Tag Archives: corporations

FML

Posted by on December 13, 2019 No comments

Fuck MyLife.

If you’ve ever taken a moment to search for your name on the Internet, then you know what I’m talking about.  There are plenty of websites that collect public data about people and aggregate it all together, then conveniently make it available to anyone that wants to search for your name.  MyLife is one of them.

A couple of days ago, I figured I would try and take control of my public information in 2020.  The first step I figured would be locking down these public profiles of me.  Should be easy, right?  Create an account, verify your identity, then set the account to private.  That’s how I thought it should work, anyway.

So the first site I went to was MyLife.  I searched myself, and on my profile page, I click the link that said something like “this is me”.  It brought me to the fake “searching for data” page, which I cancelled out of.  On a form that was displayed next, I provided my email address (as is my policy, a unique email address just for them) and clicked “Show background report”, which is a strange way of saying “create account”.

Immediately, at my “dashboard” (please note I never verified any of my info.  you can seemingly create an account for any name you want), I was shown a popup to enable or disable sections of my profile, with a button to “save changes”.  After clicking the button, I was taken to a screen showing different subscription options.  Yeah, no thanks, a free account is all I need.  But no, a free account is not what you need at all.  The “save changes” button does nothing.  Nothing unless you have a paid account, that is.  Fucking seriously?  So fine, these motherfuckers won’t let you lock down your account unless you pay them.  Fine.  You’re assholes, goddamn assholes.  But you are not getting my money.

But, ohhhhh, they have my email address now.  And now the emails have started.  Day 1: the welcome email, which reminds me if I upgrade to Premium, I can lock sections of my profile.  And in big type it says “Keep Your Info Private”.  Assholes.  Day 2: an email trying to warn me about how bad people are and how I need to be able to find out everything I can on everyone otherwise I or my family might get hurt.  Assholes.  Day 3: an email warning me that my online reputation affects my life.  Everyone is going to see my information online (after encouraging me to find everyone I know in the previous email).  ASSHOLES!  (post-publish update: 2 more emails came in on Day 3, one an ad for Experian Boost and another reminding me that there are other sites exposing my info.  I can’t stop them, but I can see who they are – for $$, of course.)

I have enough experience in web site development to have conversed with people who would create a website like MyLife.  They are scum.  There is absolutely nothing positive about the “service” they are offering.  It’s simple blackmail.  Just like those websites that supposedly list “cheaters” and make you pay to have your name taken off. 

Now, fortunately, my “reputation” on MyLife is just fine, but I know how they work.  If you have any entries on a municipalities Clerk Of Court website, you get whacked.  And it’s all the same.  Traffic ticket? Same as a DUI.  Do you want to know the difference?  Well, you’ll have to pay MyLife to see the details.  Unless you’re smart and go to the county Clerk of Court website and do the search yourself, then it’s free.

So MyLife ruins lives by making minor infractions seems like major red flags, then they won’t explain whether it’s a real problem unless you pay them.  And I guess that alone wasn’t scaring people enough, so what they started doing was listing your relatives in your profile and putting warnings if any of them had issues.  And I guess that wasn’t enough either, so they started listing neighbors in there and flagging them, too.

And while I’m definitely of the mindset that you will be known by the company you keep, this is completely ridiculous.  And it’s all in the goal of getting you into a subscription so you can hide that damaging information.  Fucking ASSHOLES.

Holding My Ground

Posted by on June 27, 2019 No comments

I got another friendly visit from a Spectrum salesperson.  Wonderful.  This time, when I got the inevitable question about how much I’m paying for what services, I got a response of, “Wow.  You are paying WAYY too much!”  Well, thanks.  It’s always smart to suggest your potential customer is stupid.  When I was asked how long I’ve had Frontier, I said since they arrived in the neighborhood.  She replied, “Well, I guess you’re just really loyal.”  Uh huh. Don’t think I didn’t detect only the tiniest pause before “loyal”, as if she wanted to say something else.  Ok, then.  Let’s play.

Obviously, I’m not going to change my service.  I didn’t last time they came by and this time is no different.  But this rep was motivated.  Unfortunately, when you fail at establishing rapport and you just start to go off the rails, motivation can be a bad thing.

This time, I was prepared, because last time, I didn’t get the opportunity to explain that I wasn’t going to switch from a company that has been good to me for 15 years to a company I have no history with.  I told her so.  Her response was that Charter (Spectrum’s owner) had the highest customer satisfaction ratings.  Let’s check that.  According to BroadbandNow, yes, Charter has higher customer satisfaction than Frontier.

