Mark’s Bloomin’ Journal

THE MEANNESS OF MENELIKA

When you think you might just have seen most of the unwarranted nastiness that gets dished up via an email to customer service, one gets left sitting once again in a shocked and somewhat nauseated silence at the patent unfairness of a distant coward come bully, hiding behind a keyboard reveling in letting the vitriol drip from their veins via the keys, as the smallness of their lives becomes apparent via ( in this case ) a…phoenix.edu address.

For a dozen years or so Flowerbud.com has published an online calendar, free as a download, to anyone and everyone wishing to enjoy it, regardless of patronage. Its free and it always uses a proprietary photograph shot by Flowerbud of  floral product from one of any number of photo shoots. Once in a blue moon it (the calendar) may have been published a day late or ( heaven forbid ) a day early, given what day of the week the 1st fals upon and my thinking that for the most part employees appreciate the weekend off and that a “freebie” arriving a day late is not going to tilt the axis of planet Earth too far. How wrong could I be?

Over the last few years the sniping of the ungrateful has been brought to my attention, those that have never spent a dime at Flowerbud but stridently demand “their” desktop calendar, most often times with a rudeness matching their stridency. To me, the desktop  and the aberrant behavior of a few users has been an ever growing source of pain in my rear end as well as a direct affront to the way I view the world and observe its essential courtesies. Every month when asked by staff to select an image, the rudeness of these people would come top of mind and I would advise staff that the calendar had outlived its usefulness. I never got my way …until now that is, and the demise of the Flowerbud desktop calendar as of 1/31/12 can be directly attributed to the “Meanness of Menelika”.

Its not worth all the tea in China for me to witness the discomfort of an employee upon receiving a rudely couched complaint, answering it with politeness and sagacity and then being unloaded on by one such as this “Mean Menelika”. Our inability to comprehend the illogical and the untrue in this situation leaves us helpless and frustrated. A day is quite thoroughly ruined for those of us tainted by the hostility of the repost and experienced people at Flowerbud are left wondering as to the why’s what’s and wherefore’s of the poison that a free desktop picture has generated.

There will always be the straw that broke the camel’s back. This one came wrapped as educated, as in …phoenix.edu.  My real regret being that some genuinely nice people were presumably enjoying our desktop and will now have to look elsewhere through no fault of their own and doubtless this mean miscreant will wander off to abuse someone else’s largess. My apologies to whoever that might end up being. You will recognize them easily enough because the day after the email abuse your staff  may be sent the image below, as if further infantile idiocy were required.

—–Original Message—–
From: Menelika
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 11:28 AM
To: Marcy
Subject: RE: Contact Form RESPONSE

Hi Marcy, I can assure you that this is NOT a clear cache on my end.
This is done weekly on my computer because of the type of business we
do. I have a friend in Texas who gets the same thing when she checks
Flowerbud calendar; she checked on the 9th and you all still had
December up.  This has been going on for about a year Marcy okay.

Nice try for an unprofessional explanation, but sorry that winged monkey
won’t fly. It’s a good thing that this is probably going to be your last
calendar month as it has not worked for you for at least a year as I’ve
stated before.  I have found another reliable monthly calendar source
that gives several beautiful monthly calendar options so I don’t think I
will waste my time checking to see what your LAST HURRAH is all about.

Thanks for responding.

RIP,
menelika

—–Original Message—–
From: Marcy …
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 2:15 PM
To: Menelika…
Subject: RE: Contact Form

Hi Menelika-
Our January calendar is actually current. A reason why you’re still
seeing December is most likely because you need to clear your cache on
your computer. With most browsers, you’d go to Tools–> Internet
Options–> Delete Cookies/Cache.

Once you have cleared your cache, here is the link to download the new
calendar: http://www.flowerbud.com/download/.

Please enjoy this months calendar, I think it may be the last one!

Thanks!
Marcy



—–Original Message—–
From: Menelika …..
Posted At: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 9:00 AM
Posted To: Customer Care
Conversation: Contact Form
Subject: Contact Form

Name: Menelika…
Comment: Are you serious? You still have a DECEMBER desktop calendar
posted and its the end of January??!!  Really?

