Mike Dell's World number
4 38,
and today is the 02/21/2026.
Well, thank you very much, and we're thrilled
to be joined by
one of the most successful
business leaders and people anywhere in the country,
whether it's technology,
no matter what business you're talking about, there's
nobody quite like him. Michael Dell, very much
of a legend who's here with his really
exciting announcement. It's, so amazing.
Well, I don't really have a amazing
announcement.
I don't know.
Of course, I I played that on the
last episode however many months ago,
and, just thought I'd play it again.
How how's everybody doing? Happy New Year.
You know, of course,
almost two months late, but, hey,
it is what it is.
I have been doing a daily weekday show
well, doing a daily show, as you guys
know, back in November.
And then,
after that, I continue on doing a week
daily show,
called Cup of Traverse City. You can find
that over at cupoftraversecity.com.
And that,
you know, every morning,
five days a week,
I've been, doing a little five minute
to talk about the weather, talk about a
new story here locally
and all that. So that's that's been going
along pretty good. So if you're
missing hearing my, melodious tone, you can go
over there and listen to that. You'll know
more about,
Traverse City weather than,
anybody.
Anyhow,
that's what I've been up to.
That and plowing snow. Oh my gosh.
First
couple months here has just been crazy
of winter.
We got a little break about
two weeks ago. It stopped snowing and about
a week ago it got into the 40s
for an extended period of time, so a
lot of the snow has
melted down. I have a
yalo meter, probably don't know what that is.
There's a youtuber out there, Ryan Hall y'all,
the weather guy
and
he sells these
these fancy
snow meters and of course I picked one
of them up and planted it in my
yard outside the studio here and I can
look out see how deep the snow gets
And it was up over
12 inches in, you know, in a non
windy part of the lawn and under the
trees and
so it,
pretty accurate of what, is currently on the
ground. Well, it was up, like I said,
over 12 inches
and now well, it was down to
blank ground until last night and,
and last night we got, I guess, about
three inches of snow, something like that. Two,
three,
nothing too too crazy and it was the
real heavy wet stuff that sticks to all
the trees and
the phone poles and the phone lines and
and all the power lines whatever you know
so it was that real sticky sticky stuff
And, you know, later in the afternoon, it
was all off the roads and
and all that. One of the things was
kinda funny.
You know, it was all stacked up on
my truck. My pre pre start my truck,
you know, the remote start, and I went
to coffee klatch this morning over at the
EAA,
or the Legacy Aviation Building, actually,
since that was the topic of my last
episode.
Gosh. It's been that long.
But, anyway,
go over to coffee over there every Saturday
morning.
And and
as I was, you know, I pre run
my truck,
you know, for ten minutes and
get in the truck and drive over there,
and
that was fine.
And then I, got in the truck afterwards
and
had to go run some errands, and I
I come up to a roundabout,
you know, coming out of the airport
area there and
hit the brakes. And
all of the snow came off,
not only the truck part, but the topper
part, and it all slid down and landed
on my hood. And so here I am
going through this
this, roundabout with my windshield completely covered with,
you know, a bunch of snow. So I
actually had to pull off the side and
get the snow brush out and brush all
the snow back off the hood and windshield
of my truck.
You know, what I don't understand is why
does it wait until you go forward to
fall off forward
rather than
slide off the back? You would think when
you accelerate,
it would slide off the back. Nope. It
always slides forward. That happens
I don't know. It's happened to me two
or three times this, this winter.
It's,
you know, just I don't know. Maybe it's
the nature of that vehicle.
Yeah. It was,
it was a little comical. Luckily, there wasn't
a lot of cars on the road or
anything, so I was able
to not hit anybody or go off the
road or anything. But, yeah, it was
that was
a little bit exciting there.
So basically, what I really wanna talk about,
and this is what prompted me to
do an episode this evening,
is I had a very,
very, very poor customer service experience.
Went to dinner with my mom. My wife's
downstate visiting her family.
And so so I went to dinner with
mom and, you know, met her over at
the Red Lobster, if you have to know.
But, met her over there, and we had
dinner and chit chatted.
And on my way back, I, swing into
Shell. I gotta pick up a couple things.
You know, we have these Shell mini marts,
around here.
Okay. No. You know, it's a convenience store,
gas station. You're familiar with them, I'm sure.
