by admin on January 24, 2012
A month ago Greg and I moved into our new place. It being a new construction and a condo, there were a lot of Tridel customer care and property people we had to deal with and a lot of general rules and information that we needed to get regarding the complex as well as the house hand-off. Tridel, which is consistently being voted as having the best customer service, is turning out to be the best at misleading.
We like our new home and generally don’t have any major complaints about it. But it seems that every day since moving in we keep coming across yet another thing that we were misinformed or misled about. It’s like when they don’t know the answers, instead of looking into it they just make stuff up on the spot and pass it off as truth.
Misinformation #1
About a week before getting our keys we had a final walk-through of the property with a Tridel Customer Care rep. The documents he gave us listed our new address. In the next couple days I changed my IDs to have the new address only to discover that according to the postal service such an address doesn’t exist and that the postal code they had printed was incorrect. To add insult to injury, I haven’t received my new IDs yet and I can’t change the address on temporary IDs, since we already moved my old IDs are no good either. At this moment I don’t actually have any correct pieces of ID.
Misinformation #2:
We knew that 4 days after we move in friends of ours were coming to stay with us for the holidays. It was important for us to snag a guest parking spot for their visit. When we asked the Tridel customer care guy during the walk-through to show us the guest parking he informed us that there isn’t any. We were flabbergasted as we both specifically remembered that guest parking was part of the deal when we were buying our place. We went home and reread our contract to find the clause that says we should have five guest parking spots. Turns out that they exist but whoever we dealt with didn’t even know that.
Misinformation #3:
Since this is a new condo, it hasn’t been registered yet with the city which means that right now we are actually RENTING the home we bought from the builder until it closes on Jan 18th. When we were picking up our keys we also met with a Tridel customer care rep who had additional info to cover with us as well as follow up on the walk-through we had a week earlier. One of the things he handed us was an information package about our utilities and their billing. Greg wanted to see the meter and figure all that out as soon as possible and the rep informed us that Tridel will actually cover the utilities until closing date. We were both pleasantly surprised and even said something along the lines of how it’s nice of them to do that for almost a month. The rep jokingly (or maybe not so jokingly) said that they agree to cover all utilities within reasonable use, as long as we don’t go overboard.
Yesterday a very pissed off Greg called me to say that we received our gas bill starting from the day we got our keys. He called Tridel today and actually spoke to the Tridel customer care rep that we dealt with that day who totally went back on his words and said that he meant “closing date” as in the date people were getting their keys. It isn’t even a good lie, since if Tridel wasn’t supposed to cover utilities why would he warn us to be reasonable and not to go overboard using the utilities? Of course it is possible that he was not supposed to tell us that but he did and now he’s acting like we’re the idiots. Nothing about bad customer service pisses me off more than someone making unnecessary claims or promises and then going back on them. It’s not like we wanted or even expected Tridel to cover utilities, we were prepared to pay for our own usage but when we were told that we wouldn’t need to we thought “well at least we get one good thing out of this whole renting-our-own-house situation” but even that is tainted now. Greg is dealing with them so we’ll see what happens but even if they end up covering it now I won’t feel like we were treated right. If it was an innocent mistake, the “best” customer service would own up to it.
Misinformation #4:
One of the perks that our condo maintenance fees pay for is a shuttle bus that loops between the complex and the nearest subway station during rush hours in the morning and the evening. The week before New Years Greg used the shuttle a couple of times with no incident. On Tuesday he also used the shuttle no problem. Yesterday morning however, on the third day that he was going to use it, the bus driver asked to see Greg’s pass. “Pass? What pass?” was Greg’s response. Apparently with our keys we were also supposed to get a shuttle bus pass. This was the first time we’d heard anything about a pass, no one that we spoke with from Tridel customer care or the Del property management company (which is the actual company we will be dealing with for maintenance and common area stuff) said anything even when we asked questions about the shuttle bus (one of the customer care people did point out where the bus will be stopping but still no pass). Not even the driver from the previous day asked for a pass. We still don’t know if it was the bus driver who was misinformed or us but someone clearly got the wrong info.
