From the May 15th edition of the Las Vegas Penny Press

I had an interesting conversation with one of my co-workers who used to live in Las Vegas but moved back to upstate New York at the end of 2003.  She saw a story on TV about a neighborhood in Las Vegas that only had two people living in it.  The rest of the houses had been repossessed and were vacant.  The two remaining residents were keeping up appearances on the unoccupied homes, picking up trash and keeping lawns cut and weeds at bay.  They figured if they didn't do it, the other homes would never sell and their homes would be worthless.
The New Yorker asked if things were really that bad.  I told her that every block in our neighborhood had anywhere from two to five houses with For Sale signs, and probably half of them with those two horrible words, Bank Owned.  I doubt most of those houses were for sale by choice.  She's not seeing that phenomenon in upstate New York and was shocked that the Vegas housing bubble burst so horribly.  I knew it was pretty bad.
I just found out how really bad this weekend.
I sat down with a friend of my wife showing them the houses we were considering in our move to the north.  I then looked up houses in our neighborhood, floored by the fact that there was a huge divide.  Some houses were asking over $200K, but there were a handful of houses listed at between $75k and $125k.  In most every case, the friend knew the houses and said they had been on the market for quite some time, anywhere from one to three years!
...and they're still building new houses?  Why???
Make no mistake about this, conditions will improve, but those people wanting to liquidate will need to either be patient or be ready to take a bath!

By the way, I also heard from a friend that many of these big project construction workers don't plan to stay here.  As soon as they're done, they're heading back home.  No word on where exactly home is, but....

Kudos to KVBCand their piece on slum lords.  I can tell you that the former manager of one of the properties involved did, in fact, intentionally seek out undocumented immigrants as tenants, get them into the property, jack up their rent, not provide any services or maintenance, and then tell them if they didn't shut up and stop complaining they'd find Immigration agents on their doorstep. 
He wasn't a nice guy.
Oh, you KNOW there were some more absolutely awful places out there.  Unfortunately this will probably be as close to a major expose as you'll see.  Sad.

Looks like Bob Barr has made it official:  he's seeking the nomination for the Libertarian Party Presidential candidacy.  Right now he's moved to the top of my list of candidates, passing current number one None of the Above.  In a total field of “buy your vote” candidates, Barr should stand head and shoulders above the rest. 
Instead, the mainstream marginalizes him for – get this – getting into the race too late. 
I kid you not.
Ignore the entire political platform of a candidate simply because he didn't make an 18-month game of seeking the nomination?  But, then, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.  After all, this is the same mainstream media that doesn't get there will be floor fights at both conventions as well as likely rioting in Denver.
Both mainstream political parties have managed to make themselves as relevant as last night's monologue.
Monologues don't fix nations.  Actions do.  None of the mainstream party candidates have a prayer of doing anything to move us forward.  Bob Barr at least stands for something.

Our esteemed publisher got to sit down with the family this last week to chat and learned that our Bubba Brown is quite the conversationalist.  He seems to think he could be a political candidate when he gets older and wants to run his campaign.  We'll see if Bubba can manage to keep his nose clean long enough to become a contender...

Quick plug for something that the family really enjoyed this weekend – the Pinball Hall of Fame.
It's not glitzy, not fancy, but it's lots of fun, and it's all for a good cause.  It's an honest-to-goodness 501(c)3 Non-profit organization, where everything above the hard expenses (electricity, rent, insurance, parts) and endowment contributions, are donated to the Salvation Army.  Copies of five-figure checks hang proudly on the wall as a symbol of the good these so-called “instruments of the devil” are. 
They're located on the Northwest corner of Pecos and Tropicana, next to the movie theaters. Admission is free, and a roll of quarters will keep you occupied for hours.  Certainly longer than your local casino, and a whole lot more fun!
Wyatt Cox is all about the fun.  Except when he's serious.  Check out the pinball museum at pinballmuseum.org and Wyatt at rant.wyattcox.net

