Carey Burgess :)
Wednesday, August 29, 2012 at 12:29
PM
Good afternoon. I am almost
embarrassed to say this, but it is already Wednesday. The time seems to fly by
so quickly that it's an effort just to grab hold of it and hold on. The last
time we wrote was on Friday, and we continued that on Saturday when we posted
it. I do seem to recall that it was like an eight hour edit session, but it was
about 18 pages of single-spaced text in Word. For the record that is about 9000
words – you're right we are of the type that would check something like that
out. Just as a comparison five lines of text are about 100 words. I think that
is part of our problem; that we tend to write so long that it takes a long time
to edit, we’re tired at the end of it, and it takes some time from other things
that we could be doing also. We are in the stream of thinking about that. We don't
want to constrict ourselves, but we need to be more aware of the time. Have we
stated this before? We are getting hassled by both Dr. Marvin and Rich
for being able to get a balance of things accomplished. When Rich left this
morning, Rich was like, you have to finish some housework, and I was like yeah
right it's not happening. I didn't tell him that, but it's pretty much what has
happened by the time he finally got home. It's already 12:30 PM and I'm just
getting to the writing part.
What we have been doing so far this
morning is that we first checked out some books that we had ordered for
low-cost or free on the Kindle - that was back when Rich was still here. And we
were still doing it after he had gone out and come back again. He had had
breakfast with Bob. After that we came over to the computer and we did a series
of things. I'm pretty sure we checked out Twitter, e-mail, and Facebook. We
also checked out the Learnist site. We're still editing that with our mind. We
did show Dr. Marvin the Learnist site and updated him as to the news site so
that was pretty cool. He seems to be grasping that we are doing a lot of things
with the site. I don't know how much he remembers from one week to the next,
but if anybody were to remember it would be him.
Rich had left us with another
request this morning before leaving. He showed me a coat of arms for Prussia,
and he wanted me to make some adaptations to it so it could be used for his
logo. We made sure to tell him that it was an exceptionally difficult process
to do what he was asking, although we had tools in our hands to do it. We
started looking around, and ended up back at Adobe TV, but there were so many
things to be looking at that it just became a little overwhelming. We did do
about 4-5 videos, but we lost it on the last one that was 108 min. long. Most
videos are 8 to 28 min. long. We then sent Rich a list of all the videos we
needed to learn for editing the basics on Photoshop CS6. It was a bad request
asked in that Rich wanted it done in a week’s time - considering that I had so
much other stuff to be doing as well. It just couldn't take all of our
time. It had to be worked more into the current schedule though I wished
I could have the knowledge to make Rich’s request just happen.
That pretty much takes us to where
we are right now. We did get a chance to talk to Linda for a couple of minutes.
And I felt bad in that I got a little restless when she was taking time to look
at a map instead of talking to me directly, so then I asked if we could talk
later – hopefully, when she wasn’t so distracted. For me to sit for a couple of
4-5 minutes without doing anything while waiting for her to respond was just way
past our patience abilities. I feel bad because I didn't want to do Linda a
disservice. But, I didn't know what else to do without causing a mutiny within
our system. It's so competitive the way we fight for time and concentration. At
this point, to be doing anything without our own movement on the computer -
especially in the morning's, is probably not such a good idea, but I did want
to talk to her. We will have to work more with this and be upfront and honest
with Linda. I know she is worth it.
There are several things that have
happened since the last time we wrote. I don't think I'm going to again be able
to remember too much of it. On Saturday, it seems pretty obvious that most the
day went to editing the blog from Friday, and we might've done some of the
actual writing on that day as well. I'm trying to frame in my time as to when I
think that Rich came home or if anything happened Saturday night. The only
thing I really remember is planning that Thom was good to be coming the next
day. I think I was having problems about Diigo acting-up, so there was some
frustration building from there. I don't recall if Rich was here not. We've
been sharing him with his mother who is having problems with the drinking
again. Rich was here yesterday night but I think twice since Saturday, he was
over his moms. One time Bud called because she was argumentative and Bud had given
up on her and just left the house, and then the next time she had fallen on the
floor and he couldn't pick her up. So she had to stay on the floor for the hour
it took Rich to go from here to there. There's so much to be said here but for
her privacy I will stop, but I need to say that Rich and I are looking at the
situation differently. He sees it the way that he has to work it out with her,
and I see it the way I would have had to work it out with my boys if I were in
her position. And, I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't be as lenient as to
babysit me while I sobered up, so I could finish the bottle in eight hours
without falling down. I'm starting to think Rich is a real enabler. But, his
mother has such a caustic mouth. I'm sorry. Stop! Let us just say that we have
different opinions.