But,
anyway, you know, I had, like, four items,
whatever.
And I walk up towards the counter, and
they have all these signs
in front of all the cash registers.
Use the whatever it was called, and I
didn't stick around to study it much.
But,
they have this thing that I don't know.
I guess it looks like a hot plate
or I don't know. Like, if you go
into a,
you know, restaurant or something where or not
even a restaurant, but a deli or whatever
where they have a hot case, you know,
where they have a heat lamp and and,
you know, and have food in there to
keep it warm. It looked a lot like
that, all other than it was kinda flat.
It but it had, like, all these cameras
around it.
Well, that's the new
self check thing.
And, basically, you're supposed to put your items
on this
platform and then get out of the way.
It's somebody behind the counter telling people how
to use it. So that that's strike strike
one right there. You know, if if you
can't if I can't figure it out on
my own, what what good is it to
have it?
But I guess the upshot of that is
is I said, do we really have to
use this? And she reluctantly
said, no. I can get you over here.
Went over to one of the regular
checkouts and and, did it. And then she
didn't ask me if I wanted a
bag. I'm like, come on.
Really? I got four items. Three of them
don't fit in my pocket,
and they'd be really awkward to carry out
to the vehicle and then
carry into the house. So, yes, I want
a freaking bag. Always ask or just put
it in a freaking bag.
That that doesn't have it anywhere anymore.
You know, do you want a bag? You
know, at the grocery store, they'll ask you
if you want paper or plastic, and I
always tell them, well, I'm,
I'm, you know, I I don't care whatever
is easiest.
Alright. At one time, I said I'm bisexual,
and, they didn't understand that. I thought it
was funny.
But,
you know, the grocery store, they'll ask you,
paper or plastic? I say whatever is easiest.
You know? I I I don't care. I
kinda wish they'd get rid of those plastic
grocery bags,
and we're lucky around here. They don't charge
us for those. I know a lot of
places they do charge you for a bag,
which I guess is okay. You know, I
could carry around a cloth
grocery bag. I'm I'm cool with that. Whatever.
You know? But,
anyway, you know, the the lack of customer
service
and also this newfangled
scanner thing, I I just like,
why? Why? What was wrong with you? You
still got somebody standing there explaining it to
everybody. Just have them check us out.
You know? It it just don't get it.
You know? Like, I go to, you know,
Walmart
or Meijer or our local,
Tom's or Olsen's, whatever, you have the choice
of doing self checkout or cashier checkout.
You know, I don't mind doing self checkout
if I'm not buying booze or something
that requires an ID, but then, you know,
you go to a self checkout that requires
ID, then you got that problem.
I was at Meijer's yesterday, bought a new
pair of
tennis shoes or well, I guess they don't
call them tennis shoes anymore. Guess I'm getting
old. What the hell? Turned 60 and, you
know, everything went to hell on me. But,
I went to Myers, bought a pair of
shoes and, of course, you know, I'd well,
I go through the checkout, you know, the
self checkout. Oh, you know, still, you know,
they scan them and beep beep beep beep
whatever and, of course, they had, you know,
some sort of sensor in the shoes and
all that. So, you know, the self checkout
didn't save me any time and didn't save
them any labor.
But, yeah, I really don't understand this thing
at this Shell station. It's only the only
one in town I've seen so far and
you know, we got like six or seven
of these Shell Mini Marts
around and this is the only one I've
ever seen.
Hopefully, that's not a trend and they're just
testing something out and hopefully, they'll get terrible
feedback. In fact, I'm gonna write a nasty
gram to to, their corporate,
not shell corporate, but, I forget. Was it
True North?
They're a big chain, mostly shell stations,
in Ohio and Michigan.
And yeah. I was gonna write to them
and say, hey.
I don't like this idea. You know? You
you got people there anyway. What what's the
big deal to have them check us out?
And why don't they ask you for a
bag?
And why don't they, ask you
or or why do they ask you if
you want a receipt? Just give me the
damn receipt. If it prints it, hand it
to me. I don't care. You know, I
really don't care if I get the receipt,
but,
you know,
just
yeah. It's crazy. And, you know, and then
have a good one.
You know? That's that's the common,
greeting, you know, or whatever. And, like, have
a good what?
Not having a good experience.
Whatever.