From the May 8th edition of the Las Vegas Penny Press

Though I've fallen far of the health wagon these days, I still try to live my life healthier now than in years past.  Something I learned even years before my massive weight loss in 2005 was to avoid artificial additives and substitutes in your foods.  I moved away from margarine to butter in the 70's, swimming against the trend then for the "healthier" spreads.  Turns out natural butter is better than any of the man-made substitutes.
The same thing applies to what you drink.
Years ago, around 1984 according to some sources, to battle the high price of real sugar, the soft drink industry adopted the use of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) as a sweetener.  If you do an internet search on that, you'll find a high number of sights that decry the sweetener (except for one, industry-run website) as being wholly unhealthy.  Though the scientists would dismiss the conclusion as anecdotal, obesity rates and incidents of diabetes rose dramatically following the introduction of this sugar substitute which, unlike others like Splenda and Equal, is not calorie reduced. 
Critics claim that the body cannot properly digest HFCS, read it as a fat instead of a carbohydrate, and increase the blood sugar.  
Don't get me started on the poisons that are Splenda and Equal.  Both are bad for you.  Splenda is little more than Chlorinated sugar, and Equal is not only believed to be a carcinogen, a number of people have allergic reactions to it, myself included. 
Your best bet is to stick to the real thing, sugar and honey, in moderation.  Oh, Stevia is believed to be safe, but since it's not patentable, you'll never see it get widespread acceptance.

The point of my sweetener rant is to give props to two companies who apparently "get it" and are dispensing with the High Fructose Corn Syrup.
Walgreens, through their Deerfield Farms brand, has introduced a line of soft drinks in -- get this -- glass bottles!  The drinks are HFCS free, using real sugar to sweeten them.  Beware the diet drinks though, as they insist on using Splenda.  Up until now the only option for soft drinks were a couple of Mexican brands that haven't bowed to the pressure from El Norte to move to HFCS.  Now, there's a real alternative at a reasonable price.
The Sobe line of drinks is also abandoning the use of HFCS in many of it's drinks once existing stocks sell through.  Already their all-natural green tea and energy drinks are on store shelves with sugar.  There are also some stores stocking the imported-from-Mexico Coke with real sugar!  It makes a difference in how you feel and how it tastes. 
Don't take my word for it.  Compare the two sometime and see what I mean.

A follow-up to my story last week on Wal-Mart:
The corporation, in their attempt to drive smaller pharmacies out of business, has increased their cut-rate prescription plan.
This is good news to many Americans without prescription drug coverage, but bad news to the smaller drug chains and independent pharmacies who can't buy their drugs wholesale for what Wal-Mart is selling them for.
Highlights from their new plan:
Offering 90 day supplies of 350 selected generic drugs for $10
Dropping the price of a number of medications for women to $9 for a 30 day supply, including some to treat breast cancer and hormone deficiency
Dropping a number of over-the-counter medications selling at $7 and above to $4
Wal-Mart is using this as a loss-leader to get you into the store, make no mistake about that.  The company's CEO made that clear when asked if the company would offer free generic drugs at their in-store clinics opening now as other companies have.  "We're in business to make money.  Free is a price that is not a long-term sustainable position."
Neither is selling prescriptions below cost.  I wonder what sweetheart deal that Wal-Mart has with drugmakers.  For that matter, I wonder exactly where these cheap drugs are coming from?
Hmmmm....

Wyatt Cox sometimes wonders too much.  Occasionally he wanders too much.  Wander by rant.wyattcox.net and comment on this and other articles.

