From Each According to His Ability, To Each According to His Need

Students are asked about redistributing grade point averages (GPA), from the upper 10% to those who may not graduate unless their GPAs are raised. A typical response, “that’s not fair, I worked hard for that.” Same students asked if they favor redistributing wealth, looks like all in the video did. Many tried to deflect this obvious hypocrisy by saying the analogy isn’t good, that it’s an apples to oranges comparison. But is it?

One argument, for example, was that grades are a more accurate measure of performance than income. I say; maybe, maybe not, and so what? Income is a combination of performance and life choices. Natural ability and luck are certainly factors, but probably less so than 1) not making stupid choices and 2) working hard. That’s just the way it is.

The Atlantic picked up on this and offered some of the reasons/excuses some argued, as examples and not the position of the author. I think they all fall flat and agree with the conclusion:

They suggest that most of us just want to redistribute income because, well, we wanna . . . not because we have any particularly good reason.

Class warfare is what we’re up against when it comes to creating a sane federal budget, and the sort of hypocritical and illogical approach by the students in the video above is one reason why I have little hope there will be a solution in time to prevent a collapse.

Cheaper Than Dirt Customer Service Fail

Update: Cheaper Than Dirt read this post and has corrected the issue! I think I feel a six-pack coming my way…

Original Post: Do you think the Glock Field Knife is a dagger? Cheaper Than Dirt (CTD) does, and they won’t ship it to a customer in my area because of this error. Note that the top edge of the knife past the tip is flat, not sharp or even tapered.

Over the years I’ve purchased a lot of good equipment (and some junk) from CTD, including a few knives, with no real issues. But a buddy recently forwarded me a strange email exchange with CTD customer service that has changed my view of the company. Gets into the realm of idiotic incompetence on CTD’s part. I’ll still buy there, but will shop around a lot more first.

Like me, this friend lives in Northern Virginia. When he tried to order the Glock Field Knife from CTD (their item number GLOCK-105), he got this message;

Because of restrictions imposed by local laws, some of the items in your cart can not be sold to you.

There was an icon next to the knife saying, “Can Not Ship.” He emailed customer service asking why. This was the first response;

I do apologize but due to state restrictions, we cannot ship GLOCK-105.

Ok, what state restrictions? Virginia isn’t known for being a nanny state. He emailed again asking what restrictions, “specifically.” The same CTD customer service agent responded;

I apologize but we will not be able to ship the item.

Vibe I’m getting reading the email exchange is that the customer service person is on autopilot and not really paying attention to what the customer is asking. Minimum wage, minimum effort, a little bit too much power for pay grade.

My buddy emails them back, asking again for the “specific Virginia law” that would prevent a Glock Field Knife from being shipped to him. He also did an experiment by adding a KaBar Fighting Knife (Glock blade profile is almost identical, just smaller). Guess what? The KaBar was fine, which he mentioned in the email. CTD response;

Please be advised of the restrictions for the state of Virgina below…

VIRGINIA
- Assisted-Opening Knives
- Daggers
- Throwing Knives
- Throwing Stars/Shuriken
- Starter (Blanks) Pistols
- Fuel Cans

Our system recognizes an issue with shipping the item you requested, so the system will not allow us to ship you the item. Check with your local law enforcement agency or the state legislator as we do not have detailed information on why an item is restricted.

The computer says it, so it must be true. Check the picture of the Glock Fighting Knife above – it’s none of the things on the list. They ignored his question about why the KaBar is ok but the Glock is not.

But thinking progress was being made because he has the list of wrong reasons, my buddy sends response spelling out that the knife is none of those things and asks that the error in the “system” be corrected. Pretty obvious solution. CTD customer service responds;

We apologize, but the item could be classified as a dagger. We create the restrictions based on our interpretation of the laws.

A Glock Field Knife is not a dagger. It seems the minim wage customer service agents are following their script. Buddy sends and email explaining that needs to be reevaluated since it is technically incorrect, suggests a manager get involved. CTD strikes again (bold mine);

I brought this to the attention of upper management and it may be completely legal in your state, but Cheaper Than Dirt made a business decision not to ship this item to you area. I do apologize but we will not be making any exceptions.

My experiment – went to CTD, added several knives, including the Glock Field Knife (w/o saw back, the one blocked), the version with a saw back, a KaBar, and an actual dagger. Keep in mind we live in the same area. My results;

Yeah, that’s right. Cheaper Than Dirt won’t ship a Glock Field Knife w/o saw back because their “business decision” says it’s a dagger. The saw back version is fine, as is an actual dagger.

This is a huge fail for Cheaper Than Dirt, no good excuse. They should be more careful about who they hire to interface with customers – I’d have been a lot less polite with the dolts at their customer service.