And on the 20,725th day, there was light

Genesis of a Blog

Having blown past the milestone of my 20,000th day on this planet with no self-reflection or self-assessment, I figure it's about time to vent my curious thoughts publicly. Some light should be shed on the synaptic tap dance that passes for ideas in my head; hence this blog.

Some of these ideas are creative (or maybe they're only creative in the way ideas seemed creative in college after getting a good buzz on), some are political (surely there must be some way out of this ridiculously absurd state we are currently in), some are personal (reflections on the commonalities of life), and some are cultural (i.e. railing against the vapidity of reality TV, or the cost to our souls of the celebrity obsession that has infected the masses), and some are just personal grievances (like the one that gave me the impetus to start this blog - Why is it that more action is taken in response to pain than in pursuit of happiness or enlightenment?).


FTD.COM - The jokes our memories play on us, and a corporate world that exploits those memories

I grew up in the 50's, and the magical image of Mercury/Hermes delivering your flowers with god-like speed and dependability was reassuring. Now that FTD has moved to the web (where all things are better, faster and shinier, right?), they must be even better.

I ordered flowers a week in advance of Mother's Day for my 91 year old sweetheart of a Mother. I'm not always the most consistent rememberer of holidays and birthdays, but this year I nailed it...even got the card off so it arrived by Saturday.


Well, FTD.com's site happily reassured me that my order would be delivered this weekend - on Mother's Day or the day before.... but that never happened. They even sent an email mid-week (that, of course, ended up in my Junk Mail - how appropriate), that they were having trouble finding a florist to fill the order. That's odd, since Ocala has a population of well over 300,000 and tons of florists (many FTD-affiliated). Anyway, the email said the order would still be filled, but delivered by UPS or Fedex rather than a florist. All lies; or computer-generated fallaciousness, whichever you prefer. 2+ hours on the phone with customer service (including supervisors that promised to call back within an hour, but NEVER did, and being put on hold for 20+ minutes and then disconnected) got me nowhere and Mother's still sitting in Ocala with no flowers.

A little digging through their site (Investor Relations often has revealing info for the curious) and I find that FTD.com bears little if any resemblance to their original form. They are just another cog in the wheel of United Online, a web order-taker that handles FTD.com, Classmates, Juno, blah blah blah. In other words, they don't know crap about florists or flowers or anything else. They're a customer service organization that doesn't provide customer service, a perfect metaphor for 21st century business. My guess is that they've done what many companies have done, buy an image that people trust and than tarnish it until it's worthless. This is done regularly with brand names for appliances, clothing, etc. So next time you get the warm fuzzies over a brand name you haven't seen in years, dig a little deeper, or you're bound to have those sweet memories slimed by the realities of corporate practices.

BTW: The reviews on FTD.com at Yahoo's shopping site are horrendous: Yahoo Shopping FTD.com Feedback.

My bad for not checking them out first (and don't bother switching to Teleflora in hopes of a better, more modern service; they're run by the same clowns).


Next time I'll look directly for a local florist when I send flowers long-distance. And I'll make sure that they're not FTD related.