Speaker 0: Mike Dell's World number 4 38, and today is the 02/21/2026.

Speaker 1: 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.

Speaker 0: 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.