So me me being a grumbly, grumpy old
guy here, but,
well, that was that was quite
the quite the annoyance, I I would say,
would be the right word for it.
I'm gonna avoid that that particular location of
of that store
now for, you know, from now on. You
know? I passed
three of them on the way home, and
I picked that one to go to.
Now we have another chain of
convenience store gas stations. Used to be called
holiday stores,
but they, rebranded to Circle k. They were
you know, they they've been owned by Circle
k for quite a while. You know? I'm
sure, you know, wherever you're from, there's probably
Circle k's, but, you know, North Michigan, there
was holiday stores and
and they haven't changed a bit. I mean,
just to change the sign, but, you know,
there's, you know, very
very attentive people working there and, you know,
it's a it's a decent experience.
Subway is similar. It's not Subway. Well, Subway's
got its own issues.
Speedway,
now that's a chain that I believe was
mostly Midwest
and Florida,
when they were big in Florida for whatever
reason.
Well, that got bought out by seven eleven.
So you go into a Speedway now. It's
still branded Speedway, but everything in there is
seven eleven,
which because I had no particular problem with.
But since that happened,
they're not very good at customer service. They
do have a self checkout, and some of
the shell stations do too.
Further downstate, there's another chain of shell
stations called Johnny's,
and they have a self checkout, but by
no means do they make you use it
or even encourage you to use it. It's
just there if you want to use it,
and that's the way it ought to be.
That's because I'm oh, man. Get off my
lawn.
Anyway,
you know, I work in customer service,
at Blueberry. You guys know that. And, you
know, my main job is to keep the
customers happy and, keep keep them coming in,
get more of them.
And, you know, I don't have an attitude
with my customers. Now I might pitch about
them, you know, internally,
you know, just to blow off some steam
when they do some some stupid stuff. But
for the most part,
I I try to be as helpful as
I can and, you know, as long as
it's within the, you know, scope of what
I am supposed to do, I will do
it for them. And sometimes even outside of
that, you know, go a little extra mile
for certain
customers
and for certain things.
Now, you know, if they're complaining about their
website and we had nothing to do with
their website, well, sorry. I'm just not a
web designer. Can't really help you with that,
but
give him some suggestions on where to go.
But, you know, I I wouldn't dream of
rolling my eyes at a customer even though
generally them on the phone or email.
But,
you know, this this person when I you
said, do we have to use this? She
rolled her eyes
and, you know, and then when I asked
for a bag, she rolled her eyes again.
And,
you know, it was
it was just like, really? You know? And
then you go to a lot of places
now, you know, that wouldn't, you know, like,
you do take out food, fast food,
and they have a, oh, do you wanna
leave a tip? No. I don't wanna leave
a tip. You didn't do anything.
You know what I mean?
You know, I'll leave it for, you know,
like a regular restaurant and I'm doing a
carryout order. I'll do a tip, but it
won't be the full, you know, 20%
that I would do if I was going
in there to sit down. I'll but I'll
give a little tip there. But, you know,
I was at
McDonald's.
I was on the road
last week. Had to go to
a doctor's appointment to about an hour and
a half north of here. Don't ask me
why.
But, that's that's where I had to go.
And on the way back, I stopped at
McDonald's. And, of course, they have all the
kiosks
to to order your food, which I don't
particularly
have a problem with, but I didn't order
at the kiosk. I went up the counter
and ordered.
Why not? Still an option.
And, you know, keep those people busy. And,
of course, when I go to pay,
there's a tip thing.
Has anybody really ever tipped at McDonald's? I
mean, come on. This tip culture is is
gone crazy.
You know,
I'll tip where tipping is, you know, customary,
but,
you know, not
not at McDonald's. Come on, guys.
And and besides that, where do the tips
go anyway? I guarantee they're not going all
in the employees pockets, Or if they are,
it's some sort of pooling thing.
And, you know, they they get paid,
you know, $15.20
dollars an hour to be there.
I don't think they need my tip for,
you know, $10 breakfast or whatever. But,
anyway alright. No. I'm I'm done grumping.
I'll,
I'll try to to, add more content here,
but, again, you wanna catch me on a
regular basis, cup of traversecity.com
or,
also over at podcastinsider.com.
I'm on, yeah,
two out of three episodes usually or sometimes
three out of four,
something like that. Anyway,
catch you guys later.