The Unreasonable Man

On cue, the temperature drops and the leaves turn the moment autumn officially arrives.

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• Why can’t I minimise Lightroom? They are sooo important that they have removed the “inimise” button, lets you minimise them and have the world revolve about something else for a minute. So when you want to see what’s underneath, you have to switch to a different desktop. Thanks, Adobe.
• Why did those Republicans scupper the support deal, and cost me thousands of dollars plus put the world at risk of a depression (in that order)?
• Why has the stockmarket/mutual funds/investment industry never made me a single penny; on the contrary, I have always, consistently, throughout the years, lost money? This in spite of being helped by bank “advisors”.
• Why does my iMac take 12 hours to do a simple incremental backup, and why has it been sitting there for the last two hourts (and God knows how many more) saying “Finishing Backup”?

There must be a reason. Maybe intelligent design.

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But when you die, someone still feeds me, right? And you come back, right?Right?

Burlington, 20 September 2008
Belles of the Ball Hannah Masmoudi, Jennifer Jordan, and Milene Botelho enjoy some fresh air at the Burlington Art Centre 30th Anniversary Pearl Gala.
Special to the Burlington Post/Michael Willems

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate Rogers?

Tonight I call about my iPhone bill ($960.28 for a month). This is after I buy an iPhone.

When I bought it, Rogers charged me $109.94 for 24 MByte of “data usage”.

Unfortunately I have Rogers home phone, and that has been put in Nancy’s name. Not by us: by Rogers, and we cannot do anything about it unless we change to Bell. So the question I get immediately after the phone is answered is “who is Nancy?”.

I try to explain this call has nothing to do with my home phone or with Nancy. But “the computer comes up with that so I have to ask”. And nothing I can do to prevent me from having to explain who Nancy is, or else Rogers will not help me.

I wish the Conservatives would stop protecting their cozy back-room friends and would allow foreign operators to operate in this country, There would be competition (a concept you would think the Tories would grasp - but they are Tories in name only, and in wanting to give life sentences to 14-year olds in order to be “tough on crime”. Despicable.).

Have I mentioned I love Flash light?

At the Burlington Art Centre’s sold-out 30th Anniversary “Evening at the Pearl” Gala event.

I really have been. 7 days a week, evenings too. Trip to the USA. Exciting work developments. And ironically, evenings and weekend have been full of photography. I have been shooting as well as teaching as well as organising the Israel tour.

I say “ironically” because that implies that I should post a photograph here. Watch this space… there will be many exciting posts soon.

I hate Rogers. If all their employees were to become unemployed and have no personal income for 100 years, it will still not be long enough. I was just shouted at again by a Rogers “customer service representative” (hah).

I call.

I wait for 10 minutes because my call is so important to the.

I get the wrong guy (in India, but who mercifully is not called “Johnny”).

He puts me through to network services.

I wait another 20 minutes and then get a guy who does not let me say a word but who asks me for my  phone number, my full name, my home address, my date of birth, my postcode, my mother’s maiden name and my account password.

When he stops and I get a chance to ask why he needs this just to tell me Rogers’ charges for US use of an iPhone, he SHOUTS!

“WELL IF YOU WOULD HAVE TOLD ME THAT YOU JUST HAD A GENERAL QUESTION INSTEAD OF WASTING MY TIME AND MAKING ME ASK ALL THE SECURITY QUESTIONS THAT ARE COMPULSORY UNDER OUR COMPANY POLICY “, etc etc. On and on he shouts.

Dumbfounded (HE did not let ME get in a word edge-ways!) I try to stop him but he just keeps shouting over me. I put down the phone in mid-shout and silently hope this guy gets a fatal disease and dies without anaesthetic in a religious province that will not allow euthanasia.

So. How sensible is it for a company to behave in such a way that its customers hate them that much? You see, whether this guy dies a painful death or not is of course not really at play here, and I really don’t want him to get cancer just for being a jerk. But whether I stay with Rogers for one second more than I have to, is.

And the answer of course is “no”. The moment someone other than the current corrupt lot runs this country (the useless Tories have announced foreign ownership of Telecom companies is not in the cards), I switch, and I suspect everyone else with me.

Rogers Communications is despicable and does not deserve to be in business. The Tories, and before them the Liberals, are keeping them in business. What are they being paid?