Ten things I hate about you
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 29, 2007, 11:58 am
It took me an hour to cancel my AT&T phone line. I sincerely hope the operator that handled my call reads this someday. If you’re out there, Mr. Bellsouth Operator, this post is dedicated to you.
I’d mentioned in a previous post that the worst one to remove was DirectTV, but I lied. AT&T customer service telephone line sucks donkey balls.
I’ll add that to the list of things wrong with AT&T. Their customer service phone line sucks donkey balls.
So I called a few days ago to cancel. I enter my phone number and traverse through no fewer than five levels of “automated support”. I then wait in non-musical hold.
Irritation #1: no music on the hold. At least give me some not-so-classic oldies to listen to so I know that you haven’t hung up on me.
Every minute or so, an automated voice says “All of our customer service representatives are busy helping other customers”…
Irritation #2: No shit, Sherlock.
…”On our website, www.bellsouth.com, you can pay your bill, change your account information, or view your last three bills.”…
Irritation #3: You can do everything online except cancel your account.
…”That’s w-w-w-.-b-e-l-l-s-o-u-t-h-.-c-o-m”
Irritation #4: It’s amazing how slowly and annoyingly an automated voice spells out “wwww.bellsouth.com”. It also bothers me that people need such things spelled out. I wonder how many people have their pen and paper out because they don’t know how to spell “bellsouth”.
After hearing the same announcement no fewer than thirty-five times (that means I was on hold for more than half an hour, folks), I finally get to speak to an operator.
Irritation #5: Thirty-five fucking minutes. Seriously, hire some more operators or something.
He asks me for my information, including my phone number…
Irritation #6: Why did the automated prompt ask me for my phone number if the operator’s just going to ask for it again? I understand you have to ask for my name, address, and PIN in order to verify my identity, but the phone number should be ready information.
…and why I’m calling today.
Irritation #7: Further proof that the automated answer machine is useless. It went so deep that I eventually got to “To permanently cancel your entire AT&T account, press 4”. I’m surprised it didn’t go another level down, allowing me to select from several reasons why I want to cancel my service. My point is that the automated system doesn’t hold on to the data that I’ve entered so it can present it to whoever picks up the line.
I tell him I’m I want to cancel my account, and he offers to put my line in a free “suspension” for two months so I can be sure I’m ready to cancel. Fine, that’s his job, but I decline.
Well damn, that fired him up. He couldn’t believe that I didn’t want a land line. What if the power went out and my cell phone was dead and I needed to call someone right now? I swear he talked for like fifteen minutes about how he could set up a line for less than twenty dollars a month just so I wouldn’t have to sacrifice my only link to the outside world.
Irritation #8: What part of no do you fail to understand?
I’ve got a car charger. I’ve got neighbors and friends. If I have to go somewhere, I’ve got a car, a bike, and hell, I’ve got legs. Someone within walking distance should have a working land line or a charged cell phone.
Besides, last time we had a disastrous event (the tornado of March 1st of this year), my phone line was lying on the ground, the same as three quarters of the phone lines in the city. The cell lines were clogged, but I had cell service long before I was able to get to a working land line. Don’t tell me that a land line is any more reliable than a cell phone.
About five minutes into the “conversation”, I stopped talking and refused to say anything but “yeah” until he was done. Finally, he was convinced that I didn’t want an account anymore and put in the order, but he had one last thing to say:
Him: “So, if I could hook you up with a basic line for $36/month, would that change your mind?”
Me: “No.”
Him: “Well, that’s as low as I can make it. I’ll go ahead and put in the order. It should take effect before midnight tonight.”
Irritation #9: Since when is $36 less than $20? You lied to me earlier so you could try to bleed some more money from me. What would you have said after I received my first bill and realized that it was $16 over the maximum price you promised?
The order is put in, and he asks me if he had fulfilled his role as a customer service operator. I answered with a somewhat sarcastic “yeah, sure.” He had, in fact, canceled my account, it just took an act of congress to get it done.
“OK. You’ll receive another call in a few minutes. Please rank me as Outstanding on the customer service survey.”
Irritation #10: Wait, did this jerkoff just tell me to rank him Outstanding? I’m not sure if he said anything else after that. I was laughing way to hard to hear him. I didn’t get the call either, because they called my landline and I was at the office. Too bad I didn’t get his operator number. I would have called back to take that survey.
You're not alone, Dennis...
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 29, 2007, 10:56 am
…because I don’t give two shits about the iPhone either.
Maybe it’s sour grapes — I use Verizon and it’s not out for the CDMA network (not for another five years, anyway). If I were to switch, I wouldn’t have coverage in my area.
It also has something to do with my tirade against the “new” AT&T.
Honestly I don’t think I’d get one even if it were on my network. Yeah, it has a cool interface, but it’s way to expensive. The phone itself is quite expensive, and the cheapest plan they have is $60. That’s a little less than double my current plan.
I could afford it now that I’ve gotten rid of several unnecessary services, but it’s just not worth it for me.