Next she made the claim that you can tell the strength of a company is through their stock price.  Let’s check that, too.  And yes, comparing the stock charts between the two is no contest.  Frontier is sinking like a stone and Charter is shooting upward.  So far, her information is accurate, even if I couldn’t verify it at the time.  But then, things started to turn dark.

Along with the claim that Frontier is fading, she said that Frontier is trying to sell FIOS, because they’re losing money on it.  Checking the news, this is true as well, although maybe overblown.  I was told that Charter had the chance to buy Frontier but they turned it down.  Why?  They’re just going to wait for Frontier to go out of business, then they’ll take the customers for free.  Then I was strangely lectured on the greatness of monopolies and how Charter had complete control over certain nearby towns.  It sounded mildly threatening, and I made the comment, “well, I guess I’m just delaying the inevitable, aren’t I?”

I reiterated that I wasn’t interested in switching until I was given a reason to.  Again, she went back to price.  She brought up that new customers are getting the same thing I’m getting for $30/mo and I’m paying $75/mo.  Well, yeah, it’s an introductory offer.  I know about that.  Obviously, a company can’t afford to always offer their service at that price. 

And as we closed our conversation, I got one last threat.  When Frontier goes out of business and Spectrum is the only service provider, there’s not going to be any special offers or introductory prices, because there won’t be any other options.  Yes, that’s right.  She did say that.  I did get to fire back, “Well, that’s just what a good company would do” and we parted ways.

There’s no shortage of words spent on the evils of monopolies, but I have always imagined that the evil was concentrated at the top of the organization.  I’ve never had the thought that the domination and control mindset extended right down into the culture of the company and reached the front lines where it became a threatening sales tactic.

The Mission

Posted by on June 18, 2019 No comments

What are your thoughts when you read a company’s mission statement?  On first blush, it usually reads like bullshit.  It’s usually a bunch of feel-good words with a touch of fake humility and naïve optimism.  Mission statements are an easy target for people who want to attack a company for not fulfilling any promise they may or may not have explicitly made.

Who is the mission statement made for?  Cynics would say it’s for the owners and executives to make them feel like they’re changing the world.  Less cynical people would say it’s for the employees of the company to be inspired and motivated to do their best for the company – working for a higher good.  And then some people think it’s part of the company’s marketing strategy.

I was following a box truck for a company that had that particular viewpoint.  On the back of the truck, covering the entirety of the door, it read.

Our mission is to fulfill the specific needs of each customer by offering quality product, exceptional customer service and exemplifying Jesus Christ in every facet of business and life.

I have many issues with this.  First, I don’t believe a mission statement is a marketing statement.  Can you tell what business they are in?  No?  So, there’s your marketing success.  Then, the statement is so generic, it wouldn’t even inspire an employee or even an owner.  Every company wants to offer the best product and service, right?  Then, there’s the obvious.  You are putting your religious beliefs in your company’s mission statement.  Since there is nothing else differentiating your mission statement from any other company, and you are choosing to use your mission statement as marketing, your business proposition boils down to, “Do business with us because we are Christian.”  That’s about as compelling as saying, “Do business with us because we’re white.”  Oh wait a minute, that doesn’t make my point at all.

My primary point is that this is a dumb use of advertising space on your company vehicle, unless you feel the need to remind your employees of what they are working for every time they close the truck door.  What is their goal?  Be like Jesus.  No pressure, guys, just try to be the son of God while you’re on the clock.  And off the clock, too.  You did notice that little bit in our mission statement, didn’t you?

UberBastards

Posted by on June 17, 2019 No comments

I just got a piece of spam mail, to my Uber email address.  I don’t recall saying I was ok with that.

The email is sketchy as fuck.  A company name of “Opinion Research”?  None of the proper CAN-SPAM hallmarks like indicating what email address this was sent to, or why it was sent.  Only because I use unique addresses for every account, do I know this came from my Uber signup.

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The survey is run by Qualtrics, which doesn’t mean much, since they’re just a survey platform, like SurveyMonkey.  This company has their own subdomain, opinionresearch.co1.qualtrics.com, so they’re at least somewhat legit (as legit as it looks so far).

As you see in the email screenshot, I did click to unsubscribe, which I thought would bring me to a page asking if I was sure.  It didn’t, it just took me off that list.  and it gave me another link to unsubscribe from all lists.  ALL lists?  How many have I been put on?

