Washington – Page 3 – Pain In The Bud

An Amazon Driver Took A Family’s Cat, And Amazon Has Not Been Helpful

Amazon’s response not only leaves a lot to be desired, it’s also an example of precisely what not to do when an issue goes beyond a simple customer service complaint. The company missed an opportunity to respond with compassion and earn a family’s gratitude.

An Amazon delivery driver took a Washington family’s cat and drove away with her on July 21.

Since then, Amazon has admitted its driver has the cat, but has offered little more than carefully-worded customer service responses mixed with boilerplate language about valuing the family’s business and feedback.

Ray and Karin Ishak have video of the driver petting and playing with 13-year-old Feefee in the family’s driveway during the delivery. The motion-activated camera timed out, according to a report by Seattle ABC affiliate KING5-TV, but when the camera began recording again, triggered by the driver pulling away, Feefee was gone.

“The driver [was] driving away and there’s not a cat in sight. It’s pretty obvious the cat disappeared in those seconds,” Ray Ishak told the station, adding he filed a report with the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office.

feefeecamera — An Amazon driver playing with Feefee in the Ishak family’s driveway before driving away with the cat. Credit: Ray Ishak

Amazon has chosen to deal with the incident via email, as if it’s a dispute over a returned item rather than a living being who is valued as a family member by her people.

A company customer service representative told the Ishaks that the driver said she contacted the police to return Feefee, but the family called the sheriff’s office and the police in Everett, Washington, where they live, and both agencies told them they hadn’t heard from the driver or from Amazon.

The Ishaks asked Amazon if the company could at least tell them the town or city where the driver lives, figuring the driver may have contacted police there instead of the departments that have jurisdiction over their hometown. Amazon declined to provide that information.

When the Ishaks followed up with Amazon again, a customer service representative said she’d be happy to help — if the police approach Amazon. She provided an email address for law enforcement use only, said Amazon will cooperate if the police contact them, and ended the reply with a request to “vote about your experience today.”

This is an awful response by Amazon, and the company deserves any bad PR it gets as a result. The very first thing the company should have done was escalate the ticket to a manager empowered to take care of the case directly, and that manager should have picked up the phone, called the family and promised to get their cat back immediately.

If the company doesn’t have anyone in its customer care hierarchy who understands why it’s important to make that kind of judgment call, then it’s done a poor job of hiring and training its employees.

Alternately, Amazon’s known for keeping its employees on an extremely short leash — the company is notorious for watching its employees via cameras, has been fined tens of millions of dollars for “excessive surveillance” of its own workers, has forced employees to “justify” things like bathroom breaks, and operates on founder Jeff Bezos’ belief that employees are “inherently lazy” — so if the email-only response was due to strict company policy, that’s another negative that can be chalked up to a toxic corporate culture.

Treating this like a routine complaint only exacerbated the Ishak family’s stress and uncertainty regarding the fate of their beloved cat. Putting the onus on the family and the police to sort out of the problem makes things worse, and you’d think any halfway competent customer service rep would skip the “rate your service” pitch, at least until after the problem is solved and Feefee is back with her family.

Feefee with granddaughter — Ray Ishak said Feefee’s disappearance has been especially hard on his grandchildren, who love the gentle feline. Credit: Ray Ishak

It doesn’t matter how massive and successful the company is, there has to be a better way to handle issues like this without requiring even the police to approach Amazon like customers dialing a service line, or supplicants petitioning a king to turn his gaze toward a situation that normally falls beneath his notice. There’s also no recognition of the impact on Feefee, who is almost certainly confused and stressed at being separated from the only home and family she’s known for her entire life.

Lastly, Amazon missed an opportunity to respond with compassion and earn the gratitude of a family whose members are obviously very concerned about their cat. A PR win like that is worth a thousand commercials, and can earn enormous good will with customers. Instead, people will hear about how the company treats a problem like this as if a customer is returning a shirt that’s too small.

As for the Ishak family, they say they’re giving the driver the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she thought Feefee was a stray. But, as Ray Isha told KING5, it’s been made abundantly clear that Feefee is a beloved member of the family, and she needs to be returned.