From the May 1 edition of the Las Vegas Penny Press

I don't know if I can blame this on advancing age or just not paying attention, but before I started writing this column, I was trying to remember the lineage of grocery stores that occupied the empty building on the southwest corner of Charleston and Lamb.  I remember Albertson's and Food4Less being in that building, and think there was at least another occupant there in the last seven years we've been in the neighborhood.  Eventually Food4Less closed the store, ostensibly because it was too close to it's stores at Bonanza and Lamb & Nellis and Sahara.  They competed against a full service Vons on the northeast corner of Charleston and Lamb.  It appeared that Vons couldn't -- or wouldn't -- compete with the discount store and retrenched, cutting back services and hours.    When the Food4Less closed, Vons went back to 24 hours and restored deli and bakery services it had cut back. 
Then we saw a new player coming into the neighborhood.
The Arkansas mob moved in, with one of their "Wal-Mart Neighborhood Markets". 
You know the drill.  Move in, undercut the neighborhood businesses, run them out, and then  hike prices and cut services. 
And they did just that.
Opening as a 24 hour operation, the center worked hard to win business from Vons in their time-honored tradition. 
Vons seemingly didn't care, cut hours, closed the bakery and deli, and eventually closed the store last November.  Vons closed their other store near where we live at Nellis and Sahara, also under pressure from Food4Less.  Vons claimed that the stores weren't in their types of neighborhoods and were older stores.   (I guess that explains why the new grocery chain Fresh and Easy is opening near that store they closed...)
Wal-Mart immediately responded with price hikes across the store, and just this week announced plans to cut hours of operation.  I guess the competition of Food4Less a half mile away is just too much for them. 
Surely Wal-Mart wouldn't just want to come in, undercut a competitor, run them out of the neighborhood, and then screw the neighborhood, would they?
Oh stop laughing!
Sarcasm aside, this is just a small example on a microscopic level of how Wal-Mart has killed much small town America.  
Now they're working on destroying neighborhoods, all in the name of "low prices everyday"...until all the competition is gone, anyway.

The continuing flap over Rev. Wright and his over the top proclamations continues to cause a stir in the media.  In fact, Wright's appearances over the weekend on talk shows and at the National Press Club on Monday are doing nothing to help the Obama camp.  In fact Obama finally repudiated some of the statements made by the minister on Tuesday and was slated to address the issues completely after press time on Wednesday.  Whatever statements he makes now will almost be like Bill Clinton's admission that he did have sexual relations with that woman; once you do a 180, a lot of people won't ever believe you again. 
Meanwhile, Dick Morris on the FoxNews.com website writes that there is a good reason that Hillary is continuing to run.  It's that whole "scorched earth" scenario that Bill and Hill just love.  Morris says the Clinton's want Obama weakened so badly that he loses to McCain badly.  That would open up her options for a nearly unchallenged 2012 bid. 
Do I believe that?  Well considering how much Bill and Hill failed to support their 2004 nominee...
You damn betcha!
Once more, it demonstrates the political corruptness of the Clinton camp.  As I said earlier this week on my radio show, of the "big three" it looks like the best of the lot is still Hillary, and that makes my default choice "None of the Above"

The Nevada Republican party machine dramatically underestimated the power of the people when it came to the Ron Paul delegates.  Bob Beers and others were totally frustrated by the elected delegates not doing what they were told.  They had this foolish idea that political parties are democratic processes, when in fact they haven't been for nearly 120 years. 
Paul supporters won't go away without a fight, though.  While others are betting even money on the prospects of riots at the Democratic National Convention, expect at least one significant floor fight at each of the major party gatherings. 
The Clinton-Obama factions have already proven their inability to coexist at the local and state levels.  No doubt they'll continue their fight on the floor.
Meanwhile, the Paul supporters are going to insist on more of their ideals represented on the platform of the non-reformer McCain.  Perhaps John should call Newt and get some hints on a new "Contract"-like platform.  With something like that to hang his hat on, it could motivate Conservatives to get out to the polls. 
Otherwise, they're screwed.

Wyatt Cox's contract with the readers is to provide a page of reading every week that furthers the principles of the Constitution...or half-naked pictures of Miley Cyrus. Visit rant.wyattcox.net, but don't expect any celebrity photography! (He leaves that to Perez Hilton.)

From the March 24, 2008 edition of the Las Vegas Penny Press

I've never seen the Chinese propaganda machine more effective.
CNN's Jack Cafferty found himself the target of the machine because of his comments during Wolf Blitzer's The Situation Room on April 9th.
Here's the quote that got him into hot water, speaking about our nation's relationship with China:


Exactly what did Cafferty say that was wrong?  Well, apart from not making it totally clear that he was talking about the Chinese government, and not the Chinese people?
Whatever it was, it stirred up a few thousand Chinese Americans, resident aliens, and others (illegals from China?) to protest outside the CNN Hollywood bureau demanding Cafferty's head on a platter -- or at least his dismissal.
The furor comes at a time when Beijing's propaganda machine is furiously spinning to knock down criticism of the Chinese government's handling of the Tibetan crisis.
Tibet, not unlike Taiwan, believes it should be an independent country.  China continues to fight to ensure that both nations remain a part of China.
(If this were the US, and a state, oh let's say California, wanted to be an independent nation, I'd be all for it.  Of course, the fence would go up, and there would be no foreign aid.  Other than that....)
Make no mistake about it, the Chinese government doesn't give a damn about human rights, about the Chinese people, or anyone else in the world.  They only care about creating their own fiefdom to run as they please, and anyone who interferes falls straight in their crosshairs. 
Fortunately the Chinese propaganda machine has failed to “Take-out” Cafferty, but they are learning valuable lessons in the process.  They have learned, however, from the African-American community how to play the "race card" in claiming that Cafferty's comments are racist in nature.  Our growing reluctance to criticize anyone's ability for fear of being labeled racist is one significant fallout from this election cycle.

Speaking of bad entertainers...

You no doubt heard about the WWE suckering the Democratic and Republican candidates to appear on this week's Monday Night Raw TV show. 
Among the highlights:  Hillary referring to herself as "Hillrod", Obama throwing out the line, "if you smell what Barack is cooking", and John McCain channeling both Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan with references to Flair's "to be the man, you have to beat the man," and Hogan's "whatcha gonna do when the McCainiacs run wild over you".
Then the WWE brought out two of their trainees to appear in costume as Barack and Hillary, with a legit Bill Clinton impersonator coming out.
Thankfully, the "match" was ended by the WWE's "Samoan bulldozer" Umaga, who frightened Bill off and demolished Obama and Hillary.  I wonder if he's registered to vote?
Of course, all this is malarkey.  It's a denigration of the once powerful being used in a shameless fashion.  But these days, we shouldn't be surprised.
After all, the WWE is much better than this.

Sad news from the music world.  One day after his 60th birthday, songwriter and soft-rocker Paul Davis passed away on Tuesday.
Hits like Ride 'Em Cowboy, I Go Crazy, Sweet Life, Cool Night, and '65 Love Affair have entrenched him in the music scene to this day. 
I Go Crazy was a huge hit, spending 40 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, at the time a record. 
David retired from recording after making Cool Night, and '65 Love Affair with the exception of a couple of collaborations in 1986 with Marie Osmond and in 1988 with Tanya Tucker and Paul Overstreet.
His music spawned the “soft rock” sound that all but replaced easy listening music on radio stations coast to coast.  He died of a heart attack at Rush Foundation Hospital in Meridian, Mississippi.
I hope he did indeed have that sweet life....

I leave you with this thought.
Bush's approval rating is at 29%.  Congress is at 25%.
Given that the people want change, and that all three of the main candidates are out of Congress, how can the American people expect any improvement. 
That's like taking a job away from a "B" student, and giving the job – along with a raise - to a "D" student. 

I guess I should be flattered.

Our months-old pair of McDonalds rants which I recently posted on our blog site (rant.wyattcox.net) apparently got the attention of someone.

Dale Wolf grabbed significant parts of our piece and reprinted them over at his blog.

Although he did "sanitize" some of my less politically incorrect observations, probably because he didn't want to address them, he did get the story as I wrote it pretty much right.

Two points that I would like to correct.

1) He misread--dramatically--the discussion of the internal McDonald's Memorandum regarding Customer Service. He claimed in his text that the number of complaints to McDonald's customer contact number was "20.1 per 100,000 callers" at corporate stores, and "12 per 100,000 callers" at franchise locations. I bet McDonald's wishes they were that low. The actual figures were "20.1 per 100,000 guests" at corporate stores, and "12 per 100,000 guests" at franchise locations. That is no doubt a huge difference. Routinely, only the most upset guests will ever call the line seeking help from corporate. More often than not, they'll just walk away and tell a hundred friends about their bad experience.

2) McDonald's is pretending that this leaked report doesn't exist. While I quote the original story and a quote that the original reporter got from a McDonald's spokesperson, the folks at the Golden Arches never responded to repeated emails and phone calls seeking comment.

Further, if this was just an isolated incident, I would probably be willing to just "blow it off" and move on. This, however, was my wife's second bad experience with this manager, one of several at this location, and another of an ongoing number of substandard experiences with McDonald's. Our expectations have never been horribly high -- adequate food, prompt service, and a somewhat reasonable price -- and routinely we are disappointed at most every location!

