A Terrible Experience With Amazon

I don’t like to complain too much about companies, but the way I was treated by certain Amazon employees today (and yes, more than one) is something that I feel I have to document. I had ordered a CD by the Waco Brothers, and it arrived today (several days later than originally promised, but that is not the issue at all). The CD case was cracked, and all the little teeth that hold the CD in place were broken, every single one. So the CD would just slide around in its case. I immediately called Amazon in order to get a replacement.

Call #1

I explained the situation, and the first person, Eve, told me she’d have to transfer me to another department. She did. The next person almost immediately hung up on me. I believe that was not deliberate. I called back.

Call #2

No one ever answered. I listened to that same jazz song multiple times and then the call just ended without my ever having spoken to someone. So I called again.

Call #3

No longer in a good mood, I explained everything that happened, and asked that they be careful not to hang up on me. The man apologized for my earlier experience, and assured me he wouldn’t hang up on me. He also told me that he couldn’t help me, that it looked like there wasn’t a replacement available for the item, and he transferred me. The guy he transferred me to was incredibly rude, and kept interrupting me as I explained what had happened. He said I would have to take a photo of the item to show that it was damaged and fill out a form he would send in an email. And that I would have to call back again after filling out the form. I said, no, let’s just stay on the line while I fill it out. He told me that wasn’t possible. As I was responding, he said he had to end the call and hung up on me.

Call #4

Now furious, I called again. I explained the entire thing, and asked to be transferred to a supervisor. I told the supervisor that I understood that normal procedure is to send the item back, but that I did not want to spend any more time on this, that I did not want to wait in line at the post office to return the item. After how I'd been treated, I just wanted the money put back on my account. He said he couldn’t offer a refund until I sent the item. I told him to forget the item; now it was about how I was treated. Call it an act of good will in the name of customer relations. He refused, and actually – and I can’t believe this – he hung up on me. While I was asking him to transfer me to whoever is above him, he just hung up the phone. The thing is, they absolutely can offer a credit to a customer. It happened to me several years ago when I had ordered something and they had - twice - sent me the wrong thing. They refunded the money and told me to keep the item for the inconvenience. It can be done. Not only did these people refuse, but they treated me incredibly poorly.

I am done with Amazon. There are other reasons to hate Amazon, of course. But I don’t think I’ve ever been treated like that by any company ever.

Photos From Work: Station 19's 100th Episode

Station 19 recently completed shooting its one hundredth episode, something of a milestone for any series. To celebrate, there was cake. I took a few photos during the course of the episode's production, and thought I'd share a few with you. No spoilers or anything like that, so don't worry.

I don't know how I never noticed these stickers on the sound mixing cart before, but they tickled me when I did finally see them.

Here we are on Stage 2. The door to the left leads to the cast green room.

We shot something in the parking garage at Disney. There was indeed a bump, where the electric department had run power across.

This made me laugh. It was a long, odd day, but even if it had been a short, normal day I still would have found humor in this.

Obviously, I had to get a photo of this sign.

This was the day we had cake. In the second half of lunch, the cast and crew gathered on Stage 2 to celebrate the one hundredth episode. There were short, heartfelt speeches. The difficult part was getting the cast back to work afterward.

This season, each day a different crew member is selected as Employee Of The Day. During this episode, I was chosen, and so got to wear this special piece of jewelry. It started out big and clunky at the beginning of the season, and has grown from there, with each person adding to it. The item I added was the hot brick. It would have been much too heavy to add an actual hot brick (a charged walkie battery), so I took a costume tag and labeled it as a hot brick. (This is the one photo that I did not take.)

The great folks of the crafts service department make sure the crew gets a good snack each day. I had the veggie wrap.

This show has dedicated and generous fans. The cast and crew received these cool water bottles.

Photos From Work

Yesterday the third episode of what might be the final season of Station 19 was completed (well, the shooting was completed, that is). It was a wild week, with five of the last six days spent at Los Angeles Center Studios, where exterior scenes were shot. And I spent one other day there in preparation for those days, getting to watch a stunt rehearsal. This show has a great stunt crew, by the way, and I am always happy when I’m assigned to work on the stunt unit. This episode promises to be a good one. I took a few photos during the week, but not of anything related to the plot. Rather, I took several photos of the sky. Monday was kind of miserable, as it rained all day, sometimes hard enough that the crew took shelter and waited for it to subside before filming could resume. But then Wednesday there was a gorgeous sunrise. I wasn’t the only person on the crew to feel compelled to photograph it. And then yesterday we were back on the stages at Disney in Burbank for an easy and short day to wrap up the episode.

