Recently I went looking for a more sustainable way to shave, so that I didn’t have to throw away as many of those ridiculously expensive blade cartridges.

At some points in life I’ve used an electric razor, which had fewer parts that needed regular replacing.  I suppose you could try to make the case that a really well-engineered electric razor with a long-lasting battery could end up being lower resource usage than the manual razor with cartridges, but as electric razors got more crazy in their design (“buy this special gel-pack that only fits this one model of razor so it can automatically douse your face with soothing chemicals at just the right time!”) it felt simpler – and, okay, a little more manly – to just drag a blade across my face by hand.

But my cheap side cringes every time I walk into a drug store and pay $22 for 10 blades.  My cynical, paranoid side fumes as I see the razor manufacturers invent new models of razor blades that require a different model of razor handle and cost even MORE to buy, while also suspecting that the production quality is only decreasing over time so that the blade cartridges don’t last as long.

And let’s not forget the “disposable” animals that some razor and shaving cream manufacturers use to test their products on.  This is an issue that’s gotten more attention over the years, but there are still companies that perform toxicity testing experiments on rabbits and other animals.  (I recently wrote a letter to Gillette’s parent company Proctor & Gamble that in part asked them to make a more firm and permanent commitment not to test on animals.  I got a generic letter in response that said “Thanks for writing, Chris!  This is feedback I was hoping for…I can’t wait to share it with my team!” – sigh.)  You can find more products on mainstream shelves these days with “no animal testing” labels, if you want.

But back to the razor itself.

I found GFD, a German company that makes a diamond-tipped tungsten carbide razor blade that is supposed to stay sharp 1,000 times longer than regular steel blades, so that’s a great choice to use after you go for a swim in your large vat of gold coins.  (Okay, they’re only $150-$200 per blade, but try getting that to mass market.)

I briefly contemplated not shaving at all, and then looked at some pictures of myself experimenting with growing out facial hair in college, and remembered why that is not going to work.

And then I found what has so far been a magical piece of information in my search for a more sustainable shave:

It turns out that the quality of the shave with a particular disposable cartridge isn’t decreasing over time because the blade is getting roughed up by the shaving process itself – it’s steel, it can probably handle itself okay against hair and skin.  Rather, it’s when water sits on the blade after washing it that you start to see corrosion, causing tiny bits of the blade to flake off over time.  As you can imagine, when the bits that flake off are the blade edge, your shave suffers.

How do you prevent this corrosion?

Dry your blades really well after each use.  Some folks are using blow dryers, some folks just blot them with a towel.  I’ve been using the towel method for a few months and I have indeed seen incredibly extended life from the blades I’m using.  YAY!  Shaving is a little less dependent on disposable things now, and a little cheaper.

I was at a drugstore this week and looked at the packaging surrounding razor blades and handles being sold, and none of them have any instructions about preserving or extending the life of the blades.  Of course, they don’t have instructions of any sort, so maybe this is one of those things that’s supposed to be passed down from generation to generation.  (Or maybe razor manufacturers don’t mind too much if customers buy blades more often than they might otherwise need to.)

I know most of you read this blog solely for my personal hygiene tips, so I hope you get some mileage out of that one.  Next time I’ll cover how to make your own prescription contact lenses using plastic wrap, steel wool and duct tape.

What a world of pure and unflinching justice we could then live in!  To walk around knowing that the slogans and invitations on billboards, newspaper ads and television were all required by law to be true, and that onerous fines and the shame of the public eye awaited the occasional miscreant who would stray from this noble code.  No need to worry about being deceived or misled as a consumer; we could always have confidence that advertisers would stand by their claims.

Like I said, I was young.

But at the risk of sounding curmudgeonly, I do think there’s been a notable shift in the standards we hold marketers and public figures to when it comes to truth in advertising.  Seems like somewhere around the mid 1990′s, we kind of gave up on it.

Was it when the Coke vs. Pepsi wars heated up?  Or maybe it was when product manufacturing was being outsourced to other countries and business owners became disconnected from quality controls in their production processes?  Or maybe it was when we stopped expecting politicians to tell the truth and started betting on just how outrageous their lies were.  Or maybe The Internet made it so much more difficult to police advertising claims that no one even bothers anymore unless it’s a particularly egregious case.

