Total Perspective Vortex
What really happened to Trillian? Theories abound, but you can see what she's really been up to on this blog. If you're looking for white mice, depressed robots, or the occasional Pan Galactic Gargleblaster you might be better served here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/guide/.
Don't just sit there angry and ranting, do something constructive.
In the words of Patti Smith (all hail Sister Patti): People have the power.
Contact your elected officials.
Don't be passive = get involved = make a difference.
Words are cool.
The English language is complex, stupid, illogical, confounding, brilliant, beautiful, and fascinating.
Every now and then a word presents itself that typifies all the maddeningly gorgeousness of language. They're the words that give you pause for thought. "Who came up with that word? That's an interesting string of letters." Their beauty doesn't lie in their definition (although that can play a role). It's also not in their onomatopoeia, though that, too, can play a role. Their beauty is in the way their letters combine - the visual poetry of words - and/or the way they sound when spoken. We talk a lot about music we like to hear and art we like to see, so let's all hail the unsung heroes of communication, poetry and life: Words.
Here are some I like. (Not because of their definition.)
Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Smart Girls
(A Trillian de-composition, to the tune of Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys)
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
Smart girls ain’t easy to love and they’re above playing games
And they’d rather read a book than subvert themselves
Kafka, Beethoven and foreign movies
And each night alone with her cat
And they won’t understand her and she won’t die young
She’ll probably just wither away
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
A smart girl loves creaky old libraries and lively debates
Exploring the world and art and witty reparteé
Men who don’t know her won’t like her and those who do
Sometimes won’t know how to take her
She’s rarely wrong but in desperation will play dumb
Because men hate that she’s always right
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
Life(?) of Trillian
Single/Zero
Monday, November 13, 2006
Apparently my phone doesn't work. I say apparently because it's yet to be determined whether or not my phone is, um, working. Or not.
Confused?
Yeah. Me, too.
Seems like a yes or no situation. The phone works or it doesn’t. Elementary riddle. No dial tone + calls to my phone number met with a constant busy signal = phone line problem.
Oh, us poor, naive, misguided simpletons.
We can put a man on the moon, send a rover to Mars, even, heck, American Idol can have five television ratings record years, and yet, still, mind-melting talking-in-circles-which-defy-logic conversations with the phone company are the same hassle now as they were 130 years ago.
"Mr. Watson, come here, I want you."
"No. I'm not coming in there. It's not my problem. I ran a test and the problem is on your end. I'm not responsible for damage or repairs to anything on your end. Your phone, your problem. Is there anything else I can assist you with today? Thank you for choosing AT&T"
I have a love/hate relationship with telephones. I've spent my adult life paying what I consider to be astronomically high phone bills because of far flung family, friends and long distance relationships. I know all the rate plans, the pros and cons and have learned to negotiate per minute rates the way a savvy broker negotiates stock options. And yet, considering the technology is old, really, apart from mobile and VOIP, in-home telephone technology hasn't changed much over the past 50 - 60 years, I, we, pay a lot of money every month for a service which is old.
Oh, I'm sure there have been advancements, stuff talked about in awed and hushed reverent tones at the telephony conventions, but for us basic home consumers, not really much new to report.
To wit: My compartment building was built in the early '50s. The phone wiring and main incoming console equipment area is original. Meaning: Little, if anything, has been done to "improve" phone lines and service to the individual lines to the compartments in my building. Given that it's over 50 years old it's a safe and fair assumption the phone company has actualized their investment many times over their original installation costs. Oh sure, repairs, maintenance, some wiring updates now and then, but even with skilled labor fees there's no way they aren't making a load of money on a monthly basis on the phone charges for my building alone. Multiply that to all the other telephone consumer across the country and you've got: A scam. a racket.
I understand some usage fees. Sure, I get that. I mean, upkeep and maintenance and those fine educated and polite service call center reps take money to maintain.
I have to have a land line. My building is old and the walls are thick and I have an interior compartment. A mobile signal in my building is a rare and suspicious thing. On the rare occasions I can get a cell signal inside my compartment the calls are typically dropped or lost within a minute or two. Unless I stand on one leg with my arm out the window. At 10 PM on nights with a full Moon and a gentle Northwesterly breeze.