There’s been a few other problematic instances in our dealings with Tridel customer service so far. They’ve entered our unit without permission due to a “miscommunication”, and they’ve scratched and damaged things in the process of fixing defects, thus creating new defects. I really do hope they get their act together and figure this out because this is unacceptable. One of the things you’re paying for when you pay maintenance fees is customer service and property management who will actually manage things for you, but how can they do so when they are this misinformed and careless?
If this is their best, the customer service bar for builders is clearly set very low.
by admin on December 2, 2011
The other day my mom and I decided to go shopping. It took us about 30 minutes to get to the shopping mall only to spend over an hour looking for parking. It was so frustrating that at one point we considered turning around and going home, except that it would probably take just as long to get out of the lot as finding the parking spot did.
We kind of had a fight in the car where I yelled at her, but she was totally asking for it. I am generally a very calm driver but I do get extremely frustrated and pissed off when I am stuck in traffic not going anywhere. Especially the kind of stupid never-ending busy traffic (at least if it’s construction or an accident and you know this, it isn’t so bad because you can sense an end). I think most people get pissed off when they are literally stopped on the road. One reason is because it is wasted time when you can do absolutely nothing else other than sit there, it is probably the most unproductive you can be. An even bigger reason is because you don’t know how long it will last. I don’t mind driving somewhere far that’s like an hour away if I know to plan an hour, but driving somewhere that should only be 20 minutes away and it taking an hour feels soooo much longer, partially because as far as you know you could be stuck there for 4 hours or an entire day.
Anyway, there we were in the parking lot, me getting pissed off and my mom telling me to calm down, that I shouldn’t be mad blah blah and I was like “mom, this is how I get in traffic. just leave me alone for now until we park” and she was all like “well you shouldn’t get like that, I was reading an article about all the useful things you could be doing while stuck in traffic, you could give yourself an ear massage or an hand massage” or some other bullshit. After that I snapped and was like “I told you to leave it alone, I wasn’t asking for advise on how to handle this”. Of course she didn’t leave me alone, but once we parked and I calmed down and apologized, she didn’t hold it against me, which was nice of her I guess. She never did admit that she may have been wrong to taunt me when I asked her to let me seethe in peace. What is it about people not wanting to allow each other the satisfaction of being righteously pissed off?
My mom has this problem with “negative energy” and so if I get mad she gets all “you’re being negative and making the situation negative and sending negative energy into the universe” blah-blah-some-stuff-from-the-secret-blah-blah. I agree to a point with the idea that attitude does have a lot to do with what happens to you in life, and generally I think I’m a positive and happy person. But I don’t subscribe to the idea that you need to eradicate all negative thoughts and energy from your life in order to be happy. I think anger and sadness have their place and that there is nothing wrong with allowing yourself to feel these feelings freely rather than constantly trying to suppress them. Personally I think I can deal with my negative emotions and move on better if I allow myself to feel them.
My mom doesn’t agree. She seems to think that you should just not think or feel the negatives. Like if my mom shows me a shirt I hate in a store and I exclaim “hell no, that’s ugly” she will be all like “Diana, that’s mean. You don’t have to like it but you don’t need to feel such negativity towards it. You can just say ‘that’s not for me’”. She is constantly telling me to stop calling other people idiots. Sometimes that is the only excuse you can come up with for them.
Not only do I think that it is alright to be in touch with your emotions and allow yourself to feel them, I also happen to be a very expressive person. I could be perfectly happy and content but then I could start telling a story about something bad that happened and my voice and attitude and emotions will reflect how I felt at the time of the story rather than the happy content emotion I am actually feeling. My voice gets shakier, my hands move with emphasis and I get louder the more excited I get about the story. As soon as the story is over, these ghost-emotions go away. And usually my expressiveness and the fact that I get so into it makes my stories all the better (I think). But if my audience includes my mom, she will interrupt me in the most emotionally-raw moment to say “why are you getting so agitated over this? You should calm down, if you’re going to get mad then I would rather you not tell the story”. Despite the fact that I have tried to explain to her many times that it’s just my way of telling a story, she still thinks that I am too excitable. Ironically, her concern for me getting emotional gets me wound up way more than any story I could get in touch with. Partially because it makes me feel that she is not actually paying attention to what I am saying and especially because she usually interrupts during the most riveting part.
