How times have changed

[MN2V]

Customer Care limited hours Saturday Feb 13

2/12/2010

Friday night, we closed early due to the winter storm warning in our area. We re-opened at 10am Saturday, but a large percentage of the staff cannot get to work. You may experience delays when calling Customer Care Saturday. We are scheduled to close at regular time of 6pm, but that may change as the temperature drops and the roads re-freeze. Note that the Electronic Filing Center is an automated system and does not require any human interaction.

This is latest info from ATX headquarters...Remember when Caribou Maine would still be working at -30 degrees.......

[PapaJoe]

The difference is that, because it snows a lot in Caribou, they have snow plows, salt trucks, etc to deal with it. In Georgia, where it only snows once every 10 years, the government can't afford such equipment, so the snow brings work to a halt. I saw on the news that the city of Atlanta has only one snow plow (why they have even one is beyond me) and 5 or 6 trucks to sand the roadways.

[kcjenkins]

Yep! But to be fair, if Caribou had stopped working when it snowed or got below 20, they would have been closed for most of the season.......

And also, Maine is prepared to handle the snow, because they get so much of it. Rome GA almost never gets any more than a dusting of the stuff. So they don't have the equipment to deal with a significant storm, they just advise folks to stay off the roads.

[rfassett]

Yeah, I do. And I sent ATX a slamming email yesterday when I received the email stating that they were closing early. I told them they should stay at the office and keep working on their product until it is finished - just like we have had to do at times. I still can not efile PA business returns and it is February 13th. This lackadaisical attitude, I fear, is permeating the industry. We are getting squeezed by clients demanding earlier delivery dates and software vendors who don't give a care. They can talk all they want about putting the customer's needs first, but as my Mama said, actions speak louder than words. I put in 97 hours last week and will be right at 95 this week (I lost a couple of hours this week because I had to have a tooth extracted), and the weather was pretty crummy here this week too, but that did not stop my office from working. ATX - are you listening?????

[Catherine]

As of today, there is snow that fell THIS YEAR, on the ground, in 49 states. The only holdout is Hawaii -- and it has snow on a couple of the mountains from previous years.

[BulldogTom]

Dang, that global warming is sure cooling things down. Kinda inconvenient for Mr. Gore.

Lets see, two years ago it was going to be so hot everything melted, and that was because of global warming.

Now, it is snowing record amounts and it is because of global warming.

It amazes me how people don't realize that God has designed this planet to fix itself. When it gets too hot, it cools itself off. But the scientist can't believe in God, so they try to act like they are gods.

OK - off my soapbox. Sorry KC, you can scold me for my religious posts later.

Tom

Fresno, CA

[kcjenkins]

I won't scold you. I agree with you. Besides, the correlation between warming on this planet and Sun Spot activity is still a LOT CLOSER than the correlation between warming and pollution. So until we figure out how to control the Sun, I think it is going to keep on happening that the planet warms and cools on it's own.