To date I maintain that McDonald's is suffering from "We don't give a damn-itis".

1) People at the counter increasingly do NOT speak English, nor do they seem to be able to attempt to do the little things like read your order back to ensure that they have it right.

2) Seldom do the McDonald's near me have more than one register open and always have long lines. (Note that I look in to see, I still am not going there) Wait and service times are far longer than the "60 second service" that Ray Kroc used to set as the standard.

3) Corporate continues to move far beyond their core business and add things that don't enhance their business and lengthen wait times for the rest of the customers.

Mr. Wolf, I understand that the perfect customer experience is a ideal that is rarely achieved. I also know that I continue to visit Jack In The Box (which increasingly has more non-English speakers but they are trying to help me), Burger King (which has had it's moments but seem to, be getting better), and Wendys (which I would visit more if they had locations more in my neighborhood), and they all have problems, but they do not consistently annoy like McDonalds.

Mr. Wolf, I encourage you to rerun the metrics, see if you can actually get someone from McDonalds to talk to you, and then, let's talk again.

Maybe you can give them some solutions.

Maybe they'll listen.

I doubt it.

The National Association of Broadcasters annual Las Vegas get together concludes today, and once again, my fellow broadcasters haven't a clue.

Their new slogan, "Radio Heard Here" means nothing.

I worked here in Las Vegas for some time, and could tell you about a period where our little AM station was Destination Listening for a few hundred people daily. We gave people a reason to call, to listen, to participate, to get, involved.

And to tell their friends.

The failure of local radio to become Destination Listening is why the industry is perceived as failing.

The truth is, the failure is occurring in major cities, where there are far too many people to make that intimate connection, and where owners either don't understand how, or are unwilling to make the commitment to making their station the most important thing in their listeners lives.

Smaller markets understand how to do that. Relating to listeners on a totally local level. Reporting on and talking about the local events that won't change the world, but affect their world.

I know, school lunch menus and local birthdays aren't the fodder of big city radio. It won't work.

Just ask Ron Chapman, who took a daytime only radio station and a low powered FM in Dallas and made it number one for years. When the big boys bought it and homogenized it, Chapman retired and the station now languishes.

Keep it interesting and relevant to your listeners, and you will succeed. Compromise, like most of today's big broadcasters have, and you will not succeed.

A question for you: If there was a disaster in Las Vegas today, where would you turn first to find out what was going on? Go to rant.wyattcox.net to add your comments. Be honest and let me know what you think. I'll pass along your comments and tell you the story of a couple of events in the 12 years I've lived here that may interest you in a future issue

They're at it again...
The big globalists are looking to move more jobs out of America at your expense through yet another moronic free trade agreement.
This one isn't just with another country, though.
The name of this act is the Columbia Free Trade Agreement.
Look at our history with Columbia.  The Medellín drug cartel was the best known, but numerous cartels still exist.  They all but control the nation. 
And we want to do business with them?
Why not just sell more weapons to Iran.  It makes as much sense.

The president and his supporters claim that this will give US companies a “competitive advantage”, provide new opportunities for U.S. "businesses, manufacturers, farmers and ranchers," and provide Colombia with "permanent access to the U.S. market, which will aid in sustaining real growth, creating more jobs and attracting new investment," according to John Veroneau, deputy U.S. Trade Representative.
On Monday the president said, “This agreement will advance America's national security interests in a critical region. It will strengthen a courageous ally in our hemisphere. It will help America's economy and America's workers at a vital time. It deserves bipartisan support from the United States Congress.”
Fat chance.
Already this horrible deal has split America's family, the Clintons.  Bill is stumping for it, with Hillary opposing the deal.  Dare I say it:  I agree with Hillary!  In fact this trade agreement is a part of the reason that Hillary showed senior campaign strategist Mark Penn the door.  It seems, according to the Wall Street Journal, that Penn met with Columbia's ambassador to the US to discuss promotion of the agreement.  Furious that Penn would openly oppose her, Penn was “asked to give up his role” in the campaign according to campaign manager Maggie Williams.
 
