Where is John Wilson?

In my unsuccessful trip to see the cancelled Aerosmith concert in Tampa I noticed the little orange sticker seen to the right on all of the gas pumps. These stickers indicate the last time that particular pump was investigated to make sure it was safe and that it pumps out the amount of gas it says it is. Every gas station in Florida has to be inspected every 12 to 18 months.

For example, here’s a list from a few years back of all the faulty gas pumps in Hillsborough County, FL.

With Charles Bronson as the new Commissioner of Agricultural and Consumer Services I can’t imagine this ring of gas skimpers will continue.

Note: Thank you to all the people who have sent funny travel pictures. I’m going through them all now and they are very funny. I will try to get some of them up soon. Please keep sending your examples to whereisjohnwilson@yahoo.com.

by John Wilson

I get a great deal of enjoyment out of goofy signs. Remember the “Disabled Viewing Area” sign? As much as I travel, I run into some pretty funny ones. Here’s one I ran into recently:

Chik-fil-a proves it’s best not to outsource your signage

Main Disconect?

I go to this Chik-fil-a on North Highway 17 in Mount Pleasant, SC way too often. As I was sitting there the other night, just before you come to the window, I saw the sign to the right. Now, I think Chik-fil-a is the best fast food restaurant around. The food is great, the service is impeccable, and it’s way better than the alternatives.

This Chik-fil-a in particular gets tons of traffic because it is so new and it’s placed in a nice section of town (where people may look down their noses at McDonalds).

So, approximately a zillion people have seen this sign. My questions are:

• Has the manager?
• Where is the District Manager?
• The owner?
• Has anyone other than me?
• Can someone buy me a better camera?

No more instructions

Please, for the love of all things time consuming, eliminate phone message instructions.

Is there anyone left on this Earth who can afford a telephone, or can afford to make a call from a payphone, that doesn’t know what an answering machine is, or how it works? They’re pretty simple tools, you talk into the phone, and at an undefined later time your (usually) intended audience receives it. Kids get this, the elderly get this, everyone knows how to do it.

Why do phone companies insist on walking us through it EVERY SINGLE TIME? My work Blackberry is covered through Verizon. They have the following message:

You call has been forwarded to automatic voicemail system. At the tone, please record your message, when you have finished recording you may hang up or press one for more options, to leave a call back number, press 5.

This message takes TWENTY-FOUR seconds. Seriously?

I looked around the Internet some to find the average number of messages left in the United States daily, but didn’t have much luck. But just for fun, lets make some conservative estimates:

• The average person makes ten calls a day
• Of those ten, two require a voice message (I hate when people are actually there and you want to leave a message)
• That is 30 minutes a month
• …which is six hours a year!

If you make phone calls regularly from age 15 to age 75, that’s 360 hours or 15 days listening to the same instructions over and over.

The answer: eliminate the instructions all together. The caller obviously needs to know that the machine picked up the call rather than the intended audience, so the message should say this, “Please leave a message (beep).” No one is pressing 1 for more options, no one is pressing 5 to leave a call back number.

This also makes the human message unnecessary. Please don’t tell me you’re not available, or that I need to leave my name, number and a short message. What if I have a long message? You probably have my number, and if you don’t, it’s common sense that I’d leave it, right?

Oh… and I should wait for the beep… thanks, I almost forgot. And while we are at it, please don’t tell me you’ll call me back at your “earliest convenience”, especially on a work related phone, not cool.

</rant>

by John Wilson (fully dressed right now)

If we all had to walk around naked, would everyone be thinner?

This is the solution to the health care crisis in America. Instead of some poorly designed Obamacare program, let’s make everyone take their clothes off. You can leave your bra on of course (at least in the first five years of the program) and mid-thigh shorts are appropriate for the bottom half, flip flops, and that’s it.

I bet you’ll think twice about stopping at McDonalds on the way to work. The sad thing is, I’m not sure this would make any real changes in health. It would, however, make for an interesting walk through the mall.

Live Nation finally refunded our tickets for the cancelled Aerosmith concert at Ford Amphitheatre in Tampa.

Requirements to get a refund:

• Call and ask nicely
• Call again and ask nicely
• Email a nice email
• Email a not so nice email
• Wait
• Email a not so nice email
• Email a really mean email

Finally, we got it back. Postponed concerts should be automatically refunded.