Mary writes:
Hey ya'll. I just wanted to alert your readers to the fact the T-Mobile USA's customer care (1-800-937-8997) is offline right now. It has been since sometime yesterday. Apparently they house all their system stuff in Seattle, WA or Portland, OR or one of those currently waterlogged states. Well, it has caused all their stuff to crash. I called last night and then again this morning and waited past their automated system telling me that they could not view my account info thru the IVR and that the CSR's were unable to view my account info and to call back later. I spoke with a polite rep Cassie who said that they did not have an ETR on when their systems would be back up and running and that I should try calling back later on today. We called T-Mobile and sure enough they're currently unable to pull up anyone's account info due to the storms. No word on when it will be back up.
Get well soon, T-mobile.
(Photo:
Apparently, the current crop of Washington elite shop at Costco for all their fancy dinner parties, which is certainly the most sensible thing we've heard about the douchebags who populate our nation's capital in a long time.
It's some sort of weird fad according to the NYT, irritating local caterers to no end:
Susan Lacz, chief executive of Ridgewells, the largest catering company in the Washington area, said she knows the trend all too well. "My gosh, it drives me crazy," she said. "Some of the people I hear are going to Costco, I think, 'Oh, you must be kidding me.'"
The ultimate awkwardness, she said, is when clients want to buy their food from Costco but disguise it: "They'll say: 'Why don't you bring the fancy glassware, and we'll get the rest from Costco. And could you put it on one of your fancy plates? Oh, and how about some of your fancy ice cream on top?'"
Ms. Lacz said she was "not going to name names," but that one of her best clients, a high-end retail store, told her, "We're going to go to Costco and buy a bunch of stuff, and we want you guys to serve it."
To which she replied: "No, you're not." There's actually a name for this phenomenon:
"Reverse chic is a very powerful phenomenon in status-oriented circles," said David Kamp, the author of "The United States of Arugula" (Broadway, 2006), a book about the American fine-food revolution. "I think Costco is the same thing. It gets discovered." Isn't that precious?
Fry's employees in Renton, Washington sold Black Friday aspirants the chance to cut to the front of the pre-dawn line for between $108.79 and $200, including tax. Puzzled shoppers were assured that the money went to Fry's, not the employees. A Fry's worker explained the situation with disarming naivetГ©:When KING 5 asked about this at the customer service desk, one employee said: "Oh they stopped doing that. They weren't supposed to." The employee said the store manager put a stop to it.Anyone who paid the advancement fee will receive a full refund. The rogue salesmen will be sent to the back of the unemployment line.
Seattle shoppers want to know why the FDA won't 
Washington, D.C. is actually a pretty gay-friendly place—hell, even a few closeted types seem to find a way to make a living there. (Just a few.) But in early October a gay couple was thrown out of a Rite-Aid a few blocks away from the city's traditional gay neighborhood for allegedly hugging each other in the store. According to them, while they were shopping, one of them hugged the other one from behind, and the store manager ran up and shouted, "Get out! Get out!" A few seconds later, the security guard told them they had to leave, although he said he didn't know the reason why. The manager, Denny Getachew, won't comment, and Rite Aid spokesperson told the local gay magazine, "We are looking into this matter, and we will take disciplinary action if need be."
This week, about 50 people staged a "hug-in" at the store, which we can only imagine melted the eyes of any anti-gay witnesses. This is why you don't let personal prejudices take control of you when you're the manager of a store—the response from those you treated unfairly is 50 times worse.
"Animus in the Aisles" [MetroWeekly] (thanks to Brian!)
RELATED
"Hugging it Out" [MetroWeekly]
"Rite Aid Hug-In a Success" [TheNewGay]
Fox News Coverage Of Hug-In [YouTube]
(Image: Fox 5 News, Washington, D.C.)