Lori Wallach over at Public Citizen points out some significant flaws:
The biggest problem with this agreement is that it will probably lead to even moredrug production in Columbia!  What?  The Washington Post editorial board warned in February 2006 that the “rural
dislocation that would follow from ending all protection for Colombian farmers could undermine the
government’s efforts to pacify the countryside. If farmers can’t grow rice, they are more likely to grow coca.”
Quoting another press release from Public Citizen, we have good reason to fear more drug production after this agreement passes:

Finally, what benefits do we really get from doing business with Columbia?
The IMF Economic Indicators published on September 2006, forecast the Colombian GDP to reach US$156.69 billion in 2008.   Unemployment is near 12%.  The CIA factbook puts the average household income at $7200 a year.  Accoring to the International Monetary Fund report dated January 29, 2007,  “the authorities aim to reduce the poverty rate to 39 percent by 2010 and to 15 percent by 2019 while improving income equality.”

Does this really sound like much of a market for our goods?  Or could this be the new China?

Wyatt Cox, rant.wyattcox.net

Here we go, Mama & Liam!



More to come later!

Just to update you all on our situation here, a shocker:

He's here!!!

General Stupidity can ruin your whole day...

Honestly, I've been trying to keep people from pissing me off.  I should be really happy with the Peanut's arrival just days away.
But stupid people just keep giving me heartburn.
Here's just a selection of what's pushing my buttons:

1) When you hear a siren or see flashing lights, don't just stop in the middle of the street, pull over and get out of the emergency vehicle's way!  More than once I've seen a line of vehicles come to a dead stop in the middle of the street blocking emergency vehicles, forcing them to take dangerous actions to get around them or just lay on the air horn to get them out of the way.  If you can't figure it out, it's this simple:  move it or lose it!
2) There is a white line ahead of the crosswalk in the intersection.  You are supposed to stop at that line, not half way across the crosswalk.  I can't begin to tell you how many times other parents, crossing guards, and myself have screamed at drivers to move back so our kids can get across the street safely.  I've contemplated taking my baseball bat with me to explain where the line is with some forceful punctuation!
3) So that you fully understand, it is right turn on red after stop.  That doesn't mean right turn on red after slowing down to the speed limit just before screeching around the corner.  Once again, I can't tell you how many times Bubba Brown and I have almost gotten taken out by a driver trying to beat the traffic through a light that just turned red and ours to cross the other way turned green.  Baseball bat time again. 
4) It amazes me how many people are offensive, rather than defensive drivers.  Their attitude is one of get the hell out of my way, I'm more important than you.  No, you're not.  That attitude makes you an accident looking for a place to happen.
5) When you're driving, drive.  Don't BS with passengers or your friends or significant other on the phone, be-bop to music, change the radio station or the CD. Drive.  If you have to do any of that, stop the car and do it, then drive.  While you're there, in the words of Julia Stiles in 10 Things I Hate About You, "Remove head from sphincter, then drive."
6) Read the traffic signs.  All of them.  Metro makes a small fortune from the people who are too broke to pay attention at Nellis and Charleston and illegally U-turn there.  It cost one friend between the fines and court costs $250.  periodically Metro puts two motorcycle cops at that corner and they easily catch a dozen an hour if not more.
7) Will it kill you to be civil?  How much effort does it take to smile at someone?   Honestly, I know the economy is in the dumper and things are generally crappy now, but I fail to understand the nasty attitude that virtually everyone has these days.  That includes a grouping of people that I never had a serious complaint about until now:  senior citizens.  Honestly, the nasty and incivility bug used to be limited to the young, the foreign-born, and people of color, but these days it seems to be universal.  No one wants to be remotely nice. 