Film crews
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 28, 2007, 3:52 pm
Have you ever read the credits of a movie and wondered “what the fuck is a key grip?” I’m naturally curious about such things, so to save you all a bunch of time flipping through Wikipedia pages, I’m providing you all with a little cheat sheet of film crew job descriptions.
Director - The director has the final say on all artistic decisions of the film. He’s the guy that says “fold your arms… no, nevermind, that looks dumb.” Once the film is shot, edited, and released, the director’s job is done. He collects his paycheck and goes home. Directors don’t get a slice of the pie afterwards.
Producer - The producer is the man with the money. He has final say on any administrative decisions which usually have nothing to do with the film itself. The producer and director often butt heads during production because, well… directors want everything a certain way and producers want everything as cheap as possible.
…now some of the lesser known jobs:
Gaffer - The gaffer is head of the electrical department, and is responsible for the technical part of the lighting. In British English, the term means “old man” (like Samwise Gamgee’s old gaffer). Old men were often in charge of hanging streetlights, and were thus named for the tool they used - a hook on a stick, called a gaff. They use a special kind of tape (gaff tape, or gaffer’s tape), which is like duct tape but it has a weaker glue so it won’t leave marks, to run cables.
Grip - A grip is responsible for setting up mechanical parts of the set, mostly camera tracks and lighting structures. The key grip is the head grip for the team of grips.
Best Boy - There are two types of best boys: electrical and grip. They are assistants for the gaffer and key grip, respectively.
Those are the main ones that I can think of. For more info, visit this wiki page.
Legalizing pot
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 28, 2007, 11:39 am
I don’t think there’s anything else to say here. Just click the link and read it.
Cancelling services
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 25, 2007, 12:53 pm
Over my lunch break, I canceled two services at home — Fastaccess DSL and DirectTV. There’s a third to follow soon — BellSouth, no, excuse me, the new AT&T (someone tell me how it’s different from the old AT&T again? Oh, that’s right, they have more power). They’re services I don’t need anymore, and I look forward to having a little extra money in my pocket every month.
I always start to feel sad when I’m on the phone canceling accounts for any reason other than “I’m moving”. Something about the desperation in the operator’s voice when I tell them I just don’t feel like giving them money any longer. They try to pull me back in with discounts and temporarily for a few months, but I’m stoic.
Yes, I know it’s fake desperation, but they all act like my account is just barely keeping the company from bankruptcy. It’s just sad.
The guy from DirectTV was the worst though. I actually had to explain to him that I just don’t want anything to do with “the new AT&T” anymore (he wouldn’t accept that I just want local channels). He tried to justify DirectTV’s partnership with AT&T, and it just made me feel bad for the guy. It kinda made me feel like a dick.
“But Tim,” you say, “what’s so bad about AT&T?”
They’ve got a monopoly, that’s what’s wrong with them. True, there are other phone services, but AT&T owns the infrastructure… so even if you buy service from “Joe’s Phone Service”, you’re indirectly paying AT&T. I think Microsoft could win any antitrust case just by bringing up AT&T.
They also own the airwaves. In my area, AT&T owns every radio frequency except 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz, which is a major reason there aren’t many Wireless Wide Area Network providers (like Fuze Technologies, if you’ll pardon the shameless plug) in the US.
So there you have it. I’ve got my lovely “rabbit” modem for internet, and I don’t need a phone line for anything anymore. I wonder what kind of deal I can get from MediaCom on cable.
Random Hillarity
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 22, 2007, 8:57 am
We all need a break from actually being productive. Here’s a few videos that will make you laugh:
The amazing brain
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 20, 2007, 9:44 am
My last post about Math Education got me to thinking about how amazing the human brain is. I worked at a convenience store as a cashier for five years when I was young. Near the end of my tenure, I realized that I really didn’t think about what kind of change to give someone — my hands just grabbed the coins from the register without a thought, and it would almost always be the right amount. Half the time I wouldn’t even use the register to calculate how much change I needed to get… I just kinda knew it.
It’s amazing how the brain, after much practice, learns to make complex calculations or perform complex operations subconsciously.
I once watched a documentary about the evolution of early humans. I learned that there are some crazy physics that are considered while walking upright, but somehow the brain takes care of all the little nuances of shifting weight and contracting muscles without any active thought on the part of the person walking.
It turns out that this phenomenon isn’t just limited to motor skills. Think about learning to type or play an instrument. At first, you have to think about where to place your fingers and how much pressure to apply, but after a while you don’t think about it at all. When you learn a second language, eventually you start to think in that language instead of translating from your native tongue.
Really, I think that’s what college is all about. It’s true that you may never actively think about most of the stuff you did in class, but your brain has somehow incorporated all that information into it’s little “don’t think, just do” algorithm. College classes just force you to do these things over and over until your brain learns to do it subconsciously.
Nuts, huh?
Math Education
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 20, 2007, 9:28 am
Can the level of math education sink any lower?
Somewhere I remember reading a long drawn out story of a guy paying for a $3.32 fast food meal with four dollar bills, one nickel, and two pennies. The manager got involved, and I believe he had to call the head office to figure everything out. They were boggled at the “extra” $0.07 that he gave the cashier.
At the time, I laughed at the story. I thought it was a tall tale. Surely people aren’t that dumb. Now I’m fairly confident that it actually did happen.