It’s really not a big deal.  If I see that my Uber address suddenly gets spammed, I’ll shut it off and create a new one.  But really, the point is, Uber has sold me out.  Those mother fuckers.

Then, I clicked on the privacy policy.  In bold type, in very simple to understand language:

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No fucking thank you.  Recall what the original email said, “…will not be used to sell you anything.”  However, they will tailor the ads you see to the information you have given to them, then will ask you why they were or were not effective, so they can try harder next time.  What is this world coming to?

As a recent implementer of Pi-Hole (maybe a future post on that), this wouldn’t have worked at all for me anyway because my entire network is actively ad-blocked.  Suck my dick, Opinion Research!

Where To Go, What To Do?

Posted by on May 29, 2019 No comments

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/amazon-to-unleash-a-long-feared-purge-of-small-suppliers/ar-AAC1xhQ

For me, it’s the growing dawn of a new realization.  It’s not really anything revelatory; it’s a topic that has been bantered around for years.  Essentially, the thought is, Amazon is getting too big and too powerful, much like Walmart was before.

It sure is easy to be addicted to quick shipping, which is what Amazon is very good at.  I was disappointed by an online order from Lowes that took a week to arrive, and an item I ordered on Ebay just the other day is going to take a week to arrive (shipped from Canada, so, ok…).  Some other things, I’ve ordered recently have also taken time to arrive, like a new kitchen sink, or lights, or CDs.

But notice something, all of these items were not purchased from Amazon.  That realization is somewhat important to me.  Amazon is not the one-stop, end-all, be-all shopping destination for me.  And, with recent news like this, I feel I should wean myself from Amazon’s grasp further.

It’s not all bad.  There’s a lot of things that don’t need to be received in a couple of days (and there are some that do).  There are times I’ll use Amazon’s no-rush shipping option, and never claim the little reward they offer for doing so.  Price-wise, other places can be competitive and sometimes even much better.  Home Depot beat out Amazon by almost 50% on one item I needed.  When it comes to selection, not even Amazon can match a specialized online store, especially when it comes to furniture and other home goods.  And in a lot of those cases, Amazon’s selection is only much broader because they have a massive selection of cheap import products.  If that’s ok with you, EBay can be just as fruitful.

I’ll admit, sometimes, I find what I’m looking for on another site and will check it against Amazon.  If Amazon is close in price, I’ll usually order it from Amazon.  This is solely because I don’t want to have to go through the hassle of creating a new account on a new site.  But, with my planned dependency-reduction, I may begin doing so to spread the wealth a bit further.  For some people, this might not be as feasible, because if you are reusing your email address on many sites, you are increasing your risk of having your email harvested for spam.  Since I use a different email address for every site, I don’t have this worry.

This reliance on Amazon for a lot of things is sort of a downward spiral.  As we buy more stuff online, stores make fewer items available to purchase in-store, which forces us to buy more online.  I wish there was a way we could reverse it.  Some places have an in-stock check, like Lowes, Home Depot, and Staples for example.  So you can check to see if an item is there before driving to the store.  And if it’s not in stock, well, would you order it from there to be shipped or held for pickup, or would you just return to Amazon to buy it?  I know I’m going to have to be more proactive in that choice.

Why can’t someone with more business connections than I have make a website that tracks who sells what.  This should be easy as hell.  Any store that has an electronic point of sale system must have a list of products they sell, and that list of products would contain a UPC.  It should be trivial to upload a list of UPCs to a website to indicate what products your store sells.  The website allows someone to search by product and a list of who sells that product is displayed.  It could work the other way too, where manufacturers upload a list of UPCs and the retailers they distribute to.  The data is there, it just needs aggregated.

Micro-Macro McDonalds Views

Posted by on May 19, 2019 No comments

In an older post, in passing, I wrote about how I sometimes clean up a store where I enjoy shopping at, to make it nicer for me and for everyone else.  Tonight, I saw it being done by other people.

I was slumming it at McDonalds.  Not saying McD’s is a slum, but I was really dressed down – something I don’t really do when I go out, even for McDonalds.  But tonight, maybe more than usual (I don’t know since I hardly ever eat there anymore), the place was really a disaster.  I really shouldn’t be surprised.  I bitched about their new kiosks years ago and knew that it wasn’t going to change anything service-wise.

So of course, the place is understaffed, just as it should be.  One person at the counter who had to take orders, prep orders, deliver orders to tables, and also keep the whole dining area clean.  Fucking yeah.  What a load of crap.  So it’s no surprise after the dinner rush that all the trash cans were full.

