Category Archives: WTF?!

WTF?!

Qwest – CenturyLink Service Disaster

About 10 days ago, we took steps to get rid of our lifelong landline. In the process, Qwest (so much easier to say and type than CenturyLink) offered us deals that made us look like chumps for having paid so much for so little all these years. We stood our ground on the landline, but decided to opt for an upgrade in DSL speed from 1.5M to 7M. Amy in Idaho Falls assured us our old modem would work with 7M, but that she had to order a new modem to ‘trick’ the system, and then cancel that order.

Yesterday, our old landline was disconnected. DSL went down, too, but we were assured that the new speed would be available by 5pm. When we called after 5pm, we were assured it would be by 7pm.

It was a service nightmare surpassing the Dell Debacle, the FedEx Fumble, the White Glove Wipe-out, and the Butterflyphoto Follies of 2007.

For 24 hours, the DSL light blinked futilely. In that time, we spoke to a half a dozen people and I made repeated attempts to chat online with Qwest service (using a neighbor’s wireless). Understand, I’m very patient, polite, and clear on the phone. Merri could not be more personable or pleasant, as well as thorough. We are not the customers from hell. Each person we talked with seemed helpful but none really understood the problem or had the correct solution. It was tremendously frustrating to have to start over again and again in describing the problem, as if there is no record of previous calls — no institutional memory. However, very late in the process, one rep seemed to see a complete list of our contacts over the past 24 hours. Why didn’t one person look at that and say "we need to do something special"? Why doesn’t Qwest issue an incident number you can enter at the first prompt to reconnect to someone who knows the situation, instead of starting anew with each representative?

Like the uninformed person who told us we could not go back to 1.5M, as if overnight the feature was gone from the earth. Like Ellie, stammering through her script, who asked if I’d called Netgear to discuss the modem with them, and who was rattled out of her script but did the right thing when I said "either give me to a supervisor or hang up — your choice." Like that supervisor, JoAnn, who patiently listened as I said she would be the last person I ever talked to at Qwest: "downgrade the service or get us a compatible modem by 5pm," I said. She apologized and connected me with someone to downgrade our service (rather than recommend a $99 modem), but Eisley had to talk to her supervisor about an odd $25 fee; no follow up. Or Sue J, Tia, and Bambi — all online — who repeatedly forwarded me to Internet Services, which instantly triggered a Remote Support function that plastered a graphic on screen and nothing more — no way forward, no way back. The second and third times I started my chat with "Don’t activate Remote Support or forward me to Internet Services" — yet each time they did. As an aside, the Qwest website is NOT compatible with Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8. (The Qwest website is simply gawd-awful. However, IE10 crashes every day and is incompatible with Google and Facebook, ad nauseum.)

In the end, the fix was simple. Ten days ago, Amy in Idaho Falls should have told us that a new VDSL modem cost only $99. You can’t find that info on Qwest’s website, even if you’re logged in as a customer. Or the tech who switched service yesterday should have known — from Amy — that we had an ADSL modem and configured the system accordingly. This, we got from Johnny in Idaho Falls, whom Merri dubs a hero. Johnny even told us where a CenturyLink store is (a mile away).

I can’t convey the misery, anger, depression, and powerlessness both Merri and I felt over the past 24 hours. We lost most of two full days to this nonsense. But, I know anyone reading this has a comparable story. 

Lastly: for god’s sake, don’t run loud endless ads on hold. It’s clueless at best, infuriating at worst, to make me listen about your great service while on hold for tech support over and over and over again. Some VP bought a summer house in Aspen with the proceeds from that idiotic idea. How is it possible that large corporations with vast sums paying VPs hundreds of thousands of dollars can’t provide the service they exist to provide? Management and the board should be very, very embarrassed. Maybe some overpaid suit should steal some ideas from Amazon’s service. Amazon’s going to take everything from the Unservices, if it can continue to avoid becoming like them.

WTF?!

Some people should not have dogs

I was walking Luke in the neighborhood this afternoon. I heard a couple of whistles and saw a small but muscular brindle pit-bull roaming up ahead, a man following, a second man farther behind. The pit-bull sees us and comes over slowly, head down, licking lips. "Is it friendly?," I ask. As the two dogs circle and sniff, the first man replies, "I don’t know. She’s not mine. I think she belongs to the people across the street." I watch, warily, trying to stay cool. "I don’t want to scare her or she might do something weird," he adds. Weird? Like attack my dog or me? Stay calm. The second man arrives, "I’m sorry, guys, my dumb-ass brother just picks up dogs off the street." He sports the finest prison-style, long baggy shorts falling off, revealing 8 inches of boxer shorts; white tank top; tats and beard that say don’t fuck with me. Just breathe. The thug grabs the dog hard by the collar. "She seems sweet," says the guy who needs new neighbors. "She’s not. She’s already tried to kill two of my dogs. I’m surprised she didn’t attack that dog." WTF?!!! He slaps her flank hard, holding her front legs off the ground by her collar. "That’s not gonna help," says the unbelievably nice guy who needs bars on his windows and doors, "that will just make her try to get away again." I think, speak, say something, confront the ignorant brute, confront the abuser. "She’s going to the pound as soon as possible. I can’t keep her in the yard. She’s already tried to kill two of my dogs.," he repeats. Meth’ll do that to you. Say, "she’ll be better off the sooner she gets away from you." No – we will. Shut up. Stay calm. Let the danger pass you by. Luke just grins and walks on. My hero.

Election, WTF?!

“People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress” of being nauseatingly rich. Yeah, it sucks to be in the .001% (HT @edbott)

Don’t elect a rich guy to fix this system.

Bonus Drop Means Trading Aspen for Coupons – Bloomberg

Most people can only dream of Wall Street’s shrinking paychecks. Median household income in 2010 was $49,445, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, lower than the previous year and less than 1 percent of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein’s $7 million restricted-stock bonus for 2011. The percentage of Americans living in poverty climbed to 15.1 percent, the highest in almost two decades. ….

The smaller bonus checks that hit accounts across the financial-services industry this month are making it difficult to maintain the lifestyles that Wall Street workers expect, according to interviews with bankers and their accountants, therapists, advisers and headhunters.

“People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress,” said Alan Dlugash, a partner at accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP in New York who specializes in financial planning for the wealthy. “Could you imagine what it’s like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?”

Bonus Drop Means Trading Aspen for Coupons – Bloomberg

Election, WTF?!

“Coronary Capitalism” – best phrase of the day – you pay for the things that make you sick

Capitalism is a conspiracy: a big stupid clumsy stumbling conspiracy that banks on ignorance quite successfully.

Processed food and coronary capitalism – Opinion – Al Jazeera English [hat tip to dangerousmeta]

Highly processed corn-based food products, with lots of chemical additives, are well known to be a major driver of weight gain, but, from a conventional growth-accounting perspective, they are great stuff. Big agriculture gets paid for growing the corn (often subsidised by the government), and the food processors get paid for adding tonnes of chemicals to create a habit-forming – and thus irresistible – product. Along the way, scientists get paid for finding just the right mix of salt, sugar and chemicals to make the latest instant food maximally addictive; advertisers get paid for peddling it; and, in the end, the healthcare industry makes a fortune treating the disease that inevitably results.

Coronary capitalism is fantastic for the stock market, which includes companies in all of these industries. Highly processed food is also good for jobs, including high-end employment in research, advertising and healthcare.

So, who could complain? Certainly not politicians, who get re-elected when jobs are plentiful and stock prices are up – and get donations from all of the industries that participate in the production of processed food. Indeed, in the US, politicians who dared to talk about the health, environmental, or sustainability implications of processed food would in many cases find themselves starved of campaign funds.

Processed food and coronary capitalism – Opinion – Al Jazeera English

loco, WTF?!