It drives me crazy that my mom is always correcting my emotional self expression. And to make things worse, she then doesn’t understand why I get pissed off at her. She thinks it’s because I was being negative which makes her all the more determined to continually try to correct this perceived negativity. It’s a vicious cycle.
by admin on November 16, 2011
This is what pisses me off:
I’m reading an article about how
cities served eviction notices to protesters in occupy Toronto/Calgary and they quote this
‘”If they want me to leave, they’ll have to kill me first” protester Hannah Kovacs told reporters as he burned one of the notices’. But you just know that if the cities do send in the police or the army or whatever to make this occupy Toronto camper leave – by methods much softer than homicide – that same idiot will be the first one to yell about being wrongly persecuted.
Meanwhile, they’re protesting how there should be more social services, more money going to ordinary people (though we may all fall into the 99% I doubt these campers represent me) and with that, ironically, the occupy Toronto movement is taking away the according-to-them-limited-and-insufficient services from the ordinary-tax-paying citizens who work in the cities being occupied and have the right to enjoy their public parks with their children and to have the police protect them instead of wasting time on eviction notices and tent-tear-down.
Maybe instead of griping about the government and the banks not doing enough for them, they should stop wasting government resources with stupid court cases (they are actually filing injunctions that they should be allowed to stay!) and park clean up costs.
You just know the cities will be left far from spotless when this is over.
by admin on October 26, 2011
This is how we met and began our geeky love story:
When I was in my second year of university Greg and I were in the same class together but we never met before. I did notice him and thought he was cute. One day I even decided to purposely smile at him before class started and how did he respond? by giving me a dirty look (to this day he claims that this never happened)! After that I decided that he was just one of those computer geek guys who would rather play D&D than talk to girls. It didn’t help that he was one of the few people in the class who asked questions and vigorously typed on his laptop the entire time. I would later learn that he was actually on IRC chatting with his friends, telling them about the cute girl in his class that he wanted to talk to – a.k.a me.
He was also in my tutorial. Which was on Friday afternoons. At lunchtime. I showed up to the tutorials late (if at all) and sat in the back row with my legs stretched out in front of me and my arms folded, especially after the TA proved to be kind of an idiot. Greg on the other hand was a real keener. He sat in the front row and actually bothered to argue with the TA and correct him. Something he needed to do a lot.
Towards the end of the semester Greg apparently made up his mind to talk to me before the semester was over. If I showed up to class. Which according to him I didn’t (did I mention that it was during lunchtime?). I also sat with a friend of mine whom Greg had originally assumed was my boyfriend. He was an aggressive looking Eastern-European guy with an attitude to match. Definitely not someone a nerdy computer geek wants to mess with. I guess somewhere along the way Greg figured out that we probably weren’t dating – or that I was worth the risk anyway. Even though I don’t remember missing as many classes as he claims, I apparently foiled his plans to slowly get to know me. The next thing he knew it was the last lecture of the semester.
I don’t actually know how we missed each other on campus before, because after that day I ran into Greg constantly – unless he was following me around. But at this point he thought this might be the last time he would see me, so he decided to corner me after class. Plans that I unknowingly foiled once again.
It just so happened that happened that we received an assignment back and the friend I sat with was very disappointed with his mark. So there I was, ignoring the professor and listening to my friend rant about the prof being a bitch and how unfair life was. Finally I was like “you know what, we’re not paying attention anyway so how about we get out of here before you get all psycho?” My friend agreed and we started heading for the door halfway through the last lecture. By this point in the year I had completely stopped entertaining any notions of talking to the cute nerd on the laptop. As I was leaving I saw out of the corner of my eye that he was getting up too. He left his stuff and only grabbed his wallet. I didn’t think anything of that. I especially didn’t think that he had to quickly come up with a new plan and chase me out of the lecture hall while seeming to casually leave at approximately the same moment.
