Customer Disservice

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Having worked in product development for some time, I’d like to think I understand how customer service can and should work.  The level of incompetence in this area is truly astounding.  Let me give you an example of how it should NOT work and then we can work through how it should work.

 

Barnes & Noble.  So sorry to pick on you when you’re flailing, but possibly one of the reasons you’re flailing is you need to improve in some areas.  I’m here to help you with at least one of them.  

I love books.  I love physical bookstores.  I want you to stay around, at least until independent bookstores return to every town.  Dare to dream.  

As a supporter, I am a Barnes & Noble member.  I pay $25 for the privilege of free shipping online and additional discounts.   I’m happy to do it.  It’s a good deal for me.   Except when the following occurred.  

Last year, while checking out in a store, the cashier told me my membership would soon expire and asked if want to renew today.  Sure, sounds good.  A few weeks later what did I notice on my credit card statement but two charges for Barnes & Noble renewal.   Some research tells me one is from the transaction in the store and the other another auto-renewal initiated from the website.  Seriously?    Since I’m logged into BN.com, I enter the support area and enter an inquiry.  I received the below in response: 

 

Thank you for inquiring about your Barnes & Noble Membership.

To protect your privacy and respond to your request, please provide all of the following information:

-Member name
-Member mailing address
-Barnes & Noble Membership number

If you do not have your Membership number available, please provide one of the following:

-Phone number
-Last four digits of the credit card #
-Last store in which your Membership was used.

Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience.

 

To protect my privacy, provide information that you already have because I was logged in to your site when I sent this inquiry?    Sigh, but ok.  I return to the Customer Service section of the website, but there is no apparent way to view existing support tickets to add this information, which they already have.  So, I’m left with the assumption that for my privacy I should personal information to them via email.   Now this was last year, perhaps they weren’t yet aware that email isn’t the most secure mechanism.

Note:  because I have worked in technology, I know what this means.  It means their Customer Service functionality isn’t fully connected to their website.  It’s just email and phone in issues, and it’s most likely a completely separate operation from any other part of the business.  This is insane because:

1.      You have an e-commerce operation where people may need support. 

2.      You have digital products, i.e.) the Nook that may actually require support. 

 

If you don’t want to support a real Customer Service area online, possibly there are other more pressing areas of your business to focus on, then don’t allow people to enter in information online that appears to an actual support ticket, but is in reality just an email.  I hate having to call and wade through the phone menu. HATE IT.  But I’d prefer it if you just told me that upfront rather than go through this farce.  

But I do it.  I respond with the information.  I even provide them with the date, the store and the total amount of my purchase to help.

Days later a response arrives.  I should take the receipt from the store back to the store and tell them to refund me.  Customer Service can’t initiate that refund from their system.   For real.  

So now I further know that the website and the store systems aren’t really connected.   They are connected enough that when I use my member card in a store, they know it’s going to expire, but not connected enough to have one channel process a refund processed through the other.   Ridiculous. 

At this point, I give up.  I don’t have the receipt anymore.  It’s only $25.  I’m not investing any more time.  Except to go on to the website and turn off auto-renewal for my membership, because I don’t know that I want to renew.  

Flash forward to this year to my renewal time.  What do you think happened?   Take a guess.  Naturally, the membership auto-renewed anyway.   I return to the website and look under Membership settings.   Somehow the setting has reverted to auto-renew and here is the really interesting part, it displays my credit card information with the correct credit card number, but incorrect expiration date.   I return out to the payments area of My Account. There my credit card and expiration date are accurate.  So they must store credit card information for memberships separately and somehow, someone changed it.   Lunacy.  

 

Barnes & Noble:  get your shit together. 

 

Here is how this should go: 

I enter my issue into the system.  I receive a response saying they will respond soon.   The response should include research determining that, indeed, I have been charged twice for a membership and informing me that I have been refunded for one.   Done.

How to go from Dumbass to MacGyver

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Da da dah da da da da daa dah…  ok that is the Mission Impossible theme.  What can I say, my grandfather loved it.  

