Prometric: Why They Are Now On My 'Businesses That Suck' List

Greetings! I know it's been a long time but life happens.

Anyway, today's blog is about Prometric. Prometric is a testing center where you can take all of the major tests in your life and they also do electronic fingerprinting. Anyway, I experienced extremely poor customer service there this past weekend and I decided to blog about it.

Let me back up and say that in the past, I've had normal experiences with Prometric so I should be specific. The Prometric on Coit Rd. in Dallas, TX is the one that this entry is about.

On Thursday or Friday (7/ 21 or 7/22) I went online, scheduled, and pre-paid an electronic fingerprinting appointment at this particular Prometric. The appointment was for 10:00 am that Saturday (7/23). I awoke that morning and made it to the location at about 9:40 am. When I walked in, there was nobody at the desk so I waited...and waited...and waited...and waited. Finally, a rather jolly young woman came to see what I wanted.

I told her I was there because I had a 10 am appointment for electronic fingerprinting. With a large smirk and before I could finish my sentence, she stated that the machine was "broken." 
Lie #1

She also said that she didn't know when it would be fixed but it was working the previous Friday at the close of business. She never once walked over to the desk where I was standing so we were having this conversation as she leaned against the walk casually.

She told me that I could leave my name and number and Prometric would call me once the machine was fixed "throughout next week."   
Lie #2

I told her that since I made the appointment online, she could look me up. Once again interrupting, she said that she couldn't even look me up because ALL of the information that Prometric has is stored in the computer attached to the fingerprinting machine.
Not sure if this is a lie but I call bullshit on that one because there were two computer monitors on the desk in front of me that were totally separate from the fingerprinting machine.

At that point I pretty much told her that I don't like people wasting my time, as I had risen early and sat in an inordinate amount of Saturday morning traffic to get there on time. At the very least, in 2011, Prometric should have a computerized system whereby they can send out mass messages such as "all appointments for 7/23 have been cancelled due to malfunctioning equipment." I feel that is more considerate than having people show up throughout the day to handle business only to find out that they basically just made a short sight-seeing trip because Prometric doesn't have their stuff together.

Anyway, I left my name and number and departed. Never once did I get a "sorry for the inconvenience" or anything along those lines.

Here's where Prometric made the shit list:

Monday rolls around...no call. Tuesday morning I call Prometric only to be told that I needed to call the third party scheduling company to reschedule the appointment. Prometric was NEVER going to call me at all.

I call the third party service, stay on hold for about 20 minutes, make the appointment and call Prometric back. This time I called to let the lady know (I won't say her name here but I did call her by name in my letter to Prometric's corporate offices) that I had rescheduled and to please take down my e-mail address so that if the machine should break again, they could e-mail me and save me the 20 mile trek. She said that there was no worry because "the machine is working now." 
So she keeps the lie going. I call this Lie #1.5

I told her that I was not taking that chance.
 
I mean, this machine was working just fine Friday at close of business and they arrive Saturday morning and it's completely inoperable, right? 

Let me stop here and say that it's amazing what you can get out of people if you just keep talking to them.

At this point, the lady admits that the machine wasn't really broken. "It's just that the person who does fingerprinting" (I guess there's only 1) "was supposed to come to work that day didn't show up." 

At this point, I nearly flipped. I didn't want to cuss her out (not her fault that Prometric's policy is apparently to lie to the customers) so I asked for an owner or manager. She puts me on hold, comes back, and says that the person in charge (I assume she's in charge but judging by their deceitfulness...hell...she could be the person who refills the vending machine) will call me later. Get this: apparently the person in charge couldn't speak to me right then because she was doing a fingerprinting for someone else. Poor management = poor staff every single time.

I was hot so I was not going to wait for any call. Besides, I'd probably just get more lies. I immediately left a comment at the corporate website. Of course, the website had a character limit (1000 characters) so that's part of the reason why I'm blogging about this totally unprofessional behavior.

Now for the editorial (LOL)!

I just do not understand what would have possessed, yes possessed, them to lie. I really don't. Would I have been less bothered...no...utterly mad had the jolly one said, "the lady who does the fingerprinting isn't here today?" Absolutely not. I would have been just as hot. But lying to a paying a customer is unconscionable and totally unacceptable.

What if I hadn't been as proactive and called on my own, believing the word of their agent that they would call to reschedule? I'd still be sitting here waiting on a phone call that was never coming AND a $44 donation to Prometric (once again, this was a pre-paid appointment) would have been made without my consent.

What I don't really don't understand is how they only have 1 person on staff who is qualified to do electronic fingerprinting. Based on the lady's verbiage ("the person who does fingerprinting"), only one person can do this job (on which I call bullshit again). I did electronic fingerprinting years ago for my teacher certification and trust me...it's not a highly technical maneuver. When you've made a string of appointments with people who have pre-paid, you don't say, "Oops, the person who was supposed to perform this job isn't here. Oh well. We'll just lie and say the machine is broken." Nope. You call in someone who can do the fingerprinting in their place. This happens all the time in other industries and what usually happens? Someone calls in, a back-up is called in to take their place. I've never had Chili's tell me they couldn't make me a burger because the cook didn't show up.

