Economy – Page 21 – Really Right

The Guiltiest Time of The Year

Thanksgiving is the time of the year when people try to make you feel guilty because you have more stuff that other people. I guess this is the Madison Avenue version of the thing my mom used to say to us as small children, “Finish what’s or your plate. Eat your vegetables. Just think of all those starving people in order countries.”

What lesson were my parents trying to teach me by making such statements?
• Keynesian economics?
• For me to be fed some other child must go hungry?
• The butterfly effect? For me not to eat broccoli was to cause famine in Asia?

Now when I go to the grocery store or local fast food place, I am asked to give even more to feed the poor. We have had a “War on Poverty” since 1964 and somehow, after trillions of dollars are spent, we have the same percentage of poor folks in our country as we did fifty years ago. Under Obama, it might even be more.

The claim that really frosts me is the “just one dollar can feed ____ number of people”.

In the local Taco Bell you will see many signs that read, “One dollar can feed four people”. OK, so how come my three tacos and a drink just cost me seven bucks? At those prices feeding my family of four at your restaurant would cost me almost $28.

At the grocery store today, they had coupons that I could presumable buy; one coupon for each meal. A dollar can feed four for breakfast, three for lunch and two for dinner. Really? What kind of banquet and where can I get it for my family?

At your local government school, your kid can get at least two meals a day and it doesn’t even count against your welfare check.

What do you mean there are starving people in our country?

I’ve been to other countries. The poor in our country are better off than most of the middle class people in any other place on the planet. Most middle class in other countries don’t have PlayStations, flat screen TVs, DirecTV, two cars, and kids in the junior soccer league. This is standard equipment for the “poor” in the United States.

I think our definition of “starving” is lacking some truth and transparency.

In our society, most folks in poverty are there for bad choices not because they are “down on their luck”. I’m all for “teaching a man to fish” but when the producers supplement others to the point where the beneficiaries of their hard work don’t want to fish, clean, cook, or do dishes, then the society is broken. “The haves” are not the servants of the “have nots”.

Sometimes I think we are close to the world of Atlas Shrugged; if the producers quit then what would the rest do? Somehow, I can’t see them clamoring for the return of John Galt.

I plan to enjoy my Thanksgiving meal with my family. I’m grateful to God for what he has given me. For me Thanksgiving is not about guilt or greed, but somehow that seems to be the dual themes on television this time of year.

Also, Thanksgiving is not an official holiday so you can work-out your retail strategy for “Black Friday.” What we need is not better deals at the Maul or easier credit terms so our gilded cages are crammed full of more junk. If we really want a “Black Friday” it should be one involving sack cloth and ashes that is dedicated to repenting for our open rebellion against God. Until the spiritual direction of the country changes don’t expect things to get better.

Have a great Thanksgiving and count your blessings; then thank God for them not yourself.

Example of Why Govenment is Going Broke

When bureaucrats “strain at a gnat and swallow a camel” that’s bad. When that bureaucrat is your boss it’s hell. I had that experience yesterday.

My main task at work is to do collections. This isn’t the typical “cold calling” where some guy in New York or Guatemala calls your house at dinnertime and threatens to remove your kneecaps or repo your car. My job is a lot more low keyed that that. I try to collect money from former California state employees that were over paid for a variety of reasons. Truthfully most of these screw-ups are the result of personnel specialists that don’t know what they are doing or that don’t follow-up from one month to the next resulting in an accumulation of unresolved issues. Government employees usually operate by the “squeaky wheel” method so if it doesn’t make noise then it doesn’t get fixed.

Well my department is hemorrhaging money—especially since it is financed out of the General Fund. Democrats try to defund law enforcement in any form since they believe criminals are not really bad people just socioeconomically disadvantaged. As a result, my department is making an effort to collect money owed to them.

The collection process here is anemic when compared to the private sector. In my department, employees owe millions of dollars due to overpayments. I’m tasked with trying to get about 1 ½ million from headquarters employees. (There are over thirty entities in my department with Headquarters being the largest.) Most of this money is never recovered; in part due to the restrictions placed on us by the government. We cannot go after any retirement money or disability payments—even if the employee owes tens of thousands of dollars. We also are bound by a notification statute—if you are not informed that you were overpaid within three years—the state can never go after you. Another constraint—which was removed two years ago—was that even if you owed the state money and everyone knew it, personnel was prohibited from collecting it from your final check unless you voluntarily allowed them to do so. In other words the standing policy was “bill me later”.

