I'm reading about Darfur

I'm reading about Darfur for a class I'm taking. The following is an account of how I came to be reading about Darfur.

Selected Reading
Title: Darfur Diaries: Stories of Survival
Author: Jen Marlowe, Aisha Bain, and Adam Shapiro
Publisher: Nation Books, an Imprint of Avalon Publishing Group
Publication Date: 2006

High-Quality 21st Century Writing ... that I enjoy
For starters, I certainly should hope that the book meets the criteria. In fact, I’m sure it does. It must! It was recommended reading on the list. This isn’t a cop-out answer, and I’ll tell you why: Going with a book that was recommended by the instructors not only cuts down on time spent pondering which book to read, but it also exponentially increases the chance of choosing reading that is high quality.

Getting a recommendation for a book from an instructor/librarian is like getting a recommendation for what to eat from the chef of a restaurant - they know which items are the best to read or eat, respectively.

As far as whether or not I’ll enjoy what I’ve been recommended, I believe that I will.

I don’t know much about Darfur. I suppose I know a little, but I generalize it in a way that is in terms of the whole globe: Another bunch of people are super-crazy poor; and they are blaming a specific group of people for their woes; and they’re so frustrated and angry about their life situation that they start trying to kill off the whole group of people that they’re blaming.
Nothing new to me ... Or at least that’s my limited perception going into this. I hope to learn something.

But I believe I’ll enjoy it because it will be good reading - not just because it’s something I don’t know a lot about.

Book-Location Procedures
To find this book, I went online to the Metro State website as demonstrated in class. I practiced and repeated the same steps we used in class to locate the book within the Metro State Library. The library’s database turned up the location of the book when I searched for “Darfur Diaries.”
I considered the recommendation from my instructors to be sufficient consumer testimony.

Book-Acquisition Procedures
To acquire the book, I intently marched to the second floor of the Metro State Library, glancing only momentarily at the oncoming student traffic in the skyway (there was little), and went to the section bearing the book coded “DT159.6.D27 M3 2006.” I fell upon the book, “Darfur Diaries,” and extracted it from the shelf after weeding through a few other books about Darfur - just as I’m sure good ol’ Melvil Dewy would have insisted I should do.

With the book in my clasp, I darted back to the front desk of the second floor. I checked out the book with the assistance of a helpful-but-unamused woman of - no doubt - Hmong descent, who informed me that the book needed to be back by the 8th of February, and even slipped a reminder slip into the book in case the date slipped my mind. From there, it was only a matter of moments before I completely absconded with the book safely zipped away in my Swiss Army backpack. But I assure you, though I may have executed the acquisition of the book with unwarranted bravado and a bit of unnecessary excitement, there’s nothing facetious about my method. I’ll have it back by the 8th.

A letter to Midas.

I'm not to terribly keen on complaints, because so often I don't think they're channeled correctly. We complain to people in our immediate circle who have no way of helping the situation that we're complaining about because they aren't connected in the correct channels that could affect said situation to the benefit of the complainer.

And ya know what happens then? Nothing. Everyone just kinda feels worse, because there's a person in the room who just wants to bounce their complaints off of everyone and no one can do anything to help them feel better. That's a real drain.

However, a complaint can be good if it's channeled correctly. Like if you wanted to change a law or a policy that's causing you grievance.

So here is an example of a (what I believe to be anyway) properly channeled complaint. You can rip the prose' effectiveness, and the writing style, etc. to shreds, but those aren't the point. The point is the channel that it's being sent through. It's the corporate office. People who care about the bottom line. If they lose a customer, they know their bottom line got hurt, and that is the thing they hate most in the world.

Caveat:
I should also point out that since the case is that they don't want to lose a customer, I don't say to them, "You've already lost me." No reason to burn a bridge if there is still potential for Midas to want to bring gifts over on it.

The gift will probably be store credit or a free oil change or something like that, but that's better than nothing for all my damn Midas trouble.

Caveat:
I don't really F with Midas anymore because my brother-in-law is a great guy and an engineer.
_____________________
Hello, Midas.

This particular Midas fixed a problem with the coolant elbow that aides in disseminating coolant/anti-freeze to the engine of my '97 Buick Park Avenue. They replaced it at my request, and they did a good job with that.

But when I picked my car up, the gas gauge no longer worked. It just reads no gas in the tank regardless of how much there is or was. I brought the car back to Midas the next day to ask the workers what gives, and the manager said he'd need another 80-something dollars to look at the now-not-functioning-gas-gauge, even though the gauge worked splendidly before I brought my car to Midas the day before.

I declared that the smug diagnosis policy and the set of circumstances were lame, and left the shop.

I am sending this to you now because I just now located the receipt for the work done that day.

I'm not too terribly sore about the whole transaction now. I've taken my necessary steps to get over it. But seeing that receipt reminded me that I still don't care for that type of business: fix-one-thing-and-then-another-doesn't-work type of business. That's not too cool.

And as business folks, I thought you might like to know.

Respectfully,
Joe