Update on Thumbtack.com Review

I submitted a review of the website Thumbtack.com a little while ago.  I have an update to my previous review which has just taken place. I received the following lead in email yesterday.  It seemed like another one of those non-leads containing no useful information.  The message at the bottom caught my attention enough for me to inquire further using the public forum questions.  If this is a serious lead, then it could potentially be a good deal.

Time stamp: Feb 14 (1 day ago)

Courtney O.
Event Photographer Needed Submit Quote
What	Event type Wedding Number of attendees 25-50 Indoors or outdoors Indoors Photo products CD / DVD: No, Online or digital proofs and prints: No, Physical proofs and prints: No, Ability to purchase prints online: No, Album: No, I'm not sure: Yes Total budget for photographer's services and images I'm not sure yet Message Need engagement pics asap after Feb 21
When	Date: Tue May 27 2014
Where	Idaho Falls, ID 83402 Service professional must travel to my address.

Having no studio to work with, I naturally asked if the client Courtney was interested in a studio or an outdoor location for engagement pictures. This question was not against the guide lines, as listed below, so I thought there might be a possibility of an answer, though I was doubting it.

Guidelines

"It is of the utmost importance to us that we maintain a fair marketplace for our community of Service Pros and a positive experience for our clients. For these reasons, you may not use Public Questions as a way to offer quotes on jobs or otherwise circumvent the Thumbtack process. With that in mind, if you fail to follow these guidelines your question may be edited or deleted entirely.

Things to avoid when writing your question:

• Writing anything inappropriate
• Making significant grammar or spelling errors
• Sharing price estimates
• Using your full name or sharing information specific to your business
• Requesting to have contact with the client outside of Thumbtack
• Asking about the client's budget
• Asking for pictures from the client
• Requesting the client's contact information
• Asking if the client is still interested
• Not including a question
• Asking if the consumer is willing to take a specific action (e.g., "Are you willing to drive to the northern part of San Francisco for this service?")
• Asking questions more appropriate for Thumbtack support

The ideal Public Questions are those that ask for specific details, such as the client's desired date or what size of crowd they are expecting. You should remember that your questions and the client's answer will be visible to other Service Pros competing for the client.

Once you see the client's answer, you send a quote tailored to their needs. Good luck!"

I was not at all surprised when I received this email less than an hour after submitting my question.  I was predicting that this would happen.  It's a rarity these days to not have a question deleted for reasons having nothing to do with the information above.  Below is the email containing the text of the exact question I asked.

2:19 PM (23 hours ago)

"Hi Audrey,

A public question that you asked did not meet our guidelines because it asked for information that was already included in the request. Your question was not sent to the client.

Courtney, I see you need engagement pictures along with wedding pictures. Do you have a preferred location for the engagement pictures like a studio or outdoor setting?

You are welcome to submit another public question that is within our guidelines.

If you have any questions about this process, please contact support by replying to this email."

A reasonable person, would say, "wait a minute, that question had nothing to do with the information contained in the lead." This person would be correct in that observation. I was not asking anything about the wedding that Courtney was listing. I was asking about the engagement pictures she mentioned in the additional message. There was no reason to delete that question.

Please also note that the email says the "question was not sent to the client."

Naturally, I challenged the moderators on this decision. I have included the text of my reply email below.

 2:45 PM (23 hours ago)

"I know you don't really care and you will try some fake line of apology and empathy in an attempt to try and make me feel better. Save your time, it will not work. I submitted a question about information included in the message attached to the lead. The message request had nothing to do with information contained in the lead. That was a separate request entirely. My question had to do with the message request not the event request.

My business model currently does not include a studio or other indoor location. I must ask these questions or I will not be wasting my money on a lead bid only to learn that the client wants a studio: something I cannot provide. It is a waste of my time and money and also the customer's time.

I am now declining quotes where your company deletes my legitimate questions. I have declined this quote. My spouse is encouraging me to cancel my account with you. I'm beginning to seriously consider it based upon the repeated behavior like this which your company is displaying."