Last year, the collection unit for our department recovered about $120,000. It costs the department about double this amount in wages and benefits just to have my unit on the payroll. This collection recovery figure includes not just our efforts but those of the Franchise Tax Board (intercepting tax returns) and a collection agency acting on our behalf. My recollection is that FTB recovered just over four percent of the collection amount given to them while the collection agency recovered about two percent of the amount turned over to them.

Our collection efforts can only be triggered when two conditions are met: the employee has left state service—not just our department—and the first notification letter was sent within the three year statute. We then follow up with three letters sent at 30 day or longer intervals. Only after all letters are sent can we turn the people over to FTB and the collection agency. Typically this period is a two year cycle—at least on paper. The reality is that I have seen people at FTB for over seven years and similar intervals at the collection agency. Often no money is collected. Some people have been thru the collection cycle two and three times. If we don’t have records of previous collection attempts or they are incomplete then management will make us do the whole thing over again. The presumption is that if we don’t have the records then nothing was ever done. The burden is on the former employees to prove that we have already attempted collection.

Historically, management is reluctant to write-off anything once the collection process is complete. Prior to taking on the responsibility of Headquarters a few months ago, another agency that I had responsibility for had items in collections dating back to 1998—these are still actively in the collection process.

Once that first letter is made, we will periodically hound former employees. Death is not a barrier to our collection efforts. I often sent letters to dead people that read in part, “Should you return to State service, SCO will notify the Department you have reinstated with to pursue collection of your overpayment to CDCR.”

This job is not very difficult once the work is organized. I am confident that I sent more collection letters out last month than the rest of my unit put together. Let’s just say that Rush Limbaugh is not the only guy that shows up to work every day with “half his brain tied behind his back just to make it fair”.

Typically, personnel will not generate one collection letter for everything on an employee’s account but letters are generated individually or in small batches for most items. Occasionally, other items occur after the collection process has begun. We have no control over this process. 30 days after the first letters are generated and sent to the employee, responsibility falls on my unit to continue the collection process.

Yesterday, my supervisor refused to sign the collection letters for two employees because we were missing collection letters for items on their accounts. My reaction was, really? I try to do my best when generating these letters so I took a look at the accounts to see what the issue was. I was incredulous. The amounts necessary to halt collection were thirteen and fifty-nine cents respectively.

Just so you understand what my supervisor was demanding… I was expected to send emails to each personnel specialist instructing them to complete the forms for .13 and .59 cents. The forms were then to be placed in envelopes, stamped and mailed to the employees. A copy of each letter would then need to be scanned and attached in the accounting program with the original filed in the employee’s personnel file. Then I would have to wait for 30 days before continuing collections. Yeah, I know: postage and an envelope cost more than that but this is the government.

As a taxpayer and a human being, this instruction was offensive. Instead, I printed copies of the accounting items and then taped a dime, nickel and two pennies to the item for seventeen cents and the taped two quarters, a nickel and four pennies to the other document for fifty-nine cents and submitted them for deposit. Once the payment is posted I can continue collections on the employees.

I have the satisfaction that I saved the taxpayers a few dollars and denied a few bureaucrats a pyric victory by letting common sense triumph over process.

Buying a New Car

Buying a new car is not something that I was looking forward to doing; however, the 22 year old daughter finally decided that depending on others to get her around town was not working. As I told the wife many years ago, “As long as mommy will drop everything to taxi her daughter around, she will not be interested in getting a license. Only when she is inconvenienced enough will she be motivated to learn to drive.” Well that day is finally upon us. The daughter is paying a professional instructor to learn to drive. The target for her to get the license was mid-September. I had told the children that they can have my Jeep Liberty whenever they get their license. It is clear the day was at hand so a week and a half before Labor Day, I set out to get a new vehicle for myself. I had not planned to blog on this but I think others can learn from my experiences.

I spent much of my time on the Kelly Blue Book http://www.kbb.com/ website. I also utilized J.D. Powers and YouTube for supplemental information.
My initial parameters were: a price near $22 K and better mileage than the Liberty which gets 13 City & 17 Highway. In addition I wanted something like my wife’s Ford Sync and navigation.
From my research I compiled the following list of vehicles to look at:

Once I had a list, I began to test drive various vehicles. This is where things began to get strange. I am listing my experiences in chronological order.

