Employers and Facebook

There are a bunch of stories floating around right now about employers asking people for their Facebook login information.  Regardless what their claims are for wanting this, here are some reasons why *I* think it is a bad idea:

• Would you give them the keys to your house in case they want to see how clean your house is?
• Would you give them your bank card PIN?
• Would you give them your friends phone number?
• How about your friends vacation photos?
• How about your daughter's boyfriend's, parent's, brother's, daughter's last party photos?

Once someone has access to your Facebook profile, they have access to EVERY single person on your friend list.  Granted, your friends may limit what they share with you, but you still have access to them.  One of the things shared is a list of their friends and their photos and their wall posts.  Do you think they want YOUR employer to have access to this information?  If they did they would already have your employer as one of their friends.

Please do us all a favor and refuse to provide this information.  I know I did not agree to let your employer look at my vacation photos...

Superhero + Harley Davidson contest

So I came across an interesting contest from Harley Davidson and Marvel today.

THE BATTLE FOR FREEDOM NEEDS YOU

Ride into an Avengers mission. Harley-Davidson has joined forces with Marvel once again for another epic mission. And this time, these two legendary powers are looking to put you in the middle of the action. You could be drawn in to an upcoming Avengers digital comic and win a new custom H-D motorcycle.

 Basically, you create a character, give him a back story, and the best one gets drawn into an upcoming Avengers Digital comic, and you win a new H-D motorcycle!

I figured - what the hell - so I did up a character and gave him a story.  Now, the back story portion was limited to 1000 characters, so it was not as detailed as I would have liked, but as I had fun with it, I thought I would share it here with all of you.

My Hero's name is Dark Octane, and here is his story:

Out for an evening ride with his wife, our hero was hit and crushed by a Hijacked truck carrying nuclear waste bound for disposal.  Our hero's wife is killed instantly when a spent nuclear rod crushes her.  As our hero tries to lift the nuclear rod off his wife, his DNA is changed forever.

After 3 weeks in hospital, our hero vows to exact revenge on the crooks who killed his wife.  While hunting them down he begins to notice the emergence of strange abilities.  He can see in the dark, has uncanny hearing and has the strength  and speed of 5 men. 

When he finally tracks the criminals down he is faced with the ultimate decision - to exact his own brand of justice or let the authorities handle it.  His one defining character trait is this one wrong decision he makes.  Wandering lost for the next few months he stumbles upon a group of heroes fighting crime who convince him that his life does have meaning and convince him to join them.  His name?  Dark Octane.

While I am no author, I had fun trying to come up with something that could translate into an Avengers style comic...did I succeed?  Who knows.  Did I have fun?  You betcha!

If you think you can do better, by all means, please enter the contest and share your story here.

In related news...I actually find myself wanting a Harley now...specifically this one:

That's one HOT looking bike...of course me getting one depends entirely on winning the lotto, but hey...I can dream right?  LOL

Enterprise Rent-A-Car SCAM resolved!

So, here we are exactly 1 week after I started my all-out Social Media attack on Enterprise Rent-A-Car and I can say I've won.

I monitored their twitter account and told everyone who mentioned it about my story, gave them the link to my Blog and did everything I could to ensure my story got out there.  It was retweeted enough that over 5000 people had my story show up in their timeline.  Add to that the negative comments on Facebook, their fan page and every other public forum I frequent and it is no wonder they finally resolved the issue.

Wednesday morning the manager of one of the locations finally called me back and asked for the details again.  After telling my story again he asked what they needed to do.  I simply said "refund the money".  He said OK and promised to get it done.  A couple hours later I got a call from the regional manager asking me if everything was all good.  I told him I didn't have confirmation that the money was being refunded so he said he would confirm and get back to me.  2 hours later he called back to say that it was done, but that it would take up to 48hrs to reflect on my credit card.

I elected to put my "war" on hold for a few days to see if this was indeed the end.  As of this afternoon I can confirm that my credit card has had the charge reversed.  YAY!  The little guy wins one!

Through all of this I have learned one valuable lesson - when dealing with rental companies, protect yourself.  If I ever have to rent a car again I will be sure to video tape the pre-rental inspection so I can be certain to have some proof if they attempt to claim damages that are simply not my fault.  I don't want to assume I will get screwed over, but I will do everything in my power to ensure that it never happens again.

Thank you to all of you who read and commented on my Blog.  Also, thanks to those of you who shared my story.  I have to think you had some part in pressuring Enterprise into settling this matter.

On a lighter note, @enterprisecares is now blocking me on Twitter.  LOL

Enterprise Rent-A-Car SCAM

So I had my car stolen during the July long weekend this year.  I went through my insurance company and they rented me a car from Enterprise Rent-A-Car.

I ended up having a rental for a month before the insurance company settled my claim.  In that month I ended up with 4 different cars from Enterprise for a number of reasons.

The first vehicle was the only one they had on the lot - a pick-up truck.  They asked me to come back later to exchange it for something else, which I did the same day.  I had that vehicle for a week as I had a trip to Calgary planned.  I returned that one due to the gas mileage being rather high.