But there are more important things to worry about, right?  Caveat emptor and everybody for themselves, and let’s focus on the national debt or poverty or obesity, right?

I’m not so sure.  I think deceptive marketing practices deserve more of the blame for the state of the world than they get. I’m glad to hear that some high schools and colleges are teaching young people to be more aware of how marketing influences their buying choices, but the majority of us are still very much subject to the power of the marketing machine.  And when that machine is telling us to do things that are against our own best interests, it matters.

A few recent examples I’ve heard or seen just driving around town:

“Fast and fresh!”
Many fast food restaurants caught on long ago that fast food was associated with unhealthy eating, and that dietary advice was shifting toward recommendations of freshly prepared food with more natural ingredients.  The end result is the self-contradiction that you can have mass-produced food from a restaurant that is both “fast” (because it was pre-prepared halfway across the country in a warehouse and trucked to you frozen or full of preservatives) and “fresh” (because it has a piece of lettuce or tomato on it that was recently washed).  Or, “we have a salad on our menu, so we offer healthy eating options for everyone!” This undermines people who are trying to make healthier eating choices for themselves and their children by convincing them they can have it both ways, and it undermines local/regional food producers who actually ARE bringing you fresh food that you could prepare within a few days for a healthy meal.

“Hurry in to our store to save!”
I heard this one on the radio this morning.  ”Be the hero of your household’s budget,” the ad proclaimed.  They want you to come in to the store and spend money so that you can “save” money.  Buy things you might not have bought otherwise and might not need, so that you can feel good you’re getting them at a slightly lower price than…someone else somewhere else might or might not be selling them for.   This approach twists the notion that “saving money is good” into the idea that you have to spend money to save money.  No wonder we have unprecedented levels of personal debt and bankruptcy.

“For a limited time only!”
This one is tried and true: the idea that a time pressure will almost always result in consumers making different choices than they would make given time to think through the value of what they’re getting.  ”I might not have bought a case of gummy bears THIS week, but surely I’ll need a case in the coming year or two, and this sale ends TODAY!”  Marketers are telling us that rational responses are not to be trusted and that our gut instincts are what we should go with.  Instant gratification is okay because…then you’ll be gratified, and that’s all that matters, right!?

There are many, many more.  And I’m sure none of them are all that surprising to you, because again, we’ve come to accept that marketers are trying to mess with our sense of reality, and that we should just deal with it the best we can.

But why do we accept that?  Why are we willing to subject ourselves to that dance of pain when all we get out of it is some cheap plastic crap, stomach aches and buyer’s remorse?  I’m accepting comments for a limited time only.

I try not to give my my money to companies that practice false or misleading advertising most blatantly. But for me, one of the long-term solutions is to be very, VERY intentional about how I market myself and the products or services I’m associated with.

When I market my own business and our technical services, I try to make sure we speak plainly and clearly about what we can and cannot do, so that no one is misled and no end result is hyped up.

When I tell people who I am and what I stand for, I’m careful to note complexity and messiness where it exists.

When I talk about my qualifications for being voted into elected office, I’m careful not to spin or inflate my experience and accomplishments beyond what’s real, and to give other people credit where it’s due.

When I mess up or say something that might be misleading, I try to go back to correct it as soon as I can.

Sometimes it’s harder to be accurate and honest than it is to be catchy and broadly appealing.  Maybe it’s that younger version of myself still wandering around in oblivion waiting for the FTC to make it all better, but I still hope for a world where we all practice – and expect – truth in advertising at every level.

Got a new debit card for a new checking account.  Sticker on card says “must be activated at an ATM before use.”  Went to ATM at bank, inserted card, entered temporary PIN (securely mailed in a separate envelope).  ATM menu came up, one option was “Change PIN.”  Entered new PIN.  ATM said “Card is being retained” and ended my session.

What the heck.