The following is a true story…

The facts:

·        I am feeding my friend’s cats while they are on vacation

·        The litter boxes are in their basement

The story: 

Upon entering the house, I remove my boots so as not to get the snow, just beginning to fall, all over.  I say hello to the adorable kitties, drop my bag and keys on the kitchen counter.  I go about my business:  fill up food bowls, check.  Change the water, check.  Set up the feeder to go off again at 8pm, check.  Then it’s time to go down to the basement to clean the litter boxes.  No problem.  I take care of business, return up the stairs to the basement door, turn the knob and…..  it’s locked. 

WHAT?  It’s fucking locked?!?  I’m in the basement and the door is fucking locked.  This is not happening.  I smack my pockets.  OH!  My phone is in my bag, upstairs on the kitchen counter.  Damn it!    The lock has a key!   My keychain with their keys is on the kitchen counter.  FUCK.

No… this is NOT happening.   I am not locked in the basement.  

I go downstairs and look around, then return upstairs and try the knob because again…  I’m NOT locked in the basement.  

Fucking A.  I am locked in the basement.   

{Deep breaths… deep breaths}.  No one is coming here today and I have no way to communicate out.

This is still not happening.  I’m not locked in the basement!  And I’m certainly not locked in the basement, where there is no food and it’s quite chilly!  

Ok.  Maybe there is a door to the garage somewhere down here.  Interesting fact:  basements are underground.  Garages are usually not.  This house falls into the not category.  

Maybe there is a phone down here.  I can call someone!  There are not one, but two, other people who I know have keys.  It doesn’t faze me that I wouldn’t be able to call them because I don’t know anyone’s number anymore, it’s all in my cell phone which is IN MY BAG, on the COUNTER upstairs.  I’ll call Information.  Does Information still exist?   I lurch around aimlessly… phone here?  Phone there?   Phone NOWHERE!  

It’s ok.  This is not happening.  I am NOT locked in the basement. 

I return up the stairs and try the door again.  Apparently, I am still… locked in the basement.  

Maybe this has happened to them before and they have hidden a key around for this express purpose!    I look under rugs, go through random baskets of nonsense, even look in hats.  I go through the pockets of some coats hanging down there.  You never know!  I feel bad about this, but at least I can tell her where her sunglasses are in case she is looking for them.  But no key.

It’s ok.  This is NOT happening.  I am not locked in the basement. 

Except I am locked in the basement.  Ok, what next?   I check out the water heater room.  There is a ladder.  That could be handy.  And a stocked wine rack!   Thank goodness.  Now I know I won’t die. 

I investigate the other room. It’s a tool room!  Her husband has a room full of tools!   But even better: there is a window in here!   It’s a mere foot above my head!   So what that it’s small.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.   I drag the ladder in and climb up.   Hmmm…. There are not one, not two, but three sliding windows and a screen on this tiny window!  It looked like this:

I could barely fit through this window if fully open.  The options appear to be removing the windows or sliding open one window and squishing through half the window.   

Let’s consider other options.  

I return to the main room.  Another window!  Only one opening!   I drag the ladder over, climb up and attempt to open the window.   I could get through this.  It wouldn’t be pretty, but I could do it.  I open the window, it opens from the top down, like this:

WHY?    If it opened from the bottom up, I could possible shimmy under the open window.  With top down I’d be forced to climb over the glass and put my whole weight on it.   I imagine this going one of three ways:

1.      I get stuck and must yell for help to the surely multitude of people walking by in a snow storm.  

2.      The glass breaks and though I’m bleeding, I escape alive.  The house is now open season for burglars.  Only later do I realize that any burglar that went through the window would also end up locked in the basement… and they would deserve it!

3.      I remove the window, even though it has weird screws that I’ve never seen before, and escape with ease.  At that point, I’d be outside, in my socks, in the snow, with no keys, no phone and no identification.  I’d be a person who didn’t exist.  I’d be forced to knock on neighbors’ doors and explain this.  

None of these options are appealing. 

It’s ok.  This is not happening.  I am NOT locked in the basement. 