And I don't have cable.
So I need a phone line for internet connectivity.
Right. So. I need the phone company. I need a land line. And yes, sure, it's "worth" something, a monthly fee. I'm not sure it's worth $49.85/month, but, that's what I pay. Much of that is state and local taxes. I ♥ Mayor Daley sooooooo much! Residents of Illinois/Cook county are privileged to pay the following in addition to their Federal and phone company fees and taxes:
9-1-1 Emergency System Billed for Chicago $1.25 State Infrastructure Maintenance Fee $.10 State Additional Charges $.01 ”Additional Charges.” Just: “Additional Charges.” I’d like to see how far I get with that term in my budget reports at work or on my income taxes. Infrastructure Maintenance Credit $.79 CR I dunno. Seriously. I have no idea. But it’s a credit so hey, I’m keeping my mouth shut. Federal Universal Service Fee $.44 ”Universal Service.” What the...? Talk about a catch-all encompassing term. “Universal Service.” Universal Service. Remember that. Universal. IL Universal Service Fee $.03 Ahhh, and here we see that “Universal Service” fee again, this time a charge from the state of Illinois. Um. Not to split too many hairs over syntax, but, um, shouldn’t one “Universal” Service fee take care of well, the universe? IL Telecom Relay Svc and Eqp $.08 I dunno. Something about relay services and equipment. Probably the equipment and services needed to relay the state “Universal Service” to the Federal “Universal Service.”
Taxes Federal at 3% Illinois at 7% Municipal Telecommunications Tax $1.45
So shrewd those phone companies and their lobbyists. (Yeah, I’m on a lobbyist bashing kick lately.) They have a percent tax instead of a flat usage tax. This annoys me. In fact it pisses me off in a big way. First of all that they’re taxing a service for which we already pay a premium, a service using equipment and technology which is old. Secondly, um, secondly, yeah, what was my point? Oh yeah, why do we pay tax on telephone service? Why? Why do state, local and federal agencies get a cut, quite a large cut, of our money every time we pick up the telephone? Usage fees to the phone company? Yes. I can fully understand having to pay something to the phone company to maintain and sustain the phone system and equipment. I’m not that naïve or selfish. But why is it taxed? Why does 10% + $1.45 of every conversation I have on the telephone go to state and federal government agencies? Every time you order take-out or call your mother or use a phone line to connect to the internet, and this is the one that really burns me up, every time you call the phone company to request service or repair and are put on hold for 25 minutes, the toll for that call is being taxed and sent off to the state and national capitals.
Ever wonder why the phone company has that super involved automated phone directory which in the end dumps you in a queue for a live operator? (“If your phone is not working and you’ve taken three buses and a train to find a pay phone, press 3 now. If your phone is not working and you’re calling from your mobile phone while standing outside in a hail storm, press 4 now...”) Ever wonder why they don’t just put you in that queue in the first place? Ever wonder why you have to “confirm” your phone number, address and name information when you’ve already entered it during the automated portion of the call and then sit on hold while the service operator “verifies” the information? Call me a paranoid conspirist, but, the fact is: The longer you’re on the call, the more tax money you send to your state and federal government. An extra minute on that phone call equals extra tax revenue. That’s a black and white fact. It may be merely a coincidence most calls to the phone company for repair or billing questions require a 20 - 45 minute call when the nuts and bolts of the conversations actually only takes 5 minutes. Or it could be part of a government/phone company ruse to rake in some tax money from a captive and desperate consumer is more difficult to prove...
So, yeah. Phone. Gotta have one, gotta pay for it, gotta pay the taxes on the service. I think we're all paying waaaaaay too much for something which should be and could easily be free. It's not like gas or electric or water - there aren't commodities being cultivated, bought, refined and consumed. I know, I know, phone lines and the usage of lines takes electricity and all sorts of magical wiring. I know. I read Harry Potter, magic's not easy.
