How much do you think that you are worth per hour? Aunty figures she is worth $50 per hour, on a good day.
If you have a paycheck, you are worth at least what your hourly rate of pay is. If you are self employed or in your own business, you are worth what you are capable of producing. A housewife or househusband is worth at least what the going rate would be for a cook, cleaner, chauffeur, etc.
Time is our most valuable resource, and every hour that goes by is an hour that is depleted from the limited number of hours in our life. As we get older, time becomes even more valuable, so it is important to spend it wisely.
Working 9 to 5
Aunty works from home, does investing, blogs, has several businesses, and takes care of Uncle’s business, so her work hours are very very flexible, almost too flexible.
Because of that, Aunty is a big waster of time. Watching Korean dramas, piddling around with non-productive tasks, playing computer games (though a limit has been set), checking emails, Facebook, zoning out and thinking (need to start writing down thoughts more or they flee and are forgotten).
Just recently, Aunty had a revelation – like an organizational tool that clarifies and contains workloads. From the hours of 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, no play, no time wasting, only work allowed, with breaks for lunch, water, bathroom, etc.
This may not be a big deal to you, but for someone like Aunty, it is like a thunderbolt from the heavens. Zooks!
The following incident happened during Aunty’s prime work hours.
Printer cartridge from hell saga
Aunty had bought a 3-pack of HP457X black ink cartridges from Costco because the old black ink cartridge for her HP printer was depleted.
After the first few pages printed out fine, the quality began to deteriorate to the point of nothing on the page, so Aunty ran diagnostics, cleaned print heads according to the online instructions, google searched what to do, and then finally changed the brand new cartridge out for another one. Bingo! Everything was good with the printer.
Aunty then called HP’s customer service for a refund or replacement of the defective cartridge.
Circle circle
These customer service people were from India – their accents were slight. After watching “Slum Dog Millionaire”, Aunty gives Indian operators more slack – lucky and blessed that we live in America.
The service personnel were polite, but not helpful. Aunty was transferred 5 times over the course of 90 minutes, repeating the same information to each representative even though they had the case number and history in front of them. Most of the time was spent on hold. Finally, after being transferred to a supervisor (long hold time), Aunty was given the green light, a replacement ticket was processed, and in a few days, Aunty did get her new cartridge.
Welcome to candy warp speed
This hour and a half process caused Aunty to have to cancel an appointment. It was frustrating to have to stay on the line, and it would have been even more frustrating to have to start over again, so Aunty waited and waited with the phoneline on speaker option. It was during the 2nd waiting period, Aunty went to grab her iPad, and began playing games.
Candy Crush Saga, Pyramid Saga, Bubble Witch, Angry Birds. Useless, time wasting games that made the wait times very bearable. In fact, time sped along, lickety split! Put on hold again or transferred and holding? No problemo, play another game or two or three.
Write to the company
Even though time flew by playing those games, and even though those polite Indian customer service reps constantly apologized for the wait, Aunty was ticked off and let the last couple of Indian service reps know that I would be writing to Hewlett Packard.
This put fear into them, but Aunty’s beef was not with them. They were simply doing their job. The beef was with HP’s system of putting customers who have issues with ink cartridges through the wringer of transfers and wait times because they seem to only address problems with the printer machines. In Aunty’s opinion, there needs to be a dedicated line for ink cartridge problems, especially since there are 100 times more ink cartridges sold and used per printer.
It cost $75 of Aunty time ($50/hr x 1.5 hours) for a $20 ink cartridge. In a perfect world, Hewlett Packard should be compensating Aunty for 85 minutes of wasted time. The process should have taken 5 minutes.
May as well enjoy the candy
HP evidently doesn’t care, and Aunty’s time wasted has already been wasted. Water under the bridge. Writing letters to companies who don’t listen may be more waste of time, but it makes Aunty feel better.
Meanwhile, Aunty will continue to stick to her 9 to 5 schedule, work overtime sometimes, and indulge once in awhile in Candy Crush during work hours when put on hold.
Isn’t that a delicious way to have cake?
Hi, Aunty!
It’s me, Lani, from the Longs green bag tag posts. I was catching up on your blog, when I read this fun post.
I’m an aunty, too, and we kinda lead parallel lives when it comes to guilty pleasures. You like Korean dramas; I like British dramas (Downton Abbey, the original Upstairs Downstairs, Masterpiece, Call the Midwife, BBC America, British detective shows, etc. ~ did you know our libraries have some Korean and British dramas we can borrow!).
DVDs make it easy to keep going and going. . . I cannot stop some times!
You like computer games, I like jigsaw puzzles (hard to stop that, too, “just one more piece” — that’s the motto). I’ve even started buying some “senior friendly” puzzles (EZ grasp 300 large pieces) for when my husband and I are in our even-more-senior years (puzzles supposed to help the brain ~ memory, recognition).