Elk Grove Ford (Wednesday)
I like my wife’s Ford C-Max both for its mileage and technology. The Ford Sync system is really great. I started at the Ford dealer where we had purchased the C-Max about a year before. I walked on the lot about 90 percent ready to buy a Fiesta or Focus with the Titanium options package. (This is the high end option package and the only one offering both Sync and navigation.) The sales guy that I got was new. You can tell by how he acted and the fact that he was on the lot a 7 p.m. on a weekday which was when I arrived. He could not locate the vehicle that I has seen online prior to visiting their lot—this occurred many times during my visits at various dealerships. The lot was poorly lit and the vehicle that I finally was allowed to sit in had no lock cylinder in the steering column; thus it was not drivable. I left the lot without ever test driving anything. The sales guy said that they had “loss leaders” in the Saturday paper so check there and I might get lucky. Had he shown me what I wanted to see and then let me drive it, I probably would have purchased it that night. I went home and spoke with my wife about the experience and that is when the above list was created.

Elk Grove Kia (Thursday)
The following day after work I went to Elk Grove Kia. The salesman there was nice and knew his product much better than the Ford guys. The test drive was good and the inside was roomy. The Kia Soul also had the options that I was looking for without having to buy their highest end options package. My wife arrived after work and was able to go on a second test drive in the vehicle. Later we looked up the J.D. Powers rating and a video review on the Internet, this car was moved to the top of my list.

Sacramento Hyundai (Friday)
The day after completing the Kia test drive we went to look at the Hyundai Veloster. But first we had to find the dealership. The map on their website was their old location—which they had left about three years ago; however, the physical address was correct and about three miles away. The fact that they couldn’t even update their website was a harbinger of things to come. On paper the Veloster vehicle looked unique and sporty. The three door feature and overall exterior seemed like it was worth a look. The Hyundai is one of several vehicles that I had trouble getting into. When seated behind the wheel, my head hit the roof. I’m only 5’ 10” and this was never an issue in the past. (It was several times during my vehicle search.) The interior dimensions were incredibly small. The manufacturing materials and design quality were poor. The car felt cheaply done. The drive was by far the worst of any vehicle. I’ve run lawnmowers with more horsepower than this car. I had trouble getting the car up to the 45 mph speed limit of the road in front of the dealership. The other turn-off we found out about Hyundai is that their navigation system is not free; it is one of several subscription services that you must have to keep things working. They have a service comparable to GM’s OnStar which also requires a subscription.

Elk Grove Honda
We fled the Hyundai dealer for another trip to the Elk Grove Auto Mall. We then visited the Honda dealership. The Fit was much smaller than Kia’s Soul. It also had a small engine and noticeably less power. Once seated in this car, I also hit my head on the roof of the car. A seat adjustment was able to correct this somewhat but one would think the sale folks would stage the car so this is not even an issue for buyers. The sales guy did a good job of demonstrating the various configurations of storage in the Fit; however, the part about the passenger seat lying flat so you could sleep in the car was a feature only unsupervised teenagers would enjoy to the fullest. (To do this the headrest was not attached but laying behind the seat.) The Honda dealer was the first of several that we encountered that would not sell us the vehicle at the manufacturer’s suggested retail price. On a separate piece of paper right next to the factory label was another label with options added by the dealership. We were told that all vehicles sold by the dealer included these options. The options were not necessary and added several thousand dollars to the sales price. The entertainment/navigation system was very Apple centric and the video display was very small. The salesman was nice but their business model of additional mark-ups and Apple centric cars were a turnoff.

Elk Grove Nissan
Again, going to a dealership after sunset proved to be a surreal experience. This time my wife and I were greeted by the Wonder Twins. We were interested in seeing the Nissan Juke. We were greeted by a female who asked if we wanted sales or service. We were directed to a male sales person. The young girl that had greeted us was also trying to help us. We told them what we were interested in which was 2014 with rebate, navigation, etc. We were directed to a 2013 model Juke; there were no 2014s on the lot and 2015 models had not arrived yet. We test drove this vehicle only to find out afterwards that it was not even a front-wheel drive—which is what we asked for—but an all-wheel drive. So after doing all the research online and telling the sales folks what we were wanting to see, we were shown the wrong model year, with the wrong transmission and the wrong features. As we were experiencing this Nissan dealership, I kept whispering to my wife that this was the automobile equivalent of Hotel Hell. These folks could use the intervention of Gordon Ramsey or Mike Holmes to turn this place around. Dysfunction Junction should be the address of this dealership.