“Maybe you did this out of the kindness of your heart,” Ray Ishak said. “I appreciate it, but bring me my cat back.”

Top image of Feefee as a kitten with one of Ray Ishak’s grandchildren courtesy of Ray Ishak, via KING5.

What It’s Like To Care For World’s Oldest Cat, Plus: Utah Zoo’s New Kitten Is Cute But Deadly!

A London woman’s cat, Flossie, just celebrated her 29th birthday, making her the oldest cat in the world. And in Utah, a zoo just debuted an adorable little predator.

Happy Sunday, everyone, and if you’re on the east coast of the US like we are, we hope you’re safe and warm during this year’s first snow.

We’ll start off with a bit of significant news first reported in the The Buddesian Times: the famous artist and sculptor Meowchelangelo has unveiled a glorious marble statue of our favorite feline hero, “striding like a colossus toward evil-doers in the distance, his rippling muscles rendered in magnificent Calacatta Borghini,” which is marble from the same quarry in Carrara, Italy, that supplied the raw material for another masterpiece, the Renaissance sculpture commonly known as “David.”

The statue, which honors Buddy’s recent valorous defense of a helpless dog during a vicious attack by a pack of 72 coyotes, will likely be installed in Manhattan, although Washington’s city council is lobbying hard for it, promising the famous statue of Abraham Lincoln in his eponymous monument would be removed for the Buddesian likeness.

The World’s Oldest Cat still moves like a kitten

The Guardian has an interesting column from Vicki Green, cat mom to Flossie, who at 28 years old is the Guinness World Records certified oldest domestic cat in the world.

Flossie, who was born in December of 1995, is as old as Green, who attributes the tortoiseshell’s longevity to “luck, and because she was loved by her previous owners.” Flossie was initially an outdoor kitten who lived in a managed colony until she was adopted by her first human, who died when Flossie was 14 years old.

The woman’s sister took Flossie in next but died after 10 years. Her son became the long-lived feline’s third servant, but after three years he brought her to Cat’s Protection in London, saying he could no longer provide the level of care Flossie deserved and needed.

Shortly after, Green was looking to adopt a cat and saw Flossie’s listing online.

“At the time, I thought it was an error and that she must be 17,” she wrote. “Cats Protection told me she was still available to adopt and that no, she was in fact 27, the same age as me.”

Green thought Flossie would likely only live a few more months, but “she’d at least spend them in a nice, warm flat, be fed well and get treats as well as a comfy bed.”

“To my surprise,” Green wrote, “I’ve had her for over a year now and she’s still going strong.”

Flossie napping — Flossie takes lots of naps but is surprisingly active and playful for her age. Credit: Vicki Green

Despite her advanced age, Flossie is active, seeks attention and still plays with her favorite toys. Green got miniature stairs for the senior kitty to easily reach the couch, but Flossie doesn’t use them, preferring to jump up instead.

“The biggest difficulty is dealing with the fact that there may soon come a time when she passes. I’m in denial about that. I look at her and just think she doesn’t look old at all,” Green wrote. “Yet who knows? She could well be on the way to becoming the oldest cat in history. Though even if she doesn’t break the current record of 38 years and three days, at least I’ll know she had a great retirement home.”

Gaia the three-pound terror debuts in Salt Lake City

Black-footed cats are known primarily for three things: they’re outrageously cute, they’re diminutive and they’re remarkably deadly.

Of course with a maximum weight of three pounds, only tiny prey have to worry about the fury of these furry little guys. The rest of us get to point and go “Aww!”

Gaia the black-footed kitten — Gaia’s personality is “large and feisty” according to zookeepers. Credit: Hogle Zoo

Native to the savannas of southern Africa, black-footed cats are excellent hunters, but like all felines they’re also prey, and they’re the subject of a worldwide zoological breeding and conservation program due to declining numbers in the wild.

The newest success story for those breeding efforts is Gaia, an eight-month-old black-footed kitten who just made her debut at Hogle Zoo in Utah.