I think things piled up for Rich and
us by last night. We had come home from Dr. Marvin's in really good mood. And,
I had known that Rich wanted to talk over things going on the wedding, so we
did that, but in the process we became argumentative between each other because
of the handling of his mother. She has decided to go down to Jillian's wedding
which is fine for her being the Grandmother to her granddaughter, but Rich is
in a process of denial thinking that his mother is not going to drink while
she's gone and we are saying that she most likely is and that the drinking is
going to cause problems so we should be prepared. She got a room at the
same place the wedding was going to be held, but I see that as her excuse to
basically walk to her room to pour herself as many drinks as she would like.
Rich says she's not going to over-drink because she's out in public. Let's hope
Rich’s way, but I have to expect the worst and most likely.
The next problem I see is that Rich's
ex-wife and his mother are staying at the same hotel and Rich expects his son
Jon was staying with his mother to also be visiting and helping to take care of
his grandmother. I see that it is unreasonable. I don't like the idea of
everybody having to re-orientate themselves to be catering to his mother
because the attention should be on Jillian and Chris. I’m thinking both
Rich’s Mom and his Ex are highly explosive personalities as to speaking their
minds in a harsh manner. I have absolutely no problem where Rich has agreed to
meet his mother and Bud (and, his aunt?) at certain times and we go have a
meal, or plan the time to sit and talk, but I don't want to be around from the
time Rich’s Mom wakes until she falls out in a stupor just to assist in watching
her get drunk or loud. She seems to be getting very argumentative about a lot
of things and it is happening on an hour to hour basis. Rich said the last time
earlier this week when he had stayed over, that she yelled for eight hours
straight. She really has her own opinion and she doesn't care what she says to
anyone except for she feels disgruntled by the behavior of everyone but
herself.
Rich’s way of looking at it is
there's nothing she can do. I said there's a lot that she can do and it all has
to do with her mental processes. I never liked the idea of the world turning
around one person in the center. I worked very hard for my three boys to be
equal in our relationship, so that I wouldn't be more or less of a person,
because I was the mother. I wouldn't expect my boys to take care of me when I
was misbehaving. I wouldn't consider it acceptable if somebody was with me and
wanted to argue and scream nonstop. Because, she can handle it when I'm over
there more than when I'm not, I'm thinking that other people have different
“less-expectations” that it's going to happen and she plays on that. I don't
know how much other people affect her when she is in a yelling pattern and when
she doesn't, but I know a lot of yelling is that Bud and her yell at each other,
and when Rich is there, she just says nasty things. To me - I'm going to assume
the way my boys would handle it is that if I'm being caustic to them, the next
thing would not expect them to be there. And, if I'm caustic to people in the
nursing home, then I wouldn't expect them to be treating me very well. I
understand there's a thing like Alzheimer's which switches the behavior of
people. But, if that's her diagnosis, and it has not been checked out then I
think that different series of care should be given. Like she should be in a
place where she is not allowed to add alcoholism to that problem - I understand
that we all have our rights. But she should have responsibilities, and that she
can't conscientiously then take away the company manners at 90% levels.
I'm not doing a very good job of not
talking about this? I don't think she has Alzheimer's and that she does have
some good brain function. She can think as well as almost anybody else, it's
just that she thinks also she has a right to get mad at everything that is
disagreeable to her and that causes her to yell and scream out loud and say
negative things to hurt others which is abusive.
Now I'm looking at a series of
symptoms and having second thoughts. It says that dementia symptoms include difficulty
with many areas of mental functioning including emotional behavior or
personality - she has that, language as far as her speech abilities - she does
not have that; I still think she has memory and perception abilities. I think
she has a lot of problems with perception and thinking using good judgment or
cognitive skills. I think she has a lot of problem with thinking and
judgment like her not understanding that she's an alcoholic and that it has a
bad effect on other people. I think she has problems with at least mild
cognitive impairment as far as she has difficulty performing more than one task
at a time, difficulty solving problems, forgetting recent events or
conversations, taking longer to perform more difficult activities. But, a
lot of these things seem to be things that I as well have problems with, so
it's probably a matter of degree or courtesy?
When looking at Alzheimer's - then
they would also have difficulty performing tasks. It takes some thought,
but things like cooking had been easier and now she can’t take learning and
adding new information or routines. She is very inflexible with both of
these, such as things like not remembering that I have three boys are what
their names are after five years, or if things are not done to her exact
specification. I don't think she gets lost on unfamiliar routes, but it could
be said here that she strongly prefers not going outside her house, and she
thinks she knows all the directions when yelling at whoever is in the car
driving, but that might be a ruse for really not knowing where she's at. And,
there is a complication of some blindness. She does have a loss of
interest in things that are in the present, and she lives most of her life in
the past. She is having personality changes and loss of social skills. People
smile and nod their heads, but it really is nothing to smile over, because her
behaviors are rude and demeaning. Unfortunately, when I apply some of
these categories to ourselves – we’d be in trouble too.
Signs that say Alzheimer's is
getting worse are that the symptoms are more obvious and interfere with the
ability to take care, and includes changes in sleep patterns and often waking
up at night, which is something she definitely has problems with. She has
delusions, depression, and agitation big-time. You can't fault her for reading
and writing problems because she's having difficulty seeing. I think she's
pretty good as far as remembering details, but will not choose very many
current events to pay attention to. She remembers her own life history.
The only hallucinations she has is when she's been drinking, but she has
a ton of argumentation problems going on, and this time Rich was talking about
her striking him which is a show violent behavior. Another sign is poor
judgment and loss of ability to recognize danger. She is always falling
and is bad at guiding herself, especially when she's been drinking although she
does not recognize that drinking makes life more dangerous to her. Most the
time she wants to be left alone, and she doesn't get out socializing very
often. She does have church contact, although I'm not sure; I don't think she
goes every week. I think Rich is right in that she should be getting out
talking with others her age more often – like making visits over at the nursing
home with people who infrequently get visitors. BUT, she needs some
counseling not to be overbearing on people.
She does not have severe Alzheimer's
in that she can understand language, she recognizes family members, and she can
do some of the basic activities such as eating and dressing if you give her
enough time, and she does do bathing skills but she does not take baths or
showers. She is having problem with incontinence, and I don't know about
swallowing problems. The report states that other tests can be done to
rule out anemia, brain tumor, and chronic infection, intoxication for medication,
severe depression, stroke, thyroid disease, and vitamin deficiency.
It says that there's no real
treatment for Alzheimer's, but the goals of treatment are to slow the
progression of disease though this is difficult, and to manage systems such as
behavior problems, confusion, and sleep problems. They also suggest changing
her home environment so she can better perform daily activities - this has been
done. And, she should have the support of family members and other
caregivers. She does have a lot of support of these especially from Rich.
I'm not as helpful – like barely at all because Rich doesn’t want me to see her
as she is, or allowing his mother to be attacking me directly. Bud’s kids
are helpful to a degree, but they're more cautious and rightfully so about what
she's doing to their father, so they are primarily Bud’s advocate not Rich’s
mothers – though they’ve given her a lot. They are especially protective of
him. The benefits of checking out medical treatment would be that it could slow
down the rate of symptoms, but the article states that the benefit from the
drugs is usually small. She could be helped by some drugs like the Risperidone,
Haloperidol and others - two of which we have, or we were utilizing. It does
help to be calming our behaviors, especially in the evening when we are tired
and more prone to acting out which is like a prevention of our more psychotic
episodes where we are out of touch with current reality and tend toward being
younger. The article does say that there are support groups for Alzheimer's
disease and depending on how quickly the situation develops, the more or less
effect it will have on a person’s lifetime. It says that people with
Alzheimer’s usually die earlier than normal, but she's already in her early
80’s. It states that during the final stages, the Alzheimer’s person is
normally totally disabled, and then death usually occurs through infection or
organ failure.
That doesn't seem like a good idea.
I don't want her to die that's for sure. Rich loves his mother dearly. It
says that some of the complications are being abused by an overstressed
caregiver who is acting like Bud in that he is having a lower tolerance for
being able to take care of her civilly. At those times, Rich is being called in
to help. She is having loss of muscle function and other mobility problems and
breaks her bones and skin fairly easily. She is harmful or violent towards
others especially through her caustic speech and now hitting or kicking. She
has trouble with ability to function for self, such as needing help to pull her
pants up and down. She is having more trouble interacting with others, and
she's had trouble with malnutrition and dehydration from her refusal to eat,
drink, or take medicines when she's mad and drinking - as a punishment to
others.
