As I was paying the local phone bill today, I was pondering all the services we pay for, and don't really use anymore. I remember the days before 3-way calling, or call-waiting! What an invention call waiting was. It had to be the operators threatening a strike that brought this invention about, and it probably saved a billion hours in payroll; I spent most of the early and mid 1980's calling operators to break into phone calls, because I desperately had to talk to someone whose line was busy. Come on, we all did it . Can you imagine being an operator before modern telephone technology? Oh my God. I hope they're all sitting fat in retirement. Call forwarding is also pretty nifty, but I don't ever use it. If someone really needs to reach me, they can call my cell phone (provided I actually shared that number with them). Isn't that what the other fantastic feature, voicemail, is for?
Perhaps karma is the reason why I'm now having so much trouble with Sprint. I've been trying for over a year to use that nifty "one bill" feature for our local and cell phones - the one they spent so much time advertising - and they still haven't gotten it right.
The big question is, why exactly am I paying for all this stuff I don't use? I'd get rid of it all. Karl isn't keen on the idea. I must be getting cheap - I hate paying for all those cable channels we never watch too. We pay for several "tiers" of channels where there's only one damn channel in each tier we actually watch. If I told you our monthly cable bill, I bet some of you would pass out. It's robbery.
This whole rant is now making me feel kind of old. So I'll stop here and post a picture of someone very young. :)
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Cheap and Cynical
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5 comments:
I've been afraid of merging my Sprint bills. I have one home phone that has basic service on it and the cellphone separate. As for cable, I remember having each bill at about $130 and that's what pushed me to DirecTV. Happy I did even though I kept cable for internet, I'm still paying less for both together.
I absolutely hate call waiting. Usually because when someone gets the other line, I'm left on hold for 5 minutes waiting for them to come back. If someone is talking to ME first and someone else beeps in, they should get a 'Hey I'm on the other line, call ya back'...boom, over in 10 seconds. But no. And then when they come back, they have to tell me who it was on the other line and what they wanted like I really give a shit.
I have many little pet peeves, what can I say. Bad telephone etiquette is a biggie.
I hate being placed on call waiting. I often find myself coming up with my own hold music because I hate sitting there in silence.
I was just talking to Lloyd about this the other day. We really need to re-evaluate our phone service. We have so many features that I don't use as well having a cell phone that I always keep on.. (even in my classroom, in case of emergencies) Cox is offereing phonce service and they just called us tonight about it. I asked the guy to get to the bottom line and to give me a monthly idea of the cost with caller id and call waiting and he said about $25 a month, I am sure not including all the additional fees and crap like that.
I'm convinced all phone companies are evil empires. They're horrible at customer service, bills are always wrong, and yet they know we need their product.
I was a telephone operator for two summers; my dad worked for NY Telephone. It was fun, really, and the money was excellent while I was in college.
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