Lauren's Musings

Reaching a Live Customer Service Rep

I'm very frustrated when I call a customer service representative and instead reach a voice response unit asking me to "Press 1 for Sales, Press 2 for Support, ...". Fortunately, the Wall Street Journal has discovered some shortcuts to reach a live person (subscription may be required). I've pasted them here:

Operator Short Cuts Curtesy of WSJ

Company	Phone No.	Shortcut
Banks
Bank of America	800-900-9000	Hit zero twice, after menu choices play
Chase	800-CHASE24	Hit five, pause, then hit one, four, star, zero
CitiBank	800-374-9700	Zero
Wells Fargo	800-869-3557	Zero
Travel Reservations
American	800-433-7300	Press zero twice, then say "agent"
Amtrak	800-872-7245	Zero or say "agent"
Continental	800-523-3273	Three - but sometimes calls go straight to an agent
Delta	800-221-1212	Zero
Northwest	800-225-2525	Star, zero, after initial greeting
Southwest	800-435-9792	Calls answered by operator; during busy times you might have to hold
United	800-864-8331	Say nothing (but you have to listen through lots of menus)
US Airways	800-428-4322	Hit four after initial greeting, then hit one
Wireless Providers
AT&T Wireless	800-888-7600	No easy escape
Sprint PCS	888-788-5001	Zero twice, then say "agent"
T-Mobile	800-937-8997	Enter your phone number
Verizon Wireless	800-922-0204	No easy escape
Credit Cards
American Express	800-528-4800	Hit zero, pound, three times over (ignore prompts that it's an invalid entry)
MasterCard	800-MC-ASSIST	Hit zero three times (once on each menu)
Visa	800-847-2911	Hit zero three times (ignore prompts saying that it's an invalid entry)
PC Tech Support
Apple	800-275-2273	Zero three times; if virtual rep answers, say "operator"
Dell	888-560-8324	Hit zero twice
Gateway	800-846-2301	Hit zero, pound
HP (Compaq Products)	800-652-6672	No easy escape
HP (Hewlett-Packard)	800-474-6836	Say "agent"
IBM	800-IBM-4YOU	You go into a hold queue immediately

Skeletal Wire Frame

A friend emailed me a link to a "Cool web page for kids, artists, athletes, medical folks, mechanics". The statement is true, but I'm having trouble describing what the page actually shows. I only managed to come up with the title of the post only after looking at the name of the relevant HTML file. Check it out.

Misleading Food Labels

I read food labels carefully, and thus appreciated this Wall Street Journal article (subscription may be required) about how food labels legally mislead consumers. Here are some common tricks:

• Misleading serving sizes. Savvy consumers read food labels to determine the nutritional content for each serving. Even smarter consumers go a step further to read the fine print that indicates how many servings there are in the package. As the Journal states, "In the real world, a bag of chips or a bottle of soda is one serving. But on the food label, it can be listed as two or three servings. The result is that calorie information on the label often understates how much you're really about to consume."
• Inconsistent labeling. Serving sizes may differ across products. Here's an example used by the WSJ, "A serving of regular Chips Ahoy! cookies has 160 calories while a serving of Peanut Butter Chips Ahoy! has just 80 calories. But look closely. There are three cookies in a serving of regular Chips Ahoy!, but just one cookie in a serving of the peanut butter variety."
• Mystifying ingredient claims. I spend a lot of time choosing which brand of cranberry juice to buy, because some are made with 100% juice, while others are merely cocktails primarily made with flavorings and sugar. This example uncovered by the Journal made me angry because there's no way a consumer would have figured this out just by reading the information provided, "Smucker's makes a brand of spread called Simply 100% Fruit. But the strawberry version contains just 30% strawberries (the rest is fruit syrup and juices). You wouldn't know that by reading the label, because the FDA doesn't require packages to list the percentage of ingredients. The CSPI (Center for Science in the Public Interest) discovered the fruit content from a jar of spread purchased in Thailand, where labels list the percent of key ingredients."
• Inaccurate weights. "One study found these packages [single-serving baked goods] can contain 25% or more of the product, and thus more fat and calories, than promised on the label. "

Krispy Kreme and Trans Fat

I love Krispy Kreme doughnuts (donuts) and was quite disappointed to find out they are made with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, i.e., EVIL TRANS FAT! I emailed them a few months ago to express my concern, and they sent me a form email in return. Now that the FDA now mandates trans fat disclosure on nutritional labels, I emailed them again, attaching a Wall Street Journal article on the topic. Here is the second email I sent them [sans Wall Street Journal article]:

With regards to a previous email I sent you regarding trans fat in Krispy Kreme donuts, I am forwarding this Wall Street Journal article to you (see attached, I have ommitted a table) that highlights the dangers of trans fat and also documents the new labeling requirement that will come into effect 1/1/06.

The article specifically indicates that donuts have a significant amount of trans fat in them, and the table I ommitted lists Dunkin' Donut Glazed has 4g of trans fat, 2.5g of saturated fat, for a total of 6.5g of "bad fat".