Zookeepers describe baby Gaia’s personality as “large and feisty,” and they expect she’ll be popular with zoo visitors.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Hogle Zoo (@hoglezoo)

She’s now the second of her species at Hogle, joining Ryder, a male. They haven’t been introduced yet. A carefully supervised introduction is “in the cards, but we’ll let these two feline friends get acquainted when Gaia reaches maturity,” the zoo said.

Little Buddy’s Blog Takeover: The Mystery Of The Missing Cat-Sitters!

Tired of waiting for his human servant to convalesce, Little Buddy has assumed blogging duties. The world looks very different through the eyes of a handsome cat.

Big Buddy is still sick, which annoys me for several reasons including: 1) The level of service is subpar and has NOT returned to pre-COVID standards of excellence. Unacceptable! 2) I’m told I have fans on something called the internet, and Big Buddy has been derelict in his duties, which I’m told involve updating all my fans about how delightful I am, and all the awesome stuff I do on a daily basis. (In between regularly scheduled naps, of course.)

So in the interest of serving my many fans, and not because I have a big ego, I’m taking over the blog for the immediate future! If there was ever a time you wanted to hear directly from Little Buddy, now’s your chance.

So where was I? Right. All the awesome stuff I’ve been doing. Here’s the cover of my newest comic book, the Adventures of Baby Bud. It’s about all the awesome stuff I did as a kitten. I am much bigger and more meowscular now, but I was already very handsome in my kitten days:

Buddy the Cat and the Mystery of the Missing Cat-Sitters!

We have a mystery on our hands, people! A real head-scratcher!

You see, the number of people willing to cat-sit me has dwindled to zero. That’s ~~really sad~~ awesome, because it means Big Buddy can’t go away OR he has to take me with him to all the places he goes, like Washington, the Outer Banks and upstate New York.

Some of you may remember that I accidentally attacked my original cat-sitter, Sue. There may have been some light clawing and maybe teeth involved, but it was no biggie. Humans are so dramatic about these things.

Well, Sue is very nice and the next time Big Buddy went away, she said she’d still stop by to feed me every day but she wouldn’t play with me anymore. (So dramatic.) Also, she had some sort of shield when she entered my domicile, and she kept saying “Be calm, Buddy, be calm! I’m just here to feed you!”

The thing is, I sort of maybe attacked her again. It wasn’t my fault, okay? I thought a chalupacabra was breaking in and I had to defend my territory!

Fast forward to late June and everyone who had cat-sat for me before was suddenly “busy.” Very strange. So Big Buddy turned to the one person who wouldn’t say no, Mother of Big Buddy, or MoBB, and she watched me while Big Buddy cruelly jetted off to Washington to hang out with Brother of Big Buddy (BoBB), his wife and their vile miniature humans. What? Is vile too strong of a word? Okay, their unpredictable, undeveloped-motor-skills-having, loud, terrifying miniature humans. Is that better?

Anyway, I sort of accidentally attacked MoBB too LOL. See, what happened was she woke up and went into the kitchen to make coffee, and I got agitated when I didn’t see any movement indicating she was going to feed me, and I sort of tripped and tried to break my fall by wrapping all four paws around her right leg, raking them down her calf and maybe kind of biting her shin a little bit until the skin broke.

And, uh, she might have had to go to urgent care, where the doctor claimed the “wound” from my “bite” was “infected” and prescribed her some sort of pills.

Like I said, it was all very dramatic. So now no one will watch me. Poor Little Buddy. I guess I’m just gonna have to sacrifice and accompany my Big Buddy on his next adventure. It’ll be tough, but I’m a team player and I’ll see this through so that my pal can get away for a few days without having to leave me home.

So that’s what’s been up in La Casa de Buddy. What’s up with you? 😎

Buddy And I Will Be Right Back!

Big Buddy is convalescing with the help of our hero, Little Buddy.

Hello admirers of the most handsome and meowscular cat in the world!

I’ve gotten some messages from people asking if Bud and I are okay and just wanted to let you know we are, and we’ll be back soon.