The majority of CAT drivers are civil and polite, but there are a growing number of them who are turning out to have received their customer service training from McDonalds, as in, screw you, you get it our way or not at all.  Our favorite lousy CAT driver, who my wife and I nicknamed Grizzly Adams, continues to louse up the Nellis bus route.  Now we found yet another driver on Charleston who has proceeded to make service on CAT as intolerable as Mr. Adams.
Last week this new driver, a person of color, had a bus with a non-working stop bell.  My 8 1/2 month pregnant wife didn't know this until she tried to ring the bell and the driver didn't stop.  She called out the the driver to stop and was rewarded with a "too bad, you have to wait until the next stop."  Other drivers in that situation will apologize and stop immediately.  Not this piece of human debris. 
CAT, is it too much to ask of you to do what some of your drivers do to protect your interests in keeping middle-class people riding the buses?  Namely:
1) Insist that elderly, disabled, pregnant and passengers with small children are seated before moving the buses.  I guarantee that you are going to see a lawsuit over this if you don't address this with some of your drivers.
2)    Insist that rowdy passengers are ejected from the bus if they are disturbing passengers.
3)    Call a supervisor if you can't handle it. That's what they're there for. 
I think I'll post my original McDonalds rant up this week on the web site so those of you who wonder why I bring up McDonalds as a paragon of lousy customer service.  We don't miss them.  Check our site out at rant.wyattcox.net and let us know what pisses you off...

(Note:  I promised in this week's Penny Press column that I would revisit my classic McDonald's rant.  For those of you not reading almost two years ago, here you go...)

They Love To Fail

I was recently asked by one of my affiliate stations if I would consider
restarting my old Dollar Sense radio show. I did this show for a couple of
years on the old Sun Radio Network in the early 90’s and it was generally
well received where it aired.
The premise of the show was that there was s symbiotic relationship
between Consumers and Businesses. They need one another to survive. We
addressed the problems that consumers had with businesses, and the problems
that Businesses had in dealing with consumers, specifically customer
service and being effective. While I enjoyed helping listeners, resolve their
consumer issues, I truly enjoyed helping businesses understand why consumers
were upset. We would have guests who explained the dynamics of
good customer service, how to answer phones in an effective manner, and
how to deal with problem customer and the employees that create them.
I’ve had far too many problems with the latter in the past few weeks to
count.
Just last week, in fact.
I brought my wife home a single red rose to lift her spirits. She was
delighted. I remember we had a bud vase at home, but between her cats
and the 5 year old it was no longer. So where do you go to get a bud vase
at midnight?
Wal-Mart, of course!
We hadn’t had dinner yet, and thinking we’d kill two birds with one
stone, suggested that we eat at the all-night diner across the street. My wife
blanched, reminding me of our last visit there, when we waited 30 minutes
with no one else in the restaurant for someone to wait on us. When we were
finally waited on with no apology or kindness, we left.
My wife suggested, since we were already going to Wal-Mart, we could
eat at the 24 hour McDonalds in the store. I grudgingly agreed, not knowing
that by the time the evening was over, we would regret the decision.
As we waited, the shift manager was taking orders. My wife flinched,
saying the last time she was there he mixed up her order. I told her (in a
voice probably too loud) “Don’t worry, I’ll speak slowly.” I ordered my
wife’s fish filet sandwich with lettuce, onions, and tomato with fries and my
cheeseburger plain. He then proceeded to thoroughly confuse the order. I
patiently untangled his mess, paid for the order, and received no thank you,
no acknowledgement at all!
Five minutes went by, then ten minutes. There were no other orders,
and I was wondering if the steer had to be killed and the fish caught, when
our order finally came up.
My double cheeseburger was fine. After all, how can you mess that
up.?
My wife’s order, though, was a different story. The French fries contained
a pound of salt, the filet was not golden brown, but dark brown and
could have been used as a brick, and the tomato was vintage 2002.
The shift manager argued, bickered, and eventually and grudgingly gave
my wife a refund.
We then went to Smiths, bought a frozen dinner, and went home.
The sad part is, most people would say that these are minimum wage
employees. But this was a shift manager, making well above minimum
wage. His salary wasn’t the problem. I know that we have problems in my
full time job hiring drug-free qualified employees without attitudes at any
wage.
I told this story on my radio show, pointing out that McDonalds spends
millions of dollars a week convincing people to come into their restaurants,
and that this one employee earned them eleven minutes of bad publicity
on a nationally syndicated radio show. I further pointed out that for every
Wyatt Cox that has a problem like mine, there are hundreds of thousands of
people who have the same experience or worse, and walk away in disgust
and will never go back.
Who is to blame? Beats me. I could claim it’s the horrible employee,
or his management who hasn’t made high level priority customer service a
job requirement. Or it could be me for making the assumption that a billion
dollar company might actually give a flip about the people who do business
at their establishment.
Or I could blame Society. But then, I’m not a liberal.
Still, people seem to not give a damn these days about their jobs.
Motivating people to do their best at work isn’t easy. I encounter that
problem daily. And if I’m having that problem, how many other employers
are?
When I was younger, being out of work was something I feared. Being
employed and doing a good job and getting promoted was always top of
mind to me. For some reason it’s not anymore.
I guess the bottom line is, people don’t care. Why should I?
Because I was raised right. Because America is Excellence. Because I
am an American. Because of that, I must excel.
Too many people are not only NOT afraid to fail, they live for it, and
fail themselves daily.
Want proof? Watch Jerry Springer.