Outside of the lecture hall, my friend and I talked for a couple more minutes and then he left to go home. I was heading up to the lab to, let’s be honest, play computer games. As I was getting my stuff together in the empty lobby of the building I saw Greg out of the corner of my eye standing somewhere equidistant between myself and the coffee shop, counting the change in his wallet. The next thing I knew, he was heading towards me, change in hand. Using my great inductive reasoning skills I was sure that he was about to come over and ask if I had a quarter to spare.
As he neared me, I was mentally thinking about whether I have any change on me, where in my bag it was and whether it was worth the hassle of getting it out to help him scrounge up enough change to buy a coffee. Finally I decided that I will just politely tell him no. He came to stand in front of me, looking all awkward and embarrassed (which I just chucked up to him being nerdy). I was waiting for him to say what he was going to say and preparing to reply “Sorry, I don’t have any change” when he uttered the last words I ever expected to hear from him, “I was wondering if I can take you out to dinner sometime?” I think he may have said something like “hello”, but if he did my brain didn’t register it. I am not a girl that strange men usually hit on (except when they are super creepy) and nerdy computer geeks are not the kind of guys who ask out strange women to dinner. I don’t think there was anything else he could have said that would have surprised me more. If he told me that aliens were attacking I think I would be less surprised. This unexpected turn of events turned me into a complete bumbling idiot. Seeing as I could no longer use the answer I had prepared to his change inquiry (apparently he was using the change to pretend that he was going to buy something so it didn’t look like he was stalking me out of the classroom. Even though he was), I stood there staring at him with my mouth open. I’m surprised he didn’t think I was having a mini-seizure.
When I regained my ability to speak, I did not fare much better:
Greg: Looking down at the change in his hand “hi I’m Greg…[I assume he said something along these lines before asking me to dinner]… I was wondering if I can take you out to dinner sometime?”
me: [after at least 5 seconds] “uh.. Sure”
Greg: “ok… can I have your phone number?” hands me a piece of paper
me: write down ONLY my phone number
Greg: “Um… Can I have your name?” – That’s right. I didn’t even introduce myself.
me: “oh yeah, you need that [awkward laugh], Diana”
Greg: “Do you want MY phone number?”
me: “No, it’s ok…”
Greg: Looks at me dismayed
me: “I’ll have it on my phone when you call me…”
Yes, I actually said that. At this point he thought that I probably wrote the wrong phone number on the paper. The real reason was that my brain short circuited. Surprisingly (and luckily) he didn’t give up. He then remembered to ask the second most important question “oh, by the way, that big scary guy you sit with in class, that’s not your boyfriend is it?”
by admin on October 19, 2011
I promised I would define “Punishment Honk”, so here goes.
A punishment honk is one that is given after another driver on the road does something you think is wrong but there is nothing you can do about it because they already did the jerky thing that made you mad. So you honk at them to let them know that you are exasperated at what they did – thus punishing them with the noise your car makes.
Greg LOVES the punishment honk. He hardly ever honks when someone is about to do something they shouldn’t be doing, but watch out if you’ve already cut him off or went before him at a stop sign, because you will hear about it. Literally.
UPDATE: The satisfaction you get from a punishment honk only goes so far because you can’t tell whether the other driver even noticed it. It would be super awesome if there was a way to let someone know you know you screwed up and you didn’t mean to do it. Like in this comic from The Oatmeal that I saw recently.
by admin on October 18, 2011
I gave the finger to someone on the road for the first time today.
Today was by far not the first time that I was mad enough to want to give someone the finger. Usually I talk myself out of it with reasoning like “they aren’t worth it” and “you don’t swear when you talk, you shouldn’t swear when you drive” and the like. I feel good about myself for rising above, but secretly a part of me wishes I was impulsive enough to act on it.
