Customer Service

Mark Falcone enjoys telling people that the cutters and sewers in his factory in Westminster made 300 suits for Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin and the numerous extras of "Men In Black III. " But, while the MIB movies might have popularized the black suit for men, mass-produced sameness is hardly English American Tailoring's thing. This company, rooted in Maryland for a century, quietly produces thousands of made-to-measure suits - in solids, pinstripes and plaids - for customers around the world.

Margaret B. Tyler, a former Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. customer service representative, died Aug. 5 from complications of dementia at Cadia Rehabilitation in Millsboro, Del. She was 96. The former Margaret Beulah Knochel was born in Baltimore and raised in Highlandtown. She was a 1933 graduate of Eastern High School where she excelled in French, fencing and archery. She was married in 1939 to Oliver T. Tyler, an aeronautical engineer, who later became an executive with the old Glenn L. Martin Co. and the Boeing Co. He died in 1984.

A three-man team of trash men worked Tyler Avenue in Annapolis as if elegantly choreographed. The truck rolled ever forward as two men tumbled the ripe contents of can after can into the compactor, darting across the street, then stepping effortlessly onto the back of the truck for yet another block of smelly, sweaty work. "Don't let no one tell you it's not hard work," sanitation employee Joe Wallace said recently, resting his hands on his knees and swallowing gulps of hot summer air. "We're just trying to get done so we can get home.

More than 30,000 customers lost power as a result of the thunderstorms Thursday night, mostly in Baltimore City and Baltimore County, and the majority had service back by late Friday morning, according to BGE Corp. Utility officials said on their web site Friday that they expect to have service restored to the vast majority of BGE customers by Friday night. They warned that additional storms are expected on Friday, and that likely would result in additional power outages to restore.

Our power was restored late Monday afternoon - about 65 hours after the storm. However, during the outage more than a dozen attempts to get information from Baltimore Gross and Eccentric about their priorities and a schedule for restoring power were all unsuccessful. BG&E policy seems to emphasize public relations over providing customers with solid information that might help them cope. This bias is evident on the outage web site, in their automated reporting system, and, most glaringly, by their employee's inability or reluctance to offer any details about priorities and a tentative schedule for restoration in a given neighborhood.

The description at the TLC website for "On the Fly" gives a pretty good sense of the up-with-Southwest-Airlines tone that permeates this reality TV series premiering at 9 p.m. Thursday. " On the Fly gives viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the large-scale operation and personal customer stories at Southwest Airlines," the promotional copy says. "Each episode introduces viewers to Southwest Airlines employees who must think on their feet as they cope with weather delays, irate passengers, and more surprising situations.

Coppin State University President Reginald Avery told an auditorium of roughly 300 students, faculty and staff Wednesday that he is accountable for the direction of the institution and that he will address concerns about his leadership head-on. Avery, who recently received a vote of no confidence from faculty, fielded about a dozen questions and comments, including that the university needs to improve staff training, better its customer service, provide higher salaries and add perks for loyal staff, amplify school pride and prioritize campus improvements.

When it comes to customer service, Amtrak is easily derailed.  My nephew gave me an Amtrak gift certificate for Christmas. I tried to use it on Sunday when making reservations for travel to New York.   First, I went online. Nothing relevant could I see on the computer screen.  I called the Amtrak 800 number. The friendly man said I had to go to the train station to use the gift certificate.   On Monday, I went to Penn Station. The man at the counter made the reservations, then said he thought he'd better check with his manager to be sure the certificate could be used at his terminal.

In an uncharacteristic burst of giddy optimism, I posted yesterday about my confidence that The Baltimore Sun , marking its 175th anniversary this year, will survive in some form to its bicentennial. A couple of comments from readers reminded me what will eventually kill the print newspaper. It is not liberal bias - not that you can find much of that any longer in news pages, journalists having been so thoroughly buffaloed by conservatives over the past forty years that they have become shy even about publishing established fact.

As a daily commuter who rides the Maryland Transit Administration's #11 bus northbound in the morning and southbound in the evening, I have to wonder: Could there be a more unreliable organization than the MTA? I have certainly never encountered one. The MTA must put forth a more significant effort to try to keep bus, train and light rail running on schedule than current results reflect. Two months ago, when I waited at a stop for two full hours while as many as four scheduled buses were no-shows, I called customer service - which offered absolutely no help.