Times are tough all around, and many companies have responded to difficult times by tripling their efforts to recruit new customers—by force, if necessary.

I’ve been getting countless robo‑calls, despite being on the no‑call list. I immediately hang up on any recording, but by that time I’ve already …[MORE]]]> Q. How do you avoid unwanted marketing?
A. You can’t. No matter what you do.

Times are tough all around, and many companies have responded to difficult times by tripling their efforts to recruit new customers—by force, if necessary.

I’ve been getting countless robo‑calls, despite being on the no‑call list. I immediately hang up on any recording, but by that time I’ve already put down whatever I was doing, muted the music or television, and answered the phone. The sound of the recorded voice makes me thoroughly annoyed, but I’m only left with the impotent act of slamming down the receiver.

Sigh.

It’s almost a given: the more important the robo‑voice says a call is, the less important it really is. Can you imagine a really important call being delivered in such a fashion? “I’m sorry to report that your biopsy was positive for melanoma. For surgery, press 1. For chemotherapy, press 2. For hospice, press 3.” Absurd.

And it’s not just the robo‑calls. The spam machines are working overtime. The fundraising phone banks hum with activity. I’m getting calls from companies I’ve never done business with, companies I’ve never heard of. I’ve even begun to get door-to-door salespeople. How many decades has it been since anyone rang your doorbell and tried to sell you something other than youth fundraising merchandise?

One of the few blogs I read on a regular basis is Seth Godin’s. His articles are of general interest, but his focus is on marketing. The good kind of marketing. The smart kind of marketing. He recently had an interesting item on this mad frenzy of pointless marketing. Read it here. Unfortunately, his ideas are too reasonable to appeal to the masses, and that’s a shame. If more people like Godin were running the marketing machines of the world, life would be a lot less aggravating. And I would be able to get through my dinner without yet another rude and pointless call from someone (or something) I wouldn’t do business with in a thousand years.

Recently, I …[MORE]]]> Social Contract—an actual or hypothetical agreement among the members of an organized society that defines and limits the rights and duties of each

I thought I’d include this definition because it seems that the meaning is no longer being instilled by parents or schools. The concept of the social contract is dying a slow and painful death.

Recently, I drove downtown to attend a meeting in a high-rise office building. I had to park in a high-rise parking garage, one of those with a narrow inlet, a ticket dispenser, a manned booth and a gate across the lane. As I pulled up, I immediately noticed that there seemed to be a line and it didn’t seem to be moving. There were four or five cars between me and the vehicle at the gate. After a few moments, nothing happened. The car at the gate was not proceeding in an orderly manner. I continued waiting patiently.

After a few more minutes, my patience began to fade. The car still had not moved. More cars had lined up behind me. In fact, the line behind me had grown until it began to clog the intersection. Still I waited. The car still didn’t move. I couldn’t see the person in the car, couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, but I could see that the person in the booth was engaged in conversation with the driver. Still I waited.

At this point, my attitude began to tip toward impatience. The traffic blockage continued to expand. Cars wishing to enter the garage from the opposite side of the street via a left turn had also begun to accumulate. They were now interfering with traffic flow in the other direction and clogging another intersection. By now, the traffic snarl was actually preventing vehicles from exiting the garage.

And still we all waited.

It was a full eight minutes—a full eight minutes after I became irritated enough to start timing him or her—before the driver finally put their car in gear and passed through the gate, opening up the way for all the rest of us. By this time I was livid. I parked, entered the office building and immediately sought out a restroom. I needed to spend several more minutes counting to one thousand and ten before I could regain my composure. It was the only way to be sure that one inconsiderate fool didn’t spoil the presentation I was there to give.

That person should not be allowed to roam freely.

It is my general experience in such instances that the chances are good that the driver was blissfully unaware of the chaos caused by their thoughtlessness. That is usually the case. But more and more often these days, it seems that the obstructor is aware and just doesn’t care. The new theme seems to be that as long as my convenience is being served, it doesn’t matter how many others are inconvenienced. I once saw a driver bring three lanes of traffic to a complete halt because he was in the left lane and wanted to be in the right lane. Apparently, circling the block is a technique no longer taught in driver’s ed. Or, more likely, the driver just couldn’t be bothered, because it was easier to make everyone else stop and wait until he got what he wanted.

But back to the parking garage and the inconsiderate person there. No doubt their problem, whatever it was, was important to them. It may even have been a dire emergency. But was it so important that several downtown blocks needed to be brought to a halt until their need was met? Somehow I doubt it.

Back a thousand years ago when I was growing up, mothers generally taught their children that obstructing the progress of others was bad manners, like belching or passing gas—something to be avoided when possible and apologized for when not. This lesson seems to have been lost to the ages.

So I’ll just offer some general advice. If someone behind you in a line somewhere seems to be growing impatient or irritated, ask yourself: Am I in their way? Do I need to be? Might that person be armed? And if you’re in the same boat they are, try to catch their eye. Find some nonverbal way of sharing the frustration of your mutual plight. That might keep both of you from resorting to violence.

And to all those oblivious impediments out there, I’ll just say this. One day, one single red blood cell out of the trillions in your bloodstream will find some need to stop in the center of one of your capillaries and serve some selfish purpose of its own without regard to the entire circulatory system stacking up behind it. So when a massive stroke lays you to waste, just remember: Your convenience need not be considered.