But on top of that, it seems that the customers are… worse?  There was trash left on tables, food on tables, food and paper on the floor.  It’s something I just can’t get over in any environment.  How can someone come into a place, which is in a certain state of affairs and purposely leave it worse off than when you arrived?  Doesn’t matter if it’s a restaurant, store, house, park, or anything.  Ok, I understand accidents, like you drop your drink at a convenience store.  But even then, you should make an effort to clean it up until an employee tells you they will handle it.

And that’s kind of what happened tonight at McDonalds.  While I was waiting for my food, a woman walked up to the counter carrying a stack of trays.  One of the employees met her and seemed confused.  The woman said, “I packed down all the garbage cans as best I could, but they’re going to need changing.”  They employee replied, “We really appreciate that…” and seemed like he was going to say it was unnecessary, but the woman had to explain.  “We come here all the time and blah blah”.  I didn’t catch the rest, but I pretty much understood.  This was a place they enjoyed being in and they didn’t want it to be a shithole.  Yeah, I understand that.

When I did get my food and walked back to my table, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of someone sweeping the floor and knew without looking further it was that woman’s husband.  The person working at the counter followed me out and confronted the man.  “Sir, our store doesn’t allow customers to do any employee work.”  The guy jokingly said, “I forgot my hat.”  She replied, “I’ll get it, thank you.”  The guy handed over the broom and the floor got a quick sweeping.

What a sad state of affairs, that businesses staff their stores so poorly that customers feel compelled to help out?  And maybe I would feel some compassion for the business because taxes and competition and it’s so rough being a small business owner today, but this place is a fucking gold mine.  There is rarely a time that I don’t see it busy, with drive-through lines out to the street.  This place isn’t hurting at all.

But, back to this old couple, and people like them.  It certainly does seem the world is in decline on many fronts.  And when that does happen, what do you do?  …  I was going to say, do you let it go or do you fight?  I quickly realized “fight” is not the right word, whereas, “help” is.  That word choice suddenly made a lot of things uncomfortable for me.  Because, as we know, there are a lot of people who see the world declining in different ways.  What is their choice of words for their solution, “fight” or “help”?

That’s something I don’t want to dwell on.

What Has Brown Done To You?

Posted by on April 26, 2019 No comments

I mentioned in another post that I was expecting a package and got a solicitor instead.  So, now on to the story of that package.  I was at my computer at around 8:00 and an email came in saying, sorry we missed you.  Your package requires a signature and you weren’t home.  Bull. Shit.  I’ve been here all night.  I went to the front door and there was no post-it saying they had been there.  There was no doorbell ring (and I know it works because, solicitor dude).

I’m buying a box of wire from Amazon.  No shipping notification from either Amazon or UPS said the delivery would require a signature.  Why would a box of speaker wire require an adult signature, anyway?  I think someone ran late and decided to go home for the night.  I’m sure their tracking software doesn’t have an option for “Don’t feel like it”, so the driver flagged it as needing signed and no one home.  All done for the day!

Some part of me is annoyed by this, but another part of me isn’t.  It’s not like I needed that wire tonight.  But what if it was something I needed right away?  And this driver, he’s lying.  I’m not sure what sort of repercussions he could face if I should call him out on it.  He’s human, he’s a lazy American, just like the rest of us, he wants to go home after probably a 12-hr day.  And I can’t fault a person for not working hard at their job.  I’m a lot of things, but not a hypocrite.

Here’s how that one progressed.

I went to UPS’s site and changed the delivery to go to my nearby UPS Store.  I chose this for a couple of reasons.  If they were correct about the delivery needing a signature, I didn’t want to miss out again.  If they were lying about needing a signature, I wanted a person to confront about it.  I submitted the change and stewed about the situation for the night.

I had plenty of time to stew.  The missed delivery happened on Tuesday.  I got no notifications and the tracking showed no movement for the rest of the week.  The next Monday, I stopped by the UPS service center and asked if they could find my package.  The manager there took my phone number and said he’d call me with an update.  I told him, “I don’t care if it comes to the house, the UPS Store, or here.  I’ll get it.”  Oh, and I did ask about the signature required.  He said that the package probably came back and was scanned incorrectly.  So I guess, there is no commitment to deliver everything on the truck for the day.  Huh.

