I'm sure it works, but this is just gross

For all that I usually get one or two every summer, the whole idea of the salon pedicure bothers me, largely because of the imagery of these Korean women, heads bowed, tending to the feet of middle-class Americans. I usually deal with my liberal guilt by giving the woman who does the pedicure a ridiculously large tip, but that never makes me feel a whole lot better. I mean, spending your day trimmung cuticles off of FEET? Yuck. You want to talk about a soul-killing job, there it is -- right up there with toll-taker at the George Washington Bridge and the surly woman who used to operate the elevator at Hahne and Company in Newark where I first worked right out of college. Her job was to go up, stopping on every floor, and then down, stopping on every floor. All day. Five days a week. Eight hours a day.

So I guess anything that makes the jobs of these women easier is just dandy. But as someone who saw Jaws in its first weekend and didn't go to the beach for two years, and who is a virtual jellyfish buffet when I'm in Jamaica, this just seems too weird:

Fish pedicures are creating something of a splash in the D.C. area, where a northern Virginia spa has been offering them for the past four months. John Ho, who runs the Yvonne Hair and Nails salon with his wife, Yvonne Le, said 5,000 people have taken the plunge so far.

"This is a good treatment for everyone who likes to have nice feet," Ho said.

He said he wanted to come up with something unique while finding a replacement for pedicures that use razors to scrape off dead skin. The razors have fallen out of favor with state regulators because of concerns about whether they're sanitary.

Ho was skeptical at first about the fish, which are called garra rufa but typically known as doctor fish. They were first used in Turkey and have become popular in some Asian countries.

But Ho doubted they would thrive in the warm water needed for a comfortable footbath. And he didn't know if customers would like the idea.

"I know people were a little intimidated at first," Ho said. "But I just said, 'Let's give it a shot.' "

Customers were quickly hooked.

Thank you for choosing our company. Now go fuck yourself

Two stories of customer non-service in the Republican era.

First, Susie Madrak is robbeed BY a bank:

It’s been one of those weeks. It started Monday morning, when my battery was dead. Then I got three estimates on replacing the battery core and guess what? They all came in at slightly under $1000!

Now, it also appeared that my paycheck cleared earlier than they told me. It was listed as available funds on the 7th. They posted my rent check and charged me an $88 fee for the uncleared check, but they also posted the balance as available funds.

So I, you know, lived my life. I put gas in the car, went food shopping - you know, the usual. (Oh, and in the meantime? They still hadn’t cleared the donations readers had made to Paypal and Amazon last week, which usually takes 3-4 days. Hell, they still haven’t cleared all of them as of this morning!)

[snip]

Then last night, I checked my available bank balance again and I actually gasped. Because no, the check hadn’t cleared - and they’d hit me with an additional $315 in unavailable-funds fees for a grand total of $403!

Read on here.

Meanwhile, Pierre Tristam has his own customer service woes with AT&T:

When I call back to speak with the DSL universe, it’s no longer Bell South, no longer the United States. It’s AT&T, from somewhere in India. This is going on Friday afternoon. I’m dreading a three-day weekend without DSL—the three-day weekend critical to three people in this house: I have that project to complete by Monday. Cheryl is in the middle of her new school year’s recruiting drive for her youth orchestra. Sadie is in the middle of crunch-time with her virtual schooling (all online). And here’s the scratchy man from India telling me we may have a problem setting a DSL technician’s appointment before Tuesday. The pitch of my voice begins to rise. And what’s with the line being so scratchy? The guy at the other end of the line cuts out every sixth word. I mean, this is AT&T we’re connected with, and you’re telling me that we have to be talking on a back-assed Internet connection on the phone, with AT&T? Well, yes. That’s outsourcing.

At least the man manages to set a Saturday appointment. But wait! “I’m sorry, sir, but our computers are down. I’m not able to actually set the appointment.”

You’re kidding. No, this is just a joke. You’re just being funny with me. Outsourcing humor, yes?

“No sir. The computers are down. I can call you back to confirm as soon as the computers are up.”

Yes. And the check is in the mail. But what choice did I have? Sure, call me back. He says he would in an hour. Didn't happen. I call AT&T again sometime after 9 p.m. On hold. Transferred. I ask for a supervisor. I ask for one back in the United States, imagining that somehow there’d be a difference. This whole comedy started at 3:30 the afternoon of Friday. Here we were in bed Cheryl and I, 10 p.m., having an unpleasant threesome with a man in Bombay telling me he’s having a hard time connecting with his supervisor in the United States. AT&T, incapable of connecting with itself. The alleged supervisor finally turns up, only pretending to be a supervisor, telling me he’s in Columbia, S.C., but repeating the very same things everyone else has been saying, and doing so with that revolting obsequious tone that reads placating platitudes from standard cue cards plastered around his office: “I'm sorry you're having all this trouble, sir. I'm going to do everything I can to fix the problem. I'm sorry you feel that way sir.” And under his breath the guy is calling me a motherfucker and picturing me disemboweled and skull-bashed against the shoals of the South Carolina shore. I ask for that Saturday appointment again, now that, I assume, the computers are working.

“Can’t do that, sir. Tuesday is the earliest.”

But you told me I had a Saturday appointment, it was just a matter of computer problems—your computer problems. You have to make it right.

“Can’t do that, sir.”