Author Archives: skipbensley

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About skipbensley

Unabashed father, AV genius, part time dark knight, foodie, amateur chef, antifascist, volunteer and rabid Boston sports fan.

Dunkin Donut response to my safety inquiry.

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Dunkin_response

Well as expected the local Dunkin Donuts HR Person did not address my concearns about safety but did pony up 4 free Coffee and breakfast muffin coupons that do not expire.

The trick is you have to use them at the one Franchisee’s dunkin donut locations.

Since I have not seen a written safety protocol, and have not been invited to a store to see one, I have no choice but to assume none of these locations actually has a saftey protocol in place.

Perhaps you should avoid all these locations, especially if you have a baby, newborn or you are over 60 years of age. The locations were listed on the coupons.
54 East Central Natick, MA
133 west central street Natick, MA
334 Waverly Street, Framingham, MA
266 Concord Street, Framingham, MA
51 Pond Plaza, Ashland, MA

Lastly I have begun random interviews with employees at dunkin donuts and of 4 employees thus far none has ever seen a safety manual while working at dunkin donuts and nobne of them knows of any systems in place to help anyone in case of an emergency or serious scalding.

No more dunkin donuts for me part deux

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Ok so it turns out Ginger was not from the Corporate Dunkin donuts but she was from the franchise owners HR department. She represents the franchise owner that owns 5 or so dunkin donuts and they do their own training and ( or not in this case) to insure that everyone driving through or purchasing in the store is safe. I had talked with D.D.C.C.  or “dunkin donuts Corporate C something earlier in the day.   While talking to Dunkin Donuts corporate we got cut off and when I tried to call back and speak to a Lina or Leena there was nobody at Dunkin donuts corporate offices by that name. Their dial in number is ridiculous.  I think it’s puzzling that dunkin donuts corporate would relight a fuse that the franchisee was trying to extinguish. It’s not the first time in corporate american history where the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing but really?

Ginger did mention that the manager that ran around looking for windex was let go and that a few other people were removed from their roles at the Dunkin Donuts at 133 West Central street in Natick. While I am sorry for their loss of jobs I am still uncertain as to what the safety protocols if any exist at dunkin donuts. When I pressed ginger today about them she said they were in place and I asked her to show me.

Ginger mentioned a letter had been sent to me by the franchise owner, and by her and that it would arrive in a few days. Whatever it says I promise to copy it and post it here.

Sorry but you won’t see me presenting at Podcamp Boston 6.

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Pclogo1

This year like every year I eagerly awaited news about Podcamp Boston. When registration went up I bought my tickets and sent in my discussion submissions. Last year I did two talks one with Joseline Mane, Steve Garfield and Robert Collins called return of the visual suspects and a 2nd Q&A session about video production. Both were well attended. In 2009 we also had Matthew Mamet as one of the visual suspects, and that one was also well attended.

Every year there has always been a gaff with my submission or registration this year there was both. First I was told they got no discussion submissions. This was too bad, because I had sent them in the day I registered. Today I was told my registration could not be found. I then sent a copy of my registration to Podcamp 6 Boston and they were able to find it much easier. I was also told they were trying to refund me. They wrongly assumed I no longer wanted to attend. I was not sure why they thought this. I was disappointed that I could not present sure, but I had not indicated anything about not attending.

I realize we are all very busy, and that many really good people volunteer to put podcamps together. I just don’t understand why it is that my involvement is always a burden to the organizers. I was dissapointed I could not share my thoughts on web video and where it has gone but I never said I was cancelling altogether. Perhaps they were making that decision for me?,  trying to be helpful somehow?

