How Not To Do Customer Service

The Poscast with Joe Posnanski & Michael Schur is one of my favorite podcasts. I've listened to every single episode for many years. Posnanski is a sports writer, and I've read several of his books. Schur is best known for creating Parks and Recreation, The Good Place, and Man on the Inside among a long list of credits. So when they announced that they co-wrote a book, I was excited to read it. The pair promoted a specific independent bookstore that I will not mention here where you could purchase the book. All of the books would be autographed by the authors with limited edition versions signed by people like Ted Danson and Kristen Bell. On May 13th, I placed my order through the bookstore's online site.

After finishing the transaction, I received an email from the store indicating that the preorder had been processed and would be shipped upon the book's release. The book was released on Tuesday, May 19th, so I figured that I would receive an update with the status or a tracking number on or around that day. To date, 10 days later, I still have not received any information about the order status. And it's certainly not due to a lack of effort by me. Let's go to the timeline:

On Thursday, May 21st, I emailed the store's account for online orders asking about the status. No response.

On Sunday, May 24th, I emailed a general "contact us" account about the order status. No response.

On Monday, May 25th, I attempted to contact the store through its Facebook page. I received an automated message asking me to email a different account or call the store due to the high volume of messages the store receives. I sent an email to that email address on that day. No response.

On Tuesday, May 26th, I called the number from the Facebook message and was given a prompt for online orders. I left a voice message. No response.

On Thursday, May 28th, I called the store and actually talked to someone. I was told that the store essentially outsources its online store, so she could not see the status of my account. I was given the store's marketing email account and sent an email. No response.

So I have now sent four emails to four different email accounts, provided a message on Facebook, and left a voice message. I have not received a response, and the physical bookstore can't access my order. 

This really shouldn't be that difficult. I generally check out books from the library, but I figured this would be a fun book to own, particularly since I would get an autographed copy. While I truly want to support independent bookstores, I could have paid less to order from a giant company and received the book at least a week ago. Get it together!

J. Jonah Jameson, Dauber, and The Pope

There are several different subjects I want to write about, but this is an emergency. We have multiple celebrities wearing (or adjacent to) Pittsburgh gear. First, actors J.K. Simmons and Bill Fagerbakke threw out the first pitch at Wednesday's Pirates game. You know J.K. Simmons from his roles in the Spider-Man movies, the Farmer's Insurance commercials, and for his Oscar-winning performance in Whiplash. Such a disturbing yet thought-provoking film. Meanwhile, Bill Fagerbakke's name may not be familiar but his voice is. Yes, you may recognize him from being Dauber on Coach, but he's also the voice of Patrick Star on SpongeBob SquarePants.

Across the ocean a few weeks ago, leaders of Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, PA visited Pope Leo XIV in Rome and presented him with a Terrible Towel. The "American Pope" recognized the item and smiled. Although it doesn't appear that Pope Leo waved the Terrible Towel, he at least held it, so that counts as a celebrity in Pittsburgh gear in my book.

Please click here for more posts about celebrities in Pittsburgh gear posts.

Photos by the Pittsburgh Pirates and Vatican Media. Seems like it would be cool to work at Vatican Media!

Coming Clean

I have saved this story for several years, but I believe that the statute of limitations has expired. In the summer of 2022, we took a family trip to Niagara Falls, Toronto, Rochester, and Ithaca. Niagara Falls is absolutely stunning, and there’s so much to do in Toronto. We went to a Cirque du Soleil show, Blue Jays game, visited the Hockey Hall of Fame and Toronto zoo, and checked out a few museums. In Rochester, we saw some friends and went to The Strong National Museum of Play which is worth it particularly if you have younger kids. We went to Taughannock Falls outside Ithaca and toured my alma mater, Ithaca College.

Let me double check with my lawyers if I’m allowed to continue. Please hold.

I got the okay. We visited Ithaca on a summer weekend when the campus was completely empty. This was the first time my kids had been to Ithaca, so I was excited to show them around the campus. The bookstore was closed and many buildings were locked. I saw the Athletics and Events Center for the first time which made me a little jealous since that facility wasn’t there when I was a student. Maybe I would have actually gone to the gym to try to counterbalance late night Rogan’s pizza and D.P. Dough calzones. There were one or two staff members there, and we got kicked out since the building was closing. 

Finally, we wandered into the Whalen Center of Music. And we heard music. In one of the main concert halls, there were maybe 25 adults on stage. We didn’t know who they were, but we felt like we were intruding, so we listened from the outside for a few minutes before moving on. Except that I noticed a table with bags and coffee mugs. I figured this was nice memorabilia for people visiting the building, so I took one of each. 

I later learned that there was some sort of IC Band reunion with a performance later that night. So were the mug and bag for me? Probably not. Does the mug get used in our kitchen four years later? Yes it does!