The sky on January 24th at 6:38 a.m.

The sky on January 25th at 5:31 p.m., at the background check-in area (which was also the background check-out area). We had, if I recall correctly, one hundred twenty-five background players that day. We had two hundred the day before.

Friday, January 26th, back on the Disney lot, where we belong (I am still hopeful that somehow the show will get picked up for another season - and thank you to the folks who hired a plane to circle the studio a couple of weeks ago with a banner that read "Save Station 19"). This photo was taken from our basecamp.

Theresa And Michael’s Cultural Tour Of Los Angeles: The Getty Center

In 2021, Theresa and I decided to visit every museum in Los Angeles. We got off to a slow start, seeing only one museum that year, and then none in 2022. Last year we visited three. But this year we got off to an excellent start with the Getty. I had been there before (I saw a couple of excellent concerts there many years ago – Greg Brown and Fur Dixon & Steve Werner), but Theresa hadn’t ever visited this museum. The museum is free, but you have to pay twenty dollars to park, and you have to make reservations. We scheduled our visit for 2:30 p.m., and as the tram took us up the hill, I noticed that the 405 freeway is a lot less stressful from that higher vantage point.

Currently, there is a special exhibit of William Blake’s art at the Getty, an exhibit that is only up for another week, and that was the main purpose of our visit. So when we arrived, that is where we headed first. Here are some photos from that exhibit.

As always, I was excited to see work based on Shakespeare’s plays, such as this piece based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

And this one:

 And this one, based on the first scene from The Tempest:

After that, we got a drink, and went to the North Pavilion, which houses pieces from before 1700. There are lots of pieces of Italian origin in this section, and Theresa deemed them all excellent.

From there, we went to the garden, wanting to see it before it got dark. And yes, we had seen some incredible art, but none of it really matched the spectacular and dramatic sunset. Most of the sky was taking part in it. I took a few photos, but had only my cell phone with me, and the photos don’t capture it at all.

From there, we went to the West Pavilion to check out the photo exhibits. I was particularly taken with some of the work of Arthur Tress, especially images from his Dream Collector series. That exhibit runs through February 18th.

 

We had been at the museum for nearly four hours, and there were still entire buildings we hadn’t visited. But we were getting tired and rather than continue, we decided we’d have to visit again to see the rest of the place, and check out whatever new exhibit takes the place of the William Blake exhibit.

Theresa And Michael’s Cultural Tour Of Los Angeles

In 2021, during the pandemic (which apparently isn’t over yet), Theresa and I had the idea of visiting every museum in Los Angeles. It was a good idea, a way to get to better know the city. We started on June 19, 2021 with the Wende Museum, which focuses on the Cold War and at the time included a photo exhibit (maybe it still does). This is a free museum in Culver City, and it provided an interesting and unusual start to our tour.

And then two years passed.

During that time, one or the other of us would say, “We should visit another museum.” Then on April 22, 2023, we went to the Italian American Museum Of Los Angeles for a special event, A Conversation With Adriana Trigiani. It was moderated by Cara Mia DiMassa. We got there a bit early so that we could take a look at the exhibits (and have a couple glasses of wine). At that time, the museum held an exhibit titled A Real Boy: The Many Lives Of Pinocchio.

Determined to not let another two years pass, on September 30, 2023, we went to the Autry Museum Of The American West, in Griffith Park. It was celebrating its thirty-fifth year, and for the occasion admission price matched what it was when the museum opened, $4.50. Plus, I See Hawks In L.A. was playing, so it was the perfect time to check it out. Most of the photos I took that day were of the bands, but I did take one of a guitar from an exhibit.

A week later, on October 7th, we went to the Gordon R. Howard Museum in Burbank. This is another free museum. Free is the best price for us, especially during the Hollywood strike, when I was burning through my meager savings. This museum focuses on the history of Burbank, which is exactly the kind of thing we were looking for, wanting to learn more about the area where we live. Here are a few photos: