dubious.biz(ness)

We arrived in Jogjakarta (this is also seen written as Yogyakarta, Djogyakarta, it’s all pronounced like Jog-jakarta). Sintha’s uncle then drove us to the town of Borobudur, which is the site of the famous Borobudur Temple, the largest buddhist monument in the world. Waisak was that day, and to our suprise the president of Indonesia was going to be speaking at the event. This meant a ton of police and military coverage. In short the event was organized chaos. Chinese, in my humble opinion, cannot be made to form lines. Neither can Indonesians, but Chinese seem particularly adept at disorganizing themselves in attempts to get in front of everyone. Waisak is a buddhist holiday, and as such most of the people there were Chinese Indonesians, so you can imagine what “procession” might look like, one that travels all the way from Mendut temple to Borobudur temple. Unfortunately, most of the really interesting shots and events were lost on us, like the offering and prayers at Mendut, and the events at Borobudur. We were ultimately tourists invading on the religion event turned rally. So we behaved as tourists should and simply sat around and gawked. The actual procession started at about 2:00PM, but with perhaps 15,000 people in a tiny town, and perhaps every annoying vendor of any sort from 100km around, it took quite a while for the line to form and the procession to leave mendut temple. Mendut is a reasonably large temple, and a quite small temple, Bima, sits between Mendut and the massive Borobudur. The procession was quite fast once it got going from Mendut, and we actually left Mendut ahead of the them to go back to the hotel and wait and were caught off guard when it started going past our hotel (which happened to be on the route) and quickly ran to join. We followed the procession all the way to Borobudur, and quickly realized that instead of an religious event this was akin to an overgrown Baptist revival with thousands poured into giant tents, projection screens and video, a massive soundsystem, and a number of speakers, including the aforementioned president were scheduled to speak. Realizing that that entire “rally” would be in Indonesian, and that the entire thing would probably hardly touch on buddhism itself as much as the politics of being a Chinese Buddhist in Indonesia, and most importantly, that the actual religious part started at 12:00 and ran till 3:30am, and we had hardly slept the night before, We agreed to go to bed and come back after the president spoke. So unfortunately, I missed my chance to see a foreign dignitary, but probably for the best, as we were barely able to wake up and get back when we did awake later that night.

Finally, I hoped that the Indonesian politics would be over and something interesting (to me) might transpire. Unfortunately the shear number of people crowded onto the base of the temple pretty much prevented that. Additionally neither of us knew what was supposed to happen. I had two written accounts of apparently much smaller ceremonies where people had gone on to the temple itself and in the traditional buddhist fashion, circled every level 3 times and then ascended until they reached the top. There were far, far too many people to make this practical, and I think that instead people circled around the base of the temple 3 times and left it at that. We did get candles and then sat as several people did “sermons” and unfortunately fell asleep as they were also in Indonesian (and probably pretty boring even if you did understand). Then, meditation, which at 3:20am is quite a struggle to stay awake anyway, and finally everyone was sprinkled with holy water by the monks. Sintha said that the holy water was apportioned by belief, so if you believed in it 50% you got 50% effective water. I think I got 100% effective water, but I’m not sure if that means I get anything good or bad, since it is buddhist, I think if I expect something I’m cheating.

After being sprinkled, we were a bit disappointed to see water bottles being sold (for a donation) that said “blessed water” and a number of people had purchased many bottles. To think I could have taken a shower with the stuff…

Then everyone was dismissed. Later, we would figure out that we probably should have stayed as it was nearly sunrise and apparently getting to see the temple at sunrise is a difficult (and somewhat expensive feat) but one that the guide books claim is impressive.

So then we went to sleep, and woke up and visited a ridiculously nice and ridiculously expensive resort called Amanjiwo in the hills overlooking Borobudur. This place starts at $650 per night, and goes up into the quadruple digits. The hotel is an impressive architectural feat in itself, and there were quite taken aback to have a few wandering walk-ins, and we got the full tour of the place, including looking around a room, of which they only have 35. Of course at that rate, they’re probably not ever booked up, and that’s how the people staying there like it.

Then we drove down to Borobudur temple proper and got in and had a tour. It seems that whenever we get a guide they are a bit goofy, but perhaps this is because we’re goofier. This guy was quite goofy, and we walked around the temple and he explained a few of the reliefs and the general design until we were kicked off due to sunset and the temple closing. The temple is designed as essentially a set of progressively small rings like a pyramid, culiminating in a single large stuppa at the top. The lower levels are carved with reliefs telling the story of buddha, stories about Javanese life, and smaller stories about good versus bad.

Near the top of the temple, it changes from squared to round and a number of stuppas, or bell-shaped domes with buddhas inside, start appearing. The stuppas are symbolic to buddhism, and the temple itself is considered a large stuppa as you cannot enter inside it (there is no inside as it is build into the hill it lies on). It is an amazing structure and made even more so by the fact that today it is a thriving, though touristy, town built around it.

We agreed to go back to Awanjiwo later that night for dinner, which was quite nice, as we were able to sit outside and have probably the most relaxed meal I have had in Java, which is so crowded with people that moments of solitude are golden. We also agreed to back to see Borobudur at sunrise, however due to the comically bad organization of the area surrounding the temple, we were first lost inside the area of empty vendor booths and parking lots, then later informed that to see the temple at sunrise we would have to pay 200,000rp, which seems like a small sum but in respect to the pricing around that area is pretty much ridiculous.

So, after waking up terribly early (the sun rises here at around 5:30 and sets at 5:30 as well, because it is so near to the equator), we sat around and waited for our driver to arrive who would be taking us to Dieng plateau later that day.

Unfortuantely, that story will have to wait, as it appears that I have ran out of time at this Internet cafe.

Well, I’ve been a very bad blogger. I should have been blogging like every day but unfortunately a number of things have conspired to keep me from doing so. I won’t give excuses though, I have to catch up on everything that’s gone on thus far. So the next day I went to a few malls in Jakarta, which has an inordinate number of them. For some perspective, Jakarta is the same size as New York in terms of population, but unfortunately has no good public transportation, roads, or planning, so there is a lot of “redundancy” because it is difficult to move from one area to another. However, Sintha has shown no fear and we have been all around Jakarta, though mostly sticking to the north to south central areas. I went to Pasaraya (where I happen to be at the moment as well) a really exclusive mall called Plaza Senayan, and a empty shell of a mall that was half filled with electronics boutiques and strangely has a well marked set of signs to “DVD AREA.”

DVD Area is located behind what I would consider to be fake construction areas that wind around and obviously haven’t been worked on in a while, then you end up in the back in a busy market, complete with display cases, TVs, dozens of attendants, and it is filled to the brim with pirated DVDs. The price for white people is 8000rp, which is about $0.80, and the price for locals is just 6000rp, about $0.60. The DVDs, and many of them have not yet left the theaters, or in other cases, not yet even arrived in Indonesian theaters, are complete with very nice covers, color printed discs, but are obviously pirated. I tried to ask the guy working if the particular DVD what sort of copy it was, and he said it was a direct copy from the DVD. Of course, being that the DVD in question was Episode 3, it wasn’t a legit DVD. I bought one just as a souvenir and to have something that had Indonesian language subtitles.

Then the next day, it was the wedding. The wedding was quite nice, the Roos’s driver came and got me and I got in just in time to see the vows exchanged for the first time. The wedding was quite elaborate and staged in a rented house and the them was Betawi Cin (Chinese native Jakartans), which I guess was a good bridge between Inka, who is native Malay Indonesian, and Daniel, who is native Chinese Indonesian. Both of them live in Singapore now but their families are in Jakarta. The second service came a bit later, and was in about half English, half Indonesian. A lot of the language I hear between Sintha’s friends is about 25% english, 75% Indonesian, which got damned annoying after a while, but honestly, I am the one at the disadvantage not knowing Indonesian.

Weddings in Indonesia are typically pretty elaborate, and this one was probably medium to small in size, but very nice. The normal indonesian dress is some sort of a kebaya for the woman and an ambassador suit for the man. I personally find kebayas to be very hot, much better than wedding dresses (they’re basically a sarong, which is a tight long sort of skirt, and an elaborate, form fitting top). However, Ambassador’s suits look totally goofy, they’re derrived from the suits that Indonesian ambassadors wear, and look like a cross between a western suit and traditional Javanese formal dress, but they look like shriners outfits on white boys to me. To each his own. Of course, since this is Indonesia and there were two services, this mean two meals. The first was Indonesian, the second was Chinese.

Short break then I will be back with Borobudur (which was Monday, and this is Sunday… BAD BLOGGER!)

I have had the pleasure of going to three families houses so far. It is true that the accomodation in Jakarta, like the standard of living, goes from the very very bottom to the very top. The first house I visited was Sintha’s. Sintha’s parents are wealthy, but in Jakarta, they are somewhere in the middle, probably the top 1%, but that last rung on the ladder is filled with some very very wealthy people. Unfortunately, many of them are wealthy because of corruption.

Sintha’s house, like every reasonably good house in jakarta, has a fence around the outside, very tall and spiked. Other houses have razor wire, or embedded broken glass, sharp sides up, but hers has just ornate spikes. The house itself is only about 10 feet from the outside fence, there is no front yard to speak of. There is a gate, as every house has one, and a garage. Because every house has maids, every garage is spotless. They are, by far the cleanest garages I have ever seen, and usually emphasize that with pristine white tile floors and are nearly empty. Inside Sintha’s house, she first took me to the kitchen, which is very large for the house, and is a bit of a different room than the rest of the house, this is both to keep the house cool and because her mother is a baker by trade. It looks well enough appointed, but it isn’t what I would consider extravagant by American standards.

The rest of the house, however, is very impressive. It is like a sanctuary inside Jakarta, as many houses are. Because of the heat, noise, dirt, and pollution, people with money tend to stay inside cars and houses and buildings. Air con is a godsent for them. Sinthas house is very large, open, has weighty marble floors throughout (except the kitchen), and is, in a word, opulent, particularly for a native in Jakarta.

Later, I went to Sintha’s friend Inka’s parents house. I would peg Inka’s parents as the Jakartan middle class. This means they have help, but the house is perhaps 2000sq ft of land. The kitchen was small and cozy, like an apartment kitchenette, the house was well decorated, the floors were carpeted with outdoor type thin carpet, there were fans attached to the wall, and the people were kind and warm. Every meal I have had was a feast, with a huge variety of Indonesian dishes. Inka’s parents are Sulawesian, I believe, and they have a more sour, hot bent on food. More on that later. Anyway, they are also devotely muslim, an as we were leaving, they were about to have a big prayer (I don’t remember the arabic word for it) to pray for blessings for Inka and Danny’s wedding.

Then, I went to Sintha’s grandmother’s house. Her grandmother lives in an older part of town, which is now more better than it was originally, but it is close to the heart of the city. Unlike most American cities, there is no distinct separation between parts of town, roads are narrow, and the walls around the houses are high, making them into small canyons, and other than the quality of housing, most parts look very similar, so you rarely know where in town you are. Her grandmother lives alone, and has a single maid. She is very kind but very old. She is “old school” Javanese. Her husband was an ambassador, and there are many many pictures of her and him next to Soekarno, the country’s founding father and first president (Indonesia’s political story is a soap opera in itself, but suffice to say Soekarno was a dynamic and somewhat controversial figure, and ruled for about 20 years before being overthrown by a coup by a man, Suharto, who ruled for approximately 40 years. The country is only on its 3 actually elected president in nearly 60 years because of Suharto’s reign. Anyway, this makes her grandmother and grandfather somewhat wealthy, but her grandmother’s house does not show it, other than the occasional artifact from Burma. It is modest but much larger and open than Inka’s family’s home. Her grandmother is kind and has all the traditional politeness of an old indonesian, including saying silkahan after serving someone.

Of course, other people have holed up in shanties, shacks, and half-contructed buildings, so all these people are wealthy by indonesian standards, being in perhaps the top 25% of Indonesia, but the one thing I can say is that they are all extremely kind, gentle, and giving. This is truely a country of diversity and kindness, and a place where I would expect nearly everyone, no matter where they come from, is welcome.

I wish I could tell you about all the food I have eaten, but I don’t have time unfortunately… nor Sintha’s parents. It will all have to wait another day.

Also I should say yesterday, I went to a Salon, then a seamstress, then to Inka’s house, after sweating it out walking around Kemang in the morning. It was interesting stuff, all in preparation for the wedding. I purchased a shirt I will only wear perhaps once, a thin blue chinese style shirt with embrodiery down the center, which I will be wearing to Inka’s wedding tomorrow. Today I hope to get a pair of linen pants and some dress shoes since I forgot mine.

Well, I guess I should catch you up on everything that has gone on so far… I’m a day or so behind. After finding Sintha and leaving the airport, we took the first trip. There are a lot of things that are different about Jakarta but I think one of the most noticable is the traffic. Sintha had described this to me many times, and I never really got it until I got here. I could explain it to you but I don’t think you’d get it either.

There are a few rules for jakarta traffic:

• Dotted lines are just suggestions. No, they are less than suggestions, they are jokes that ridicule your ability to drive and the only way to conquer them is to ignore them completely. Imagine and American “two lane” road, like a country road. Now imagine that there is a small footpath covered with glass, brokentiles, and brick on either side. Now imagine a bunch of small SUVs, cars, taxis, bajajs (three wheeled motor cycles with covered cabs in the rear), and mopeds. You can easily fit at least three cars on to a wide, two lane american road.
• On highways, which all almost all toll and well-kept, you use both shoulders, and two lanes turns into four or sometimes five.
• Buses, taxis, and bajajs will all stop, often in a center lane to let passengers out. They will then start again, often as piles of cars flow around them.
• Oncoming lanes are reasonable ways to pass someone so long as no one is there.
• Flashing brights at night and honking horns in the day are both the main ways of communications. Taxis with no passengers will double honk at all bules (means albino, in context it is the common term for all white people, and carries a connotation of foreigner of course). Short single honk means “hey,” long single honk means “GO!,” and medium then long honk (like in America) means “Fuck you.”
• Surprisingly, despite what can only be called a lawless free-for-all of traffic, the angry honk is very very rare. It is only reserved for people who seriously endanger people, which is quite rare.
• There is a very common SUV-like car that is made by toyota by converting a pickup into a SUV, called a Kijang, it is very very popular. This is probably becuase it seats perhaps 8, is relatively small, and has a boxy shape with low windows that makes it ideal for navigating the insane traffic.
• As you might imagine, traffic circles are insane, with people aiming at nearly every vector and trajectory.
• As insane as traffic circles are, intersections without traffic lights are worse. People will drive into the center, continually, and endup where they are going with no rhyme or reason, many intersections have 3 cars going in each direction, the equivalent of six “lanes” of traffic. And you just keep driving and everyone ends up in the proper place, always.
• Mopeds are terrible. They not only split lanes, they drive into intersections with traffic lights when the light is red, nearly never stopping. Of course, they are terrible states of tune and they and the bajajs, which use the same sort of engine, are the two largest sources of polution in the city. They are also more common than any living creature, excepting people. That would include cicaks (geckos), bugs, and other small critters. Of course, having automatic transmissions, low speeds, and good turning ability, they are uniquely suited to Jakarta.
• Average speed on a non-toll road is about 15 mph, and you go essentially continuously, it is a steady stream, a river of traffic, not a damed up river like american style traffic that lets off every few minutes.
• Finally, despite all this, I have been on the road for about 6 hours, and I haven’t seen a single accident yet, I would think that in America, accidents are perhaps twice as likely given much better conditions, roads, vehicles, and everything, simply because people pay less attention and travel more slowly.

Bajajs are a bit small, one bajaj plus a moped is one lane. A car or SUV is also a lane. A single moped almost always splits the lanes, usually toward the center and oncoming traffic.

Yesterday got into Jakarta, but first a bit about the trip. First of all, it was on China Airlines, which is a surprisingly good airline. Sintha and Sintha’s Mom both act as if this is common sense, but really I think it indicates the intelligence of the Chinese. I agree with most pundits that China is going to end up as a serious world power, and I think that’s not necessarily a bad thing. While China is reputed (recently) for mass manufacture and low quality low price goods, the reality is they are purely providing the market what it is asking for, lowest price and passable quality. I think China Airlines are generally flown by the more affluent Chinese and Taiwanese, and it really shows. They have all the amenities typical of an upper class airline, and a dirt cheap price.

Unfortunately, English is less than a second language. I have had my fill of chinese. I have no idea what dialect they spoke but they rarely spoke english. Imagine hearing “Preaz fraszen jur seebel.” a thousand times, because that was the only real english they spoke.

Taiwan seems to be massively overbuilt. There is more infrastructure there than and city its size I have ever seen, despite the fact that it is the capital it is relatively underpopulated. It also smells. Jakarta smells also but Taiwan smells worse. I don’t know if that is the natural smell of the place or just the airport, but it isn’t pleasant.

Finally, I got into Jakarta. There was a little alert in my book about the fact that Jakarta Taxi drivers are extremely persistant. This is a vast understatement. Sintha, as was expected, was late, and one of the hundred taxi drivers started following me around. He tried to get me to go with him, eventually I gave in, asked him where to change money, and then called Sintha, who was just arriving. I gave him 10000rp which Sintha said was too much. The rest of the story will have to wait as I have to go meet Sintha’s friend Inka and have lunch at her house now…

Selamat siang :-)

I’ve been listening to John Edwards podcast. Twice now, he’s come out with fairly interesting podcasts. I am, despite my father’s best attempts most closely defined as a liberal. I don’t want to go into where I fit but thus far I’m liberal and a democrat. If the parties change their lines, I could go the other way.

At any rate, I am really impressed with John Edwards. The reason that John wasn’t considered as a candidate was that he hadn’t paid his dues. He seems devoted to not paying his dues, though. He’s presenting himself via podcasting to a relatively small audience, but building a base in 2005. Not 2008, or even 2007. John is a very very smart guy. He’s dangerous. He’s damn near lethal, and I seriously predict that he will run again. If he can gather the support of the democratic party, he’s going to make a good shot for 2008. He’s more dynamic, he speaks to the middle road, and most importantly, he’s stands without being propped up.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to be able get the attention of the democratic party.

The smartest thing he’s done, by far, is to including dialog with his wife. I think he’s got Hillary in his sights, and I think that he’s just the man to take her down. But I don’t know who he might run against from the Republicans side, and he may not have the ability to turn the sorts of corners that the Republicans are capable of turning.

I’m a bit perturbed right now. I figured I would brush up on news for Indonesia since I’m traveling there next week. I wanted to have something to say in current events there with her parents. Of course, there’s not a lot going on there according to google news, other than the usual international trade crap, and tsunami updates.

However, what really, really annoys me is this: US issues more travel warnings for Indonesia. The long and short is that the State Department would recommend I stay home, because the “terrorist threat” is too great.

Let me make this clear: terrorism only works when you’re scared. I think that the real terrorist threat is the fear mongering that seems to be the only thing that this short attention span culture is interested in. The reality is: you are far more likely to be killed by every single sort of very bad day in any country, at any time, than to be killed by a terrorist. Does that mean that we’ve stopped terrorism? No. Terrorism has been about the same since the 1960’s. That would be since the middle of the cold war. It’s like an earthquake or a volcano. You keep an eye on it, but the reality of it is that you are going to be able to stop, nor would attempting such a thing be practical or reasonable.

The real people in the business of making people scared to leave their houses, the very definition of terrorism, seem to be politicians and media that drive the “terrorist problem” through while letting all sorts of real issues, fatal and non fatal, slip through the cracks. The reality is that terrorism is a politician’s best friend because literally no one can be at fault nor can it ever be prevented. We might as well have a trillion dollars devoted to preventing rainy saturdays.

I’ve sat around and watched the actions of a very few people be turned into two wars with two countries, one of which had nothing to do with terrorism, trillions of dollars spent, a media frenzy, the removal of civil rights from people, and all the while everyone ignores issues which kill more people in a single day. To give you a good perspective: NBC News says that 1709 people were killed by terrorist attacks worldwide in 2004. Of those 60 were US citizens. That would give the average US citizen a better chance of winning the lottery than being killed by a terrorist attack.

Further, in the US alone, to pick a random disease, leukemia claimed the lives of 23,300 people in the US alone. That is over 13 times more people than were killed by terrorists in the entire world, and 388 times the number of US citizens that were killed by terrorists.