So I bend over and let the phone company have their way with me every month. I pay the phone bill and try to put it out of mind until the next month when I'm required to perform for the phone company. Wanna talk to your mother on a phone from which she can understand you and doesn't randomly drop the call while you're telling her you love her? Gotta have a land line. Wanna use DSL service because you’re too poor to afford cable? Gotta have a land line.
Fine. Okay.
But when that land line fails we should expect to be treated with respect and prompt service, right? I mean, we are customers. We do pay for this service and in doing so we have a right to courteous and prompt service.
Silly, silly, silly Trillian.
There’s money in those calls! There’s tax revenue to be made on those calls.
So, you discover your phone's not working.
What do you do?! Your parents could be trying to call with a real emergency or that cute guy from the bar you went to five months ago could finally call or you could slip and fall in the bathroom and need to call 9-1-1 or you might need sesame ginger tofu and hot and sour soup ASAP! You panic because you need your phone! And it's not working! There's no dial tone! It's just, it's just dead!
It's one of the loneliest non-sound sounds. My theory is that space sounds like a non-working telephone. I think it's the expectation of noise and the subsequent absence which is so disconcerting. It always comes back to expectations. You expect to hear a dial tone and when you don't those synapses your cognative brain sends to the audio nerve box make you think you're hearing something because you've always heard something in the past when you picked up the phone. And maybe you are hearing something, but, it's probably nothing. You reason that even if there's no dial tone there must be something else coming down that line, a telephone line can't transmit nothing so you stand there listening, thinking any second you'll hear a crackle and then a dial tone. But nothing happens. Nothing. You just stand there pushing your ear closer to the phone thinking you hear something. I always expect to suddenly overhear the chatter in the service center at the phone company, service reps talking about their lunch or laughing at "stupid" customers who've called with "problems" and how funny it was when they yelled at them and made them believe it was their phone or wall jack that was the problem and not the phone line or the phone company and all the toll and tax money they made on that call. I've yet to have this happen, but once when my phone line was in disrepair I heard a far, far away one sided conversation about the Super Bowl.
I discovered my phone wasn’t working properly during a conversation with my mother. My phone just stopped working right in the middle of my mother’s conversation. They cut off my mother. My mother for crying out loud. Is nothing sacred? Nope. Not to the phone company. And hey, accidents happen, problems occur. I understand.
And at first I blamed my telephone. I thought the battery needed charging. Yes. So well trained by the phone company am I that my first reaction is to assume the problem is my fault. My phone. I blamed myself.
So I set the phone in the charger and: Nothing. I plugged in an old corded phone to the wall jack and: Nothing. Dead silence. Not a snap, crackle or pop.
I fiddled with the wall jack, plugged and unplugged both phone plugs, unplugged the the DSL line and tried every possible combination of switching phones and plugs in the jack. One good thing about living in a micro-compartment is that there’s only one phone jack. That makes this process go a lot faster. I’m so lucky to live in a super small apartment where I don’t have to mess with multiple phone outlets.
Right. This is when the first suspicions arose that the problem might not be my fault. I lived in denial for about an hour because I didn’t want to deal with the phone company. I kept thinking, “it’ll be fine, the service will be returned, I just need to go away and not think about it for a while and it will be fine. Really. It’s going to be okay.”
It wasn’t okay.
Darnedest thing, though, my DSL connection was fine. No problems there. Connected and zipping along. I hate the phone company but I love Covad.
But no phone. No dial tone. Nothing.
So I had to call the phone company. Just typing that sentence makes my stomach churn. The phone company. It always sounds like a big echo reverb-y voiceover. Have to call the phone company.
Girding of loins, mustering of courage, summoning strength from powers on high, breathing exercises, all to dial that one number, all to prepare for the conversation that is about to take place.
Calling the phone company requires me to go outside my building. So I was standing on the sidewalk talking to the phone company about problems on with my telephone on my mobile phone while the wind whipped around the building. On a Sunday night. The call dropped three times during this process. Let’s just call me a paranoid conspirist, because I find it very, very interesting and a bit too coincidentally ironic that my mobile rarely drops calls, and yet the second I call the phone company about my land line my mobile service dropped three times.