I’ve included several pictures from the trip that have been saved for nearly 4 years. For example, you can enjoy this Canada Dry can on the ground close to Niagara Falls where it definitely is not dry!

My Updated Sports Betting Post

Remember a few months ago when I wrote a post about how I needed to stop sports gambling? Well, that has proved difficult. At the time, my excuse was that I didn’t want to delete the apps because I wanted to see the outcome of some season-long wagers. Would the Washington Wizards win over 20.5 games? No because the franchise purposely tanked in the attempt to get a better draft pick (and it worked!). Would Sidney Crosby have more points than Jack Hughes? No because Crosby got hurt during the Olympics and didn’t play in 2 of the final 3 games of the regular season to rest for the playoffs. Would the Portland Trailblazers make the playoffs? Hey, I got one right!

My next excuse was that I wanted to wait until I finished reading the book “Everybody Loses” by Danny Funt before deleting the FanDuel and DraftKings apps. The idea is that I would share parts of the book in a blog post in conjunction with stopping sports betting. Although I made the decision to stop following about a dozen people on Twitter who post almost exclusively about sports betting and their picks (and often want you to subscribe to get their best picks), I finished the book last month and still continued to bet.

Finally, on my birthday, I withdrew most of the money from my DraftKings and FanDuel accounts and deleted the apps. I understand that continuing to have a little bit of money (about $25) in each account means that I’m not totally done with sports betting. The sites often have promotions where if you make a $5 or $10 wager, you get 3 months of AppleTV or a full season of NBA Season Pass. Assuming that I make only the one bet to get the subscription, this is a good investment. Maybe not the best rationale, I know.

So what did I learn? If you bet a lot of money, and have success, sportsbooks* can and will limit the amount you wager. If you’re a VIP, sportsbooks will provide all types of incentives…as long as you continue to lose. Now, I don’t fall into either of these categories. As I mentioned in my previous post, most of my bets are $1. Still, I would make 10-20 wagers a day. While I ended up ahead, that’s a lot of time spent on the apps and probably more time following the bets and thinking about the next bets I wanted to make. The sportsbooks have few guardrails and offer little support. Sure, there’s fine print on commercials about addiction and when you login to the apps, a message appears with a phone number to contact if you have a gambling problem, but that’s there to give the sportsbooks some coverage. If you try to sue DraftKings for getting you addicted to sports gambling, they can point to the disclaimer. Of course, the books’ business models need you to continue to bet. It’s a conflict of interest for them to have you stop wagering. And how much are states using money they make from sportsbooks on helping people with gambling addictions? Not as much as they should, and that's probably being generous.

And gambling is addicting. You’re chasing money. You’re chasing the action. Even on my $1 bet, I’ll stick around to the end of an NBA game to see if a team covers a spread or follow a full baseball game to watch if the number of runs are over or under a certain amount. Sports leagues know this which is why they support gambling. Higher ratings mean more money from sponsors and for TV rights. Are the integrity of games under scrutiny? Absolutely. If there’s a bad call, people will wonder if the referee is getting paid by someone. Same if a player misses a tackle or drops a pass. Some players have been banned for making sports bets or throwing a ball to start an inning. While sportsbooks might say that they help track unusual action, and they probably do, they can’t catch everything. Sports leagues are trying to balance a fine line here. They want to say that the increased revenue from sports gambling is good for the leagues and partnering with sportsbooks helps find criminal elements. I mean, it's definitely good for the leagues' bottom lines. However, it's only a matter of time before something truly negative happens. Maybe it's something akin to the Black Sox scandal where members of the team were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series. 

Maybe it's some superstar that gets caught betting on his or her team. I worry that some disgruntled gambler who blames a player for a loss and physically assaults the player, the player's family, or damages the player's property. 

There's a societal issue here too. There are more bankruptcies in states that allow sports betting and who knows how many families and individuals have been hurt from gambling losses. I wrote in December that I’m really concerned about sports betting among teenagers and young adults and particularly my son The Moose who is now 15. He is obsessed with sports and spends way too much time on his phone, primarily following sports. That’s why I deleted the apps. When he turns 18 or 21, I can’t tell him not to gamble when I continue to have them on my phone. I just think of this PSA:

I understand that gambling isn't going away. Sportsbooks actively limiting the amount people wager would be helpful, meaning that they should know if their clients have the means to bet a certain amount. More money into helping people with gambling addictions and to study gambling would be great too. I just don't see this happening anytime soon.

* I’m using sportsbooks as a general term, primarily for sports betting apps. It’s incredibly easy to make bet after bet at any time using your phone. It’s much harder to make instant and impulsive bets if you have to go somewhere in-person.