Went inside bank, asked teller what’s up.  Our conversation, paraphrased:  “You can’t change your PIN on the first use.”  “But why did it offer me the option, then?”  “I don’t know.”  “How can I get my card back?” “The person who handles that isn’t here today.”  “But I’m about to travel and was planning on using it.” “There’s nothing we can do, come back when the person who handles that is here.”

Waited several weeks to let astonishment at poor user interface design subside and to see if the highly digitized and heavily audited banking industry would notice that it had mailed out an ATM card that was promptly retained and consider contacting the owner about it – nothing.

Visited bank again.  Paraphrased: “We can’t find your ATM card anywhere – not at the branch where the ATM was, not at any other branch.” “So it’s lost?” “Yes.” “What do I do now.”  “Sign here and we’ll send you another one.”

Interface design and customer service morals:

1. Unless you are trying to deceive and annoy your users, don’t design interfaces that offer options leading to predictable frustration or failure (e.g. a “Change PIN” option that guarantees the card will be retained if selected).
2. When a user reports a bad interface design, at least pretend that you will try to suggest an improvement to someone who can do something about it.
3. If you’re designing systems that are intended to be secure (e.g. for banks), it might be good to keep track of authentication credentials (e.g. ATM cards) that are retained during their initial activation attempt.

Bank interface story #2:

Decided to make an extra payment toward principal on a loan I’m paying down.  Clearly indicated on payment slip that extra amount was to be applied to loan principal.

Received loan statement indicating extra amount was applied to future monthly interest and escrow payments, not loan principal.  Called bank and explained to customer service rep.  Rep didn’t understand concept of paying on principal vs. interest/escrow, had to get supervisor.  Supervisor explained to rep how to make the change, but rep had trouble getting the math right.  Several times.  I walked rep through correct math.  Rep finally thought she had it input correctly.  I asked “will this be retroactively applied to my original payment date so I’m not seen as making a late payment?”  “Oh yes, it will be retroactively applied.”

Weeks pass. Got letter and voicemail from bank noting that they hadn’t received my loan payment for the previous month and that I was being charged penalties and interest.  Talk of collections and loan defaults if payment not made today.  Called 800 number, their office is closed today.

Really starting to treasure the time I’ll get to spend with bank reps sorting this one out.

Customer service morals:

1. If you let customers specify how they want a payment applied, consider respecting those requests when you process the payment.
2. If you’re hiring people to answer the phone at a loan customer service center, make sure they understand concepts involved in loans and loan payments, and that they’re able to perform basic financial math.

Ever since I upgraded my iPhone to IOS4 (the latest version of the phone’s operating system), the Mail application has been flaky when it comes to syncing mail messages via IMAP. Duplicate messages, empty/blank messages, messages dated 12/31/1969, messages that are deleted and then re-appear, and so on.

At first I thought it might be my phone hardware, which had been cursed from the beginning (a story for another time), but after that phone died and Apple replaced it with a brand new one with fresh firmware and settings, and it STILL happened, I was convinced it’s the software on the phone.  Other people are having the same issue all over the place.  But it can be hard to make Apple believe this – said the Apple Genius Bar worker at the Apple Store in Chicago, “they’re probably all just using the phone wrong.”  Wha?

So I decided to look at the source code of the iPhone mail program to see if I could find the problem, but Apple doesn’t make that source code available.

So I decided to turn on the Mail program’s debugging options to have it output the results of the IMAP sync sessions, but it turns out the Mail program doesn’t have any debugging options.

So I decided to look at the log files on the phone’s operating system to see if they reported any software issues I could address, but actually I can’t look at those log files even if they exist because Apple doesn’t let you look behind the scenes.

So I decided to report the issue on the project mailing list that all of the iOS4 developers monitor, and it turns out that no such mailing list exists.

So I decided to go report the issue to Apple to see if they can help.

After submitting a case online, I was called back in 27 seconds (FAST!) and talked to Chris from Apple, who works in iPhone support.  He was very good at gauging my level of tech savvy and talking to me at an appropriate level, so he quickly confirmed that I’d already done all of the normal troubleshooting steps they recommend.  I asked him if this was a known bug, and he said not as far as he could tell.