And how much does the government spend on terrorism? Well, considering the myriad programs under the belt of the Department of Homeland Security, it’s hard to say, but perhaps DHS’s budget might put it in perspective: $36.5 billion. Of course that includes a lot of stuff, but even if only 1% were used, that would be $365 million dollars. In contrast, only $179 million is given to cancer research. Cancer is, by the way, nearly 10000 times more likely to KILL you than a terrorist. And yet, there is no one at the airport searching for carcinogens, but they’re certainly searching your bags for tooth picks. That means that supposing that our 1% figure is reasonable, and I think if anything we’re underestimating it, you are spending about twice as much on something that is 10000 times less likely to kill you.

The reality is, I am deathly afraid of getting cancer. Research is going into ways to slow it down, make lifelong patients out of people, and little progress has been seen in the realm actually curing any particular type of cancer without major surgery. And when someone’s mother dies from cancer, rarely do they even complain that there isn’t enough research, and yet when a few yahoos make a scene, it becomes a national emergency.

The fact of it is, I am far more likely to be killed by my plane crashing, a tropical disease, a car, tripping… the list goes on, than to be killed by a terrorist. I realize that there is a terrorist group in Indonesia, and that they have blown things up before. However I think the number of structural failures due to engineering incompetience eclipses the number of people blown up by terrorists (not to mention that in both cases the victims are usually Indonesian) and this is in a country that has actually had a terrorist problem.

Quite frankly in this scare society it’s nearly impossible to separate the signal from the noise and I am getting sick of this ridiculous attitude that terrorism is our worst enemy, when it seems to be not even a minor annoyance. If I am for some strange reason killed by a terrorist, at any time, my dying thought will be “if I’m this lucky, I should have bought that damn lottery ticket.”

Marriage Issue! Issue Two Super Special!!!!

• PB Snake fears he is the reason his parents got married.
• Burt’s cousin makes hot love to Strudelmeister.
• PB Snake’s sister has the shortest marriage ever, as reenacted in “Just Married”, the hit Aston Kutcher Film.
• CDC takes over the the US census.
• Burt challenges PB Snake to a sample duel.

Download: BRAT PBS ISSUE TWO or paste into your Podeater:
http://dubious.biz/blog/pod-rss.php?category_name=BRATPBS

I’d like to tell you a little story about the most ridiculous excuse for a contest I have ever experienced.

Local radio was promoting a contest to “Name That Bar” for a new bar in town. It was to have a number of TVs, trivia, dancing, sports, girls… A whole lot of different bars that probably aren’t really supposed to be related combined into one. The prize for naming the bar was a trip to Las Vegas, a place I am all too familiar with. Of course, I was sitting in my car (the only reason I was listening to the radio is that the iPod had run out of juices), and thought of what I considered to be a great name, “The Zone.”

So when I got to a computer I entered the name into the contest. This is where this enormous comedy of errors begins. I sent in the “best” name, and lucky me, I won. However, I wasn’t to know until the DAY AFTER the contest winners were announced. Why? The person at the Lexington Clear Channel office wrote down the wrong phone number. Stupid Mistake Number One.

The next day she did phone me, apologized, congratulated me, and so on. I was honestly quite excited to have won, and I hoped to turn the thing into a scholarship. She gave me the phone number of the newly name bar, and sent me off on a wild ride trying to contact the manager. Let me tell you something, I manage people, and I get a lot of annoying phone calls. I often have the people under me send people to my voice mail or take a message. However, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t receive a message, and I won’t call back. Abusing staff as a lazy way to get out of work is pathetic. If you can take the time to tell someone you can’t handle something, you obviously don’t have the skills to manage what you are doing.

And it wasn’t that I called him once or twice. I called him twice weekly for SIX WEEKS and he never once returned my call. Not only that I also went to THE ZONE bought liquor, and waited around to see if he would show. Miraculously, he was always in a meeting. At 1PM in a bar that is curiously open for lunch, in a meeting. At 5PM during the happy hour rush, in a meeting. At 9PM on aWednesday, in a meeting. At 8:30PM on a Saturday night, in a meeting. Who schedules a meeting at 8:30PM? What a terrible excuse. Just say he’s not there, for christsakes. Flamboyant Brush Off Number One.

