This morning, my phone rang at 7:15. It was a market research firm hired by Hilton Hotels, asking me if I’d like to take part in a brief survey about business travel. I declined and decided to send a note to Hilton’s CEO instead:

Stephen F. Bollenbach
President and CEO
Hilton Hotels
9336 Civic Center Drive
Beverly Hills, California 90210

Dear Mr. Bollenbach:

It is 7:15am on a Sunday morning and I am at home. I have just hung up the phone on a call from a market research firm (I believe it was named “Mark Research”) asking me to take a “short survey on business travel on behalf of Hilton Hotels”. Please note the time again: 7:15 am on Sunday morning, and the place: at home. I am extremely unhappy and upset that Hilton thought that I would find it acceptable to call me at home at such a time.

I ask you to please ensure that my name and telephone number are removed from any outbound call lists maintained by Hilton or its contractors. I also ask that you work with your contractors so that they don’t call people at such hours – doing so is certainly not the best advertisement for a company which purports to be in the hospitality business.

My telephone numbers are [omitted]. My Hilton HHonors number is [omitted].

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

I haven’t mailed the note yet; any suggestions on making it more effective are welcome.

I’m not sure I really should be admitting this in public, but you’ll find out sooner or later anyway. I seem to have a Fry’s habit. At least that’s the only rational explanation for my being back there less than 48 hours after returning to California — it’s certainly not the case that I go there because I enjoy the experience.

But I suppose it could be worse. I could go there and not buy stuff. Or buy stuff I don’t need (no, wait, that’s what I do at Costco). And even though I hadn’t gone in looking for everything I bought today, at least it was all stuff I had planned to buy soon anyway (a copy of Street Atlas/Map ‘n’ Go, some more NiMH AA batteries, and some SVHS tapes (which was half of the ostensible reason for the trip)). I wish they’d had the X-10 ActiveHome package, though; that was the other half of the reason I went there — our controller went flakey a while ago, and while I was in England, it went completely bonkers, waking Diane up in the middle of the night. So I need to replace it, and I guess I’m going to have to do it on the X-10 website, a place so hard to deal with that I’d rather go to Fry’s.

I picked up our ceiling fans today, too; the electricians are supposed to come and install them on Monday. And some day, the door from the garage to the outside (not to be confused with the garage door) will be installed, too — but first, they have to get one of the right size, instead of one which would fit from the garage to the inside, which is what got delivered.

Don’t forget to reset your clock tonight if you live in a place where you should do it! (Hey, Al…do you work an extra hour on the night of the timeshift?)