American Express-ions

It's been 5 months since Margaret died. In December I went to Washington, DC, taking along hundreds of cards and letters and countless acknowledgements of contributions made in Margaret's memory. Accepted etiquette says thank you notes for sympathy gifts, letters of condolence, or favors can be written by any family member not just the recipient. I insisted I was going to handwrite a personal note to every sender. I left the notes and addresses (some completed) in a DC hotel. Weeks later I got them back from the Marriott's lost and found. I wrote Marriott a Thank You.

Further complicating matters, I was unable to begin 2011 on January 1st due to what I can only describe as a leisurely shipping policy in place at American Express.

The following letter to Kenneth Chenault, CEO, Chairman and President of American Express explains my extreme delinquency:

Dear Mr. Chenault:

I ordered American Express Appointments Calendar on November 4, 2010 and have yet to receive them. Yesterday for the second time I called American Express Publishing and spoke to a very nice representative who informed me that the 3 to 6 weeks for delivery promised when I placed my order was actually the time it would take to process my order. And although I had been told a month ago that it would go into the mail "in a few days," it actually was mailed February 10 and "would take 3 to 6 weeks from that date until it would be delivered."

I asked "why so long ... is it being sent by Pony Express?" He said it was being sent by Ground Shipping, Bulk Rate. I asked if he has had many calls from unhappy American Express card holders who have the same complaint I have. He said "MANY!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I said I was glad I was not alone and that I would write to Mr.Chenault in my behalf and for all the other people who have not yet been able to start 2011.

I am sure, Mr. Chenault, if you ordered an appointment calendar November 4 and were told on February 16 that it would be there by the end of March, you would cancel your order and cancel your half-century relationship with the company you ordered from.

I can get the items below for $8.80 including Shipping and Handling in 2-3 business days from Costco which has a close relationship with American Express. I am sure that Jim Sinegal or Jeff Brotman would be appalled if I got the same service from Costco and would have had the merchandise delivered the next day after my first call. Thank you in advance for your early response.

My appointment calendars did arrived February 24. Adding injury to insult, an enclosed letter from the Vice President for the Publishing Group said: "You are among select Cardmembers to enjoy the privilege of acquiring these books."

On the 24th of February I celebrated New Year's Eve and began 2011 on the 25th, 56 days late. I expected to earn $150,000 this year - so I'm already $23,013.98 under water.

On Tuesday, March 1, when I officially began 2011, I wrote this FLOG and also the following letter to Mr. Chenault:

Enclosed please find pages 18 through 49 of my 2011 American Express Appointment Book and the pages for January and February, 2011 from my 2011 Pocket Diary, which I was unable to use because American Express took 92 days to get them to me. My calculator says if you weren't able to start 2011 for 59 days you'd lose $808,219.75.

Please credit my American Express Gold Card account .0180952 for my lost 59 days. I have to go now. I only have 273 days left this year.

It should be noted that on February 27, I stopped at Staples and found a 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 2011 two day calendar with seven holes that fits my leather binder. It's not a Day-Timer. It's a Day Runner. Close enough. $38. Good enough. I bought it.

On March 1, I began my year. First task for 2011 will be to thank our wonderful friends for the beautiful letters, cards and tributes that have arrived since October 9, 2010.

March 3, I received a very nice call from Mr. Chenault's assistant, Kathy. American Express is crediting my account $25.

I think I’ll eBay the books American Express finally sent.

An Incredible Flogging

Flog #3

Sometime in the 1990s I came home from a long day at the office to find that my wife, Margaret, had purchased and installed our first answering machine.  It quickly became a great source of entertainment - even better than TV (which FCC chief Newton Minnow had deemed "a vast wasteland").  I turned on the vast wasteland, picked up the newspaper, and lay down on the couch. 

The phone rang.   My older daughter's voice said, "My parents are finally living in the 20th century!"  The phone rang again.  "Hi Mom," my younger daughter said.   "I know you're there, so pick up the phone."   Mom's not here, I thought to myself, and did not pick up the phone.  Not long after, my brother called.  "I have a date with a married woman who is having an affair with her boss.  Would you and Margaret like to join us for dinner?"  I silently shook my head.  I found myself suddenly in love with our new mechanical secretary.  I shifted positions on the couch and lazily flipped channels with my remote control, looking for more waste.