Roseville Auto Maul (Saturday)
On Saturday morning, my wife got up about 6 A.M. and for the first time in our eleven year marriage; she bought a copy of the Sacramento Bee…just to see the auto ads. Elk Grove Ford did have some “loss leader” cars as I was told, with a few offered with “one at this price” disclaimer, but none had the features that I was looking for. We decided to see what we could find at the Roseville Auto Mall. We ate breakfast and piled into the car with our nine year old and drove up to Roseville. We found the Kia dealer on the car’s map; however, trying to get into the auto mall was our first challenge. We headed down Lead Hill Rd and ended-up doing a complete circle around the whole area before finding the entrance—there is only one way in and out of the Mall.

Roseville Mitsubishi Kia
We went first to the Kia dealership to see a Soul with the features were looking for; namely, an Exclaim with sun roof and upgraded stereo package with navigation but NO leather seats. We actually test drove two different Souls. The cars on the Kia lot however were not for sale at the manufacturer’s suggested retail (sticker) price because once again there was an additional sticker next to the factory one. The additional sticker said, “Dealer markup” and added almost three thousand dollars to the vehicle price. We asked about the sticker and were told it was for rent, sales commissions and advertising. The implication was Kia was leaving them penniless without the additional money garnered from this markup which by the way Elk Grove Kia does not have on their cars.

Future Nissan
We next went to the Nissan dealer to see the Sentra. I actually sat in three different cars at the dealership. The cars on the lot were so packed together that the first ones I looked at were not able to get to the street for a test drive. Like the Hyundai, these were cheap looking and the interiors were not well constructed. All three cars had visible defects in the plastic parts of the interior. The cars were cramped. If I recall correctly my head was hitting the roof or close to doing so. This was not my recollection of my 1980 Sentra that got 48 mpg Highway. As for features, I could duct tape my cell phone to the dash and have a better navigation experience—including screen size—than that offered by Nissan. I was disappointed.

Future Ford
Next we went to the Ford dealer at the Roseville Auto Mall. By the time it was over, this was by far the most miserable experience and biggest waste of time of the entire car shopping adventure. Our visit was in two parts separated by a very nice lunch at the Squeeze Inn in Roseville.

Visit #1 we had a nice sales person who was probably in his 50’s. We initially asked to look at the Focus that I had been denied test driving in Elk Grove several days before. After further examination, the sales guy had us talked into looking at a Fusion. We took the Fusion for a test drive and wow. This car had the best acceleration and smoothest ride of any car I drove. The interior was roomy to boot. It was not equipped as we wanted and did not come with the rebates we had hoped for since it was a 2015 and not a 2014. I had decided my list had been reduced to a Fusion or Soul. Since by now it was lunch time, we agreed to meet after we took a lunch break. When in Roseville, we typically eat at the Squeeze Inn; mostly because they have good food and also because they are right down the street from Fry’s Electronics.

Visit #2 started an hour and a half later with us meeting up with our salesman only to find he was with another customer that had previously made an appointment with him. He briefed another sales guy and handed us off to him. This new sales guy was a kid in his mid-20’s. All this kid had to do was find a 2014 with the features that we wanted and tell us about the great rebates that we knew Ford was offering for the Labor Day holiday and he stood a 95 percent chance of closing the sale. As we talked with him, we learned that he had played football at San Jose State. As badly as he dropped the ball on this sale, I can see why he is no longer playing football. He wandered aimlessly around the lot looking at stickers to find us a 2014 with the features that we asked for. Not once did he consult another sales person or a computer to check inventory. Previously we learned that in addition to this lot they had another one nearby with another 500 cars on it. Not finding the car we wanted, he led us inside the dealership and he and this other guy tried to flip us into considering a used car. In the course of this discussion, they asked us for a twelve thousand dollar down payment knowing full well that we had no car to trade because the old one was going to our college aged daughter. We were repeated insulted and finally walked out. Once they saw us get up to leave, they continued to ignore what we had asked for and offer us other vehicles we were not interested in. Never once did the offer us a 2014 with the features we wanted and furthermore they never offered us any rebates when I know for a fact that the rebates available totaled over $4,500. These guys were abusive and rude. If Yelp does car sales I would give them a zero.

