Poor Decisions

This Dog is Real

Rob — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 18:14:18 +0000

I met this little guy down the Cape last weekend, and I can assure you this is not a picture of an Ewok from Star Wars or a stuffed animal. Erica actually has a real life dog that hops around like a rabbit, and this is that dog. His name is Mishko, which means “teddy bear.” For realz.

Old Spice Wins the Internet

Rob — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:13:04 +0000

Here is a very rare example of a company doing it right when it comes to marketing. An impressive effort by Old Spice to go out and crush it for a couple of days making almost a hundred videos in response to various media personalities and bloggers around the country. Here is one example, but do some searching on YouTube and check out this article for the full details.

Roberta Gets a Job Offer

Rob — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 03:10:18 +0000

Good Afternoon Roberta,

My name is Gibby Maramis and I am one of the recruiter for CoWorx Staffing Services in Dover, NH. We are currently recruiting for a business development (lead generation) position. I would love the opportunity to talk to you about this position further. Please call us back at (603) 834-6002!

Thank you so much,

Gibby Maramis
Account Manager
40 Chestnut Street, Suite 2B
Dover NH 03820
Phone 603.834.6002
Fax 603.834.6006
gibby.maramis@coworxstaffing.com
“Together we’re better!”
www.coworxstaffing.com

I’m assuming this is a template email, so the fact there are grammatical errors in it is even more awesome. Anyway, I was feeling pretty cranky at the airport waiting for my flight when I wrote my response, perhaps I was too harsh given the fact she is probably a recent college grad who hates her life already? Maybe she will find the sarcasm amusing? I’m guessing she doesn’t even read all of it and quickly moves on with her life.

I’m not sure who Roberta is but I sure hope this position is still available despite the fact my name is actually Robert and I’m a male! It sounds awesome! Can you give me more details? I’ve always wanted a job in the middle of nowhere New Hampshire instead of downtown Boston where I currently live and work. And how did you know I totally want to leave my high tech security consulting position for entry level sales?? I’ve been dying to ditch my stock options, flexibly hours and nearly infinite supply of learning experiences for a chance to cold call my ass off all day. You’re sourcing must be exceptional and very carefully coordinated.

Can you please tell me how CoWorx (<– the intentional misspelling with the x is awesome, totally speaks to me and my extreme nature plus relates to my generation’s intolerance for complete sentences and general grammatical malice!) got my information so I can make sure to completely wipe my name from that database?

K thx bai!

-Rob (erta)

4th Best Illustration Ever

Rob — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 19:33:47 +0000

Okay I admit my ranking is somewhat arbitrary and completely subjective and possibly based on nothing. Anyway, Katie dug this up and though the research paper may not be indicative of where you are in life currently, you can pretty much replace that with anything productive at all.

Marketing Win

Rob — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 02:40:04 +0000

Nice job to the people over at Chili’s for capitalizing on the Lebron James parody Steve Carrell did at the ESPY’s last week. This is the definition of doing it right, excellent rebuttal mirroring the Dan Gilbert rant after “The Decision.” Missed the video from the ESPY’s? Catch it below.

Goodbye AT&T

Rob — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 17:50:26 +0000

Hello Sprint.

After years of struggling to do basic things like send a text message, check my email, open a website, etc on AT&T I finally hung it up. I’d been with them since I was on Cingular and they merged, I bought the first iPhone and despite its shortcomings, loved it. But with the arrogance of Apple and their faulty new iPhone (I knew I could have gotten a bumper to solve my issues, and would have, but it was the principle of it) combined with AT&T’s massive failure of a cellular network.. I jumped ship to the EVO and haven’t looked back. No more being at sport events or concerts and having Katie’s Katana (flip phone on Sprint) be able to text and make phone calls while I’m left with a $600 paperweight cause the network is too congested. And don’t worry, she is getting an EVO as soon as they are in stock.. even though the Katana (shing!) is a bad ass phone. Pretty excited to be able to actually have service when it says I do, and for everyone that says Sprint sucks, in the last week I’ve been to middle of nowhere Maine, Boston, Northeast Ohio, Phoenix and around MA without any issues. Oh, and I pay $70 for unlimited everything. And I almost forgot, I’ll have 4G a year before any other provider throws it out there. Anyway this is all not the point of my post, I just had an awesome conversation with AT&T, breakups- they are always awkward, and wanted to write it down before I forgot how great it was.