Again, the phone rang ...I could hardly wait to not answer it.  This time it was my mother-in-law.  "Uh-oh!  You've got one of those," she said with her distinctly southern twang.  "I got a letter from Mrs. Knight's daughter ... do you want to hear it?"  Apparently she deemed the machine's silence as an affirmative response.  Ten minutes later, I thought, Mrs. Knight's daughter writes well.

Fast forward to 2010.  I am now the proud (if bewildered) owner of a new Droid HTC Incredible.  It's not just a phone - it's a communications miracle.  It does everything except colonoscopies (although there is probably an "app" for that).  After only two weeks,  I have now learned how to answer a call, check the weather conditions in Abu Dhabi, and read text messages from my life coach (who writes that I shouldn't be so dependent on technology).  I have also learned that as a Verizon customer, I get a tuition discount at MIT, should I ever want to learn how to make a call. 

I think instead I will enroll in the local community college's class, Communicating with Signals Using Smoke From Burning Cell Phones.

Yeah Ruth, I'm Talking To YOU

Flog #2, From Scottsdale, AZ

I can’t believe the underwhelming response to my first FLOG.  Thanks Mom.

I’m incredibly busy crafting answers to the deluge of email I expect from you, my fascinated readers, so I will have to make this installment brief.  This will no doubt be a relief to my daughter, Ruth, who once replied to a brilliantly penned e-missive with a curt, “your e-mails are too long.”

 I responded, “for 40 years I wrote 30-second radio spots, 10-second TV IDs, and 7-word outdoor billboards.  If 3^rd graders can read Harry Potter 750 pages at a time, a brilliant woman with access to the President of the United States can read a damn e-mail from her father.  Hereafter, if you want to know how I am, or who died, or who’s getting divorced, ask your sister (she reads my email).”

Meanwhile, back in the salt mines, Eileen is busily tending to the myriad details of forming a new business entity which will not only generate vast riches, but protect us from lawsuits, the IRS, long-lost relatives, and Glen Beck.

Until next time my Flog Followers (Floggowers?) ...

Somewhat Floggy

I've never liked the word BLOG. Probably because a few years ago when I was still trying to make a living, people began referring me to their "Blogs" and I was too proud to tell them I had no idea what a Blog was. Reading a few of them was a lot like the time I was prescribed the sleeping pill, Lunesta, and accidentally received Viagra instead (my pharmacist had vision and hearing problems).  The results were disturbingly ... interesting ... and not at all what I expected from a so-called sleep aid. 

So back to Blogs. The first ones I read were disturbingly interesting, but once I found those I was supposed to read, they put me to sleep at my computer. And they kept getting longer.  And, unable to stop the aging process, I was aware that my time was getting shorter.  So I stopped reading blogs.
Then I went to a Social Media Conference and learned about Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Something Awful, Talkbiznow, Vox and other Social Network Media. I said I would never get involved with any of these. I've never Twitted or Tweeted or even sent a Text Message or a Sexed Message. My daughter set me up with a Facebook account, although the only time I looked at it, there were requests from sixteen unkown girls who wanted to "friend" me.  Their photos were sexy but viewing them I could only wonder, "where did I put those antibiotics?"

Now, at the age of 73 I am establishing a new business and Eileen, my unsentimental and often brutally blunt editor, says I've got to have my own Website and Blog. I agreed to both on the condition that I could call my Blog a  FLOG.

"Why do you want to call it a Flog?" Eileen asked. "Flog" I said, "means to whip or beat severely." Nearly all of my contemporaries started new careers when they retired from their old ones. They all play golf. Some more than 40 hours a week. Golf spelled backwards is flog. So as I write my log I want to replace B with F and pretend I am out on the flog esruoc having a good time like Tiger Woods.  Although I suppose Elin's having a better time these days.

So, Eileen, this is the first FLOG, severely whipped out by David Stern.