I planned a brief hiatus, no more than a few days to recharge the creative batteries. That hiatus was extended when I flew to Washington to hang out with my brother, his wife and the kiddos.

Then I returned home, assisted with a family emergency, got sick shortly afterward and tested positive for COVID.

It feels kind of strange to have lived through the original COVID wave that brutalized New York in 2020, as well as the subsequent delta and omicron waves, managing to avoid infection only to get COVID now in the summer of 2023. But if getting it was inevitable, I’m grateful it happened after I’ve been vaccinated and boosted, and not in those chaotic, horrific early waves when doctors weren’t sure what they were dealing with.

COVID hit me hard, like an extremely intense flu with a grab bag of other symptoms thrown in for good measure, but I’m very grateful I haven’t suffered major upper respiratory distress. Likewise, I’m grateful that my congenital heart problem — an extremely rare valve deformation — was not a factor, because that was my biggest worry.

I am aware that cats can catch COVID, and in the back of my mind I always imagined quarantining myself from Buddy if I came down with it, but cats have their own plans for things and Bud, who is already famously intolerant of any distance or closed doors between us, has a longstanding policy of never leaving my side when I’m sick. Quarantining from Bud was not an option. There’s no way to communicate the why of it to him, and on the practical side I have not had the energy to cordon him off, assuming that’s even possible. Knowing him, he’d quickly find a way to circumvent any barriers and, failing that, he’d meow incessantly and refuse to allow me a minute’s peace until this farce (“Closed doors between us, can you believe it?!?”) was ended.

Just one more reason to love the little guy and be grateful for him, but of course I’ll be watching him closely.

For now I’ll be happy to see the other side of this. Getting really sick is always a good reminder to be grateful for health, and in particular this experience helped me understand that despite vaccines, masks, air filters, hand sanitizers and careful behavior, so much is left to chance.

So that’s what’s happening here. I apologize for our extended absence, and I look forward to returning to our regularly scheduled cat content — same Buddy time, same Buddy channel — in the near future.

Buddy The Cat Elected Speaker Of The House In Surprise Vote

Buddy the Cat immediately instituted several changes to more accurately reflect congress as the clown show it is.

WASHINGTON — Buddy the Cat was elected Speaker of the House in a shocking twist ending to a week’s worth of drama over congressional leadership.

The tabby cat made history as the first feline speaker in congress after Republicans, frustrated with a failure to reach consensus over 15 rounds of ballots, threw up their hands and went all-in for Buddy.

“It became apparent that [California Republican] Kevin [McCarthy] wasn’t gonna get the votes he needed, and frankly I was tired of hearing Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert speak,” said Texas Republican Dan Crenshaw. “So we put our heads together, and we said, ‘Who’s got the savvy, the smarts and the muscle to lead us?’ And the answer just seemed so obvious. It could only be Buddy.”

The mercurial feline, whose priorities usually involve the procurement of more food, maintaining a steady nap schedule and terrorizing his human, was just as taken aback by the development as outside observers. Sources say he came around to the idea when he was told he’d be provided with a full staff of servants, could schedule legislative meetings around his naps, and could eat as much turkey as he pleases from the congressional cafeteria.

Buddy’s first hire was his human, who will be referred to as “chief minion” rather than the traditional “chief of staff.”

The new speaker also indicated he would create new committee assignments, and designated representatives Marjorie Taylor-Greene, R-Georgia, and Eric Swalwell, D-California, as the new fools — or jesters — of the incoming congress.

“Swalwell, don’t just stand there, juggle some bowling pins or something,” Speaker Buddy said during the first session, throwing a pencil sharpener at the California congressman for emphasis.

“Er, uh…yes, sir,” said Swalwell, who was wearing a green and purple suit and traditional clown makeup.

“Greene, get in there!” Buddy shouted. “I’ve got a space laser here and I’m gonna aim at at your feet. Dance! Dance, Greene, dance!”

buddyspeaker — Buddy the Cat, center, sits on would-be speaker Kevin McCarthy after designating the congressman as his official cushion. (Note: Image to scale. Lawmakers are really small people.)

