Again today, someone felt the need to talk to one my supervisors after I dealt with them...The sad part about the interaction with this customer is there wasn't a definite fix for the issue he was having with his phone. If it were me, I certainly would be feeling different if someone gave me two quick sets of steps to do on my phone and told me it might not fix the issue. The guys problem was that his phone when sending picture messages was coming back failed and aside from the error message, he was seeing symbols all over the screen. His best description was that some of the symbols looked like the Transformers logo. My initial reaction was to tell him to destroy the phone as quickly as possible as I wouldn't knowingly want a Decepticon out there plotting against us humans. I basically told him I've never heard of the issue before, told him I could help him through the steps to try and fix it, and let him know that if what we did didn't resolve the issue, that we'd have to open a trouble ticket and have some techs look at it. He was on the phone at the time so we couldn't troublshoot it and said he try what I told him and call back if neccessary.
Corey Masterson!!
I just spoke with Tim, who is the director of a 4000 seat call center (in the pulp and paper industry). He gave Corey very high praise in regards to his professionalism and courteous service. Tim's words: "Corey's service was through the roof.....he was honest and got right to the point".
Way to go Corey.......another promoter in our court!
Really, I'm only doing my job but if enough people keep thinking I'm providing some sort of spectacular service, I can last long enough here to find something out there that pays better or something I actually enjoy doing. Why aren't there jobs that pay you to geocache?
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
Recognition
I really don't get why people feel the need to do more than say thanks for doing my job. This was sent out today after a customer asked to speak with a supervisor when I got done helping her. It came out to the Customer Service email address from Kelli Hurley as she was the only supervisor available at the time.
Christine wanted to be sure we recognized Corey Masterson for the excellent customer service he provided her. Christine could not say enough wonderful things about her interaction with Corey. She had an difficult issue that Corey was able to solve! She said he was diligent, professional, and worked all his resources to find the answers she needed! She wanted to be sure we understood how lucky we are to have Corey at Verizon Wireless. I could not agree more!
Thank you, Corey, for making this customer a Verizon Wireless promoter!
The situation was something anyone could have handled if they had just made a phone call for the customer yet two people didn't take the time. She had dealt with two reps previously and didn't get her situation taken care of as they just quickly looked at her account without getting into details. As nice as it is, its really not neccessary.
Christine wanted to be sure we recognized Corey Masterson for the excellent customer service he provided her. Christine could not say enough wonderful things about her interaction with Corey. She had an difficult issue that Corey was able to solve! She said he was diligent, professional, and worked all his resources to find the answers she needed! She wanted to be sure we understood how lucky we are to have Corey at Verizon Wireless. I could not agree more!
Thank you, Corey, for making this customer a Verizon Wireless promoter!
The situation was something anyone could have handled if they had just made a phone call for the customer yet two people didn't take the time. She had dealt with two reps previously and didn't get her situation taken care of as they just quickly looked at her account without getting into details. As nice as it is, its really not neccessary.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Stud Mill Road
Wendy and I went out last Sunday to try and wrap up all the caches on the Stud Mill Road we missed or logged DNF's for during July. Once again, we saw nothhing in regards to large animals. At one of the locations, Wendy almost stepped on a snake but that was the extent of the wildlife. We ended up with only 32 for the day but could have had more. We were under time constraints and had to cut the trip early to make in back to Bangor / Brewer and ended up being late. I think I used more gas coming back from GC1TMA3 at 90mph all along Route 9 than I did all day along all the side roads off the Stud Mill Rd.
Here's Wendy reaching for Clifford Lake Scenic View...
On the quick walk up to the cache, I picked up what I thought was a piece of trash that had the Avery TM logo on the back and I remember thinking it was odd that stationary would be out here. I picked it up and it was preprinted log stickers from Cano with his QR Code logo on it. Apparently he was out here logging caches at the same time and we just hadn't run into him.
Here's a view of the lake from a little beach area. I put my hands in and it was nice and cold as expected. I half expected my hands to have a lake water smell but the water was crystal clear and looked like you could just drink it up.
There were several spots on the little side roads I probably shouldn't have taken my Passat but did anyway. I mean, c'mon, its for a cache. They really weren't that bad, it was just nothing you really ought to be taking a front wheel drive car designed for the road through. This was one of the spots just before the Clifford Lake area where the road was washed out. I stopped to think about it for a minute, realized if we went through, we didn't have to come back this way, and went for it. This was a picture of afterwards. I did bottom out in the middle but kept on going. There wasn't enough flow there to pull of us off the road or anything but if you stopped in the middle, you might have sunk into the soft parts.
This was the view around GC16VGB. Not much out here but downed trees but the cache was dedicated to a great Red Sox player of the past that I remember seeing play when I was a kid so well worth getting.
After stopping to get a cache off another side road, GCTRAR, I decided to let the other cars out on the road know what we were doing incase they saw the car randomly parked along the way.