Ignore Paul Gessing. He’s a paid curmudgeon.

Several times a month, Paul Gessing earns a paycheck by complaining about some public service or public benefit. He never disappoints his masters (the Koch brothers?).

Most recently, Gessing complained that the money spent on the only bridge over the Rio Grande built to serve pedestrians and bicycle riders should have been pissed away on the federal debt. Normally, Gessing has no need to conduct research, content to cut and paste from his masters’ playbook. In this case, Gessing sent employees to monitor the bridge for a few minutes out of a year. (How many employees does the un-think tank have?) Their conclusion, in part, is that they didn’t see anyone dressed for work, therefore, no commuters. Does Gessing really believe people wear coats and ties on bikes (or to most jobs in Albuquerque, for that matter). Most bike commuters dress for comfort and safety, which eliminates neck ties, monocles, and shoes with little tassels, like those favored by the “Rio Grande Foundation.” No one rides a bike with a briefcase dangling from the handlebars. After a cold commute, they dress at work, and then get sneered at by fat coworkers quoting Gessing. The luckiest can shower at work, as I did 30 years ago, as a bicycle commuter.

Not everyone who commutes by bike does so every day; some ride once a week. Let’s see Gessing station observers on the bridge seven days a week for one full month, 5am to 9pm, everyday. Then, his data will be more than just the crap he has now.

But it doesn’t matter to Gessing that he can’t recognize a bicycle commuter. It doesn’t actually matter to him how many people use the bridge. He doesn’t give a damn about quality of life, the health of the community, or the reputation Albuquerque enjoys as a nice place to live and work. All that matters is he earned another paycheck shooting down the public good and the community on behalf of his wealthy benefactors.

NADA, WTF?!

Enough! Save the Middle Class.

ABQJournal Online » How Dare These Rich People Be, Well, Rich?

…We didn’t need to “level the playing field.” It was already level for everyone.

Some people got rich, some didn’t. Fair and square.

But now, in this new age of entitlement, the rich are being blamed for everything. How dare they be rich when we’re not? Well, go out and invent Windows if you’re so unhappy.

Of course that would mean actually doing something instead of complaining about it. But why not give the protesters what they want? Let’s have all the rich people take their riches and close up shop.

Yes, the head of General Motors should take his millions, Standard Oil should cash in, the owner of the Journal should close its doors ,as should all their evil rich cronies and retire on their millions to live the life of Riley.

Then Corporate America would dissolve. Unemployment would flourish. And when the protesters sit back smugly saying they’ve “won,” we can all ask the protesters for a job.

Until the liberal left-wingers get it into their thick skulls that it’s the rich people, not the poor people, that sign our paychecks, we are destined for doom.

SHERRY WENZ
Albuquerque

ABQJournal Online » How Dare These Rich People Be, Well, Rich?

Sigh. Such ignorance and anger. Let’s pretend the playing field once was level. It hasn’t been for a long time. Since the Bush Error, only the Rich have prospered and that was directly due to massive tax cuts plus tax-subsidized bailouts: Welfare for the Rich. Hardly “fair and square.”

Now, many people are fed up and have had enough and they are, in fact, doing something: yelling “Enough!” Our society may survive the deep divisions in political viewpoints, but it cannot survive the economic disparity between the Rich and everyone else, especially as the vital Middle Class gets crushed.

In response to Warren Buffett’s suggestion to raise taxes on the Rich, people like Wenz sneer that the Rich can donate whatever money they choose. I’ll borrow that sneer to say the Rich are free to “close up shop and live the life of Riley.” Like the Rich in other nations without a Middle Class and with outrageous disparity between the few Rich and the many poor, they will hire better security and stick to enclaves that exclude “those people.” I wonder which side of that fence Wenz ends up on.

The protestors do not want wreck the economy further. To say otherwise is either very stupid or self-serving. Apparently, Sherry Wenz belongs to whoever signs her paycheck.