Sure, the person who called in may have had a legitimate reason. That's not my business, nor do I care. What I care about is that as a customer, I received absolutely poor customer service that was exacerbated by being lied to. They wasted my time and could have potentially caused me even more problems by missing a deadline for licensing (had I not had the sense to distrust them). Prometric, in one Saturday morning, has demonstrated that on a business level, they have poor planning and business ethics.

What makes this whole situation way too ironic is that there was a sign up that said something to the effect of helping Prometric crack down on cheating by reporting the act of cheating if you witness it. They must be joking. A company that lies to its customers wants those same customers to "help" them by turning in the deceitful? The joke writes itself.

Anyway, tomorrow is my follow-up appointment and the only hopes I have are that the person in charge of fingerprinting actually shows up and that my utter disgust for them isn't easily seen on my face.

So, if you are in the market for fingerprinting or testing, stay away from the Prometric on Coit (and I'd actually add to stay away from Prometric altogether if you can find another company to do your testing/fingerprinting with).

Fedex: This Must Stop

So, a couple of days ago, I placed an order from an online company that I have used before for some much needed products. In the order comments, I specifically stated, "Please do not use Fedex to ship this order. I prefer UPS."

The next day, I get a ship confirmation from the company that included my tracking number and confirmed my worst fear: Fedex was the carrier. I took two deep breaths because the stuff was already on the way so there was nothing I could do about it at that point.

Fast forward to today- the estimated delivery date. I checked on online intermittently throughout the day. The last Fedex shipment I got didn't arrive until almost 8pm and since Fedex is notoriously shoddy, I did not expect a nicely timed delivery.

Around 7pm, I checked my shipping status and much to my consternation, the screen said "Delivered" with a delivery time of 5:48pm. 

Now, I'm dealing with a little sinus problem with the changing of the seasons and I was watching my DVR'd episode of Million Dollar Listing but that wouldn't have kept me from hearing a knock on the door from anyone who is older than 5. My front door is less than 15 feet from where I was sitting and watching television. Surely, I would have heard a grown man, who has enough strength to carry packages for a living, knock on the door. 

I sent an e-mail to Fedex customer service that pretty much stated that they need to change their business model because eventually, those of us who expect the items we paid for to be delivered will begin to boycott companies that use Fedex and that will come with its own repercussions.

So, if you didn't know before (pursuant to #1 in my "Things I Hate" entry), STAY AWAY FROM FEDEX!

If you've ever had poor service from Fedex, I encourage you to blog about it and get the word out. This must stop. 

PS. Yes, I e-mailed the company I ordered my products from and gave them a piece of it too.

Things I Hate

Today, after a truly exhausting conversation with a customer service representative at AT&T, I thought all the things that really irritate. This blog is about things I hate. I don't necessarily mean "hate" in the strongest sense of the word but these things really do irritate me to no end.

1. FEDEX. I just don't understand how a company can claim to be in the business of package delivery, yet fail to knock on the door of the person for whom they have a package; then tell that person that they (FEDEX) aren't required to knock on the door. I received an apologetic letter from corporate but I still hate FEDEX and try my best not to do business with businesses that use them for shipping.

2. AT&T. I'm still trying to figure out why I would place an order to unorder a service I never had in the first place.

3. First Community Bank (in Wal-Mart). I want to know how they manage to skip through the sea of white people at my local Wal-Mart and manage to find brown people to try to market their bank to.

4. Tea Baggers. How are people who (I'm sure) have/have had at one time student loans, are on Medicare/Medicaid or social security, food stamps, TANF and whatever else the government hands out going to say they are against socialism? Better yet, how are you worried about wealth redistribution with a net worth of $25?

5. Highly religious people. So the Buddhist/Muslim/Hindu believer or homosexual person or avid wine drinker who has as strong a connection to their Creator as you should (but don't) is going to hell, but you, with a totally impotent grasp of the dogma you embrace, is going to heaven? Mmmmkay.

6. Denial. Just be honest with yourself because whatever it is, we all know it. We know.

7. People who sit at green lights. Water and fertilizer won't make it any greener so you may as well go ahead and drive the damn car.

8. People who say Pit Bulls are not dangerous. Just stop it already.

9. People who make completely benighted statements. One day on Amazon, I was reading the comments for a DVD and it went like this, "Cleopatra wasn't Black, she was Greek." Black is a race. Greek is a nationality. Those are two totally separate things. Someone can be Greek AND Black just like someone can be South African AND white. You'd think that as much as people walk around talking about how America is so great, they'd understand the difference between race, nationality and ethnicity. Guess not. ***For those of you that will come in and want to get into a history debate, please note that the main idea of this paragraph is people making benighted statements-not the race, nationality or ethnicity of Cleopatra.

10. People who cut me off while I'm walking in the store or mall. I'm 5'11 and brown. Surely you saw me. Surely you didn't think walking out in front of me and turning sharply when I'm less than 2 ft. away from you was the right choice to make.