Now a rational person might take a breath and think:  ok, let’s make a plan.  What are you going to do?   All I could think was:   I’ve got to get out of here!  I suppose the worst-case scenario is I’m here for 24 – 32 hours until someone comes home.  I look around.  I would have nothing to do!   No phone, no tv, no radio, no books, no… nothing.  Except the wine rack… NO.  I have to get out of here!  I won’t make it solitary!  This is why I don’t commit crimes (among many other reasons).   

I look around.  What materials are here that I can use?   What else can I do?   WAIT!  Is that a paperclip on the floor?   Get OUT!   I grab it, run up the stairs.  I’m going to jimmy this lock like they do in the movies!   Come on paperclip, get it done!   

I have no jimmy-ing skills.  None, zip, zero.   I’m still locked in the basement.    Why didn’t I ever learn how to pick a lock??   Maybe I can Google how to pick a lock!   Note:  you can!   If only I had my phone, which is in my bag on the kitchen counter.   Damn it!  

I take another look around.   People kick doors with locks open on tv all the time!  It’s just as easy as using the paperclip, which I’ve shown no ability to do.  However, the door is directly at the top of the stairs.  I visualize myself kicking, then falling backward down the stairs, being found days later in a pool of my own blood.  This is undesirable. 

It’s ok.  This isn’t happening.  I am NOT locked in the basement. 

I return downstairs and up the ladder again to look out the window.  So peaceful, the snow is slowly falling, creating a winter wonderland.  Maybe a neighbor will stroll by and I can yell to them.  Maybe that neighbor will be the one I know also has a key or will be able to get that neighbor.  The snow comes down and all is quiet.  I watch quietly for a few minutes.  It’s entirely possible no one will come by for hours and hours and hours and hours!   It’s snowing.   Did I mention we were about to get 8 – 12”?   Everyone is inside, buckling down.  Not outside, wandering about in case their neighbors’ crazy friend has locked herself in the basement and is now yelling out the window for help.  

Eventually I’m going to have to go to the bathroom.   Don’t think about that!

I return to stare at the smaller window.  Nope. Still not going to work. 

That’s it!   I’m getting out of here!   I’m going to have to break that friggin’ lock.  What can I use?    I return to the tool room.   My hands fly everywhere. Tool drawers!   Display like thing guys use to hang up tools!  Shelves. So many options!   Pliers, that thing you use to scrape off paint, metal things that I don’t know what they are, screw drivers.  Screwdriver?  Can I just unscrew this MF?   

I can’t just unscrew the MF.   Which makes sense.  If you could, it wouldn’t be much of a lock, would it?   So I go to work on the lock.  I can DO this!   I’ve never, not one time, seen MacGyver… but I have seen MacGruber (the skit, not the film.  Come on, give me some credit).  I can DO this.   Whatever this metal stick is with a hook like thing on the end, I can use it to pry the lock off.   What if I break the lock and it’s not un-lockable?   I’m in no worse shape than I am now.  I’m getting out of here!!   I pry and pry and pry and pry.  

The phone rings upstairs.  It’s probably my friends asking me if I’ve died.  I wonder if the alarm company has alerted them that someone is breaking this dumb lock.  Could it be?  Could they call someone to get me out?   No, I turned off the alarm when I came in.  The phone stops ringing.  Sigh.  I look at the lock.  You flimsy little thing.  I can bust out of this.  I can DO this!   I pry and pry and try the screwdriver and return to my new best friend, the metal thing with the hook ending.  I jiggle and pry, then pry and jiggle the lock around.  I rip part of the door around the knob off.  Whoops!   Amazing the door seems only solid right around the frame and knob.  They don’t make things like they used to.  Even in crisis, a cliché is no help.   I jiggle, I jangle, I bang I push and voila!   The lock gives just enough to let me out.  

PHEW!   

I’m NOT locked in the basement!  I won’t die in the cold, alone on a basement floor after only drinking wine for 24 hours and having nowhere to go to the bathroom!    

I am motherfucking MacGyver!   

And that is how you go from dumbass who doesn’t check if a doorknob is locked to MacGyver. 

 p.s.

See…it really was ok.  This didn’t happen.  I was NOT locked in the basement.   Except that I was and I figured out how to get out by busting stuff up.  Feminism!   Safety locks are for dudes!