No more dunkin donuts for me thanks

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The last cups in the can 
Last week I was scalded by a hot cup of coffee at the drive thru tossed at me (cover off)  by the woman I will just call the defendant. This happened at the Dunkin Donuts at Route 135 and Speen Street in Natick, MA. It was almost ironic for I was the foursquare mayor before the dousing.
When I walked in and asked for the manager, the man in blue  ( we will call him co-defendant) walked with me and quickly apologized but then went on a rant about how dumb his employees were that the corporate office had not even trained correctly. He also mentioned there had been tons and tons of turnover at his location.
This throwing his people under the bus was amusing, but I was still covered with hot coffee as was the inside of my car. I calmly explained that the woman had not apologized and had just said aught oh no cover.  I asked for some paper towels and some windex. The manager raced around for a few minutes until he located the windex.  I grabbed napkins because paper towels are for employees only.  I then went out to my car to spray the insides down so I could drive to the appointment I would then be late for. I asked the manager to have the owner contact me, and I left smelling of coffee my morning ruined.
The next day I was contacted by Ginger from the Dunkin Donuts Corporate offices. She listened to my report and interjected nicely with the right amount of ohh my gods and sympathetic outrage. Ginger mentioned there were practices and systems in place for this type of situation and that none of their protocols  had been followed. When I asked what those were however the question was never answered. This however was the last I have heard from Dunkin donuts.
My situation was not life threatening but what if a child had been scalded,  Or perhaps a new born?  What then Dunkin Donuts? Would you throw your staff under the bus then or maybe fire everyone and start over? Sweeping up the mess under a rug doesn’t work here.  You need  real solutions and real  safety measures in place.  
What do you think Dunkin Donuts should do?

We are under attack… 10 years later.

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10 Years ago I walked into the offices of Mass AV which were then located on Cambridge Street in Burlington.  I was just back from my friend Matt Dillon’s wedding after spending my honeymoon in Italy.  While I was away we had installed a 42" LCD monitor in the lobby. It had a TV feed on and people were watching the first tower at WTC smoke. When the 2nd plane hit the tower I gasped and uttered the words we are under attack. I should not have said it but it just came out.  I went back to my desk and sat in shock like everyone at work that day.  A few hours later the Executive director of the Canadian -US woodworking conference called me from the Hynes Convention Center telling me they had been shut down and asked to leave the building. All sky scrapers in the US had become targets and all planes were grounded.  The executive director asked me if he could get a refund and what he should do, I told him he should go home to his family if he could. I put him on hold and walked into John Lally’s office he was my boss and president of MassAV then. I explained the situation and he took the call. 
I remember that day, I remember trying to call all my friends in NYC to make sure they were ok. I remember going home and knowing my job had changed also and that our business was about to go away for awhile. I wondered what it is I could do to help, to change things. I felt helpless, and that is never a good feeling.

Watching the replays over the years does not help, I try not to watch them now. Not because I don’t care, but because it reminds me how frail we are, how frail I am. It reminds me that in a blink of an eye it can all be gone.

I have signs taped up in my apartment that say “I will not waste this day for it is a gift”. Some days I waste them still, but not as much as I used to. We should never take life for granted, we should cherish every moment. We should live everyday as best we can. We should never forget those we lost, but we should also live our lives fully and not waste them. Those that died that day would want us live our lives to the fullest otherwise their sacrifice is in vain.

Hey @rcnconnects when am I getting reconnected?

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I have cable for my kids and I do work from home editing video and uploading it for clients. Upload speed needs to be good otherwise it is a long hurry up and wait proposition. I had called RCN quite a few times about it was warned that if they came out and found nothing wrong it would cost me 75.00 which put me off. I finally broke down after 9 months and made the service demand. They came out and tech said that my modem had been recalled about a year earlier. This became a credit. RCN could have avoided it by just coming out with out the 75.00 threat but oh well. Not listening to their customer cost them. Now my service has been out a week and RCN has no idea when it will be fixed. Comcast has called me and told me that RCN is so hurting financially they might not recover and that the readon why its not being fixed fadt is because RCN does not own their own network. Nice business practice comcast, kicking RCN when they are down. I hate cable companies, @comcastcares , @rcnconnects they both suck. Comcast charges you twice what RCN will charge you, but you get what you pay for with RCN . I have been using my neighbors wifi to work from home this week. So RCN when is my service going to be reconnected?