The service rep asked me if my DSL service was working. I made the fatal mistake of being honest and said yes.
“Well then why didn’t you just email us a repair request?” the nice service rep asked me.
“Because none of the drop-down menu choices matched the description of my particular problem with my phone service and the prompt message instructed me to call you,” I said, summoning the strength to not inflect a tone other than factual. Round of applause for that, please? Could you answer that question without raising your voice in anger or inflecting sarcasm? The natural response is to ooze sarcasm or inflect hostility in something like this, “because I just love talking to the fine professional knowledgeable service representatives at the phone company. It’s an honor and a privilege to be put on hold for 15 minutes and charged and taxed for that privilege, especially when the call is regarding a telephone line which isn’t working and in need of repair.”
Why aren’t calls for line service repair free and untaxed? Why? Why should we pay to report a problem with a line which isn’t functioning properly to the phone company? They’ve failed us. Why are we paying (and being taxed) for the phone call to tell them they’re not doing their job? There’s too much irony in all of that for me to consider without getting a non-computer related headache so I’m going to just walk away from that. Just simply walk away from that confounding conundrum.
So after 25 minutes and three calls to the service department of the phone company, I went back inside to submit a repair request online. Via my DSL service. Which uses the same jack and line, albeit a higher frequency, than my voice telephone line. I have a pretty good understanding of how this works, because I’m a geek and I researched it when I was considering DSL service a long time ago. But there’s part of me that still questions how my voice telephone line can be utterly, completely non-functioning while my DSL is running smooth as ever. I know, I know, it’s not magic, it’s science and it really makes a lot of sense when you get down to the nitty gritty of what happens in those wires and who and how they are installed and repaired. And I’m not complaining, because in all the years I’ve had DSL there have been exactly two times there were problems with the DSL part of the wires and they’ve been, well, a lot, loads of times there have been problems with the voice part of the wires. No phone is a pain, but, being able to go online and send an email to people telling them my phone isn’t working helps. A lot.
I submitted the repair request. But. Halfway through the process I got this screen. The phone company gave me instructions for some common repair issues and told me to try them before submitting a final request for repair. Yes. No matter what you’re thinking right now, the incredible answer is: Yes.
Let’s take a moment to summarize the events which led to this point, shall we? I was talking to my mother on a voice land line. The phone went completely dead. I tried connecting, disconnecting, re-connecting, jiggling, fiddling, and ignoring the plug and wall jack. I called the phone company to report a non-functioning telephone. They told me to make the service request online. I filled out a repair request for my non-functioning telephone line. They gave me repair instructions and advised me to fix the problem myself before submitting a repair request.
I’m kind of a DIY sort of person. There are a few reasons for this. A) I don’t have money and if something needs to be repaired/updated/modified/improved/designed I have to do it myself or it won’t get done because I can’t afford to hire professionals, B) problems/inspiration tend to hit me on Sunday afternoons when professionals are not working, or charge triple premium prices, and mainly C) because I like the thrill of adventure to be found in completely screwing something up so badly a team of experts will have to be flown into not only handle the original issue but fix/clean/remodel/burn/detoxify my attempts at DIY.
But. I know my limitations. Anything involving wires in walls/engines or pipes/hoses carrying fluids signals: Limitation. Sure, I could probably figure out a lot of the issues/improvements, and I have in the past attempted and even successfully fixed/modified wires and hoses, but, I know it was luck and perhaps divine intervention that kept me out of the emergency room while performing these repairs/modifications. Since I no longer have health insurance which covers anything useful, I’ve quit taking chances and that means: No handling electric current or plumbing, power tools are off limits and if it requires a safety mask and/or safety glasses it’s probably not a good idea for me to be doing it.
So when I got the repair prompt I thought, “Okay, maybe it’s something easy, let’s have a look.”
Here are the exact instructions. Note there were no illustrations or diagrams. Just this word for word list.