Chris then connected me with Shawn who is a senior adviser on the iPhone tech support team.  Shawn told me that in fact I had identified a known bug with the iOS4 firmware.  VINDICATION!  He said that they’ve mostly been seeing it in gMail syncing issues, but that they’re aware of it as a wider IMAP issue.

I asked Shawn for the unique identifier number for the bug so that I could go follow the progress of a fix on their public bug tracking system, but it turns out that Apple doesn’t publish information about known bugs until they’re fixed.

I asked Shawn how I could learn more information about when this would be addressed or other recommended fixes in the meantime, and he said I would just have to wait and see.

(Chris and Shawn at Apple were excellent tech support reps within the confines of what they’re allowed to do and say.)

Bottom line: these are the horrors of using a closed-source, proprietary product for a key piece of tech functionality in my life.

What Apple can do better:

• Test its Mail software’s IMAP syncing functionality more thoroughly before releasing it to production.
• Publish information about known software/hardware issues BEFORE they’re resolved so that people having those issues can see what’s up and possibly even contribute to the resolution.
• Train its store Genius Bar workers so that they don’t dismiss a legitimate complaint about functionality problems with smiling condescension.
• I’m pushing it here, but hey, it’s my blog: release the source code for iOS and related applications.

If you’ve had this issue with your iPhone, or similar software/hardware troubleshooting experiences with other vendors, feel free to share in the comments.

Update 9/17/2010: After installing iOS 4.1 a week or so ago, all of the IMAP syncing issues seem to have gone away.  I’ve seen a few reports that problems remain for others, but it’s clear that this release included some fixes for the mail application that weren’t described in the release notes.

Unfortunately, most of the responses (and the ones favored by the Obama administration) are focused on paying insanely large amounts of money to private contractors to create and deploy complex technological solutions in hopes of addressing the threat.

What advocates of this approach fail to appreciate is that (A) most of the actual threat comes from uneducated human operators of the technology in question, and (B) deploying homogeneous, technologically complex solutions often makes us more vulnerable, not less.

Once you get past the flashy headlines and attention-grabbing introductory stories in these articles, meant to scare us into believing how real the threat is (basically, bloodthirsty hacker terrorists are trying to kill us all), each of them seems to come back to one of two recurring themes behind these threats.   Either a human being messed something up, or a piece of technology wasn’t secure enough and is now being exploited.

For the first case, it’s usually things like “so and so unknowingly downloaded a virus onto their USB flash drive and then plugged into a secure government network – things exploded!” or “an e-mail user clicked on a phishing scam link and had their password stolen.”  For the second case, it’s usually “Windows machines are insecure, and so they get taken over and absorbed into botnets, which can then wreak havoc through denial of service attacks” or “a security hole is found in a product made by a brand that everyone was supposed to trust, and so it’s running EVERYWHERE and OMG we’re all going to die.”

But in throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at cyberwarfare defense we will most likely see only minimal resources devoted to end-user education and training to defend against social engineering, poor personal security practices, and the related actual vulnerabilities.  The funding will also not include programs to hold hardware and software vendors more accountable for selling more secure products and services to end users.  Instead, it will go toward funding secret surveillance and the further shifting control of the Internet into military hands.

With this approach, in the end we’ll be back to where we are right now.  End-users will continue the insecure personal practices that lead to security breaches, and the continued homogenization of hardware and software will amplify the potential impact of every security hole discovered.   This is not helpful.

Summersault contacted them earlier this year about their network paging services as a part of our hosting infrastructure, and we certainly thought we’d found a service that was technically well done and reasonably priced.  After we signed up for the $50/month service and started using their system “for real,” we found that it lacked several key features that we needed (including some common sense security precautions), and that their user interface left much to be desired.  To be fair, they did offer us a free demo that we tried out a bit, but the way we were integrating their service with our systems meant that these issues didn’t come out in full until we actually started on the integration.

When we asked them if they could address some of our concerns, they basically said that we would have to pay for any work they might do to change their system.  This wasn’t surprising in and of itself, although some service providers are kind enough to say “hey, that’s a good feature idea, maybe we’ll add that in a future release.”  Not Interpage.