Thumbtack has started sending out these auto-generated email responses when I reply to a question removal email. That started in January. Given their response below and their previous track record of finally sending a reply at least a week late, I expected no less than to have to wait till I had forgotten the matter for the reply to arrive.

"Hi Audrey,

Thank you for getting in touch with Thumbtack Customer Support. 2014 has started with a bang for Thumbtack - we've experienced a significant increase in support contacts, and it may take up to 5 business days for us to respond. We thought it was important to let you know about our current delays and to tell you that we're doing everything we can to get to your email as fast as possible. In the meantime, feel free to check out our help center at http://support.thumbtack.com/hc/en-us - it contains lots of useful information and it's likely you'll find the answer to your question.

Thank you for your patience.

Thumbtack Support"

I was highly surprised to see the following email in my inbox this morning. Note that the name is exactly the same as the previous lead and that it addresses my concerns voiced in my protest email. No preferred photo location is given either, it is listed as "As recommended."

10:48 AM (3 hours ago)

Courtney O.
Portrait Photographer Needed Submit Quote
What	Photo type Couple portrait Photo shoot location As recommended Photo products CD / DVD: No, Online or digital proofs and prints: No, Physical proofs and prints: No, Ability to purchase prints online: No, Album: No, I'm not sure: Yes, Other: engagement/invitation photos Total budget for photographer's services and images I'm not sure yet
When	As soon as possible
Where	Idaho Falls, ID 83402 Service professionals may travel to my address OR I will travel to the provider up to 25 miles.

Now I might be all wrong about this, but something smells very fishy to me.

I suppose that Thumbtack could have informed Courtney that she needed to submit the engagement job as a separate lead. I have seen listings about engagement photos needed too on a wedding lead. This is the first time that I have seen someone deliberately submit a wedding with engagement photos needed THEN submit the engagement photos as a separate lead. This is also the first time that I have declined a lead.

People don't usually keep THAT on top of their email. Vendors get a 72ish hour window in which to submit a bid. This is a mighty quick turn around for a public question which was not submitted to the client. How would she know that I had a question unless she was, perhaps, a moderator herself? I'm still not declaring that Thumbtack.com is submitting fake leads, as I still don't have absolute proof, but this evidence is pretty strongly implying that those kinds of actions are taking place.

Review of the Website Thumbtack.com

For a few months, Cramer Imaging has been working with a website called Thumbtack.com.  The whole point of this website is to join customers needing a service with vendors who provide that service.  If you are a customer and you have a job that needs to be completed, the idea is that you submit your job as a lead on this website and local businesses providing that service will see your lead and bid on your job.  The competing merchants do not get to see each others' bids or even who else it bidding for the job.  This is designed to give the customer the best possible options.  It's a bit like that Lending Tree commercial where "the banks come crawling to me."  That is the general idea anyways.

Ender's Game Review

A short time ago, my wife and I decided to see Ender's Game.  It had long been one of my favorite books, and preparing to watch it, we read the full Ender quartet, and started onto the Shadow books. 

I had intended to try to review the movie as if I hadn't read the book numerous times, but I found that rather too difficult.  

If you haven't read the book, you may not understand this review.

Warning this review contains spoilers.

How to Fix the Government

I've given it a lot of thought, and I think I've come up with a way to fix a lot of what is broken in the government.  The federal government is far too powerful, and our elected officials tend to think of themselves as aristocracy.  There are a few simple changes however that would resolve a great many issues.

Movie Review: Men In Black 3

I liked it, I liked it better than MIB 2, and somewhat better than MIB1. The jokes were clever, the acting was reasonable, and the story done about as well as any time travel storyline can be.  Of course the entire time travel, change history thing is way overdone in science fiction these days, so I would say it loses points for that.  Not as many as something more serious would, but I'm still tired of the whole time travel thing.

On the whole, I'm glad I waited until it came on Starz, since I get that for free with my employment, so I didn't actually have to pay to see it, but it wasn't a bad show, and while it probably wouldn't have been worth seeing in a full price theater, I'm not sorry I saw it.    I'd give it about 4 stars out of 5.