It is good to have started the
thinking process with this, but now that I've read the article, I might want to
present it to Rich. There - I just printed it out, and I reread it again, and
I'm going to have to talk to Rich about it, but he's going to be in very strong
active denial that anything could be the matter, or that her doctors hadn't
already seen what is there. But, I don't think that she's telling her doctor
how angry, aggressive, and demeaning she's being. I don’t know if the Grandchildren
know that either. I don't know how much could be done to change things
even if she was, but it would be a better situation in handling it because
people would know upfront what they were dealing with. Okay, I went into the
situation with Rich's mother a lot more than I had originally thought I
would. Obviously, it's bothering me that we’re not coping with her as
much as she's not coping with life, and I have to make sense of what my
feelings are telling me about myself and her as an observer to both. I think a
lot is on Rich’s shoulders, but he doesn't see that it's affecting me
also. I’m not in his more responsible position or thinking like him, but
we are being affected by the fallout of her behavior on him. It is a lot
to take on another person’s anger. It is obviously going to spill-out in
Rich and our relating, and then there's just a lot of time when he's not around
because he's taking care of his mother.
I know this sounds pretty selfish,
and I apologize for that part, but the angry part is that - because there's so
much alcohol involved, and I have gone through the results of my grandfather
and father being alcoholic, along with being physically and verbally abused by
our narcissist mother, I lose empathy points to them. Alcoholism is an
illness and cannot simply be wished away or excused because I think somebody
has control over that, or should look for rock bottom as part of life where
people need to change because of danger to themselves or others. Rich's logic
though is that she's old so she can’t change. My thinking is that she
can't be happy with all the misery that she's vocalizing and I don't know where
it's coming from. I think it has to be really dealt with. Where all
is this anger coming from and why doesn't she think of it as her responsibility
not to be dumping all that on other people, particularly the ones who love her
most. Where is the fair consideration? She forces others to help her, but
she does not want not to acknowledge to them that she is beholden to them.
She just torments others. It's just rough. Again, she’s placing everyone
else as responsible, but with no authority over her as if it is natural for
them to care for the injuries with her falling. Also, Bud has more
authority than Rich, but he’s handed the deeper control of his mother over to
Rich without Rich being able to make decisions on her behalf within the
community. It’s just rough – especially for Rich who REALLY doesn’t
deserve this. But, of course he is Rich
and will always be the true blue knight.
By the way, we just got a call from
Rich. He is on the road and it is about 1:45 PM. He just got done shopping for
the baby buggy that his son and daughter-in-law wanted for the new baby. I'm
not sure if I've ever mentioned it yet but the baby's name is Jaxsyn.
It's an unusual spelling, but it sounds the same as Jackson - at least
from what I know right now. Apparently, Jaxsyn came home last night which was
probably something of great excitement for his family. I feel very mixed
feelings and that is baby brought into the world and is Rich’s grandson, so in
that regard I'm very happy for the situation, but the parts that are excluding
me from ever being a part of that person's life are hurtful and insult to my
more maternal feelings. I know I have no maternal rights to be included within
this family structure, although all those constructs of Rich developing a life
with his Grandson are happening with me. Again we are invisible.
Nonetheless, Rich picked up a baby buggy and he was so excited because he got
20% off. Oh Lord, that must've meant he spent at least $200 on the baby buggy.
That came at a cost. He just doesn't make that much money anymore. Supposedly,
his ex-wife called him and asked for the buggy specifically and as usual, he
falls in line with her demands. I think she does it just out of guilt she puts
on him and control. Okay, we’re not going there either.
Rich is going to be gone today probably
until about 5-5:30 PM. So, we have got 4-5 hours left to ourselves. No problem
spending that. We have to continue thinking about what is happened that we
haven't written down. And, I think that the machine is going to stop us in a
second and tell us that we have to save.
Okay, I did that - it's all done. It
just seems that at about 6 1/2 pages Dragon says - I can only do this much data
and still go back and reread it. So, I find that if I save my document, and
close my Dragon, and then reopen both of them that I'm good for another six
pages. All is good.
One of the things I did before I
started typing was to put a new screensaver on my computer so instead of it being
Rich and his mother; it is now just switching back and forth from all the
pictures in my picture file. I've got it timed to change every one minute. The
screen has been left pretty much blank because I've been enjoying it, but when
it brings up pictures from work I just get really tense, angry and uneasy.