Well today I did. I was merging onto the highway and I was speeding up in the merge lane before moving over when a car on my left caught up to me and was driving alongside in my blind spot. Since my lane was ending I floored the gas paddle to overtake the car on the left because I needed to merge into his lane, but as I did he was speeding up too just enough to stay in my blind spot. My choices were to slam on the brake and probably get rear-ended as the lane ended or to cut the guy off and merge. I chose the latter and the guy had the nerve to honk at me. Did he not understand how merging works and that you can’t just stay in someone’s blind spot as they are trying to do so?
His obvious punishment honk (I will explain what a punishment honk is in a bit) pissed me off even more and without hesitation I lifted my hand and gave him the finger in the rearview mirror.
Almost as soon as I did, I regretted it. You may recall from previous posts that I have a chronic guilt condition. First I was in denial, “he didn’t see it” and “maybe I did it wrong” – I never gave anyone the finger before. As long as I was driving on the same road as the car I gave the finger to, I couldn’t relax. I avoided changing into the same lane that he was in and I felt like I couldn’t get to my exit fast enough. Which was ironic since my unwillingness to change to his lane meant that I stayed in the rightmost and slowest lane until I got to said exit.
I spent the rest of the ride home thinking up what if scenarios. What if the driver didn’t know I was trying to merge? To him I was the jerk who not only cut him off but also gave him the finger. What if he was someone I know and recognized me and now thinks that this is how I am, a finger-giving-road-rager. What if he was a super nice little old lady and I totally offended her (I was too mortified at my behaviour to look at the driver of the car afterwards). What if the driver had photographic memory and remembered me and my license plate number and will find me in the future and tell everyone I am the kind of person who gives little old ladies the finger?
My 30 minute drive home was not pleasant. The brief thrill I felt at my new found ability to act on my feelings of road rage was not worth it. I let every car in and was really patient at every stop sign as if to prove to the driving community that I was not myself back there. I think I will go back to congratulating myself for rising above in the future.
by admin on October 11, 2011
Here’s a piece of advice for the next time you give someone a wedding gift cheque (or check for all you Americans): Make the cheque out to only one of the two people getting married, and please for the love of God do not put the bride’s supposed married name on it.
We had to go to the bank twice and talk to 4 different people before we were able to deposit the cheques we got for our wedding. We were told that depositing cheques with two names on them in an account that only belonged to one of us was not allowed. Some years ago, you could double endorse a cheque to allow your new spouse to deposit it but as it turns out that is no longer the case. Couples that get married now have no choice but to open up a joint account just to be able to get the gift money they received – either that, or as it turned out they can use an automatic bank machine, because despite what the tellers told us, no one actually seemed to give a damn about which and how many names were on the cheques.
We went to TD and stood in line to talk to a teller about depositing cheques into my account. Greg came with me to find out what he need to do to endorse the cheques to me. As it turned out, there was nothing he could do, we had to add Greg onto the account. Of course the teller cannot add another person onto an existing account. He sent us off to the customer service desk. And of course the customer service desk is not where you add another person to an account either, they are just there to call the account manager for us. Finally, the person who can help came out to take us to his office. After he added Greg to the account, we asked him to deposit the cheques. But of course, his job is not depositing cheques, only the teller can do that. So back in line we go to deal with yet another bank employee.
Four people and what felt like the same number of hours later we were finally done. Only to be able to deposit a cheque made out to both of us into Greg’s account using an ATM machine the very next day. That took a whole of 5 seconds and no issues regarding my name being on there. Makes me wonder just how much checking was done on these cheques.
Lessons Learned:
#1
Despite repeated claims that they make banking easy, banks’ main goal is still to make your life miserable
#2
Signing a card “Congratulations to <groom’s first name> and <bride’s first name> <groom’s last name>” == O.K.
Signing a cheque “To <groom’s first name> and <bride’s first name> <groom’s last name>” != O.K.
by admin on September 7, 2011
This past weekend we finally had our wedding in Atlantis Pavilion, and I’m happy to report that despite all the planning problems we had with them, on the day-of the staff and venue were great. Tristan was the venue manager who was working on the day of the wedding and he was great – I wish we would’ve dealt with him all along.