New Photographer Friends

Some friends of mine have been trying to start a business.  Audrey and Ken Cramer are working on running a photography business out of their home.  Audrey does some really stellar work, and could really use some business.  Ken is doing photographic assistance, and most of the IT work.  They've asked me to help occasionally.

Check them out at www.cramerimaging.com.

Movie Review The Amazing Spiderman.

I'm still divided on how I feel about this movie.   While watching it, I found that I didn't care much about the characters.  The action scenes weren't done nearly as well as we've come to expect in action superhero movies, and that may be its biggest problem.

Why are some men Anti-gun?

I'd thought this article was well circulated, but it seems some that gun bloggers who have been around a long time hadn't seen it yet.  On Jewish World Review, Julia Gorin explains why many so-called men are against others having guns.

They accuse US of compensating. The truth is, like most liberal accusations, it is another case of liberal projection.

Unplesant People

I've been working for a little over a year doing phone tech support for a major satellite television provider.  It isn't a particularly good job for a career. In fact it sucks.  For someone working their way through college, it would be an excellent job. Since I am technically working my way through college, again, I guess I could look at it that way, but at my age, and with trying to start a family, it feels a bit different.

Probably the most difficult part however is dealing with unpleasant people, and customers can often be extremely unpleasant. I generally find sports fans the worst.  Somehow their team is more important than everything else, and they can't imagine how anyone couldn't be just as in to their team as they are. 

I once had a woman call me screaming to the top of her lungs that she couldn't get "The Game".  When I tried to find out which game she became totally incoherent with rage. I didn't even know what sport she was talking about.  Since there were at least 40 different games on various channels at the time in various sports, I couldn't help her until I had a little more information. She ended up demanding immediate cancel because I was so incompetent as to not know what "The Game" was.

While Sports fans are the most commonly unpleasant, they aren't by any means the only unpleasant people out there.  One man I talked to was angry because he was told his bill would be about $20 per month for the first year.  He said he paid it, and suddenly he owed $40, and he paid that, and was absolutely having a fit that he now owed $80.   He yelled at me for over 30 minutes, and berated me for incompetence, even though I could see what the problem was from the minute I saw his account.The amount he owed was negative.  In other words, he had been paying the credit amount.  It took me another 30 minutes to get him calmed down enough to comprehend that the amount he saw on his billing was not how much he owed us, but how much we owed him. 

It is interesting how often people get an idea in their head, and are either completely unwilling or unable to get over it sufficiently to actually hear what is going on.  A lot of liberals, particularly university professors, like to tout being open minded, but when it comes to tech support (actually anything other than what they want to believe) they're about the most closed minded people out there. They refuse to understand what you're telling them when it comes to what you need to do.

TheWife worked at Taco Bell before I met her.  She talked about people seeing you as a glorified vending machine.  I'm OK with that.  It's the ones that consider you less than a machine.   Some people feel that since you are paid to see to their needs, you are somehow less than human.  That it is somehow their right to abuse you. 

I think that part of this is a relatively recent development in our society.  There was a time when people wouldn't consider abusing someone serving them in a business, and if they did, they would quickly become a social outcast.   Now however, we've lost all of our manners and self control.  There are no consequences for being an unpleasant person.   There are no real consequences for losing control. In some subcultures, it is actually seen as not only reasonable, but a desirable personality trait.

I have no idea how to solve the problem. It seems to be a form of barbarism.  As I write this, there is a program on that was talking about the fall of Rome.  It pointed out that as Rome started to fall, things got really bad.  The Barbarians came in and took over.  Now however we don't have barbarian hordes outside waiting to take us down, we have barbarians already here ready and working to take us down without even knowing. 

I'm not looking forward to what's going to happen, but it should be interesting to see how things shake out. 

Happy Thanksgiving

It is Thanksgiving, and as part of my ever failing goal of actually writing more in this blog, even though no one seems to be reading it (perhaps there's a connection there), It's time to talk about Thanksgiving.  As the name implies Thanksgiving is, or was supposed to be about giving thanks, but it has long ceased being so.  Most people still try to do some lip service to that by listing a few things they're thankful for, but that is no longer the primary purpose. 