When former speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, expressed concerns about Buddy “besmirching this august body,” Buddy shushed her.

“August body? You’re telling me this is a legislative chamber? I thought it was a clown show. What do you see over there?” he asked Pelosi, waving a paw at newly elected fabulist Rep. George Santos.

The 19-term congresswoman, who first entered politics when Men At Work, Shalamar and Def Leppard were atop the music charts, looked at the New York Republican, who had been outed in recent weeks for lying about his educational background, work experience, ethnicity, religious affiliation and virtually every aspect of his life during his successful run for Congress.

“Er…a clown?” Pelosi asked.

Buddy stood up, ringing a bell on his desk and clapping excitedly.

“Winner winner, chicken dinner! A clown! Just like the rest of you!” He pointed to Santos. “Paint him up and put him with Greene and Swalwell, people, or you’re next.”

With a flourish, he collapsed back into his leather chair.

“Boebert!” he yelled, signaling the Colorado congresswoman-turned-cupbearer. “Turkey me!”

“Yes, sir!” Boebert said, cutting off a generous slice of roast turkey and feeding it to the speaker.

Buddy’s belch reverberated throughout the circular chamber.

“Now here’s what we’re gonna do,” he said, launching into what he called his Awesome 171-Point Plan for the De-Moronization of America.

greene2 — Marjorie Taylor-Greene, appointed along with Eric Swalwell as the new fools of congress.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-California, stood up.

“Will the Speaker recognize…” Schiff began before Buddy cut him off.

“Tape his mouth,” Buddy said, nodding to capitol policemen standing watch.

“W-w-what?” Schiff said, backing up as officers approached him from either side. “What is the meaning of this?”

Buddy cleared his throat, theatrically donned a pair of glasses he didn’t need, and read from a pile of papers in front of him.

“It says here your office sent 14,734 requests to Twitter, to delete or ban messages and accounts that were critical of you or espoused beliefs you don’t like,” Buddy said. “Tsk tsk. Do you deny it?”

Schiff swallowed as the officers grabbed him.

“They were terrorists! It was stochastic terrorism!”

“So someone tweeting, and I quote ‘Adam Schiff is a poopie head’ should be banned from social media and reported to the FBI?”

Schiff’s eyes widened.

“Please, I…you can’t! I have powerful friends! Powerf…”

The assembled representatives broke out into a cheer as an officer pressed heavy masking tape over Schiff’s mouth, muting the California congressman.

“Buddy! Buddy! Buddy!” they chanted, stomping the ground rhythmically.

Buddy the Cat, center, presides over his first term as Speaker of the House.

As of press time, Speaker Buddy had demanded a bill outlining congressional term limits that must be on his desk by Monday morning, under penalty of Democrats and Republicans being forced to dress up as donkeys and elephants, respectively, for the remainder of their terms.

He also exiled Rep. Matt Gaetz to an island with Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein, designated Rep. Lauren Boebert as his cup bearer, replaced Rep. Maxine Waters’ chair with a dunk tank, and introduced legislation called the Awesome Weapons Emergency Shipment Of Magnificent Efficacy, or AWESOME Act, which would approve longer-range missile systems, turkey MREs and really cool tanks for Ukraine.

During a press briefing with reporters, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre answered a question about Buddy’s speakership by saying President Joe Biden believes he can work with the formidable feline.

“Whether or not the president visits the border is irrelevant. Look, he knows how important secure borders are to the American…” Pierre began, before a reporter pointed out she was reading from the wrong response card. “Ahem. My apologies. What did they tell me to say here? Ah, here it is. President Biden congratulates Speaker Buddy on his appointment, and has offered an olive branch in the form of a gift basket filled with vintage catnip, toys and various treats. The president has always loved cats ever since he was a lion handler in the Congo back in 1962, when he was known to the locals as Rafiki Joey from Scranton. He believes he can work with the Speaker on legislation that will benefit the American people as well as the Americats.”