Locating a new tool to help with a difficult yard project cheers me up, while my credit union's new phone number causes me problems.
My best consumer experience: Buying a lettuce spinner to
separate rocks from dirt
I’ve written before about my big yard project that went
awry.
When I decided to replace weed fabric in my side yard, I
raked the rocks into the dirt and weeds next to the rotting fabric. A big
mistake. The rocks got mixed with dirt and bits of weeds, moss, and straw. It’s
a big mess.
Buying a leaf blower helped. I used chicken wire to separate
out the bigger rocks, then blew the dirt off. However, this method put a fine
layer of dust on my raspberries and some of the smaller rocks spun out of the
wheel barrel or bucket. Then, it’s raining now, and I’m not sure about using
the blower when everything is wet.
The idea of buying a lettuce spinner jumped in my mind. I
tried it yesterday. The results were pretty good.
The rocks were too heavy to spin. But, when I put them in
the basket and shook it, almost all of the rocks stayed in the basket. And,
when I rubbed them against the basket, all the small dirt clots broke up.
In a few hours, I cleaned up about three to four buckets of
rocks.
However, my daughter’s advice is sounding good – buy some
new rocks.
The only problem. The lettuce spinner cost $35 at Target. It
was a lot to pay for a plastic lettuce spinner, but I didn’t want to take the
time to do comparison shopping. It’s getting colder and raining more every day.
And, I still have other fall yard work to do to get ready for winter.
My worst consumer experience: Trying to figure how to
communicate with my credit union
One of the few numbers I’ve memorized belongs to my credit
union. Therefore, it was disappoint to learn that it’s been changed to a 1-800
number.
After dialing the 1-800 number given, I knew something was
wrong when the person who answered didn’t ask me for my code word. He said he
didn’t have it, and he asked for other information instead.
I asked him where he was located. He said Chicago. I got
upset, thinking my local credit union had fired its staff and outsourced its
telephone service to another state.
I called back and asked the woman who answered to connect me
with my credit union so I could make a complaint about this.
She spent a minute or two looking for the number. Then, she
gave me the 1-800 number I’d just called. I was furious.
I asked to talk with her supervisor. Finally, she found a
number, which I called.
The woman who answered was from the credit union, but her
office was in a different county. She told me when call volumes are high, the
calls are rolled over to this company in Chicago. That’s why the computer
didn’t have as much information about me.
The credit union employee gave me a phone number I could
call when I need to contact my local credit union or have a complaint.
The experience was irritating. If the people in Chicago had
told me that they were a backup service, I wouldn’t have been concerned.