I look forward to seeing an announcement from your company that you will be switching from trans fat to a healthier alternative in your baking process.

This time, they took the time to send me a more detailed response:

Dear Ms. Wu,

Thank you for your email.

We highly appreciate your feedback as well as your continued loyalty to Krispy Kreme. We do understand your concern for the way that Krispy Kreme makes our doughnuts and we thank you sending us that article.

Regarding your previous email, our doughnuts are cooked in 100% vegetable oil shortening, partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil. We quickly cook our doughnuts for just 45 seconds on each side.

Hydrogenated vegetable oils are an essential ingredient in many cereal and baked goods. In addition, trans-fatty acids, which are a result of hydrogenation, occur naturally in meat and milk. The use of a non-hydrogenated oil would generate a product noticeably different, in taste and texture, to the Krispy Kreme doughnuts our customers have enjoyed for sixty-five years.

We definitely have noted your concern and your request for Krispy Kreme to change the way that we make our doughnuts. We do thank you for your concern and we hope to be able to serve you again in the future.

I dispute the fact that trans fat is an "essential ingredient" in many cereal and baked goods, given that there are manufacturers who make these items without it. I hope the take my recommendation seriously.

How to Get that Promotion: Suck up to your Boss!

There was a funny article (subscription may be required) in the Wall Street Journal titled "Office Untouchables: They Kiss Up to Boss and It Really Works".

To the annoyance of those around the panderer, i.e., those who aren't the ones being flattered, it appears that kissing up works:

"One of the most intractable problems of corporate culture, kissing up can tilt the playing field, torch a meritocracy and ego-stroke management senseless. Some of the bamboozled are hardly aware they're being rolled, while the bamboozlers climb the corporate ladder and saw off the rungs behind them.

While I cringe when I see "backslapping bootlicks" (love that phrase - got it from the article) in action, I also fault the flatterees for being so oblivious as to allow themselves to be played. Insecure individuals are the easiest targets, but Stanley Hertz believes that most people are less immune to these maneuvers than they think. Mr. Hertz owns his executive-recruiting agency, and he says "...even the biggest CEOs need to be loved. 'It's like fungus,' he explains. 'It grows on you.' "

If it grew on me, I'd cut if off.

New Trans Fat Labeling

Finally! This morning, a Wall Street Journal article (subscription may be required) reported that "... the federal government issued a long-awaited rule requiring food makers to list the amount of harmful, artery-clogging fats known as 'trans fats' on their product labels."

As a result, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will require food companies to modify their nutrition labels, starting in January 1, 2006, to show how many grams of trans fat are in each serving. This means that consumers will have enough information to determine how much "bad fat" they are ingesting, where bad fat = saturated fat + trans fat.

"People should try to keep their intake of saturated and trans fats combined to 10% or less of the total calories they consume each day, says Scott Grundy, a well-known lipid specialist in Texas. That guideline applies not just to adults but to children over age two. The benchmarks are even lower for those already at risk of heart disease or with high cholesterol. They should get no more than 7% of calories from bad fats, for a total of 15.5 grams [based on a 2,000 calorie/day diet] a day."

Compare that to what the average American currently eats - according to the Journal, 15% comes frrom bad fat: 12-13% from saturated fat, and 2-3% from trans fat.

Sephora

My friend Karen works at Sephora and she invited me to their pre-Grand Opening Special Event for Friends and Family at their new Powell Street last week. It's a store dedicated to cosmetics, fragrances and body care. They have their own line of beauty products but also sell other well-known brands such as Nars, Urban Decay and Cargo. I love Sephora and I don't even wear makeup.

I went there after my kickboxing class, so I looked dishevelled and out of place dressed in athletic attire. Meanwhile, the other customers looked like they had just stepped out of Vogue magazine, so understandably, I got some quizzical looks. Fortunately, the "salespeople" remained professional, gracious and polite. I put the word "salespeople" in quotes, because thankfully, I distinctly got the impression that they were not trying to sell me anything.

Therein lies the difference between Sephora and department store cosmetic counters. At Sephora, representatives genuinely try to help customers by offering assistance. Contrast this with department stores cosmetics witches, who are in-your-face and obviously on commission. They point out your flaws and gnaw at your insecurities all in a shameless effort to sell you their useless products. If you haven't seen it already, rent the movie "The Truth About Cats and Dogs" starring Uma Thurman and Jeanine Garafalo. There's a great scene in there that depicts the department store makeup nightmare to a T.

I emailed Karen about this, and she told me that they call their salespeople "cast members". Their selling floor is the "stage". It's a direct French translation they adopted when the Sephora concept first came to the US from France. I think Disney uses similar terminology. Disney folk are also called "cast members" and their visitors are "guests". Great imagery.

I wear makeup less than five times a year, partly because I don't know how to apply it properly, so while I was dazzled by Sephora's chromatic displays, I was at a loss at what to do with any of it. Instead, I took my time browsing other sections and loaded up on all sorts of goodies like shampoo, body scrub, body wash etc. Enticing a makeup grouch such as myself to spend money at a cosmetics store is a spectacular feat. My hat's off to the Sephora marketing department.