Christmas Happiness

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We counted down the days.  We wrapped all the gifts.  We got excited for the love and sharing.   Then in a short burst of energy way too early in the morning, the gifts have been opened, the food begins to flow and we settle in to the holiday spirit. The sharing, the caring, the specialness of this one day where we are supposed to enjoy all the blessings we have.  Today is special, celebrate damn it!    And we do.  All except one family member:  

She is doing the same thing she does everyday:   sitting on the bed, sunbathing.  A girl needs her vitamin D, don’t you know. 

Hey lady, don’t you want to play with your new toys?    Nope.

What about coming out to say hi?   Nope. 

And I realized she is happy there.  Warm sunshine makes her happy and so that is what she wants to do on Christmas.   Then I realized if she is happy doing that, that is what she should do.  But it’s such an every day thing!  So boring!  It’s the day to share and care and all that.   Then I further realized if she has incorporated happiness into her day every day, she gets to have a little piece of Christmas every day.  No need to save it up for one day a year.

I resolve to bring a little Christmas into each day by doing something I love to do or that makes someone else happy.   I hope you will, too. 

Happy Holidays!

Brown Quacamole Makes Me Sad…

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But very green quacamole after two days makes me scared.  I’ve gotten into the habit of making my own quac since acquiring the NutriNinja food processor.  So great, so fresh, so exactly they way you like it!  Do it.    But recently I bought a box of 100 calorie containers of quac.  95% avacado the box declared.  Sounds great!  

Below is one of the containers after it’s top was removed and it sat in the fridge for 2 days (the acceptability of returning this to the fridge without top and forgetting about it is a topic for another day).   TWO DAYS and still as green as the day it was processed in some huge vat and slopped into this little container.  WTF!

Some folks probably think this is great!  Wo.. quac that doesn’t turn brown after an hour.  I am suspicious of what chemical is producing this effect.   Below are the ingredients. 

Avacados,,, great.  Organic onion.. rock on.  Organic garlic power.  wo!  Sea salt, ok.  Organic sugar.  Is that necessary?  Oh well. move onCitric acid.  does that mean lemon juice?   Ascorbic acid.  Isn’t that basically the same as Citric Acid?   Xantham gum.  WTF is that??  

From WebMD:  http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-340-XANTHAN%20GUM.aspx?activeIngredientId=340&activeIngredientName=XANTHAN%20GUM

“Xanthan gum is a sugar-like compound made by mixing aged (fermented) sugars with a certain kind of bacteria. It is used to make medicine.

Xanthan gum is used for lowering blood sugar and total cholesterol in people with diabetes. It is also used as a laxative.

Xanthan gum is sometimes used as a saliva substitute in people with dry mouth (Sjogren’s syndrome).

In manufacturing, xanthan gum is used as a thickening and stabilizing agent in foods, toothpastes, and medicines. Xanthan gum is also an ingredient in some sustained-release pills.

How does it work?

Xanthan gum swells in the intestine, which stimulates the digestive tract to push stool through. It also might slow the absorption of sugar from the digestive tract and work like saliva to lubricate and wet the mouth in people who don’t produce enough saliva.”

Yeah, a laxative…   swelling the intestines to help push stool through.  Just what I want to think about when eating quac.  

I’m not sure if it’s the Xantam Gum that prevents the browning of the quac, but I do know that I don’t need it and I don’t need it, I don’t want it.   Back to making it fresh!

Sorry Again, because I should have known about Trump…

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Has it really only been a week?  

On election night, my life was an SNL skit.  This actual SNL skit: 

 

I’m not proud.

Because I should have known.  I should not have listened to all those pundits and insiders guaranteeing Ms. Clinton would win.  Why should I have known?   Because though I live in liberal Massachusetts, where Trump didn’t win one county, and have all my life, my parents were life-long conservatives and would have believed Trump’s message.  Why?  Because they grew up working class.  Working class Irish Catholic. They didn’t go to college.  They adored Ronald Regan’s message of lower taxes.  Having been raised strictly in the church, they agreed with many conservative social policies. 