Locate the Problem 1. Locate the Network Interface Device*. (*This is a gray box with the SBC or Bell logo on it that is either outside, usually near the electric meter, or inside in the basement or equipment room near the fuse box.) 2. Use a screwdriver to open the box. (CAUTION! Do not open during an electrical storm.) 3. Disconnect the modular plug from the test jack. (This disconnects your equipment and wiring from the Network.) 4. Wait one minute for the system to reset. 5. Plug a working telephone into the test jack. 6. Lift the receiver to listen for dial tone. If you do not hear dial tone, the problem is in our Network and a technician needs to be dispatched. If you hear dial tone, the trouble is in your wiring, equipment, or jack. 7. When completed, disconnect your phone and reconnect the modular jack. 8. Close the Network Interface Device and screw the cover back on.
I live in a large high rise building. There are about 500 apartments in my building. Even if some of those apartments are empty or the residents do not have land line service, the apartments are all wired for land lines.
I sat there staring at these instructions, reading and re-reading them and getting stuck on #1 every time. “Locate the Network Interface Device...in the basement or equipment room near the fuse box...” I’ve never been in my building’s basement. I know it exists. I’ve seen the maintenance guys coming and going from there. And once, when I had phone problems last Summer, I got a peek of the “communications room,” a very brief peek, the phone guy and the maintenance guy deftly closed the door when they saw me peeking in there. “You don’t want to see what’s in here, little girl,” strongly implied.
I gathered my courage and went down to the maintenance office. Armed with a printout of the instructions the phone company gave me, I gathered more courage and knocked on the maintenance office door.
The Sunday maintenance guy is nice. But kind of, um, well. He’s the Sunday maintenance guy. A little creepy, a little corny, a little knowledgeable, but mostly: lazy, horny and stupid. He does the bare minimum to fix a problem, a quick patch job to get the tenant by until the “real” guys come on duty Monday morning and then goes back to the maintenance room and looks at porn magazines. It probably goes without saying but I’ll say it: The prettier, younger and wilder the tenant, the faster he responds to services requests. It goes without saying but I’ll say it: I had to beg, beg the guy to let me into the “communications room” to look at my line and see if I could figure out how to test it.
Let’s just say an hour later my line had not been located and the maintenance guy had gone through enough cigarettes to give me a healthy dose of lung cancer.
I couldn’t get past step 1.
And for some bizarre reason I felt bad, stupid, inept and apologetic for this. I sent an email to the phone company explaining how hard I’d tried to locate the Network Interface Device but that I couldn’t even assuredly identify the line for my compartment, what should I do? “I’m sorry I could not locate the Network Interface Device so I am unable to proceed beyond the first step. Please advise,” I wrote.
I apologized to them for not being able to find the “Network Interface Device.” Huh? Wait a minute, do I look like MacGyver or Inspector Gadget or James Bond or a telephone repair person? No. I do not. I look like a woman who’s spent a lot of time reading books and painting and playing with cats. So why was I feeling guilty and apologetic about not being able to locate my telephone line’s “Network Interface Device?” What am I, Canadian? “I’m sorry I couldn’t do your job for you telephone repair person, I’ll be sure to get some training so next time I won’t have to trouble you with my telephone repair problems. But I’m really in a bind now, so if you could just help me out this one time I’d really appreciate it.”
The phone company.
Experts at mind control and emotional manipulation. We’ve all paid so much money to put up with so much crap from them for so many years that we’re unable to distinguish appropriates roles and behaviors in the relationship. The lines are blurred and functions have become ambiguous. We’re confused and co-dependent and struggle to identify not only “Network Interface Devices” but also our place in this relationship.
Well.
We’re not gonna take it. No. We ain’t gonna take it.
I received (what I thought was) an amazingly fast response.
“We tested your line and it appears there is a problem. If you do not have phone service by 8 PM tomorrow night please call or email the service department.”
Um. Gee. Thanks and everything, I’ll get a fruit basket out to you right away, but, um, wouldn’t you, the phone company, know if I don’t have telephone service?
Apparently not.
Apparently the telephone company has taken a don’t ask, don’t tell approach to repairs.
4:53 PM