On the way out of Roseville, we called our Kia salesman in Elk Grove. Much to our surprise and delight—in the few days since we has been there—they had received a new car shipment that included a Soul with the Exclaim package and no leather seats. We headed over to the dealer and took it for a test drive. We began filling out papers for purchasing the car. At 5 pm, our credit union’s loan approval folks were all gone and we could not get approved for 2.9 percent as we were promised. The dealer wanted us to complete paperwork for 4.9 percent with the promise that once we were approved we could have the lower rate of 2.9. We rejected the idea of completing the paperwork at the higher interest rate and said we would wait for the credit union’s approval. Shortly after 10 A.M. on Sunday, we got the call that our loan was approved at the 2.9 percent rate. That afternoon we returned to the Kia dealership and finished the paperwork. Finally, on Sunday evening I was able to drive home in a new 2015 Kia Soul.

The Kia Soul is a wonderful vehicle and fun to drive. I have yet to see anything close to the 31 mpg Highway that the EPA puts on the sticker. I’m getting about 24 mpg with the ECO feature on. Oh, Kia did give me a discount for being a veteran—something no one else ever offered me.

I hope that some readers of this blog might learn from my experience.
• Don’t pay more than the sticker price on any new car
• Know when to walk away
• Don’t be pressured or bullied by sales people or their “closers”
• Stick to your budget
• Know what interest rate that you can finance before shopping

Red Robin: Faulty Family Fare

I took the family to the local Red Robin restaurant yesterday for dinner. It is the first time in over a year that we have visited them. The experience was unsatisfactory.

We waited twenty minutes for a table—which is not that unusual—even when several tables were not in use. Our waitress was not very good. We never did get napkins or silverware brought to our table—even after food was served. I had to get up and walk over to the food prep area and get them from another employee. Later I had to go back to get mustard for the wife. The food was noticeable smaller portions than it used to be and was not prepared the same way. No attempt was made to garnish the plates or show pride in the food. Also, the “bottomless French fries” weren’t very bottomless when they never brought them out right away and kept the basket full. (Our teenager eats French fries by the handful.) Our $55 outing (for four) was disappointing. Pizza would have been cheaper.

Fresh and Easy Stores Sold

Yesterday it was announced that Fresh and Easy Stores had been sold. While not clearly stated in local media reports, all northern California stores will be closed by the end of September. The fire sale begins today. My family will miss them. They have been a source of new and different items for many meals served in our home.

We also enjoyed supporting them because local unions had harassed the crap out of them when they first opened. My wife and I both have unions stealing part of our paychecks each month due to our places of employment. It was nice to support free enterprise and innovation. I will miss them.

Elk Grove Milling Death No Surprise

On August 13th, a man died after a forklift rolled over and trapped him. Video of the story can be found at this URL. person trapped under forklift in elk grove
“The man who died after being pinned under a forklift early Tuesday is Armando Estrada, a 42-year-old resident of Sacramento.” forklift accident results in fatality I’m sorry that the man died but I am not surprised.

I briefly worked at Elk Grove Milling many years ago. Here are some of my recollections.

On my first week on the job, a worker got his right arm caught in a screw conveyor. He had multiple compound fractures from his wrist to his shoulder. His arm was almost severed in at least three places. He lost so much blood that the injuries were no longer bleeding. I helped administer first aid to him.

It took firefighters more than 30 minutes to arrive. After a long stay in the hospital he was finally released. I saw him a few months later. He had his arm is some sort of primitive looking brace with steel pins going thru his arm to try to get the bones to heal and align properly. Based on the extent of the injuries that I saw, his arm will never be the same.

As a result of that incident, I was asked to do a safety survey of the site. I documented many safety violations and potential hazards. I included photos of the problems that I noted along with a narrative of what needed correction. To my knowledge none of the problems that I found were ever corrected…at least not in anything resembling a timely manner.

I know that other industrial accidents had occurred at Elk Grove Milling prior to my employment there.