When we finally decided that the system was not going to meet our needs because of those concerns, we contacted Interpage to cancel our service, less than 2 months after we’d signed up.  You would think we’d announced that we were going to burn down their office building.  We got terse replies and no attempt to see if there was a way to keep us happy, just instructions on what paperwork we needed to send over. Okay, fine.

Until they kept billing us.  When I called to note what I assumed were erroneous charges, they said that they needed to bill us for the full length service period after the cancellation date (and they used the date we submitted the paperwork, instead of the date we first contacted them saying we didn’t need their service any more).  I explained how frustrating that was given that we’d never actually had any significant use of their system, but allowed them to bill our credit card for what they said was a final charge, just so we could be done with it.

And then another charge came in for the following month.  And then another charge for the month after that.  Two full months after we’d requested that they cancel our service, they were still billing us.  When I contacted them, they came up with some rationalization that their terms of service allowed for it, even though they’d told me that they were done billing us.

When I explained to Interpage that this seemed quite unethical and certainly not very customer-service-oriented, there was no backing down.  When I said that we might consider disputing the charges with our credit card provider, he literally said “You won’t win.”  The guy was challenging us to a fight.

We did dispute the charge, and during that process, Interpage started charging us fees and interest for the provisional credit that the credit card provider had given us – my understanding is that this runs up against the whole point of having a dispute process with your credit card.  Interpage was then somehow able to convince the credit card provider that we’d agreed to be charged well after our service had ended (I’m still trying to figure that out), and so the provisional credit was reversed.

So, Interpage got what they wanted, they were able to bill all of the fees that they thought they deserved according to their fine print, case closed, right?

Nope, they’ve now turned the $36 in penalties over to a collections agency.

I’ll spare you the remaining details, but it’s absolutely amazing to me that an business could have the gall to be so mediocre in its services provided, so insensitive in its relationship with a customer, and then so brazen in its thirst to “win” any kind of financial dispute.  Is this really the kind of company you want to do business with?

Some customer service lessons:

1. Just because you have fine print that says you’re allowed to take your customers to the proverbial cleaners doesn’t mean that you can treat them like dirt at the first sign of conflict.
2. You should at least pretend to care about making your customers happy for a few minutes before throwing down the gauntlet for a legal fight.
3. If a customer gives you feedback on ways your service can be improved, consider listening to that feedback for a few minutes before ignoring it.

Interpage Network Services, Inc. must have all of the income and customers that it ever wants, and it must not worry too much about what those customers think of it, because it certainly failed on all of the above counts in our experience.

If you’re considering doing business with Interpage for paging, fax, or other services, you’ll want to check and double-check that you aren’t setting yourself up for a billing nightmare.

But I’m not here to indulge in gadget lust, I’m here to tell you how Sonos, the company, is making great use of Twitter for its public relations and customer service efforts (and, by extension, how Twitter is turning out to be pretty useful for that stuff.)

Thomas Meyer (who is hopefully a real person) is the voice of Sonos on Twitter, and here’s all the stuff he does right:

1. Having a presence at all. By being available on Twitter, the company can engage its customers and users directly and immediately about their experiences, requests, and concerns.
2. Having a real person as your Sonos personality. A lot of companies set up their Twitter accounts and post anonymously as “The Company.”  That can work, but it’s even better when the voice is that of a real human being.  Thomas uses “I” statements, and has some personality in what he posts (as much as is possible in 140 characters).
3. Looking for customers to engage. Thomas seems to regularly scan the public Twitter timeline to find mentions of Sonos and related keywords, responds to their tweets if appropriate, and then “follows” those users.  This happened to me when I posted about my system a few weeks ago – it hadn’t occured to me to look for Sonos on Twitter before that.  Again, this creates an instant, direct connection that is pretty hard to find with many product-oriented companies these days.
4. Looking for potential customers to engage. In addition to scanning for direct mentions of Sonos, Thomas also looks for folks who are out there talking about gadgets, audio, music, and related topics, and knows when to gently respond with “hey, have you thought about Sonos?”  It’s not pushy and I don’t think it qualifies as spam (since, in one sense, everything on Twitter is spam), it just creates some awareness.
5. Suggesting value-added ways to get more from the product. Thomas regularly posts about ways you can get more out of your Sonos system without spending money – free music that’s available for download, cool tips and tricks from other users, etc.  It’s clever, friendly, and useful all at the same time.
6. Responding effectively to questions and concerns. If someone mentions any sort of feature request, concern or question about Sonos on Twitter, Thomas is right there with either an answer, or with his e-mail address so that the conversation can continue directly outside of Twitter.

This is probably the best corporate use of Twitter that I’ve seen in my limited time participating in ITS limited existence.

If you’re thinking about using Twitter for corporate/institutional communications, a few related things to note:

1. You HAVE to make time for it. Engaging the Twitterverse seems like it must be a major component of Thomas’s job description, and I can’t imagine he could do what he does just “here and there” on top of other responsibilities.  If you want to use Twitter at this level, make sure you allocate the people time to do it right.
2. Is Twitter reaching the right target audience for you? It’s no coincidence that there’s overlap between people who have time and Internet connectivity to mess around on Twitter and people who buy ridiculously luxurious audio gadgets.  If you sell animal feed to rural farmers, you are probably not going to have the same level of engagement on Twitter.
3. Don’t get too close to your users. I think it’s possible to over-do the directness of the company-consumer relationship, such that the expectations will be set unreasonably high for the kind of response any one person can get from you via Twitter, possibly resulting in a backlash if something does go wrong.

I remain skeptical of Twitter, now more out of curious fascination in the context of many other cultural trends that worry me, rather than cynicism about this particular tool.  But within the scope of what it means to offer good customer service to a base of product users, I can appreciate that there’s a way to do it right with Twitter, and Sonos has that nailed.

There’s a new amusement park ride opening up in town!  It’ll take you on a thrilling journey through ups and downs of successful projects, communication failures, happy long-term partnerships, and total failures in competence.  It’s called THE CONTRACTOR EXPERIENCE and you can hop on it today by opening up the phone book and calling pretty much any contractor you want to try to get some work done on your home or business!

Okay, I know that it might be a little pretentious or worse for me to sit on my high blogging horse and tell the folks who are willing to do some pretty hard, dirty work how to do their jobs when I’m not able or willing to do them myself.  But at the same time, I can’t help but see it from the perspective of how poorly some of these folks are running their small local businesses, and how their customer service values take a total back seat to their own preferred ways of doing things.  Some war stories:

The most common failure in competence that I experience is that the contractor doesn’t even show up at all.  These are people who have access to the same scheduling and calendaring technologies as the rest of us (paper and pen much loved among them), and who still can’t seem to make it work when they agree to show up at a certain time and place.  With one contractor recently, I’ve had them not show up once, and then show up late to the rescheduled appointment.  He then missed a follow-up appointment, and after I called three times to get some sort of explanation, I still haven’t gotten a call back.  If I were trying to make a really bad impression on a potential client, that would be a great way to do it.  How can you run a business that way?

Another failure I regularly experience is that the contractor doesn’t listen to what’s being asked of them, or doesn’t hear the customer’s particular interests and needs.  I tend to be on the overly-organized side of things, and so even with my written-down, clearly spelled out requests, I still often have to correct the contractor’s course once or twice in the estimating and/or work phases.  I know there’s some amount of give and take that’s normal here, but too often for me it’s all give and no take.

And then there’s just total dishonesty, abject incompetence, etc.  I’ve blogged about some of that before.  It’s also included things like using my lawn for cigarette butt storage, or showing up to work in an altered state.   Here’s another episode:

ME ON DAY ONE: While you’re replacing that window, please make sure you put a big cover down over the new carpet here, okay?

CONTRACTOR ON DAY ONE: Oh yeah, definitely, we’ll put a big tarp out.

ME ON DAY TWO: I see you don’t have a tarp out and that you’ve started pulling apart the old window.  I’m worried about dirt and debris getting in the carpet.

CONTRACTOR ON DAY TWO: Oh yeah, we’ll definitely get that cleaned up and don’t worry about it.

ME ON DAY THREE: (grumble grumble grumble)

ME ON DAY FOUR: I see you’re done now, and there’s this big dirt spot on the floor where you were working that isn’t vacuuming out.  What happened?

CONTRACTOR ON DAY FOUR: Oh, that must have been there before, I don’t think we did that.

I mean, come ON!

The hard part is that it takes so much time and “overhead” sometimes to even find the right point of contact for a job, I’m willing to stretch my tolerance of this stuff pretty far in order to not have the churn of saying “well I guess that person isn’t interested, I’ll just find someone else.”  And sometimes there ISN’T a someone else.  The contractor who didn’t show up this morning (“ah,” you say, “that’s why he’s writing this”) is someone who I know, really like personally, and who is uniquely qualified in the area for the particular work I’m interested in.  For relational and practical reasons, I can’t just say “next” and move on.

No, not all contractors are bad and some of them are even quite excellent.  I recently had a GREAT experience with a contractor who was friendly, listened well, always showed up when he said he would, and did excellent work for a reasonable price.  I have whisked him and his family away to an undisclosed location for preservation, as this is clearly the exception and not the rule, at least here in Richmond.

So, as to avoid making this post entirely complaints, I’ll offer some simple suggestions to contractors for improving THE CONTRACTOR EXPERIENCE:

1. Show up when you say you’re going to show up, on time. If you make an appointment, please write it down somewhere you’ll see it again, and if you have to reschedule, please call your customer in advance, and be ready with a few new times to reschedule.
2. Make sure you’ve heard the customer’s technical requests, but also make sure you know what their larger goals are. If they’re clearly trying to “make this room more cozy” or “create a more useful workspace,” there are opportunities there for you to respond to their “big picture” needs, and perhaps even make a little more money in the process.
3. Treat the space like it’s your own. I won’t try to be any more specific on that one, but if you’re in someone’s house or business, and you’re about to tear some stuff apart or make some changes that they’ll have to see every day of their lives, put yourselves in their shoes and ask “how would I do this in my personal space?”

On a larger scale, I wish that there was some better notion of standards or certification for contractors in my community.  I know there are websites and associations where you can rate contractors, file complaints, etc. but in this town, for now, it seems like we’re just one bent nail short of total chaos when it comes to having any hope of knowing what kind of quality you’ll get when you make that call.  The good contractors out there deserve better, and the bad ones have gotten away with too much for too long.

Just as I was finishing this post up, the contractor who missed this morning’s appointment called.  He’d gotten the days mixed up, and we’re rescheduling accordingly.  Life goes on.

1) The Fireplace Shop at 1000 North F Street in Richmond is an amazing little brick complex that showcases all that can be done with wood and other heat sources. From traditional fireplaces to wood burning stoves to corn pellet stoves to crazy other conflagrant configurations, it was quite a wonderland of temperature control. With the added bits of atmosphere like lazy cats sprawled across warm surfaces, fireplace and chimney sweep nostalgia everywhere, and the hustle-bustle of workers in workshops catering to the demands of the cold season, it was a nice place just to be and observe. The store also adjoins a ceramic tile store (which sells the locally made Terra Green Ceramics line) and a brick/stone store, so you can knock out quite a bit of home improvement planning in one place. I can’t imagine there’s one of these in every community these days, and I’m certainly grateful to have one here.

2) Rohan India is a new-ish Indian Food restaurant in Oxford, Ohio that offers slightly faster access to this cuisine from Richmond than similar options in Dayton, Cincinnati or Indianapolis. The Chicken Shahi Korma with Mushrooms dish I had was probably the best Indian dish I’ve had at any location in the region, and when I got a spice level of 6 (out of 10), they really came through with that. The proximity of this dining option may be just enough to balance out the problems with the atmosphere and service – several large screen televisions blaring music videos, sports games, etc. dominated the visual landscape, and we had to play the “forced eye contact and hand waving” game at times just to get a server to pay attention. But overall, it was a fine experience, and quickly becoming a destination for Richmondites – I’ve heard at least three other distinct mentions of it this weekend alone.