Now Trump isn’t really cut from the cloth conservative Republican.   All this talk about white men, not college educated people, where were the Latinos and Black, why did this group or that vote the way they did.   It’s not a clear cut as race, economic or gender issues.  No one is just one of those dimensions and no one votes 100% of the time based on any one of those labels.   It’s more complicated.  What Trump did was find that economically disadvantaged people could be made to fear and dislike groups of people they do not know because they believe they will take what is theirs or worse they are being given something that they believe to be theirs.      

Take my own community.  The opening of The Departed is like listening to my grandparents all over again, except they would say two generations from No Irish Need Apply to an Irish Catholic President.  

 

They would also say a facsimile of ‘no one give you anything, you have to take it’.  My grandparents would say you have to earn it (because they weren’t mob bosses in Southie).  But what does that say:   ‘we fought hard to get what we have in this country and you’ll be God damned if you think we’re going give it away to other group’.   That is the mentality of some groups.  When faced with economic survival, there is a prioritization of what is important to you.  Why did any woman vote for Trump?   Watch in that Departed clip how Costello treats the young woman.  Watch her father watch it, too, not do anything.  That store is how they live.  When people feel threatened in that way, they may act in ways that those of us who aren’t threatened find incomprehensible.  It’s Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. 

It’s easy to stigmatize another group if you think they will take from you and yours, especially if you’re not exposed to members of that group.  Trump played that fiddle perfectly.  They believe he’s going to change trade agreements so their jobs don’t go abroad, that he’ll build a wall so immigrants can’t come here and take their jobs and that he’ll cut their taxes substantially.  Even though similar things have been promised by Republicans before and their lives haven’t improved.  Why do they believe it now?  Because no one spoke to them so blatantly before?   What happens when reality strikes and he can’t do any of those things to the extent he’s described is not something I’m looking forward to, though I’m sure blame will be deflected away from the administration.

It’s easy to label people as anti-this or anti-that, but doesn’t that also make people ‘the other’?  How is that different?   Shouldn’t we spend the time to understand their real concerns, complicated and interconnected.   We may find a cesspool of hatred and bigotry, we may.  But I suspect we’ll find a populace riled up on rhetoric which blames other groups without understanding those groups, something the men in charge have been doing since the dawn of time.  If we fight each other, we’re not fighting them, and that makes it so much easier for them to stay in charge.  When we give into fear and don’t work together, we get the government we are now facing.  Let’s not do that.  What we all need is more empathy.  Empathy for other’s experiences, lives, opinions and beliefs.  We need to actively fight those who do not want us to do that or will subjugate whole groups of people.  We need a government for all of us. 

This woman’s strength

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I finally got the opportunity to watch Hillary Clinton’s full concession speech.   Sure I’d seen bits and pieces, heard the main clips, but when I watched the entire thing all I could do was sit back in awe.   

Imagine working your entire adult life toward something, becoming a lawyer, being the first lady of Arkansas, being the first lady of the United States, a Senator, a Secretary of State… imagine living through some dark times with your husband, being attacked over and over and over and over, but coming back strong each time.  Then imagine after all that work, all that experience that the opponent put before you is a woefully unprepared, narcissist who turns the election to the office you, hold most dear and have the highest respect for to a reality show farce to placate his ego, a person who can’t even figure out when to get out of the tanning bed, and you lose.  

How do you come out and make this speech?   How do you attempt to smooth over the transition, make us feel better about the election results and give little girls encouragement and hope for the future.  How did she do that?   I’d be in the fetal position if I were attacked incessantly as she has been for year. 

She did it with unbelievable strength.  I sat back and just awed at possibly the most impressive person to ever run for President.  Bravo, Hillary.   You show us the class, dignity and strength we’ll all need to live through the next part of history.   Thank you, Madame.  Thank you…  

Our campaign was never about one person, or even one election. It was about the country we love and building an America that is hopeful, inclusive, and big-hearted. We have seen that our nation is more deeply divided than we thought. But I still believe in America, and I always will. And if you do, then we must accept this result and then look to the future. Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead. Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power.

We don’t just respect that. We cherish it. It also enshrines the rule of law; the principle we are all equal in rights and dignity; freedom of worship and expression. We respect and cherish these values, too, and we must defend them.

 

And to all of the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.