In that vein, I would like to say that I'm thankful for my new job.  I'm finally away from substitute teaching.  I'm working for a place that takes outsourced tech support calls for a satellite television service.  I have one day of classroom training left, then will be starting live on the phones with added help for another two weeks.  I get a decent benefit package, and a few other perks that make it nice. This means I get to pay off some bills, and finally have a bit of fun too.  I can also do some of the things with the scouts that I've been meaning to do.  It's amazing how many wonderful things can be directly traced back to being able to actually earn something resembling a living.

I'm also grateful to my parents that we've been able to live with them.  It's solved a great many problems for us, and allowed us to get on our feet far better than would otherwise be possible.

The only thing is that I guess I can't exactly call myself "formertech" anymore, except that I'm not going to change it because I'm not a computer tech, and I don't intend on staying a front line phone tech for long.  I'm going to work my way up, or find something even better.

What I'd actually like to talk about though is Thanksgiving.  It isn't really about overtly giving thanks anymore.  It seems to be about gluttony, and watching a stupid athletic event on television or similar.  But is that really a bad thing?

First off, let's address the charge of gluttony.  A cynic might suggest it's a bad ting, as would someone trying to find sources of "bad" in society, but first and foremost Thanksgiving is a celebration.  Humans have nearly always celebrated whatever they are celebrating with some sort of feast.  While Thanksgiving isn't really celebrating anything in particular, it is still done with a feast.  If approached with the right attitude, that can be a great thing.  Enjoy it, and have fun. 

Now for the football.  I'm not sure why football is played so much on Thanksgiving, but it doesn't really hurt anyone. Sure for those of us who hate the sport, it's annoying, but don't watch.  I don't and no one in my family does. 

So what is Thanksgiving really about?  It's about family, about seeing them, and being together.  A shared repast is a traditional way of doing that.  Food is generally about socialization, and often love or friendship.  Thanksgiving should reflect that.  Even if the original idea of giving thanks is going away, it can still be a celebration of being together.

The Federalist Papers: A reading and blogging project

I have begun to read The Federalist otherwise known as The Federalist Papers.  For those who've never heard of it, it is a collection of papers written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay in support of the then new Constitution.  It explains the reasoning behind pretty much every part of the constitution. 

The edition I have is a "Signet Classic" published by New American Library, a division of penguin group. I don't know if it's the best version, but since I'm basically without income for the time being, It had to be something cheap.

As I read, I will be posting a summary and my initial thoughts about each of the letters.  Hopefully, I will get someone to read it, and maybe learn about our country. 

Joplin, Missouri vs New Orleans, Louisanna

Joplin, Missouri was hit by a severe storm a short time ago. The storm spawned several tornadoes, including at least 1 EF5, which hit Joplin. At least 200 people unaccounted for, with at least 125 confirmed dead, and at least 900 injured. The entire town is basically gone. Yet despite all of this, people are already rebuilding. Everyone is pitching in to help, and some have already started rebuilding. It is an inspiring view of what America should be.

Let's contrast this with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans a few years ago. Everything was Bush's fault. FEMA somehow caused all of the problems, and the government didn''t just come in and fix things. People basically sat around waiting for mommy government to come and kiss it all better or something, and when that couldn't happen, the result was anger and helplessness, not self sufficiency, or personal responsibility.

Let's view some basic differences:
First a nicely illustrative picture of the attitudes in New Orleans.


Now some comments from Joplin:


Now one could argue that it is simply biased reporting, but I've heard nothing about how the government failed Joplin, only New Orleans. I've also heard nothing about FEMA coming in to take care of things in Joplin. What I hear about are people coming together to get things done.

Now a lot would call this racist, but it isn't.  It has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with ideology.   Everywhere a socialistic/progressive viewpoint prevails, helplessness prevails, not only are people unwilling to help each other, they are unwilling to help themselves.  They sit and wait for someone else to take care of it for them.

In areas where people have a sense of individuality, not only do they help themselves, they help each other.  It is a truism, that if you can't help yourself, you can't help others.  As we can see, in areas where people are willing to own their misfortune, things are getting better.  In areas where progressivism reigns everyone sits around waiting for someone else to take action.  The worst part is that in these areas, if someone does stand up to try to help, no one else stands up with him.  He is crucified in the court of public opinion for not helping more.