So what happened between Friday and Monday?

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Money

Money, money money.

“ It was mayhem at the stock market today. S&P 500 and Dow Jones went down while gold price per ounce went up. US markets today fell on fears of financial crisis in the Eurozone and the credit rating downgrade in the US, but not quite as much as was being feared.”

In terms I understand it’s like everyone got fricken really nervous. It was like saying you had a bomb in your sneaker at the airport. Everyone got nervous and started devaluing companies stocks.

My friend Peter said it best when he mentioned “what made Ford stock less valuable other then panic?”

The answer is nothing. When did we become Greece? Does it suddenly say United Greece of America? Are we so stupid to let ourselves default? Thank you China for scolding the USA and saying such nice things about our credit rating. Hey China, I would be saying good things if you want your money back. Since your our biggest Capital one bill I’d keep it on the down low.

Yes today the markets tumbled a bit. It will rebound, tomorrow might be a great day to buy stock in fact.

In China there is an expression Wei-Chi (crisis) which translates into “danger plus opportunity” …

Headline from http://www.timeswireservice.com Picture from: kaderz on photbucket.com

Google+ my thoughts, not that you care.

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Google-logo-plus-0fbe8f0119f4a902429a5991af5db563

Google+ is catching on and I admit to being a habitual user. I won’t post pictures of my kids on it ever, and I am not certain I will continue using google+ past Movember. Here are my thoughts about it.

It reminds me of buzz but with better sharing. Its more like Twitter then it is Facebook. You can spark up conversations and get feedback.Unfortunately for me I am boring and uninteresting and nobody cares what I think enough to even comment. This is both a blessing and a curse.

Bruce Garber was hanging out the other day and I joined in, that was cool, and we talked face to face and got caught up. Bruce also showed me the video share capabilities. That was cool. The problem is I really don’t like or trust youtube as a video platform. I send clients to vimeo. I think of youtube as hit or miss video. It’s a great video platform for people with accutely short attention spans. I put qik videos on youtube but thats about it.

Google+ reunited me with lots of people that just would not engage with me on facebook. I’m not sure they will engage me here either. I just find it curious that they re-added me. Was it courtesy? or were they missing not communicating with me?

I read an article this week that stated that a majority (75%) of all google+ users are a male geeks, 20% were women ( Geek or not) and 5 percent were something else or Not committed either way.

This is one of those blog posts that does not end itself, Until now.

A very Hot summer poem

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What is this, if not passion
The feeling of something unusual
Waiting to be caressed, wanting to explode,
What if I get that heavenly touch
For which my body has been aching
Will I remain what I am
Or will the entwining of the bodies
Lead me to something ethereal
I am confused, do not know how to react
But what I know is that I yearn for that touch
A soothing touch of caress
And a wild sensation of fulfillment.

I adore the woman who sent this.

Anyone know the author?

Jackass meet the Stupid human trick

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When I was a kid I loved to skateboard and I was kinda dumb also. I would skate down Hanson lane until my parents caught me. My skateboard would be confiscated but I’d get another one and or rescue mine from the trash. One dumb day I decided it was a good idea to slalom skate on a tow line behind a car. This was before good equipment was designed so I had sneakers on and gloves I think. I won’t mention the driver, but after about mile into our stupid human trick we had the cops chasing us. My friend thought it was a good idea to drive off and ended up speeding down the soap box derby hill on quaker ridge, forgetting that I was now on a skate board doing about 60 right behind him. When the siren came on he pulled over and I rode down the off ramp to Pine brook boulevard. I thought I was clear until another cop came and got me. I remember not getting my skateboard back that day and also talking my way out of a JD card. I think New Rochelle was the last city to stop issuing them. It was the 70’s, the JD cards were so 1950’s but more importantly lost in all this was the first ever jackass meets the stupid human trick.