I had to actually act like a troll to get this one and luckily stayed dry in the process. I was able to grab the ammo can and toss it to safety, then we logged it and I was able to balance on a couple rocks to get it back into its location.
This was found at GC1BFWM. There is a small beaver dam at the location and they had taken this tree down.
Here's a couple of shots of the river at GC1TK0E. We missed this one the first time and made sure to get it this trip.
I had caught a glimps of this sign the first time we were up here but were in a hurry to get caches. This time was a little less of a rush even though we were under time constraints so I stopped.
Here's Wendy reaching for Clifford Lake Scenic View...
On the quick walk up to the cache, I picked up what I thought was a piece of trash that had the Avery TM logo on the back and I remember thinking it was odd that stationary would be out here. I picked it up and it was preprinted log stickers from Cano with his QR Code logo on it. Apparently he was out here logging caches at the same time and we just hadn't run into him. Here's a view of the lake from a little beach area. I put my hands in and it was nice and cold as expected. I half expected my hands to have a lake water smell but the water was crystal clear and looked like you could just drink it up.
There were several spots on the little side roads I probably shouldn't have taken my Passat but did anyway. I mean, c'mon, its for a cache. They really weren't that bad, it was just nothing you really ought to be taking a front wheel drive car designed for the road through. This was one of the spots just before the Clifford Lake area where the road was washed out. I stopped to think about it for a minute, realized if we went through, we didn't have to come back this way, and went for it. This was a picture of afterwards. I did bottom out in the middle but kept on going. There wasn't enough flow there to pull of us off the road or anything but if you stopped in the middle, you might have sunk into the soft parts.
This was the view around GC16VGB. Not much out here but downed trees but the cache was dedicated to a great Red Sox player of the past that I remember seeing play when I was a kid so well worth getting.
After stopping to get a cache off another side road, GCTRAR, I decided to let the other cars out on the road know what we were doing incase they saw the car randomly parked along the way.
I had to actually act like a troll to get this one and luckily stayed dry in the process. I was able to grab the ammo can and toss it to safety, then we logged it and I was able to balance on a couple rocks to get it back into its location.
This was found at GC1BFWM. There is a small beaver dam at the location and they had taken this tree down. 
Here's a couple of shots of the river at GC1TK0E. We missed this one the first time and made sure to get it this trip.
I had caught a glimps of this sign the first time we were up here but were in a hurry to get caches. This time was a little less of a rush even though we were under time constraints so I stopped.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
500th Cache
I know I took the time to post stats and all with having hit the 500th cache, but I didn't take time to actually post anything in regards to the event itself. I get behind sometimes on the blog side of things as I don't always have as much free time after caching to get it all down. It may be a couple days later but here it is...I took the kids and got them all bundled up and went over to get Wendy. We were supposed to meet Ben, Tina, Mike, Michal, Cori, Shayne, and Scott at the parking coords for The Eagle Eye Stash cache at 10:30. The time was kind of thrown together all at once around two hours before. We knew we were going but no one ever really confirmed a time. Cori and Shayne we met at Tim Hortons in Brewer and then headed out the long way to get there. By the time we finally go there, it was like 10:50ish. We hung out at the parking area until everyone got there and then chatted with everyone for a bit. Cosmo hung out in the car until it was time to climb into the back pack.
Once we finally headed out on the trail, it quickly became a very quick vertical climb.
Cooper grabbed a break here and there as we went up along with everyone else. I think we scooted up ahead at a little too quick of a pace.
Once we finally headed out on the trail, it quickly became a very quick vertical climb.
Cooper grabbed a break here and there as we went up along with everyone else. I think we scooted up ahead at a little too quick of a pace. 
After taking in the sights for a bit, we started to head into the woods away from the bluff and look for the cache. Between the 4 or 5 GPS receivers that were there, the groups kind of went at the location from a couple different directions. Michal and I were very close first and he spotted the cache first giving a hoot and hollered to everyone he'd found it. We all headed over and started to go through it.
The way down was much quicker than the trip up and we all went our seperate ways. It was a great day and a very memorable trip.
Stats on My First 500 Caches
Stats for Masterson of The Universe
Total: 500 finds
Total days since first find: 1611 - Overall find Rate: 0.31/day, 2.17/week
Total days with a find: 148 (Every 10.9 days or 9.2% of your total days) - Average finds per caching day: 3.38
Best day: 7/03/09 - 114 finds
Most consecutive days with a find: 3 from 5/27/05 to 5/29/05
Longest caching drought: 173 days from 11/11/07 to 5/02/08
Average total cache difficulty: 1.7 - Average total terrain rating: 1.72
Average physical cache difficulty: 1.72 - Average physical terrain rating: 1.73 (Traditional, Multi, Unknown, Project APE, Letterbox)
Approximate cache-to-cache distance: 3533.72 miles (5686.97 kilometres) (Excludes locationless and known traveling caches)
Active Caches: 450 of the caches you've found are still active (90%)
Average log size: 40.7 words - Biggest log: 327 words - Shortest log: 1 word - Number of one-word logs: 1
Milestone Cache Date Found
1 Cascade Cache (Log) 5/23/05
100 Geo Zoo #5 (Log) 8/31/07
200 Park and Ride Hide (Log) 3/30/09
300 Beavers Tribute (Log) 7/03/09
400 Gateway to Moosehead (Log) 7/18/09
500 EaglEyeStash (Log) 10/18/09
Based on your overall rate of 0.31 finds per day, you'll find number 600 around 9/06/10 and the big 1000 around 3/19/14. However, over the past few months, your find rate has actually been 1.04 finds per day. Based on that, you'll find number 600around 1/23/10 and your 1000th around 2/11/11.
