I have never enjoyed Phoenix's "downtown" area; traffic headaches, parking nightmares, lack of safety (or the impression of it), no reason to go down there and mess with it. Occasionally I have had to go there for work or a concert I felt strongly enough about, but it is always an anxious, unpleasant experience for me.
It is even worse down there now that the city has decided to destroy and rebuilt the Civic Plaza Convention Center at the same time they are building our light rail debacle system. It is some bureaucrats twisted apocalyptic fantasy. Getting there is half the fun? Nope, getting there is no fun at all.
Guess where I had to go today?
Just going would have been bad enough, but what should have been a quick in and out settlement, 20 minutes at the max, became a day ruining odyssey. I'll spare you all the details, but I will give you the highlights.
This is an annual deal with this client, one of the few clients that requires us on site for settlement. The process has been the same for years, the personnel haven't changed, but...
This year their rep(s) completely dropped the ball, changed the rules, then complained about the delays.
This year I ended up hiking all over the new 3 story building for 90 minutes, rushing our guys to get paperwork in order that they had no idea they even needed to look at for two more hours.
This year the one thing that remained the same was her comment, "Boy, labor is really high here in Phoenix" - yep, she says it every year.
I got a small check with an even smaller profit margin. My toes have more, and more painful, blisters than I remember them ever having.
I am once again reminded why I hate downtown Phoenix - and why I hate dealing with customers.
Posted by Vox at July 23, 2006 10:54 PM | TrackBack | Phoenix