The Elk Grove Milling facility is a patchwork of uneven concrete slabs with conduit and anchor bolts sticking out of the concrete. Some of the unused equipment is still in place instead of being removed. Exposed wiring and open electrical panels are also in abundance on the site. Electric motors without guards can be found in various placed. Ladders without correct cages and landings were easy to spot during my time there. In addition many of these hazards were covered in dust and hulls from the milling process. Portions of truck and forklift routes are on uneven dirt and gravel roads.

Elk Grove Milling makes various types of pelletized horse feed. The ingredients for this feed are lying on the ground in a warehouse that is partially enclosed. The building also has some holes and other penetrations where wind, rain, rats, and other things can easily get into the ingredients. Ingredients are separated by primitive dividers that keep them from mixing too much while in storage. Excessive moisture causes some ingredients to cake-up. As a result of moisture, mold and mildew can be seen growing on the surface of many ingredients later added to the horse feed. Batches that are returned by customers or fail quality control are mixed with fresher ingredients and recycled into even more horse pellets. Excessive moisture in the finished pellets sometimes cause problems for customers.

Not surprisingly, the owner would occasionally field calls from people that accused the horse feed of killing their horses or making them very ill. On more than one occasion I heard the owner on the telephone vociferously denying these accusations.

There is a reason Purina products cost more than Stable Mix. Sanitation and quality control cost money.

Bob, I think a world of hurt is about to rain down on your livelihood.

Proposal to Illustrate National Debt

Many people have tried to reduce the astronomical size of the national debt to something that Rush’s “low information voters” can understand. Many such attempts revolve around trying to equate our nation’s debt to household budgets and credit cards but this doesn’t really do the whole discussion justice.

I wish to advocate a different approach. Let’s embrace the largeness of the debt and explain it in a way that regular Americans can understand it. Three levels of debt that need to be illustrated are national, state, and local government.

I would like to see the debt displayed similarly to this map of 2012 election results by county.

(shown above)

My idea is to display how much American real estate would need to be sold to the Chinese or whoever in order to pay down the debt. The map would need four colors, one color for each level of government debt and a fourth color to show what is leftover. If you really want to illustrate the point, you could do two maps, one current debt and the other all the unfunded obligations that government has made.

For dramatic effect, start the map on the western shores of the Mississippi River and let’s see if anything remains of “flyover country”. I think it would be an interesting exercise. Perhaps we could literally show that the government has mortgaged the future of our citizens in a way even “baby-boomers” could understand.

Christmas Returns at Best Buy and Kohl’s

Other than the return line at Fry’s Electronics, I don’t have too many times that I have to return items to retail stores. In the wake of Christmas this year I did have to exchange two items; one at Best Buy and the other from Kohl’s.

Best Buy
In an irrational fit of nostalgia, I purchased a copy of Doom 3. I really wanted it to get the bonus copy of Doom 2 that was included. I have the original CD of Doom 2 from about 1995 but it will not run on my 64 bit copy of Windows 8. The code on this new CD was modified to run on a 64 bit OS. The down side was I finally had to get a Steam account. I have been trying to avoid Steam for many years but they finally got me on this purchase.

I took the game out of my stocking on Christmas day and after the children had divided their loot and the turkey was carved, I sat down to install the game. I created my Steam account and then was prompted for the product key for the game. Much to my dismay, there was no product key in the box. The box was tampered with just enough that some enterprising kid had pried the paper with the key out of the box. (In case you are not familiar with Steam, you don’t need physical media to own the game, only a product key. Once you enter the key, Steam will let you download the game on your PC. )

The next day after work, I attempted to exchange the game for a new one. I expected Best Buy to give me the third degree about the license missing. Whether it was my age or just company policy, they let me swap it for a new one. They even verified that there was in fact a license in the new box. I left a happy customer.

Kohl’s
In Kohl’s I never saw an employee except at a cash register. I was left on my own to see if I could locate an appropriate item to exchange. In my case a pair of slippers that I was given were one size too small. I made two passes thru the shoe area to find any slippers. As it turned out, there was no area for slippers. It appears to be a holiday only item. On my second pass I found two opened boxes with slippers in them sitting on a display island in the store. The one that was the style that I prefer and the correct size still had fragments of wrapping paper on the box as a result of someone else returning them.