We had some last minute guest changes and we needed to change up the meals and Atlantis took care of it no problem. Everyone was very helpful and very accommodating, from the waiters to the managers. The food was very good too, we got a lot of compliments on it.
There was only one issue with the late night food – we asked the late night food to be served on platters to each table but they ended up serving it on the side station anyway. I’m not sure whose mistake that was, but overall that was really not a big deal.
The weather ruined our plan of a ceremony on the rooftop overlooking Lake Ontario. But at least it held off long enough that we were able to get some good photographs and take advantage of the amazing location. Atlantis pavilion has the combined view of the lake, the Toronto skyline and the EX all in one. It was breathtaking.
The ceremony itself went off smoothly. Greg played two roles – that of the groom and that of the comedian. Making guests laugh in between the “awww”s. At least it kept me from crying.
One of our close friends volunteered her services as the day-of planner and she was wonderful. I did not imagine how much work it would be until I saw her running around all night long. I could not be more grateful. All our friends and family made our wedding into the wonderful event that it was and the day went by really quickly. Too quickly. Now we get to sit back, relax and reminisce over picture when we finally get them.
Oh. And I can get back to updating this blog on a regular basis!
by admin on August 4, 2011
We booked our wedding at Atlantis Pavilion at Ontario Place because of the gorgeous space and view and the great reviews online. Our wedding is a month away now and I feel very disappointed with the Atlantis customer service so far. I hope the actual day of our wedding will go more smoothly.
They already screwed up a couple times, first putting down the wrong time for our ceremony and then when we corrected them they neglected to check whether the room we were booking was still available – which we later found out wasn’t. We had to push our start time by half an hour and we were able to book the rooftop (which originally we were told wasn’t available). Even though it all worked out at the end, it was added hassle and stress to something that already has plenty of both. They also screwed up a couple meeting times, scheduling them and then needing to cancel and reschedule because it turned out that Atlantis Pavilion would be closed at that time.
When we first booked with Atlantis customer service seemed great. We loved how flexible they were. They said that it isn’t a problem to extend the dinner service and make the time between courses longer which is something we want to do, that we didn’t need to make a decision on the menu until later on, and that basically whatever we want is fine, they’re there to serve us.
Now that it’s time to actually narrow down the details we have to fight for every single item, suddenly we are being told that they don’t like changing the service time even though that was one of the main reasons we went with Atlantis pavilion – originally we met with other venues that said they can’t delay the service and we didn’t book them.
The menu is a problem too, originally we were told that we just need to pick an approximate menu and we can change it later once we know more details, now we’re being told that we need to pay extra for changing the menu options and that the menu we picked on a whim is what we’re stuck with.
When we booked with them originally I thought they were very accommodating, but now it looks like they will tell you whatever you want to hear in order to get you to book with them and then try to do whatever is convenient for them anyway. My advice if you book this space, is make sure to get everything in writing, even the small questions that you aren’t sure about. I’m just happy that a lot of our discussions were done online so at least we have emails to prove what was said.
by admin on June 22, 2011
So Greg and I have settled on going to Scotland on our honeymoon. I found this neat site called Secret Scotland which provides customized step-by-step itineraries when you email them what you want to see and do and for how long. Secret Scotland also lists many pre-planned itineraries that cost about as much as a guide book but are much more specific.
Seeing as we have just under 3 months left before our honeymoon, I emailed the website people to ask about this customized tour idea and I mentioned that one of the things we’d like to do is visit distilleries and try Scotch from an area called Islay.
The very next day I got a reply from a Mike. He seems nice and very knowledgeable and best of all based on the things I described that I wanted to do/see he made some recommendations as to where we might want to be spending our time. And then he added, in the nicest way possible, that when in Scotland I should call it “Whisky” as people might wince if I call it “Scotch”.
And no, Whisky is not a typo. That’s how the Scots spell it.