Its a surreal, eye piercing, cerulean sky that fills all the spaces not white walled, and in doing so gives short shrift to melding the prior evenings quick surrender to this days slow awakening in a “cell” whose bleached, bare white bones, are making much of minimalism. The unseen, clearly heard and ever so lightly felt southerly trades sail through palm fronds as a yellow breasted, sharp billed bird lets rip with a little ‘Frevo’ to a new day. There with a low gurgle is the Atlantic’s salt, pushing against the river’s fresh water, as each together, submerge the shorelines sharp edged bivalves and flood food to roiling schools of waiting, whiskery catfish. It all demands an elbow’s elevation …of further attention.

Propped up thus, the far view reveals a low slung horizon of the most exquisitely sand colored sand dunes. Sand the color it is in ones dreams, fondest imaginings and bragging brochures. Lapped on their far side by barely heard, unseen and ever ceaseless, warm Atlantic waves. The dunes lay across a broad, silt loaded estuary, where with a methodic step wades a dark skinned man who pays out the silvery white mesh of a gill net bundled over arm and shoulder. It slips beneath the surface, a graceful, wishfully captive arc, visible and suspended only by bobbing white floats. In the immediate foreground sways a hammock, and now coming seemingly to rest in its own creamy cotton arc the fisherman shakes finger length slivers of silver into a grass basket at his waist. Now, a mere elbow’s height no longer reveals enough and as a Jet and its lag are of a distant yesterday, exploration is the order of the day.

Upriver, over a coffee cup’s rim, a steady flotilla of rafts ferry an assortment of vehicles from our shore out to the sand dunes and the first of a string of fishing villages. It appears a real melee out on the river with rafts for bikes and motor bikes, rafts for a car and rafts for three cars …and maybe more. Punted by one or two sinewy types who plant their poles onto river’s bottom and then proceed to walk the length of their raft, it slides beneath bare feet as they walk in place. Time and time again with quite some exertion as indicated by a slight bow wave. The whole procedure having something of an illusionary quality. Raft gazing is accompanied by a shameless savoring of an endless papaya …picked and proffered at the point of perfection. Multitasking is easily displayed  as not only can I study the art of punting while savoring a tropical fruit, I can make river waters froth and boil with the toss of a piece of breakfast roll into an expectant school of catfish, no doubt habituated to this time and place, out of the current and momentarily safe from the cast and recast of the silvery white mesh.

The rough and ready english translation of a spiel delivered in portuguese by a gent who appears at table side, is that rather sadly, he is just too darn busy to take us to where I had  know idea we wanted to go in the first place. How remiss of me. Yet there is no need of despair, he having a most reliable cousin ( who just happens to be close by, as in out in the street! ) and he would be thrilled to furnish a dune buggy into which we could jump and thus proceed to tear down endless, trackless miles of spectacular beach and on to infinity. Infinity being Fortaleza some 500 km up and around the nub of Brasil or south to Rio some 1500 km straight down …its beach all the way, baby! Obviously, I’m in, as the other choice calling my name is a delicious day of hammock, a good book and ice cold Bohemia. Sipped to the delicious cadence of the trades, too decadent by far. (to be cont…)

The milk run drops in on Fortaleza, disgorges the cramped and contorted, takes a quick cleansing, replenishes with those still standing tall and with posture aplenty yet to destroy then departs for Natal… to repeat the process all over again I suppose. I wonder, where and when do the Webjets sleep? This being the end of the line for me today, the theory has it that its time to rent a car, rent a bed and ready oneself to acquire those nifty “flip flop” tan lines that give November bragging rights in Portland.

A car rental transaction in Brasil bears no resemblance to that same transaction in the US (Supremely easy) or even in the the EU (Moderately difficult). In Brasil the manner of the agent is always most pleasant but its clear each hopeful driver’s transaction will take one to one and a half hours and being fourth in line is going to allow you to eavesdrop your way through a full immersion Portuguese class. You come to the conclusion that the Amazon Rain Forest is giving itself up to produce multiple forms in triplicate and that in signing them all, one has more or less purchased a car they fully expect to be stolen during your kidnapping or at the very least be parted out to become a beach buggy as you savor a two Caipirinha lunch. Provided neither happens, then a few days on “normal” roads ensures you hand back a car where every kilometer driven accumulated the wear and tear of a hundred kilometers and the front end will never again know the joys of proper alignment or even tire wear …and the triplicate form person knows it! Its not clear if the insurance you are also signing up for will cover your own disappearance. A final escape from the solicitous and ever worried looking car attendant requires a full blown walk around the car as if it were a billion dollar jet fighter and signing off on every nick, ding, scratch and missing part. More signatures acknowledge you will drive away with spare wheel, jack and a battery. (more…)