I did get a call later from the UPS manager who said the package could not be found and I would need to call the corporate office and “open an investigation”.  So I call their number and tell them I need to “open an investigation”.  The operator said I’d be transferred to the right department.  I ended up getting a voice menu of options that were way above my head, full of international shipper industry terms.  I heard “lost” in one of the options and chose that.  The person that answered, after hearing the full story, and probably expecting to be talking to a fellow UPS employee, said that Amazon has to initiate the claim, not me.  Ugh, fine.

So by this time, I could have re-ordered the speaker wire 3 times over and gotten it delivered.  An “investigation” doesn’t sound like it’s going to get me my package anytime soon, so I place a new order on Amazon for the same thing.  Then I research my options for filing a claim for the old order.  The option I was steered toward was contacting the shipper to file a claim.  Great.  No one wants to take responsibility here.  Eventually I found Amazon’s general chat help link and got a resolution.  They refunded my money.  But I wasn’t all that happy, because UPS should be paying for this, not Amazon.  I apologized that they were being hurt for this, and actually, it’s not them being hurt, it’s the small business seller on Amazon being hurt, because Amazon just won’t give them the money they refunded back to me.  It’s a shitty resolution.

I’d already received the replacement and finished my project when, two weeks later, I get an email.  My package is ready to pick up at the UPS Store.  I jump back on Amazon’s help chat and ask if I should just refuse the delivery and have it sent back to them.  The CSR says, the refund has already been issued, take the package as a gift from Amazon.

On one level, I get it.  The amount of money already spent on the package to ship it, then again to return it would be a waste of time and money, resulting in a net loss.  But that’s Amazon’s loss.  Or is it?  The seller still won’t see any money for the product lost.  UPS is getting off the hook and if I returned it, would be making more money of their fuckup. 

But really, we’re talking about a $10 purchase here.  This is nothing to a large business.  But multiply that by however many fuckups UPS can make, and it could be terrible for some smaller businesses along the way.

In the end, it didn’t matter.  I got an email from Amazon saying, “give us our shit back or you’re going to be charged for it.”

It’s Not Always About The Benjamins

Posted by on April 22, 2019 1 comment

The other day, I was at home and the doorbell rang.  Yay, UPS has dropped off my package!  But, no – That’s a story for another post.  I opened up the door and a dude was outside.  Yay, a solicitor!  He introduces himself as being from Spectrum.  I suppose I’m fortunate in that I don’t live in a place where the cable company has a monopoly.  Instead it’s a duopoly, between Spectrum and Frontier (formerly known as Brighthouse and Verizon – how weird).

Dude says he’s in the area to talk about their services, and who provides me my cable, phone, and Internet?  I reply that I just recently had Frontier drop my cable and phone and now I have 100MB Internet only.  Dude wants to know how much (of course).  It’s something like $75/month.  Jackpot, I can hear his brain announcing.

So, Spectrum offers 100MB Internet for something like $50/mo.  Or you can get 400MB for about $75/mo.  He’s got his clipboard out and ready to sign me up.  But I just said, no, I’m ok with what I have.  He had a confused look on his face, which really pissed me off, because there’s no way it was an honest confused expression.  It was a insulting, “are you stupid”, reaction.  And in a similarly confused tone, he asked, “But… it’s faster… for less money.”

I tried to explain my reasoning, but I don’t think it came out well.  I said that it would be a hassle, ending one service, scheduling a new install, then if it didn’t work out, cancelling the new one and setting up the old one again.  He tried to defend his company by saying they didn’t have any contracts, so you could leave at any time for any reason.  I just replied that if anything went south in my current setup, I had his card and I would definitely call.

After I closed the door, I realized what I really wanted to say.  Yes, his offering was cheaper, and I am personally biased against internet over coax, vs internet over fiber, but the point that I really wanted to make was that Frontier/Verizon has been rock solid for me for over a decade and aside from one billing issue after the ownership switch, I have zero complaints.  What dude wanted was for me to jump ship to a company I have no history with and no idea of their service or quality.  The best I could hope for is going from great to great and saving some money.  But, I could be going from great to nightmare and saving money as well.  That’s not worth the risk to me.  Besides that, there is also the installation fee.  Then if it doesn’t work out, the installation fee to revert back to Frontier.  Not worth the risk to me.

I Can’t Sleep – Web Crawl

Posted by on July 4, 2018 No comments

This crawl started by seeing AK in a snapchat picture with a BK+Budweiser filter.  I wondered what that bullshit was all about and ended up reading a press release saying Burger King had a limited time burger for sale.