That's the hard part. Okay, let's move on. We have little patience for
that as well.
Let's go back to Saturday. Are we
remembering anything about that? I know we still had housework to do and it
seems that Rich was in the living room. No I can't say remember anything after
that. The next day was Sunday. I remember that we were working on something
from the computer. I would like to think that it's still the editing work from
the day before but I'm not sure. I think it was about 9-9:30 AM that Rich
finished his Sunday morning show, I finished whatever I was reading whether it
was from the Kindle or from printed text, and I started moving around Rich in
his chair which is also unusual because I figured it was time to clean. I was
going faster than him at the time and we got quite a few things handled before
he stood up to do something as well. But, then he got busy to and it didn't
take very long before we were both done. I did talk to Maury and Joe in-between
things and we had a pretty good impression that Thom was going to be here
somewhere between 10:30 to 11 AM, so we had to go pretty quickly. I was
showered and dressed when he got here, but my hair might've still been wet and
Rich had not showered yet. I was arguing with him to put the vacuum cleaner
away when I heard Thom's buzz. Rich was still moving slowly, and I wasn't so
happy about that, but I was eager again to see my son and that trumped
everything.
For the next amount of time, I spent
with Thom talking while Rich was in the kitchen doing the things Rich does. He
still hadn't cleaned off the back table which was all of his business stuff,
but Thom stayed out in the living room and we just talked. It was so
wonderful. Maury had called on the phone between things and discussed
going out for lunch at Panera Bread. And, that really worked out well for Thom,
Maury, and me, and Rich decided to use that time to go grocery shopping. There
is no doubt in my mind he's absolutely the best household person to have,
especially in the cooking and food departments. He put out a really good meal
for dinner of glazed ham, noodle salad, beans with bacon, fresh bread, and a
very Rich chocolate cream pie for dessert. It seemed to go over pretty well. I
think that Cari said it best when she said any reason not to cook was a good
dinner to her.
There were a couple hours in-between
lunch with the two boys and the time it took for Joe and Cari to get here. I
was a little disappointed that they didn't bring their dog, but it was a full
house, so I suppose not. They said they hadn't even thought of it. Maybe they
are used to going without the dog. We watch some TV while Rich was still
cooking in the kitchen and they seem to have a series of either reality shows
or game shows which are not my preferences, but they made it pretty funny
anyway. There was a lot of entertaining of Thom with Cari because he was making
her laugh so hard and often, and Joe was quieter and more preoccupied on a hand
held game which didn't seem like a very good sign to me. Dinner turned out to
be really good, and pie was to happen after Rich finished in the kitchen.
We offered to help, but I also know his viewpoint on me spending as much time
with the kids as I can, so he let me go and I understood.
Among many other things, including
Joe and Cari’s home move, I was pleased that both Thom and Cari let me talk
about what I was doing on the computer a little bit with the dissociative
projects. And both of them read for me the two pages that I had written on
myths put-out in the public. They didn't say too much afterwards, but it was
really impressive that they read the first sheet, and then they held onto and
read the second sheet too as if it was of something enough to hold their
interest. I think right now that's the best we can do as far as expecting any
kind of response back from them or anybody. I think people need time to process
it. I hope to put out some more into it today so it can be more visual.
We had found something new called, “Learnist,” which I think I said something
about previously, but I think that happened on Monday night.
Going back to Sunday night - I think
the family stayed together until about 8-8:30 PM and I think by 9:30 PM Rich
and I were in bed. I wanted to stay out longer, but I think Thom was giving
indication that he was getting tired as well as Rich, and we certainly were
tired which we discovered after looking at the computer again. We were still
having problems with the Diigo program and did not want to find ourselves frustrated
with that. We were up the next morning before either Thom or Rich, but I
couldn't tell you by how much time. I just remember coming in he the living
room when it was dark which could in part be because the curtains were drawn.
Thom had the blanket pulled-up over his head and since he had gone to bed with
the air conditioner on I could see him bundled, and I'm pretty sure that left
another good memory for me of Thom being so peaceful and present, though of
course in our Mom way, wondering if he was warm enough.
I do remember Rich coming in and
saying something about books that I purchased online. I don't know when that
happened. But, we do know that there was like five or six books and at least
three of them were free, maybe four books. This morning when we sat down that
was the first thing we looked at, but I think you heard that story before. I
remember also that Thom turned down cereal or any other kind of breakfast, but
later found that he had gone to the freezer and picked up an ice cream sandwich
for his breakfast. He’s like his mother in this regard.
