I was recently explaining to a friend of mine the story of a not-so-distant dinner conversation that turned ugly with someone who argued everything. I said she had "opinionation without substantiation" and was quite proud of my little phrase. Feel free to use that.

There seems to be a case of rampant incompetence in the Charlotte business world. And by business world of course I mean doctors and tire companies.

Starting off with my doctor, who shall remain nameless but I will tell you that his last name has only two letters and neither one is a vowel, I'm pretty sure he's trying to kill me. Not kill me in the stabbing, murderous sort of way, but kill me slowly and subtly, almost imperceptibly.

The first time I visited him I told him about my recent exploits and trips to the ER, and he nonchalantly tells me I should be taking Kava Kava. So I come home and research it a bit and find this: KAVA-CONTAINING DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS MAY BE ASSOCIATED WITH SEVERE LIVER INJURY. Needless to say I never took the Kava Kava, effectively foiling phase I of his devious plot.

The next time I visited him I got a physical and my cholesterol and triglycerides came back as being too high. So he prescribes me Gemfibrozil. So I take the Gemfibrozil for two months and research it on the Internet the other day only to find this: Gemfibrozil - Interactions and Warnings and Rhabdomyolsis Causes (under Drugs and Toxins).

So it seems to me his strategy was to start by working over the liver and then to flank on over to the kidneys. Well forget you Dr. Death!

The next case of rampant incompetence came from a tire company that shall remain nameless and faceless, except that their name is NTB and their web site is http://www.ntb.com/. I took my car in to get four shiny new tires, which they handled. But, they gave me a computer print out showing me that my rear right tire had a red number! I knew immediately that this was bad because all the other tires in the picture had green numbers. Apparently my right rear wheel had excessive negative camber, which is not an uncommon occurrence in Google searches for the phrase "Excessive negative camber." So, they told me they would wait to align the wheels until this wedge kit came in in a few days. I asked if I could just bring my car back next Saturday and they said sure.

So I came back the next Saturday and the guy who had helped me wasn't there so a guy named Tom helped me. Tom told me that the part was never ordered because the guy's hours had been cut (or as they say in the business " his cambers became excessively negative"). Though the correlation between hours being cut and not ordering a part were unclear, I pressed forward. According to Tom, who has warts on his knuckles, there was no entry or note in the computer for my car's excessively negative camber. So I brought him the sheet that had the red number on it and he tried to figure out what it meant. He called Toyota and they said they didn't make wedge kits. So he told me that that tire would wear faster than the others and I would need to get the tires rotated every 30 miles in a differing pattern each time (okay it was 3000 miles but still). The dumbfounded look on my face must not have slipped by Tom so he went and talked to one of the mechanics who explained to him that they'd have to order the kit directly from Northstar. So, Tom explained to me that he would have to wait till Monday to order the kit because Northstar was closed on Saturday. I told Tom not to forget and Tom assured me that he rarely forgets about a customer. I asked if next Saturday would be good and he said I would hear from him by Friday.

Friday came and I called to check on it and Tom had left for the day. So we called Saturday morning and Tom had still not ordered the part. Two more weeks went by and I called Tom and he told me the wrong part had come in. A few days went by and I had hit a speed bump really hard and had to take the car in for them to have a look and Tom called me that day telling me the part had come in and I could bring my car by. I informed him the car was already there and he assured me they'd be finished by day's end. The next morning when I went to pick up the car they said it was the damndest thing, but my car didn't need the wedge kit after all, they just tightened a bolt and it fixed itself. Also, they couldn't find anything wrong with the car despite the grinding noise that ensued from my hitting the speed bump too fast. So, my hypothesis is that you have to be a rampant idiot to work at NTB. Or you have to be soooo smart that you come off as an idiot. Either way, I'm not going back.

Aside from the incompetence of tire people and a doctor who is trying to kill me, I did recently have a great trip to Chicago. I think Chicago is in first place for my favorite cities list. I even got to go visit Northwestern and the Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, which was a nice visit as well.

My trip to Toronto has been cancelled due to all the SARS and our company not wanting to get it and all. But I'm still coming home from May 2-5 for weddings, graduations, and any other events that may pop-up on that weekend, not unlike a banner advertisement on a web page. I hate those pop-up advertisements.