I went to my car to retrieve the small slippers which were purchased at a different Kohl’s store and the receipt. I then took both the item I was returning and the replacement box to the counter. They scanned both and stapled a receipt to my sales slip and I was free to go. No ID check or signature needed; even when item was purchased at a different store!

The exchange process in both stores was quick and the lines were short. Thanks for the good customer service.

Chick-Fil-A Protestors Stumble Badly

Let me preface this saying I am a southern born (Knoxville, TN) Roman Catholic conservative. That being said I was taken aback over the recent Chick-fil-A same sex marriage controversy. As a constitution defending conservative I cannot for the life of me understand the uproar caused by President of Chick-fil-A Dan Cathy, when he said during a radio interview that his values were against allowing same sex couples to wed. Article I of the Constitution allows free speech for citizens, with the lone exception of when one talks of overthrowing the government, so President Cathy broke no laws in this country. Enter the kook fringe of the left wing media calling for a national boycott of Chick-fil-A, trying to show the company their homophobic comments won’t be tolerated in the United States. Little did they know, former Are-Kansas (That’s how we pronounce it in the south) Governor Mike Huckabee, started a national buy Chick-fil-A day on Aug. 1st.

The event was a resounding success! The line of cars waiting to be served at the drive-thru at the Elk Grove store backed up all the way to the freeway. Some waited 2-3 hours just to purchase one of the famous chicken sandwiches and stand up for free speech. So many customers showed up the store contemplated not opening the following day due to a shortage of chicken and side dishes! These claims were nearly proven true as the following day Chick-fil-a did not have the batter to fry chicken, or any waffle fries or any other side dishes! Talk about a resounding success, corporate bragged how it was a record day for single day store sales!

Not to get lost in the success was one CFO/treasurer of Tucson, AZ based Vante a medical supply company named Adam Smith. Smith a 40-50 year old man decided to make himself the face of the anti-Chick-fil-A movement. Smith using his phone, recorded himself going through the drive thru, belittling a young lady working at the window. Telling her she works for a bad company, and asking how she sleeps at night, following that up by saying he now has a purpose in life by attacking Chick-fil-A. The young lady at the window showing composure well beyond her age, stayed cool, calm, and collected never gave in to Smith, saying only have a nice day. Then the most disturbing part of the video in my opinion; Smith claims he is heterosexual and appears to be hitting on the employee! Smith thinking he won the war, posted the exchange on Youtube, somehow not knowing the video would go viral! After the video went viral, Smith like any coward would do removed the video, apparently trying to avoid detection….anyone with the IQ north of a potted plant can tell you the internet is forever, not temporary, the video had made its rounds and was on all late night news/cable tv shows. Needless to say Smith was fired when the President of his company found out, about his escapade.

I will say this about former CFO Adam Smith…..You’re a coward! Attacking a young lady working the drive thru window to either get her start in the working world, or just working a summer job at the local fast food store, pick on someone you’re own age! As far as you making a point posting the video on line….good call, you got yourself fired #winning! I am sure your friends and family are so proud you “have a purpose in life now!” With the publicity you have received lately Smith, you will be taking advantage of all 99 weeks of unemployment I assume, because I can’t fathom who would take a chance and hire you now! #epic fail #loser #jobless

Guest opinion submitted by JS

Chick-fil-A Experience

Yesterday, like millions of Americans, I went to Chick-fil-A to show my support of traditional marriage and the First Amendment. Actually, I bought breakfast there for my whole family and returned about 8 p.m. in hopes of finishing the day with a milkshake. We waited about 50 minutes to get to the counter and place our drink order (by then they were out of many food items including ice-cream). Some friends that we saw in the drive-thru line said it took about an hour and a half to get to the place where they could give their order and almost two hours to complete the whole evolution.

The atmosphere was festive, the people were polite to each other and it was genuinely fun to be there. The line periodically did “the wave” and everyone got along great. No one cared that the place was out of food. I heard people say they would settle for a catsup packet if that was all that was left. They wanted to show their support. I thought of the people voting in Iraq that waited in long lines and earned a purple thumb when they voted. Yesterday we voted and the sound reverberated down the spines of the ruling class.

The message was loud and unmistakable. Barry Obama and his minions have struck a nerve with main street Americans. The people have had enough and are ready to shove the children out of the White House. Political correctness finally crossed the Rubicon.
Yes, Mr. President, the Cathy family did build it without your help. Now get out of our way and let our people grow.