WYATT COX

...and our Follow-up Rant

Well, I doubt that my rants on air or in print had much to do with it, but a new report shows McDonald's service lacking. The source: McDonalds itself!

It seems that McDonalds emailed a report to it's franchisees entitled “Loud and Clear; The Voice Of The Customer”. Apparently a copy of that report got into the hands of an unidentified Associated Press reporter who ran with the story.

Among the report's findings, compiled from the more than half a million complaints lodged at McDonald's customer contact center last year:

• Customer complaints were up at both company owned and franchise locations; 20.1 per 100,000 guests at company stores, 12 per 100,000 guests at franchisees.
• Tops on the complaint list was "transactional accuracy"-wrong items, missing items, badly prepared items, (sound familiar?) mischarging and the like. This category accounted for roughly a quarter of the complaints.
• About 15 percent of the complaints were for "rude and unprofessional service", (Deja vu all over again!) with "speed of service" coming in third (and completing our trifecta) with about 7 percent.
• Calls of praise or appreciation totaled 5 to 7 percent according to the report. For a retail business that's a high number; based on my recent negative experiences with McDonald's it should be considered nothing short of a miracle.

McDonald's Bill Whitman wouldn't comment much on the document to the Associated Press reporter other than to label this an internal document and to state while customer feedback isn't "always what we like to hear, it's information we need to do a better job".

But are they listening?

CNBC's Hampton Pearson spoke with Chris Denove over at JD power and associates -- the big "Customer Satisfaction" survey people who points to a trend to cut customer service to help the companies short term bottom line but not paying attention to the long-term implications of the cutbacks. Admittedly, the goal of a company is to make money, plain and simple, but some companies don't understand how much that "penny wise-pound foolish" attitude can cost them. It costs hundred of times less to keep a customer than to replace them. The implication is "To hell with the public, they'll take what we give them. Customer service is nice and all that, but it costs too much, so we're cutting back".

Great. More of the continuing Wal-marting of America.

Please understand, I am not opposed to open competition, but the outright low price and no service concept is not good for our nation. America excels due to good service. Do we honestly want to continue our "Race to the bottom" by crapping all over the people who truly pay the bills? It's not about branding, market segment, price point, or any of the other big buzzwords that the consultants spew. It's about a decent product at a decent price served by someone who at least acts happy to have their job and doesn't wear their resentment on their sleeve as a badge of honor. Give me five exceptional employees and I'll give you the best business in America today. I doubt you'll find that many outstanding employees in any fast food business in this country. (Or even one with five employees that are literate in any language, much less English.)

Do you remember the move Back to the Future? There's a scene in it where a car pulls up to a service station in 1955 and a half dozen attendants come out and begin washing windows, checking tires, checking under the hood, and of course, filling the gas tank. People roared with laughter at this. In 1985! Now 20 years later we are two generations removed from true customer service at the gas pump. Is there a real service station left in America?

JD Power's Denove says that companies need to look at customer service not as an expense, but as a capital investment. By looking at it as a long-term investment instead of a short-term expense, companies can understand how to make their bottom line grow, guaranteed. It's a strategy that McDonald's and Home Depot in particular need to examine closely. More on the Home Depot story in a future column.

Last week Bubba Brown wanted to go to McDonalds after he got out of kindergarten. I told him we weren't going back at all. He asked why, and I explained that the people at McDonalds were mean to his mommy and made her cry. He still doesn't understand it, but by the time I'm done, this boy will understand customer service in both getting and giving it.

Despite what the big corporations might think, it's the only true recipe for success in America today.