A few months ago, I switched my service to digital. I wasn’t even planning to do that, but some sweet little pixie knocked on my door and outlined a …[MORE]]]> Are you considering a switch to digital television? Have you done so already? Are you as annoyed with the whole thing as some of the rest of us are?

A few months ago, I switched my service to digital. I wasn’t even planning to do that, but some sweet little pixie knocked on my door and outlined a deal I saw no reason to refuse. Better package, free installation, lower monthly fee—what the heck, sign me up.

The installation came off as promised; the monthly fee, too. And I’ll admit that the upgraded internet access is aces. But the digital television transmission takes some getting used to, and I can’t say that I’m happy with it.

To begin with, just getting used to a new remote is ghastly. Your fingers can never find the right buttons, and you’re constantly hitting something that causes programmus interruptus and you can’t figure out what to do. The new remote has a feature I find particularly annoying: the “jump” forward skips 30 seconds of programming, while the “jump” backward only reverses seven seconds. That means for every excessive skip forward, you have to punch the backward skip four times or more. Very aggravating.

The remote control design also completely omits one very important feature, especially given today’s movie and television production. There is no slow‑motion forward, no frame advance, nothing in the way of controlling the visual except a complete freeze. This means that if you miss some clever little background joke, some handwritten clue flashes past, or you can’t live without reading every single word of a Chuck Lorre vanity card, you must get very adept at freezing the picture at just the right second. One second too late at the pause button, and you have to back up seven seconds, listen to the same snippet of dialogue again, and once more try your hand at getting the freeze just right. If you miss again, repeat the last sentence ad infinitum.

There are other problems with the service, too. Sometime recordings won’t replay. Sometime the on/off button indulges in a playful bit of teasing, where it powers off the box but not the television, or vice versa. While the system allows you to customize a “favorites” program guide, it is not easily accessed, but requires you to navigate two menus down each and every time you want to use it. In addition to many useless (to me) interactive services, they offer a “Weather on Demand” service. Sounds good, right? Except to get the weather “on demand” requires a sequence of exactly seventeen remote control commands. The space shuttle launches with less hoopla than that.

Here’s the biggest aggravation, though. From time to time, the information packets in the digital transmission get scrambled or otherwise rerouted. The picture pixilates, breaks up and freezes, and the audio goes silent. This can last for one or several seconds. It affects both live viewing and recording. It can also occur in the playback of recordings, though in that case you can skip back and the replay will be intact. But when it occurs in real time or is captured at the recording stage, there is no recovery of the missed seconds. Now usually that’s just annoying. Recently, however, I recorded the two‑hour finale of the last season of the saga of a certain time lord who was running out of time. High drama…multiple storylines converged…final scene…then in the last five seconds: freeze/silence. By the time the transmission was restored, the credits were rolling. I missed the end of time itself, all because of that freakin’ digital scramble! My shouts of frustration bounced off the walls of my living room, but to no avail. I had to tape the program on a repeat airing, then fast‑forward through the entire thing again to find out how the universe ended.

At least it wasn’t pay‑per‑view.

I’m not usually an early adapter, and these sorts of problems are one of the reasons I don’t rush toward new technology. It always takes a while to work the bugs out, and during that time the price usually drops, too.

I’m not (quite) saying you shouldn’t get digital television. I just want you to know that the future isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, at least not yet. Maybe you’re better off waiting for digital 2.0.

In recent months, I’ve had a few highly disturbing encounters with corporate customer service representatives. Now I’m not generally a complaining customer. I don’t send …[MORE]]]> This is likely become a tirade. I’ll do my best to avoid it, to keep the discourse meaningful, but I suspect that it will inevitably erode into nothing but sound and fury.

In recent months, I’ve had a few highly disturbing encounters with corporate customer service representatives. Now I’m not generally a complaining customer. I don’t send food back in restaurants; I don’t loudly demand to speak to a store manager; I don’t picket or post web pages to make my protests public. But I do have this quaint, childish notion that if a business is failing to satisfy its customers’ needs in some elemental way, the business might be interested in knowing that and might conceivably wish to take some remedial action.

I’m a fool.

A few months ago, I went to some considerable trouble to find an e‑mail contact for a mammoth food producer (not an easy task in itself). This crafty company had recently revamped the packaging of one of its products, and the new design had one major flaw—it was impossible to open! It seemed to me that this was something worth pointing out. I composed an e‑mail worthy of publication (though I won’t publish it here—I can’t afford legal representation). It was informative and amusing, and expressed the nature of the problem in what I hoped would be a helpful and supportive manner. After all, I liked the product, and wanted to continue to enjoy it…if I could just get the blinking package open!

A day later, I received a “response” to my complaint. The form letter thanked me for my communication and urged me to continue to enjoy their fine product.

Complaintus interruptus.

Add to that a more recent experience. After a series of poor customer service experiences with a different company, I canceled my account with them and wrote them an e‑mail outlining my dissatisfaction. The gist of my message was “Don’t ever darken my door—I hate you guys.” The very next day, I received a response informing me of all the great value packages they had to offer and surely I would be interested in one of them. It was the corporate equivalent of jamming their fingers in their ears and loudly singing “la‑la‑la‑la‑la.”

I realize that a non-hermit living in the modern world could never completely avoid gargantuan corporations, and I’m not suggesting that we try. I know that the loss of my $4.99 a month will not affect Behemoth Amalgamated in the least. Even if I got all my friends and everyone they know to boycott the business, not even a blip would register on its sales charts.

So what is a consumer to do? Unfortunately, the corporations have already provided their response:

Screw you, and please come again.