This is Basically What Working for The University Was Like

I couldn't take it.

Starting Back in College

Well, I've started back in college again.  I don't know exactly how I'm going to pay for it all, but I'm in college, I just signed the papers. 

I won't go back to take classes from my former employer.  I don't care if I'm 90% of the way to a degree there, and could do it in a couple of semesters.  I won't go back, because my experience there as an employee was simply too horrid, and a number of people there made it clear that if I did try to come back, they would be out to destroy me.

Now to continue my education, I have to pay around $75.000 to an online college, with a less than stellar reputation (strangely, only very slightly worse than the state school I came from).  Few if any of my credits transfer, and I have to take three years of year round online classes to get a degree. 

In my opinion it's totally worth it.  The cost, the time, and the effort are all worth it.  I need a degree, and I hate the university that I gave nearly 20 years of my life to.  I've vowed that they will never receive another dollar from me.  They've taken too much from me and those I love already.  I owe them nothing.

As for my major, I'm majoring in computer science.  They offer two (better than my former university), one with an emphasis in programming, another with one in networking.  For the time being, I'm going for programming.  I'll post about the overall quality of the classes after I actually experience a class.

I'm actually a bit excited.  If I can complete my degree, I can get a better job, and more importantly, I can get the skills I need, as my wife and I are trying to go into business for ourselves, as that is the only realistic way to get a job when there simply are no jobs.  When measured using equivalent criteria, unemployment is almost double that of the great depression.

We're also talking about my wife going to school and getting her photography degree, and me getting an MBA.   This would give us the skills we need to run our business as we get it started, as it is our preference to be self sufficient, rather than reliant on the whims of others.

Retro Starcraft

My wife and I have become fans of classic Starcraft (and of course the Brood War Expansion). We don't particularly like online play, and most of the maps available online seem to be geared toward free for all, or melee settings, so we decided to do our own campaign.

We're kind of departing from the regular storyline, but since the game is kind of stuck with the characters acting like the characters in the regular campaign, we kind of had to go with them, so it's more of an alternate reality situation.

We have a couple of levels more or less made, but the story and dialog still needs to be fixed some, and the mission briefings need to be written. So far we're figuring on about nine or ten levels. We want to have interesting combinations of characters and races fighting each other, just to keep things nicely mixed up.

My wife is basically handling the story, and since I'm the programmer, I'm handling the scripting. She is handling a lot of the mapping as well, and I make some changes as necessary. Once we get it going, we're going to hand it off to some friends for some play testing. If and when we get it done, I'll link to it here.

Today is a Day of Celebration

Osama bin Laden is dead.  Apparently killed by a U.S. operation in Pakistan.  All I can say is that it's time to celebrate.

Needing to Get Away From the Public School System

As I said before, being a substitute school teacher was healing me, but I think that is coming to an end. While I actually like the teaching, I'm burning out on several aspects of subbing:  It is difficult to deal with kids who always want to use a sub to get away with whatever they can.  I hate never knowing where I'm going to sub, and there is just the overall feeling of being an intruder in someone else's classroom.

But these aren't the major problem.  I can't handle the left wing bias.  I don't want to go into too many details, however it seems to me that the major push within the public school system is to indoctrinate the students to a blind obedience (at least during a crisis) and waiting for someone else to save them. Moreover, no questioning among the staff about these, even in private is allowed.  In fact, in my experience, if you don't profess sufficient enthusiasm for the procedures, you are called in on the carpet.

I want to be generous and try to believe that the goal isn't to create a nation of easily led sheep, however I can't even begin to fathom how anyone involved can't see it, so I must conclude that it IS indeed the goal, and that the overall participants fall into a few categories: Those wanting to create a nation of sheep, those who have already become sheep, those who need the work and are willing to compromise their principles, and perhaps a few who are trying to undermine from the inside.

It isn't just the emergencies either.  The curriculum, texts and lessons all seem to be prepared to dumb down the population, and to force a left wing mindset.

