Starbucks. I could at least surf the web then. It's probably not proper manners and will never happen, which is why you won't see many single people there, except for the bar. So I need to start drinking.

Today I went to Fern Canyon in the Redwoods and these things seemed to occur to me while on the journey. Too much time on my hands. I'll blog on the canyon with pictures next.

By the way, it was sunny and 72 degrees here today. This can't be winter along the Oregon Coast. But I like it. The redwoods are a rain forest. You know it when you there. Its dark and damp, even when the sun is out.

The high at Rose Lake was 30.