The third vehicle is the one they claim I damaged.  I had it for almost 4 weeks during which I put just over 600km on it.  I noticed a noise coming from the front end while turning and noticed a piece of plastic molding came loose from the wheel-well and was rubbing on the tire.  I brought it back and let the staff know what the problem was.  They then requested I go to a different location as again they did not have any vehicles for me.  I went through the same process at the new location with the staff and they gave me another car.  I drove that one for almost a week before the insurance company settled and I had to return the rental.

At this point I was relatively happy with Enterprise and believed everything to be finished and this chapter of my life to be over.  I was wrong.

A few weeks later I received a bill in the mail to the tune of $637.23 for damage to the car (#3).  They included documentation from the body shop along with detailed information on the charges.

I went into the location this all started from to confront the manager.  He was not available so I talked with the acting manager.  I recorded the conversation and I asked the following question - "Do you perform a mechanical inspection after every rental to ensure there is no issues or damage?"  His response was "No."  I asked how they can bill me for damages that they cannot even prove didn't already exist when I took possession of the vehicle?  He did not have an answer for me.  He took my information and promised to look into it and get back to me.  I am still waiting.

I made a post on Twitter complaining about the lack of service from Enterprise and received a response back from their Twitter account.  It suggested I email them with the information.  I did just that.  I received a voice mail from the regional manager.  I returned the call and am still waiting for a return phone call.

The "deadline" came and still there was no resolution to this.  Knowing that they said they would process the charge on my credit card, I checked my account and sure enough - there it was.  I filed a dispute with my credit card company over the charge but fully expect it to go in Enterprise's favour. 

I then filed a complaint with the BBB in Edmonton (today) and am hoping it goes well.  Stay tuned.

I will be sharing this BLOG post with as many people as I can in the hopes that A) I get this issue resolved, and B) it protects some other innocent person from getting screwed over.

I will be contacting the GlobalTV Troubleshooter today as well and I am hoping that with all the negative press Enterprise will begin receiving, will be enough to get this resolved. 

All I want is my money refunded, any associated credit charges covered, and official apologies from Enterprise.  That's not too much to ask is it?

Stay tuned for details as this soap opera continues.

The REAL ways of being.

So a coworker and I came up with some things to live by, and we are going to steal a saying from our boss and call them:

The REAL ways of being.

1. Manage Expectations
2. Work smarter, not harder
3. Realize everyone has an agenda, and it may not be the same as yours
4. Work to live, don't live to work

These may seem like things you have heard before and I make no claims as to making these up.  However, if you follow/understand/accept these 4 things, your life will be much happier and a lot less stressful.

I reserve the right to modify this list and even add to it if we come up with any new ideas.

(annual) Update!

Wow...it has been a year almost since I posted...I really suck at blogging...oh well.

Spring came, I rode my motorbike.  Summer came, I rode some more.  Now that fall is almost upon us, I still ride.  :)  Almost 15000km this year.

Our 2nd annual FP Bike Trip was a huge success again this year.  It was AWESOME!  Almost 2000km in 4 days.  Want to do it again!  LOL

We are gearing up for our trip to Calgary for Gramma's b-day and planning on taking the bike as the weather is really good...much nicer than last year.  LOL  I was hoping to get time this weekend to also hit the mountains for a bit of a ride, but that doesn't look like it is going to happen.  Maybe next weekend?  Can only hope.

As always, don't hold your breath for updates...but who knows, I may actually update more often.  Then again, maybe not.  :)

Cold and Rainy

Cold Bike ride!


So, Michelle's Grandma fell and broke her hip in early August, but the plan was still to have her b-day party as planned. That all changed when she got an infection and had to stay in the rehab facility. We decided to go to Calgary anyway and just have a weekend for ourselves.

The original plan was to take the bike if the weather cooperated, so we figured we would still plan for that. As the weekend approached the weather looked to be cold and rainy. I figured we would just take the car and not worry about it, but Michelle wanted to take the bike anyway. Away we went!

The trip down on Thursday after work was not too bad. No rain, just cold. 5c on the highway is pretty cold on a bike, but we made it.
Friday was zoo day and it was not a bad day. Again there was no rain, so the day worked out. I took a ton of photos and will upload them to my facebook soon.
Saturday we took a trip out to Canmore via the 1a as it is a nice ride on the bike. Michelle loved the road as it is nice and windy with nice scenery. We had lunch in Canmore at the Grizzly Paw. I had a Bison burger and a Moose Knuckle Stout. Yummy! When we got back to Calgary we went to the rehab hospital to see Grandma and have some b-day cake. After that we went to a friends place for a BBQ. Long day, but we had a great time.
Sunday we stopped out at Cochrane to look at Grandma's computer then headed home. It was raining and cold all day. I found out the hard way that my boots and gloves are not designed for wet weather. It was a LONG day as we had to stop a bunch of times to warm up.

While the trip was cold, it was nice to get out on the bike for another long trip. It won't be much longer before I have to park it for the winter. :(

This coming weekend is supposed to be nice with temps up to 24c. There is a Santa's Anonymous Toy Ride scheduled for Sunday that I will probably participate in, so that should be nice. Hopefully we can get a bit of a ride in on Saturday too...have to wait and see how things progress I guess.

That's about it for now...