11. People who assume others are doormen. If I hold the door open for you because you're leaving behind me, that does not mean you walk through it and go on about your business while I stand there holding it. I find it highly arrogant, assumptive and it shows a refusal to acknowledge personhood; especially since the only people who have EVER done that to me were white people. I'm just saying. Just in case your mom and dad never taught you, when that happens, you are to thank the person and catch the door with YOUR OWN HAND. ***Do not leave me a bunch of comments about how you are white and don't do that. If you feel the urge to do so, re-read and reconsider.


12. People who tell others that they didn't experience what they experienced. If a midget/little person tells you that average height people discriminate against them, how dare you try to tell them that it's all a figment of their imagination and you're 5'8"? This has been going on for decades, especially since the Civil Rights era ended. Refer back to #6 if you still want to act like you don't understand this one.

13. Using words that you don't know the meaning of. I was on Yahoo! and someone commented that Tyler Perry's "For Colored Girls" was "racist." I'm no Tyler Perry fan (and I didn't see the movie) but I encouraged that person to look up "racist" in the dictionary. Second example: while I was studying for my master's, a classmate asserted that police officers can't be terrorists because terrorism is "using the media to scare people." It doesn't matter what the word is, know what it means before you arbitrarily apply it to people and/or situations; likewise don't be afraid to apply a word to a person/situation if it is truly appropriate.

Making This Year Truly New: New Methods, New Results

Happy New Year!


Today is January 1st of 2011. We've just completed another decade and are traveling, full speed ahead, into the next.


Pondering the new year, I focused on the word "new." Every year, around December 20th, we begin to talk about what we hope to accomplish in the "new" year only to forget about it by the third week in January. We resolve to eat healthier, read more, lose weight, be more committed to our chosen deity, get more rest and be more organized. Over time, however, we become less and less resolute about our intentions. We slack off and (if you're anything like me) when December comes around again, you reflect on how you had 11 months to make things happen and how much farther along you'd be had you fully committed. 


This new year, the question is: what's so "new" about repeating the same pattern over and over again? 

This year, I opted out of the pattern. Why have the exact same regret every.single.year?


A few weeks ago, I made myself a vision board for 2011-2012. The purpose of a vision board is to have a visual reminder of one's intentions. From my experience, when one keeps before them  the image of what they want to accomplish, they take active steps that ensure they will fulfill those intentions. No matter how wild or unlikely the goal, people can use visualization to help manifest their intentions.


On my vision board, I took stock photos from the internet that represent milestones I would like to experience in my life this year and into 2012. I taped these photos onto poster board and wrote affirmative statements under each photo. Most of my statements begin with "I will...." For example, if part of your vision is to buy a new car this year, you would say, "I will be able to purchase a new SUV this year." Some may even choose to add scriptural statements to their vision board for each photo. Make sure to keep a tone of intention and certainty in all of your statements and stay away from indecisive or negative words.


My vision board hangs on the wall in my living room. This way I will see it everyday, several times each day. 


Let me pre-emptively say that this is not some form of new age magic as many in the religious community have asserted. The fact is that it doesn't matter how much you fantasize about a fabulous life, without a belief that you can achieve those things, you'll have no focus. Without focus, you'll be hard-pressed to make any of those fantasies/dreams/goals manifest because your actions will work against them. 


Point blank, just as we can (and usually do) envision a negative outcome in certain situations and in short order, the thing we feared rears its ugly head, we can use the gift of vision for a more positive and beneficial end. 


I will use this blog to update you all throughout the year on how I am working this plan in my life. Likewise, I hope you all will comment and let me know how your visions are manifesting as well. 


Until next time, have a fruitful new year!

Internet Censorship

This is my first real blog ever!


I'm not sure why at the age of 30 I decided to start blogging but here goes!


Back at the end of April, I joined a fairly popular website for a small yearly fee (less than $10). It's original purpose is ethnic hair care but there are also places to discuss other topics ranging from the latest celebrity gossip to politics.


This particular site, like every site, had a laundry list of rules that I witnessed several members break over and over and over again without apparent penalty. Not only that but the members were quite feisty. There was not one  week where there wasn't a cruel exchange in at least 3 threads. I chalked it up to the site being full of women.


Everything was okay until I posted a signature picture that had heavily political undertones. I received compliments on it and aside from the rare question of its meaning, everything was just fine. Suddenly, a week later  I received a private message from the owner of the site saying a "few" people found the image "concerning" and she had deleted it.


I'm not sure when it happened, but it seems the more amoral our society becomes, the more sensitive it becomes as well. I have never been on a site where a photo was not violating the terms of service but was still deleted because a "few" members did not like it. It seems odd to me that the same people who can sit and hurl insults at others would be that frightened by an artistic political drawing. 


Pointing out the arbitrary application of the rules to the alleged owner of the site, I was eventually banned with no prospect of receiving a prorated refund. That sux. But, what sux more is that a place that lauds itself on being "free" (pursuant to the old 80's mantra "it's a free country") has turned into a place that gets pissy when someone attempts to use those freedoms.