Oh, and if you can’t figure it out, he gave the cashier an extra $0.07 so he could get three quarters back instead of two quarters, one dime, one nickel, and three pennies.
Bottled Water
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 19, 2007, 1:01 pm
5 Reasons Not to Drink Bottled Water
I don’t drink water that much — I prefer to drink juice or milk or soda — but I don’t have any fear of drinking water from the tap. Hell, I’ll use a dirty glass as long as there’s no mold or mildew growing in it.
I grew up on tap water, and I haven’t gotten any tumors or cancer or brain damage from the fluoride or chlorine in the water.
So when you preach to me about how tap water’s dirty and you can actually see crap floating in it, I’ll smile and nod, but I’ll go on drinking it.
I guess I grew up in a time where people weren’t paranoid about everything. Kids got scrapes, it was ok for more than one person to use the same bar of soap, and water was just water.
Star Wars hillarity
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 15, 2007, 11:34 am
You ever notice how Stormtroopers always go down in one hit?
Here’s what happens if one doesn’t
UPDATE: Sorry folks. The link pointed to the wrong place. It’s better now.
Wikipedia links
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 15, 2007, 11:20 am
Did Wikipedia take the nofollow attribute off all their links? It seems like that would have been some kind of big news, given how big it was when they decided to put them in.
I dunno. Maybe I just missed it, but I can’t find the nofollow attribute is nowhere to be found on any of the links in the articles.
What is slash?
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 14, 2007, 10:10 am
By popular demand, I’m going to make a post dedicated to slash, but first I’ll tell you how this all came about.
I recently put Adsense code on my blog here (look up to see it), and when I first put it up I was quite disconcerted at the links that were being displayed — “TMNT Slash”, “Harry Potter Slash”, etc.
I was disconcerted because I’ve had the concept of “slash” fan fiction explained to me.
Slash is a type of “fanfic” (fan fiction, usually not graphical), which means it’s written by a fan of a particular story or set of stories. The characters and settings are often used without much change unless the particular fan starts writing his own parallel series. Fanfic is not necessarily pornographic. In fact, it rarely is.
Slash, as I understand, rarely gets developed further than one or two short stories. They call it slash because the story usually revolves around two or three characters: Ron/Hermione, Harry/Snape, George/Fred/Ginny, etc. It’s named for the character (a forward slash) that separates the names. By definition slash isn’t pornographic, but most of the popular stories are. A lot of times it’s simplified even further: M/M, M/M/M, M/M/F, and sometimes even M/F. It’s my understanding that a lot of slash is homosexual and very graphic.
A few site updates
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 13, 2007, 1:05 pm
Ok, I’ve done a bit of coding, and I seem to have put in a sort of self-moderation to the comment code. Now you can only post a comment every two minutes.
But you know what? I don’t care if it’s got bugs. It kinda works, and if you wanna spam, go right ahead. I humbly request that you don’t, though.
I also fixed a freaky bug where comments were being dated three hours in the future. It’s actually a remnant of times past when this site was being hosted on a server on the west coast (thus I had to add three hours to the timestamps on everything). Wee!
Adsense
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 12, 2007, 11:05 pm
You may notice the Google Ads (just below the “banner”) I’ve put on the site. A small price to pay for free hosting. Hell, I may even get some money back from it someday.
Deep Japanese thoughts
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 12, 2007, 9:14 am
I once told a 12 year old Japanese boy that if he tried to stick his fingers up my ass, I’d stick my fingers up his ass. …In some cultures, this is pedophilic gay porn. Luckily for me, in Japan, this is only saying hello. I told this story to my friend Michael, and he said he was coming to visit me immediately. I hope I have a spare futon.
I’ll admit there are some slow periods on Gaijin Smash, but every now and then ol’ Az will come out with a hum-dinger.
Deep Japanese Thoughts, by Azrael Handey
And here’s a bonus link for all you folks that watched SNL in the early 90’s.
Video Games
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 11, 2007, 1:51 pm
Lately I’ve grown tired of World of Warcraft. I’ll probably disable my account soon, but not before I donate all my gold and (non-bound) belongings to a clanmate.
When I first got into it, it was probably worth the $15 every month to play, but now I hardly ever get around to playing it. Besides, if I feel the urge to play an MMORPG, there’s always Guild Wars. I’ll have to buy the game, but I won’t have to pay any subscription. Hell, if I got really starved I could play Runescape.
When I started, my goal was to get to level 60, and I have. Honestly I have no urge to hit the (expanded) cap of 70. Chances are that by the time I get there, a new expansion will have come out which raises the bar to level 80.
It’s like this with every game I play. I’m all kinds of happy about it for a few months, then I just lose interest.
I guess that’s why I’ve gotten back into playing older games. Blizzard has some great games in its library that I haven’t beaten — namely any of the [War|Star]Craft series. The great part is that almost all of Blizzard’s games come on a Mac/Windows hybrid disk, so I don’t have to buy all those games again to play them on my new laptop.
I might go out and get Starcraft II when it comes out, but chances are that I’ll have moved on from RTSs by that point.