3) At Home Kitchen and Gourmet at 414 North 10th (in “The Loft” where Ghyslain is) is a new location brought to us by the folks at Warm Glow Candles. Right now the shop features a variety of kitchen and bath items with Warm Glow candles sprinkled amongst them. Many of the items seemed “pricey” for Richmond, but they were generally quite unique and beautiful, and compared to a Williams-Sonoma visit in Chicago, probably a good value. The clerk who checked us out indicated that the inventory was largely just overstock from the main Warm Glow store in Centerville, and that after the first of the year, they’d be reworking it to focus much more on being a comprehensive kitchen and bath supplier. Even though I’m not one to go shopping for such things regularly, it was just great to see a locally owned place like this pop up here.

On top of that, I got to attend the Alternative Holiday Bazaar at the Clear Creek Food Cooperative, which showcased locally-made crafts and gifts on Saturday against the backdrop of live music and smiling faces – the items will be on sale all this week too.

Seeing these places, these events, these people reminds me that there are people investing anew in this community and in the surrounding ones, people making a living here and doing it in such fun and interesting ways – I’m thankful for that.

Our culture likes to take the old and repackage it as the new so it’s more exciting and engaging. I don’t have any problem with that per se – there can be something creative and innovative in finding different ways to present ideas, world-views, ways of living so that they’re more accessible to more people. We all go through different kinds of personal discovery about what we’re capable of, so why not have a “new movement” that helps support and nurture that for folks who are in that place right now?

This is what I thought I was being pitched when I got an invitation to subscribe to Ready Made magazine, which presents itself as “the only do-it-yourself (DIY)/lifestyle magazine for young people. It entertains and informs through DIY projects for fast-evolving lifestyles.” It sounded like a good support resource for learning more about self-sufficient living. I showed the invite to Anna Lisa and we both agreed that it looked like it would be useful, AND that we were excited such a publication existed at all. But when the first issue arrived, it only took me a few hours before I knew we’d be canceling the subscription. Here’s why:

Despite a couple of useful articles, the issue of Ready Made that we received (Oct/Nov 2008) seemed to be a thinly veiled handbook for excelling in the consumerist, image-obsessed culture of which the DIY movement (as I understand it) is inherently critical.

The publication itself is very glossy and polished, full of flashy ads and artwork, airbrushed models, and beautiful photos that set the bar super high for even the most dedicated do-it-yourselfer. It feels like an issue of “Teen Better Homes and Gardens,” not a rag that is all about making the most of sufficiency in resources. I can see how this style would engage a younger audience used to the glitz, and I won’t begrudge them their success if indeed the approach works, but I found it to be an unfortunate mental disconnect between the message and the presentation.

The DIY projects that they cover range from the somewhat practical (various pumpkin recipes, how to give an effective presentation, building a loft bed, storing your bicycle on the ceiling) to fun and quirky (various pet furniture, bamboo drum brushes) to the outright gratuitous (designer miniaturist models?). And in the end, many articles were just an introduction to more products you can buy…a $54 cushion to hold your produce on your kitchen counter-top, a $179 work table, a $200 gadget holder. And that’s in addition to the various free-standing ads for cars, beauty products, alcohol and bottled water.

Again, I’m not saying this kind of publication won’t be interesting or useful to someone out there…it’s just about expectations. If I’d picked up a standard home improvement magazine and seen some of this stuff I would have been thrilled about it, but when I was expecting a publication to capture the DIY ethic and got Ready Made instead, I was disappointed. I have enough troubling or misleading marketing images hitting me every day that I don’t need to pay for a subscription to a magazine that unnecessarily glamorizes the otherwise moderately useful bits of information.

Ready Made magazine might be a great introduction to the concept and practice of DIY for a high-school or college-aged person who is otherwise thoroughly engrossed in the culture of “when you need something or something breaks, you go shopping.” But for someone who’s already used to doing it themselves, I’d suggest you skip the magazine subscription, use their online project archive as needed, and move on to other, more authentic DIY resources instead.