Los Angeles: Yep. I’m Still Here.

-by Amy Yen

I meant to do a “year in LA” reflection post, but you know. Things got busy. Still, I’m pretty sure I am in the general vicinity of the year-and-a-half mark, so I thought I’d put something up. Also, it’s still January, so I can even double it as a new year post!

Here’s to…new places.

Things I miss most about Texas: No state income tax. Winter is one week. There is parking everywhere. The sky is clear and blue. My favorite frozen pizza is 89 cents there! (Boston $1.49, LA $3.00!) Blue Bell ice cream. The fact that, if you are from there, you can be really elitist about barbeque.

Things I miss most about Boston: Public transit, no matter how much we complained about it, actually went to basically anywhere worth going to in the city (I’m looking at you, Los Angeles Metro). My school, in the theatre district, really made it feel like going to a true school of the arts. My work, in the financial district, really made it feel like working in a big city. The month & a half out of the year that are not winter are actually kinda nice.

Things I love about LA (so far): Palm trees lining the streets. People take Whole Foods very seriously. I can see the ocean from my office. I’ve officially been here a year & a half (or something like that) & have not experienced winter.

To another year.

Ode to Good Customer Service

-by Amy Yen

If there’s anything @ComcastCares & @RichardatDell & the other brands on Twitter success stories have shown, it’s that good customer service still feels like an anomaly & people never seem to get tired of praising it. My reasoning has always been that we’ve got to continue to encourage this type of behavior, lest the big brands think us ungrateful & go back to not giving me the cable & internet I overpay for each month.

Such is the reason why today, when I encountered excellent customer service in the least likely place on earth—the DMV—I felt the need to repeatedly, desperately thank each lovely, wonderful employee who helped me. I found myself literally trying to come up with the words to properly express my extreme gratitude that these civil servants, who work in what has to be among the most depressing environments known to man, went out of their way to help lil’ ol’ me FINALLY, almost a year & a half after leaving Boston, obtain a California driver’s license.

I won’t go into details about what they did, but frankly, I shouldn’t have been able to get the license today. Even I’ll admit that. The red tape was all set up to stop me, but a few feisty California-DMV Santa Monica office employees worked together to beat the system for no real reason except to help me out. To me, it felt like nothing short of a miracle.

So, I’d like to take this opportunity to take back my statements in the past, in which I believe I referred to the DMV as “what hell must feel like.” Also, Zita from the Santa Monica office, if you’re out there reading this by any chance, I forgot to tell you, I really like your earrings.