He doesn't take very long to get
ready so we left him to sleep as long as we could. Rich and he had already
discussed earlier that we would leave for the airport about 10 AM. I think his
flight was at 11:30 AM and he was going to get back in DC by 2:30 PM their
time. The drive to the airport was hard for me, maybe more than for the other
two. I let Thom sit in the front with Rich, and I tried not to talk too much
“silly girl talk,” but there was a lot of gooey-mom stuff happening in our
brain. I think all mothers have a right to that no matter what their male
counterparts think. I knew I was going to miss Thom, and it was going to be a
hole in my heart when we had to say goodbye. But, he allowed me a very nice hug
when we got there and just before he disappeared into the airport he turned
around one more time and gave me that winning smile. I think he knew that I was
looking for something like that and it made me feel like a million bucks. It is
also making me cry now, so I have to stop that kind of thinking. I did manage
to tell him in the car how much pride I have in him. I knew he understood but
it was something that he needed to hear from me too because he has to just know
this is how we feel. It is another Mom right.
Okay wiping away the tears I can do
this right? Thom was very ready to go home and he had told me that on
Sunday. We had teased him that he had to put on the shoes and click them
if he was going in that direction fast. He's been away from his wife for a
month now and yesterday she was supposed to be back from Vietnam, and they were
supposed to have a couple days together before either one had to go back to
work. I hope that was a smooth transition, I think they left a little bit on bumpy
grounds, but shoot when lovers have been away that long, it is bound to be a
pretty good reunion. Otherwise, we are back out of the picture until
another family opportunity comes up to arrange another meeting. Thom is
thinking that both he and Duyen will be back around Christmas and that he will
be out of the service by March. He’s thinking that he would like to work
in Japan for at least a year starting in October, but none of those details
have been worked out. He had a lot of positive to say of his working
relationship with his work partners and I think they will be included in the
decision-making, but as well – certainly Thom and Duyen have a lot to talk
about.
I'm not sure what order things went
over the last couple days, but I think it was Monday night that we worked on
the project with Learnist. That would still leave Monday afternoon not
accounted for. I don't know whether Rich was here or gone, but because it was a
workday, most likely he had left. I'm just not sure what we did that day. I do
remember saying something to Rich, maybe that evening, about having an
enjoyable week of having had a fairly clean house. I think I might've been at
the computer until about 9-9:30 PM and we were just starting to get to the good
stuff, when Rich got the call to leave for his mother's. I just remembered
after that I stayed-up and worked on the Learnist. I will leave the link here
so you can tell what I was talking about - Learnist.
We didn't finish that part that
you're going to be seeing if you click the link until sometime yesterday -
probably before we went to Dr. Marvin's. There was something else that had developed
over a good part of yesterday that would take a bit of explaining, but I don't
really want to get into the big long story. Maybe I'll leave another link here Adobe forums. This is the
spot where we had been working through our situation with Adobe e-Learning
Suite 6.
I have mixed feelings about how to
express the story at this point. I know I have to record it because I record
almost anything we can remember, but there is the bad part of it and then the
great part of it. Maybe we'll start with the great first. The great part is
that somebody named Carey Burgess probably made the nicest gesture that I could
ever imagine. She is the Adobe representative who helped me while I was having
a problem with the other representatives on Adobe. I'm just now looking at
Google and it says that she's actually an online/social customer success lead
at Adobe and she's working out of Portland Oregon. She's only been there for
about nine months but she made all the difference in the world. Now looking at
a LinkedIn semi-profile it seems that she's really got special skills and
technical writing, web design, Mac, Photoshop, Windows, and HTML. She also
seems to have come from DeVry University like our Thom and he hangs out with
other Adobe employees, developers, ambassadors and she's interested corporate
social media. She is proud of being an advocate for others – especially
in dealing with Adobe, or most likely other e-learning needs.
That's a surprise! Maybe it
shouldn't be, but I think that Carey is actually a male, and all those things
that I thought weren't being addressed by Adobe, actually were being addressed
by Carey. I found a long list of his latest content that goes from one day ago
when I addressed having a problem to three months ago – just on the one page.
