Frustration

So DH and I go to Kinko's last week to get passport pictures done for my name change in my passport. Show up, tell the woman we need pictures, she takes us to the back of the store, takes my picture, prints it and cuts it using the special 2x2 cutter that they have, takes us back to the front, we pay and leave. This takes all of 10 minutes.

Turns out we need more passport pictures for DH's Green Card application, both of him and me, since I'm sponsoring him. Okay, back to Kinko's. Instead of the nice efficient woman, we get Mutt and freakin' Jeff. We tell them we need pictures done. They look at each other blankly. One has done this before, the other hasn't. Who takes our pictures? Well, clearly it should be the one who has no experience doing this. It take Mutt 10 minutes to figure out how to actually take the picture - his methodology is: press button, wait, ask me if there was a flash (I reply no), look at the flash in stunned silence, repeat procedure. Finally after 4 times, it works. Then he has to go ask Jeff how to print. Jeff comes back, points out large "Print" button on top of camera, disappears again. Mutt prints. While we are waiting for the print, DH asks if we can take his picture while the printer is running. Stunned silence. Mutt disappears to ask Jeff if this is possible. It turns out Jeff is in a panic because they've misplaced another customer's floppy disc and they can't find it. So what does Mutt do? Well, he tries to help Jeff find it. Hello, we are standing here waiting for you! Then the phone rings. The two of them look at each other blankly. Mutt answers it. When he's done, he goes back to helping Jeff. I say, "Excuse me, can we finish with these photos so we can go home and have some dinner?" Mutt looks at me. Comes over. Sits down. Doesn't apologize. Says, "Oh yeah, I was going to ask him if I could take a new picture while the other one is printing," and leaves again. Completely disregarding the fact that the picture is DONE printing and the question is now moot since he's wasted so much time.

Then the cutting saga. Mutt can't figure out how to cut the pictures. DH points out that there are perforations on the pictures so you can get rid of the margin and fit it into the cutter. Mutt goes, "duhh... thanks." First picture is okay - DH's face goes in right way up, picture fits in cutter, Mutt cuts. Second picture - oh big trouble here. DH's face doesn't fit right way up, but rotate 180 degrees and it's fine. Mutt just can't handle this. He keeps putting the picture in with DH facing right way up, noticing it doesn't fit, putting it back in rotated, noticed that it did fit, but he's not confident enough to actually cut it like that. So his solution? Go hunt down a pair of scissors (5 more minutes wasted) so he can manually trim the edge so he can put the picture right way up and cut it. I was ready to grab his shoulders and shake him to pieces.

Of course,then we go to pay and Mutt screws up the VISA payment, so we have to void the first one, and there's something that needs to be printed for the void, so Mutt and Jeff search around for the right form (another 5 minutes), print, redo VISA transaction. Just shoot me! This isn't rocket science, fer Chrissakes! The whole thing wound up taking an HOUR.

And then today, to make things better, I called the tree guys to check when they are coming to take down two of our mature trees that have root rot :-( I called to schedule a date in November (the 8th, to be exact) and was told it would take 8 weeks, but I was now on the schedule and they would call me a week before they came out, but it would be early to mid January. So I call them today to see when they were coming - guess what? We're not on the schedule!

Turns out the person I spoke to on the 8th was the office manager, and she didn't do a damn thing about my phone call. To their credit, the woman I spoke with today apologized repeatedly and said she was going to go over and discuss this with their scheduling department ASAP to see if they could squeeze us in. It probably doesn't hurt that this is a HUGE job (we are also trimming the other trees and cabling our big oak so it doesn't drop another huge limb and crush the other side of the house, like it did two years ago.) and they will lose a few thousand dollars (tree maintenance is EXPENSIVE!) if we go with someone else. Which I will do if they tell me I have to wait another 8 weeks....

I *was* in a good mood today, too!