This map is kind of sad as I've only cached in Maine...
This looks a little better.
\
Total: 500 finds
Total days since first find: 1611 - Overall find Rate: 0.31/day, 2.17/week
Total days with a find: 148 (Every 10.9 days or 9.2% of your total days) - Average finds per caching day: 3.38
Best day: 7/03/09 - 114 finds
Most consecutive days with a find: 3 from 5/27/05 to 5/29/05
Longest caching drought: 173 days from 11/11/07 to 5/02/08
Average total cache difficulty: 1.7 - Average total terrain rating: 1.72
Average physical cache difficulty: 1.72 - Average physical terrain rating: 1.73 (Traditional, Multi, Unknown, Project APE, Letterbox)
Approximate cache-to-cache distance: 3533.72 miles (5686.97 kilometres) (Excludes locationless and known traveling caches)
Active Caches: 450 of the caches you've found are still active (90%)
Average log size: 40.7 words - Biggest log: 327 words - Shortest log: 1 word - Number of one-word logs: 1
Milestone Cache Date Found
1 Cascade Cache (Log) 5/23/05
100 Geo Zoo #5 (Log) 8/31/07
200 Park and Ride Hide (Log) 3/30/09
300 Beavers Tribute (Log) 7/03/09
400 Gateway to Moosehead (Log) 7/18/09
500 EaglEyeStash (Log) 10/18/09
Based on your overall rate of 0.31 finds per day, you'll find number 600 around 9/06/10 and the big 1000 around 3/19/14. However, over the past few months, your find rate has actually been 1.04 finds per day. Based on that, you'll find number 600around 1/23/10 and your 1000th around 2/11/11.
This map is kind of sad as I've only cached in Maine...
This looks a little better.
\
Monday, October 19, 2009
Geocaching Who Am I
I found this questionnaire on a geocaching blog that I just started following so here it goes...
1. What is your name? Corey Masterson
2. What is your GC name? Masterson of the Universe
3. What kind of GPSr do you use? Garmin 60csx
4. What is your favorite feature on your GPSr? Color screen, Adding all my found caches as Points of Interest for later finding.
5. What is your best memory of geocaching? The feeling of find the first is a great memory but I think one of the days where I did 32 on my own was great.
6. What is the furthest from your house you’ve ever found a cache? I don't have mileage in front of me as I'm at work on a locked down net connection but it's a cache at Two Lights Park in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.
7. What is the hardest cache you ever found? The hardest cache I have found is probably a magnetic micro called Meg's Micro in Bangor. It was on the underside of a fence and I must have visited the location 5 different times to find it. I hate micros.
8. What is the most amount of caches you’ve completed in one day? 124 on the Stud Mill Road on July 3rd 2009.
9. How did you get started in geocaching? I heard about it from Wendy (Drwhogrl) in 2005, bought a GPS, tried it and got hooked.
10. What is the silliest mistake you’ve made while geocaching? While doing the Stud Mill Road series, missing a whole road of caches which would have made it a 140+ day.
11. What memorable animals have you encountered on the trail? Just deer and couple eagles.
12. What is your favorite earthcache? I have only found 3 of them so far. Educational but not as much fun as a standard cache.
13. When do you geocache most often? (Season? Time of day?) I cache the most during the summer. I prefer a nice warm evening.
14. Who do you usually geocache with? Wendy
15. Have you ever logged a find on one of your own caches? If not, would you? No I haven't and don't plan on it anytime soon.
16. What is the most consecutive days you’ve gone caching and had a find? 3 in October of 2008. Thats sad so I'll have to try and remedy that.
17. How do you feel about people who “collect” trackable items? I hate it when my trackables don't get moved along. They are out there to move, not end up in someones collection.
18. Is it all about the numbers for you? Numbers are fun but I see it as a number of memories and places I've been, not just a number of logs signed.
19. What have you learned since you started geocaching? Some math skills due to Cano's puzzles, a lot about using GSAK, a lot more than I had known before about the Bangor and surrounding areas.
20. What is the most interesting travel bug or geocoin you have discovered? Probably the most interesting coin(s) belongs to KayakerinMaine and is a 5 coin series in the shape of puzzle pieces and they all fit together.
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