It seems like he deals with all kinds of problems and on his brief bio he says
he fights for the users. I really believe that. What he ended-up doing was that
he made sure that Adobe gave me a free e-learning Suite 6. This was just
unheard of in my book; I didn't expect anything like that. But, we realized
later what really made this unique was that all the time that we were arguing
with the people that hadn't served us well at Adobe, I was under the understanding
that Adobe e-learning package was $600. I had paid for one part of that package
for $300, so I didn't understand why they couldn't give me a $300 break in
paying the rest of the $600. That is all I was asking. What I discovered
afterward, after Carey had given me the gift, was that the package was actually
an $1800 program. Carey didn’t tell me
that. On one part of the site they say
that the suite is offered at a student rate which would've also been $600, as
well as $600 being an upgrade cost, but then when you go to purchase it like we
had tried, Adobe’s web page had said that they don't have any student and
faculty breaks in price.
We had during the course of the
problem staff who didn't want to deal with me, shifted me to others, told me
they were going to do something when they didn't, which then had seemed as a
lie, and just plain-out hung-up on me. I knew that I hadn't said anything bad
except for to ask for help, and at this point, I can be pretty sure that the
people in the positions that weren't helpful at all were probably locked into a
position where they had responsibility without authority. Neither of them
seemed overly intelligent. And instead of breaking out of their mono –
dialogue, they just were circling me around, and the one supervisor who did
step in, only stepped in to assist the chat room person; there was nothing they
would do to help me or suggest a valid solution. The person just repeated
as if she hadn’t heard the problem a few moments prior that that person at
their customer service was already proven to be a bad person to call, and at
that had taken 53 minutes of my time in waiting just to be hanged-up on. I
didn't think much of that supervisor who was supposed to have helped
because I thought it was her responsibility to deal with me after I stated I
needed to go up the chain of command. I was too over the head of the chat room
person. That is bad leadership on the part of the supervisor.
The nice thing about Carey was that
he not only took the lead in taking care of the problem, he went over and above
what he should've had to do, he apologized for the problem and the frustration
it was causing us, and he also saw forward that the situation would be
addressed within the company, so that it wouldn't happen again. He did
acknowledge that they have some problems with customer care and I can
understand that. But, it was such a good thing that he did intercede, so that
Adobe won't get any bad credit in my book - At least people higher up than the
immediate care staff. The lower staff in itself is a problem, but it's not my
problem. It’s like when someone in higher authority takes responsibility then
it is your job to back away and to let that person resolve the problem
internally.
I do highly respect the Adobe
product and the services they put out especially through the software and
through Adobe TV. They've got an excellent group of videos to teach people the
things they need to teach to be a great company. I had told Carey but I really
do think more highly of Adobe as a brand over companies like Microsoft, Apple,
Google, and Facebook. There are also some very excellent online sites for
more in-depth coverage of what Adobe can do. I had followed one of
Corey’s links to something like The Creative Cow. I
think that all the major corporations have standard packages they offer the
public, but I think the variety of packages that Adobe offers in addition to
these are pretty exclusive. I don't like the way that companies like Microsoft,
Apple, and Adobe price-out there items, so that the “common good” of people
cannot usually be generated. I think especially for Adobe in the teaching field
their costs are pretty astronomical. I think companies like Microsoft and Apple
though can make up for it with the volume of sales they have. I don't think
anybody beside Adobe does what Adobe does, so they certainly have rights to
their costs – though again we’re much more up for MOOC’s, TEDs, Khan’s and
other programs like that. Nothing though will take down how grateful I
feel toward Carey for helping us out at such a critical point in our life.
Carey asked me only one thing at the
end and that was that I really use the product to do some good in the world. I
had left for him links to some of my work with both blogs, and the Learnist
site. I wanted him to know that I was somebody that really did something in the
world, because that's really what I think of myself as being in a growth
position of starting from not much of anything to do something worthy of great
worldly good – especially in teaching and learning about multiplicity, which I
think is a valuable asset to our community, AND especially because it’s been
given such a bad black eye by the community that those who could be served
aren’t being served. In my heart, we made a solemn promise to uphold
Corey’s belief that I could do something that was great. I felt bad now after
he had made this gesture that I had shown him a few of our pictures that were
so elementary, but I'd only been working with their illustrator program for an
hour or two and had made the simplest of designs, but I was so proud of them,
and still am, but after watching more videos there is so much more to learn
that are just fantastic. I'm sure that he and others like him at Adobe deal
with professionals that are just over the top. It's really an honor to have
been given this package. I feel I’ve been given a lifelong quest – WITH
the horse to now carry me forward.
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