There have been several suggestions in my state for ways to reform education, but the only reform that will really work will be to have the parents,taxpayers (for the taxpayers should have some say in what their money goes to fund), and voters to actually know what is being taught and why.  I'm pretty confident that if the general population in my state knew what was going on in the schools, there would be an uproar.  Maybe it's time to expose it.  I just can't be the one to do it.  I can't operate in secret, and that is what would be required.

The UK isn't Alone In Stupidity

In Obamaland, they've banned most lunches brought from home.  Parents are no longer allowed to make decisions for their own children.  Children in "progressive" areas have become wards of the state, with parents as free care providers.  You don't have an option on what to feed them, where to send them to school, and even what you can ideologically teach them is limited.  

This is a perfect example of a government out of control. I say again that the agenda does not seem to be to protect us, but to make sure that we are more easily ruled.

As Bad as the UK Has Become...

I think they've gone beyond anything any comedy writer could imagine.   With a hat tip to Madogre, Britain is now wanting to ban fire extinguishers because, get this, they pose a fire hazard.  The claim is that untrained people might try to fight the fire rather than leave. There is also a concern that someone might use the wrong fire extinguisher on the wrong kind of fire.

Back in the day, the Monty Python gang made fun of bureaucratic stupidity (ministry of silly walks?), but this is something too stupid even for them. 

So now I guess, it's not just guns that pose a hazard to the great unwashed, but fire extinguishers too.  Maybe I'm just paranoid, but it seems more and more clear to me every day that the "progressive" ideal isn't to protect people, but to make people dependent, and incapable of acting without government approval, as a dependent people bleating for security are far easier to rule. 

Reloading

If you're not into shooting and reloading, you might not understand this. 

I'm a fairly serious shooter, or rather I have been.  Life has significantly intervened, and I haven't been able to go shooting for a while.  Since my funds are somewhat limited, and I need to do SOMETHING shooting related, I am going to get back into reloading.

I had been reloading for a few years.  I was introduced by my uncle, but I think I kind of upset him.  What took him about 20 years of work to grasp, I understood in a day or so.  That particular uncle isn't particularly bright.

Anyway.  I had been reloading rather avidly, then something important happened.  I fell in love and got married.  I moved, then I moved again.  I left my reloading setup in my parents' house, but I didn't really have time or energy to devote to it. It kind of got buried, when my wife and I stored some of our stuff in the same room.  When my job went away, we had to move back in, and even more stuff went wherever I could put it.

Now I'm needing to get back into it, even if I don't have the time to go shooting now, or the money to get a range membership.  I can at least do something shooting related.

Since I left my reloading table as it was the last time I finished using it,  I thought I would share some insights.  Finish whatever you were doing before you stop, and put it away with understandable labels.

Let me share with you how I found my reloading table when I unburied it:

I found a powder trickeler full of an unidentified powder.  I don't remember what I was reloading last, so that powder is basically useless.   I'm pretty sure it's IMR 4732, but that is only based on its look, and where my powder measure was set.  I'm not willing to bet my life on it.  That means over 300 grains of powder just went down the drain.  On the plus side, I hear it's good fertilizer.

I found 2 #10 cans partially full of brass. I'm pretty sure I was doing some sort of process on a batch of brass, but I can't remember the process, or which can was the ones I was finished with vs. the ones I wss going to work on. I had various tools everywhere.  It was a mess.

While I don't really need to buy anything new, I might as well be starting over.  I have to take all of my brass and separate it out.  I have to get a bunch of new containers to store it in, and make sure everything is labeled.

I can only be thankful that nothing was rusty, or degraded in any other way.  Even my scale was still pretty close to being zeroed.

The moral of this story?  Even though most reloading equipment is of extremely good quality compared to most consumer goods, that can't keep you from all of your problems. Keep your reloading area clean and organized.  ALWAYS put your powder away, and if you can't finish a batch of something, label it.  Say what you were doing, and which stack was done and which one was not. Even masking tape and sharpie will work for that.  Finally if you can, clean up and store your supplies BEFORE you stop using them for an extended period of time.