Then, I decided to call back Lexington’s Clear Channel, and spoke to a very kind gentleman there who actually got the lazy manager to call me, eight weeks later. At this point I am close to boiling annoyance but not yet furious. I feel like on one hand, I named the place The Zone, but that doesn’t necessarily entitle me to go running off to Vegas, and the amount of work is making me feel like I seriously want to work this hard to go to the gambling mecca in the middle of the desert. But then again, I would really like to have some cash for school. In fact, school is the main motivator, and even if it weren’t, I feel like these guys got a lot of play out of the contest, and this is an expense they should have been prepared for.

Well, perhaps not. The Zone, as it turns out has not one but TWO lazy managers. One of them, is “silent” while the other, is “in a meeting.” Amazing that this place gets its doors unlocked every morning, isn’t it? When I finally retrieve Mr. Busy Pants from his eternal meeting, he immediately gives me the cell phone of the Silent Partner, saying that he holds the pursestrings and can make arrangements for the trip. Flamboyant Brush off Number Two.

I finally get hold of him, after another week of waiting. I propose to him that I take the money in cash instead of as a trip, for use in school. He sounds discouraged that he won’t get to use the trip as a promo vehicle. I tell him that I will still do a promo if they’re interested. He says cash sounds fair. Then, he informs me that he is very silent so he’s not sure why Mr Pants sent me to him in the first place, (stalling maybe?) and he will talk to Mr Pants and have him call me. So now I’m back to Pants. Flamboyant Brush off Number Three.

While I am waiting to hear from Mr Busy Pants, he decides to start sending me Fwds of lame emails of breasts, and men peeing. Seriously sophomoric humor, and apparently he thinks this is funny enough to send me, perhaps these are the results of his meetings.

Finally I have lost all patience with The Zone and all those associated. However, I am not yet angry. This will come next. After some prodding and pushing (several, “just checking” emails), I get back a price tag on the cash option. How much? Well, first let me tell you the original offer: Round trip airfare for two to Las Vegas, two nights in a hotel, and $250 in spending money.

What is their offer? $250. The explaination is classic:

I talked to Silent and we have decided to just give you the money for the trip. The prize was for $250.00 Cash and round trip air to Vegas. I checked online and a ticket is appx $99.00. Because we were not be able to use you in this promotion, or utilize the after effects of the outcome, we would like to give you the $250.00 to do with as you please. If this is satisfactory, please let me know and we can settle up.

The after effects of the outcome? I am seriously starting to suspect that this guy barely graduated from high school, and all he has to show for himself is a bar which has recently opened and will soon be closed.

I totaled up the actual cost of the real prize that was offered, and came up with $1182, minimum. What he sent me is a complete fabrication, as it misses the second airfare, quotes “$99″ for a flight to Vegas, and has no mention of the nights in a hotel. At this point I am furious. I tell him that if that paltry sum is all they can offer, it would be clearly in my interest to book the flight.

As of now, I am still in limbo, perhaps 120 days out from when the contest ended.

I would like to explain myself. I really believe that in business you are only as good as your word. Obviously, the owners of The Zone’s words are pretty near worthless. If you offer a trip or any other promotional device, it rests on you to make good on your offer. Otherwise you are doing nothing but leading the public on. I certainly feel led on, and I certainly feel that they had every opportunity to make good on their own word. Unfortunately it seems they were more interested in taking advantage of Clear Channel and myself.

Having been in their establishment quite a bit, I expect they won’t be in business much longer. It’s a shame, but the reality is that this is probably the least of their bad business decisions, and perhaps the least costly too. The greatest was certainly having management that is apathetic and unwilling to satisfy customers.

In my own work, I have often been between a rock and a hard place with a customer. On one hand, everything is free for the asking and customers will always ask if they think they are obligated to something. Of course, often you have to say no, and the person saying no is most often me, and unfortunately I have a bit of a hardened heart because of all the “no’s” but at the end of the day, it is up to you as a manager to uphold your own version of ethics, and I can say that while I have said no to a lot of (mostly ridiculous) requests, I have always been ethical and fair in business. I unfortunately cannot say the same for the folks at The Zone.

Frankly, I want my name back.

Thank god, almost done with the daily trips to EKU. In a few minutes, leaving for the final final. So far it looks like an A for the other two courses which means unless I get a C on this one (Physics), I’m in like Flynn. That’s pretty much the final hurdle to my acceptance. YAY!

Next issue is money (as always), which I was a bit held up on since my offer was only conditional, but once I meet this condition I’ll be nearly there.