I called in to tell them I was canceling my account, find out what my ETF was and make sure I don’t get billed anymore. The lady then asked why I was canceling. Oh man, where do I start. Told her I had an iPhone and didn’t like how Apple handled the newest iteration of the device. But the real reason was because the network was always failing me, usually when I needed it most. Constantly being unable to use any data, send texts, make phone calls, etc, even when it showed full bars. She asked, I told her. On to the excuses and canned customer service responses.

Well, there are plenty of other devices on AT&T. Thanks, all set with the Backflip. Pretty sure AT&T is still in business only cause of the iPhone, goodluck in January when Verizon gets its hands on it.

I’m not sure why it would show you had signal when you were unable to use the connection. Well, let me explain then. Basically its a result of too many users being connected to the same cell tower and AT&T not having large enough bandwidth on the backhaul to handle all the requests.

Well you could use wifi. Um, if I had wireless networks available to me 24/7 I wouldn’t need a cellular provider. That is the point of having a CELL phone. It isn’t a wifi-phone.

But AT&T has over 20,000 wireless hotspots available throughout the US. Yeah, apparently these aren’t in and around all the places I have issues and/or I didn’t have time to search for available wireless networks. Again, I want a cell phone that can access the internet without a hotspot, maybe AT&T should spend more money on their network and less on wireless hot spots to patch the problem.

There was a bit more to conversation, but I tried to be as polite as possible explaining everything but as you can see my patience was strained near the end. The last item she mentioned was the AT&T was working to improve service.. again, sounds good but I’ll believe it when I see it. She was a nice lady, just not very bright, and all I could think of was that she was the epitome of AT&T’s struggles as I spoke to her. Just doesn’t get it.

Anyway, I’d go back to AT&T in the future if they get their shit straight, or Verizon if they stop locking everything down like a totalitarian dictator and charging stupid amounts of money for everything you add to the plan.. especially if either gets LTE up and running, but for now I’m going to take my $70/mo all you can eat 4G wireless on one of the sickest phones I’ve ever seen. Yes, after 3 years with various iPhone models, including using the iPhone4, I can safely say the EVO running Android 2.1 (not even 2.2 yet!) is way, way ahead of anything the iPhone can do.

WTF RAINBOWS?!

Rob — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 15:04:28 +0000

We as a nation, have got to ask ourselves, what is oozing out of our ground. Pretty messed up when rainbows are just showing up randomly in sprays of water, can’t be natural.

Thanks to Andy for the informative video, make sure to contact your senator and ask about these terrifying phenomena.

Happy Weekend!

Rob — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 18:03:22 +0000

Friday Kind of New Music

Rob — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 14:20:03 +0000

Yeah again, haven’t been posting in a while so some of this is a little old but if you aren’t paying attention you might have missed some kick ass songs over the last few weeks. Enjoy.

Mark Ronson ft Q-Tip and MNDR

Nas and Damian Marley – Count Your Blessings

Mighty Mighty Bosstones (who? what?!) – Everybody’s Better

Magnetic Man – I Need Air

MIA and Jay-Z – XXXO … If you haven’t heard this already I guarantee it will be in bars soon and all over the place. It probably is already but since I haven’t been out in Boston in a month I’m behind the ball.

How to be Good Looking

Rob — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 14:06:57 +0000

Yeah I know this has been up on Barstool.com a while, but I just got around to watching it because I’ve been traveling a ton both weekends and during the week for work. Anyway, hopefully you all have been busy doing things outside since its summer and haven’t miss the posts too much. One of these days I’ll be traveling less, maybe, hopefully. On to the video!