Derek's Journal

Progress
Not a bad workout, but an easy one. Somehow I hurt my back before Christmas, so I feel it when I do some things. I did one set of both the upper body and lower body exercises today with medium weights. I only felt my back when I tried the knee lifts from vertical position (arms supporting me). I ended up with a bit of heat in the steam room and whirlpool to relax the back.

Work was nothing special. Staff meeting (also known as story time) started with burritos, potato things and orange juice from Wendy's. We have food in the staff meetings - they start at 8 AM and with some of them, having something to eat is the only way to stay awake. One good think that came up was the General Manager said his visit to Taiwan confirmed we will be here for at least another two years - more if we can get enough business to keep the manufacturing area busy.

The EMAIL Spam filter is working again. Not a lot of exciting things today, more of the same.

I got my United Airlines frequent flier card updated. Sadly, it wouldn't take the password I was trying even though it fit the criteria the site provided. I called to ask two more questions about password criteria: 1 - is there a maximum length? 2 - Are there forbidden characters?
The first three people I talked two ignored my question and "helped" me get things set up. One even set the password for me: 1 2 3 4 5 6 - and then seemed upset that I wanted to change it. He actually said "If you are having problems changing it, why don't you just leave it like that?" I think they may have been "providing technical support from outside the US" and missing some things, so I didn't even point out that when the password must be at least six characters long, putting in the first six numbers in usually not a good idea.
After about an hour on the phone and finally talking to a supervisor, I found out that ONLY numbers and letters could be used - something that the website didn't mention and that many places suggest be used. After calling two different phone numbers, making four different calls and talking to five different people, I got the help I needed. I understand that customer service people need to go through certain things, but when I kept mentioning that I was calling just to find out the password criteria, it can be frustrating. One set up my profile (which I already had on the computer, but not accepted since the password was not fitting the criteria). The next redid the profile and set the 1 2 3 4 5 6 password - and told me incorrectly that "@" was OK to use. The reset the account and set up a different password, then hung up on me instead of listening to my question. The next was nice, but I started by requesting the supervisor so I could report my experience and get information. The supervisor listened and then answered my question.
The first three were great reasons to avoid United whenever possible. The last two were reasons to consider using United when needed.

I fell asleep in front of the computer, so am typing this later than planned. It will take a while to get everything back on track.

I also chatted online with a couple of people that wanted to chat and needed some help.

Not a bad day, but I didn't get as much done as I wanted to do - always the case.

Current Mood: mellow