Never stop believing that fighting for what’s right is worth it

Sorry, world…

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This started as a post on the wonder of the first female President’s election.   As of this writing (10:20 EST), it’s so close, so so so close.   I can barely breathe.  This isn’t just disappointment at the potential of the first female losing.   No, this is complete terror at the possibility of the least prepared, least suited, most easily provoked human being become in charge of the most important country in the free world.   I’m afraid that our educational system is so poor that it produces people who can’t see how horrible Trump will be for us. 

In the 2000 election, I stayed up all night, completely dismayed, shocked even, that Bush could win.  It took an extended amount of time and craziness before he did, yes.  But I never, not one time, thought the country would go into complete disarray if he were elected.   I may have been wrong about that.  His eight years in office were among the worst and most destructive to the country, but nothing like this. 

Is there a worse word for terrified?   Because it feels like the Republic itself is at risk.   How all our systems work could change and only in ways that improve life for rich, white males.   The terrorists have won.  Congratulations. 

Last December I suggested my bookclub read The Handmaid’s Tale because it felt like something that could happen. That was the reality show, tabloid farce this election became.  At the time,  I was sort of joking.  But I’m actually scared it could happen.  Here, in the greatest country, the greatest social system experiment in history of the world.  Perhaps I’m over-reacting, and it won’t.  But it could.  It really could.  I’ve never thought anything like that before, not for one minute in my life.  But now I do.

I’ll be taking my pocket Constitution to bed and holding it tight tonight.  

Books Books Everywhere Books…

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That thing when you invite people over.  One stares at your bookcase and says:  I knew you liked to read, but this is a lot of books.  

And the bubble above your head says:  oh, that is just the bookcase in this room.  There is a whole other build in shelving situation in the other room.    🙂

The Three Quarters 30

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Recently a friend completed the Whole 30 program  and raved about it. 

You can change your whole life in 30 days by “letting go of bad habits, guilt, anxiety around food”. 

Change my whole life in 30 days?   Weeeee… sign me up.   But wait, by doing what now?   

Did you know: 

Certain food groups (like sugar, grains, dairy and legumes) could be having a negative impact on your health and fitness without you even realizing it. Are your energy levels inconsistent or non-existent? Do you have aches and pains that can’t be explained by over-use or injury? Are you having a hard time losing weight no matter how hard you try? Do you have some sort of condition (like skin issues, digestive ailments, seasonal allergies or fertility issues) that medication hasn’t helped? These symptoms may be directly related to the foods you eat – even the “healthy” stuff. So how do you know if (and how) these foods are affecting you?

– Whole 30 website

Yes, the Whole 30 programs asks you to eliminate the following from you diet for 30 days:

  • Grains (note:  this includes rice, lentils and quinoa!)
  • Sugar
  • Legumes
  • Dairy
  • Alcohol

Is changing your whole life really worth that?    I’m was not so sure…

Then I went to Ireland, land of fish and chips, amazing soda bread and Guiness for a week.  I returned feeling like the Michelin Man who could no longer fit into his clothes.   Just a grain, yeast and hops filled bleeeeeecccchhhhh….    Something had to change.   So I thought I’d give Whole 30 a try. 

When I reviewed the above restrictions, I saw basically what was left were fruits, vegetables, some nuts and meat.   Since I am a nearly vegan (well, I am a vegan who on occasions falls off the cheese bandwagon or maybe the cheese bandwagon falls on me, thus I must eat my way free. Something like that), this seemed nearly impossible and possibly not healthy.   I researched and found a whole section of the Whole 30 site on Vegetariana/Vegans .  Read it for yourself, but their position boils down to you should eat some animal based protein.  I’m not going to do that, so I’ll be creating my own Whole 30, the Three Quarters 30, which entails:  

  • Limiting Grains – no traditional grain (bread, pasta).  Limited rice, lentils and quinoa (gotta have it, yo)
  • Sugar
  • Legumes:  limited edamame and organic tofu (as suggested), limited chickpeas and other beans.   I need them! 
  • Dairy
  • Alcohol   (gah!)

I know the Three Quarters 30 won’t do what the Whole 30 promises, but it will certainly be good for me, so watch me go.