The burger was hyped as best as it could be, I suppose.  It was a double cheeseburger with more shit on it.  The part that caught my eye was “features two savory flame-grilled beef patties totaling more than ¼ lb.* of beef”  Wow, guys.  Two patties to make a quarter-pounder, huh?  I’m not going to say it’s more than a quarter pound, because otherwise they’d be bragging it was 1/3 pound.  Or maybe not, since stupid Americans don’t understand 1/3 is more than 1/4.

Anyway, that got me reminiscing about how I used to love double cheeseburgers at BK.  They were the absolute best value on the menu.  And then they shrunk the fuck out of them around the great recession, 2008 or so.  I wish I could prove it.

Maybe I can.  I went looking for nutritional information and ended up on a site that had these impressively accurate meter thingies about the BK double cheeseburger.

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Does the taste good?  Of course the does!

And from this page, I got a number, a serving size.  171 grams, which is .377 pounds and must include the bun.  So, how do I find out how good things were back in the day?  Well, I use my favorite tool for exposing embarrassing facts, the Wayback Machine.

Looking at the nutritional info for the double cheeseburger on BK’s site from 1999, I get another number, 198, which is .436 pounds.  So, you do the math and see how much it’s lost over the years.  Tip, calculate it as a percentage to make it sound more impressive.  The Fake News Media does it all the time. (Seriously, I don’t care which side you’re on or what you believe.  If you see an article on anything that only uses percentages, be skeptical.  They’re selling it to you.)

But that’s not the end of the data.  After I got the serving size from the old archived BK website, I felt like an idiot for not just going to the current BK site instead of this “Durr, click Delicious or Disgusting button, pleez” website.  And when I went to BK’s current site, I got yet another number. As of May 2018, the size of a double cheeseburger is 148 grams, or .326 pounds.

To summarize, in 1999, BK’s double cheeseburger was .436 pounds, and in 2018 it is .326 pounds.  That’s a reduction of .110 pounds, which is a 25% reduction from the 1999 size. Oh no! Percentages!  I’ve destroyed my credibility by at least 108%.

My Cat Is Suffering Because Of Your Shitty Design

Posted by on January 28, 2018 No comments

My poor cat, Rump, has been struggling for a while ever since I bought her a new feeder.  Her last feeder was pretty much wrecked and a new one was needed.  She’s a pretty big girl, so I always get the largest feeders available.

The previous feeder that I had was a Le Bistro model.  This seems to be made by both PetMate and Aspen Pet.  Over the years, it was redesigned and it was redesigned in a very shitty way.  See the difference between the old design on the left and the new one on the right.

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Do you see the major difference?  The bowl on the new model on the right is a goddamn waterer bowl.  The only difference between this and their waterer is the hopper.  The waterer hopper is sealed, but the feeder has a removable lid.

Obviously this was the company saying, “Why do we have two bases for these two products?  We can save a shitton of money here.  It’s the same thing.”  You assholes, it’s not the same thing, and I’ll tell you why.

The first problem is that the food doesn’t come out.  You see the slide on the old model?  You see how the opening of the chute is higher than the lip of the bowl?  That lets the food come out.  Food doesn’t act like water, in case you didn’t know.  On the new model, there is no appreciable slide and you will also notice the new model’s chute opening is half the width of the bowl and the hopper’s neck is more narrow.  That would all be sufficient for water, not so with food.

My poor cat gets noticeably anxious when she sees the hopper empty.  There can be food in the bowl, but she understands what the reserve supply looks like and when it is not there, she starts crying.  Now, she has to deal with the fact that the bowl is empty, because the food doesn’t fall, but there is a visible reserve.  That’s damn cruel.

The second problem with this design is that stupid lip.  Again, for water, yes, you need a lip that is uniformly high all around the bowl.  For food, my cat has to to jam her head down into (I want to stress, into) the bowl to get food.  And when the hopper doesn’t flow the food, she has to stick her head even further in back to get food.  I said, she’s a big girl and she has a big head.  It’s not a good situation.  The bowl needs to be lower in front, especially because the hopper supplies so little food.  One other shitty design aspect is that the old lip rolled to the outside and smoothly transitioned into the bowl wall on the inside.  The new design has a lip that overhangs the interior of the bowl wall.  Why would you ever have that on a pet bowl anyway?  Animals push food against the wall to get to it, they don’t want their face bumping into a protruding lip.

So I’m off in search of a new feeder, but everywhere I look, it’s the same crap as this.  Great job on cornering the market with your shitty new design.