There are the really serious puzzlers who like the “Big Boys,” 5,000 pieces and up, usually of fine art (I’m not one of them). Educa makes a 24,000 piece puzzle, called “Life.” It comes in four 6,000 piece bags. Some puzzlers mix all four bags together; they say that’s the only way to feel like they’re working a 24,000 piece puzzle rather than four 6,000 piece puzzles.
One of these super puzzlers will even work the Big Boys, for those who want one completed, but don’t want to work it themselves. Payment is with…..jigsaw puzzles(!) from his own Wish List of Big Boys.
I think for the excitement of the computer games, adrenaline rush, maybe….? For us puzzlers, I think maybe it’s the dopamine release (the pleasure/reward when a puzzle piece goes in the right place)?
I’ve got my own “workable control” now too, Aunty: an alarm clock!
Love your blog, and the fun posts from your own life. You are on par with Ron Nagasawa (of Midweek)! Keep it up!
Aloha,
Lani
Howzit Lani! Wasn’t it sad when they discontinued the Long’s leaf? I learned of that from you, as well as the handy tip about using a plastic sleeve. I still use my leaf on my keys – to help me grab them and find them.
We DO have a lot in common – and I LOVE puzzles! Growing up in Palolo, we didn’t have much to do at night, so we did puzzles. The same puzzles over and over sometimes. There is indeed great satisfaction when a puzzle piece clicks into place perfectly. My cousin was a pretty lousy puzzle maker and would fit a piece in that didn’t really belong and think that it was fine, lol. Uncle gives up because he doesn’t have the patience to sort through those precisely cut shapes in piles of color. So I guess I am a solitary puzzler in the family, when and if I can clear a space to work on one. 24,000 pieces?!! Zounds, gazook, yowza! Sounds wonderful, sigh…..
I borrowed a Korean drama from the library once, but didn’t have time to watch that many hours. I find DramaFever.com to be just right and should put in an alarm clock.
Mahalo for stopping in, and muchos gracias for elevating me up to the Ron Nagasawa level! I enjoy reading his stuff a lot!
With aloha,
Aunty
Aunty,
You not gonna believe this, but Wendell bought a washer from Costco, that started giving us trouble after about a year. He took it back to Costco, and they gave him a brand new one in exchange. Howzdat!
Costco is the best. Sometimes I think they are too good, but regardless, they are doing great business and have loyal customers like me and Uncle who go to Costco first, and if we don’t find what we want there, then we go to other stores. Only problem sometimes is that they don’t deliver.
Which reminds me, I think we need a new washing machine pretty soon. Ours is making all kinds of noise and the load cycles take over an hour to finish. Hmmmm. Maybe it will be from Costco.
Aunty
Aunty,
If you bought your printer cartridges from Costco, just take it back to them for a refund. Tell them it was defective. Don’t waste your time w/HP. Also if you bought a computer, printer, tv, etc. from Costco and have a problem, call Costco’s free concierge support. I’ve been there before on the phone w/HP for hours. I learned it’s best to go directly to Costco’s concierge service.
Whenever I can, I try to purchase all my electronics from Costco. Go to the following link for info on Costco’s concierge service: http://www.costco.com/concierge.html
FREE TECHNICAL SUPPORT
EXCLUSIVELY FOR COSTCO MEMBERS
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1-866-861-0450
Available 5 a.m. -10 p.m. (PST), 7 days a week, excluding holidays.
Receive free technical support for any Television, Computer, Touchscreen Tablet, Projector, Camera, Camcorder, MP3 Player, Home Theater System, DVD Player and Blu-ray Player, Printer (Stand alone), Monitor (Stand alone), Router, Pressure Washer or Security Camera Systems you purchase at Costco or Costco.com website.
Speak with expert level technicians
Enjoy easy-to-understand answers to your set-up and product use questions
Get troubleshooting assistance
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Receive assistance purchasing TV Setup at Costco.com. Additional charges may apply.
English and Spanish speaking agents available
All calls are handled in the U.S.
This service is available exclusively for U.S. Costco
Now, Aunty, you can get back to wasting your time away on Candy Crush, while I work on my Slotomania. LOL
Your slightly older and wiser tomodachi,
Cooks
Mahalo to my older friend for that good bit of advice. It did cross Aunty’s mind to put the defective cartridge back in the Costco package (but has to have all 3 cartridges) and return it, but I figure that it was HP’s product and they would take care. Ha!
Costco is a great company, good support, always clean, nice workers. Good hot dog at the food court. I tried their beef brisket sandwich – better to get 3 hot dogs with soda.
Trying NOT to waste time,
Aunty
Aunty