What’s With Me and Gerbils Today?

Oh my god. I just talked to the stupidest person doing telemarketing in the universe. This story makes more sense if I can imitate this numbnut’s voice, but I’ll try to simulate it in writing.

I pick up, and this voice says, “Hello. uh, um, Carin?” Damn me to hell for giving to charities over the phone!

I say yes. He says, “How are you?” I say fine. Then he starts into his script. “I…uh…waa-uh-oh have one question for you. Um…sniff…wa-a-uh-oh…do you want child porn off the…um..net?”

Dude. Can you finish one sentence without sounding like either a stoner or someone with an insanely bad language problem? I say sure. He starts in again. “Um…waa-uh-oh…I’m with the Family Action Colation.”

The what? Colation? So he sits around putting things together for families? He must mean coalition. I let him continue bumbling along.

“Uh..so…these sites are making 3, billion, dollars, a year.” Now imagine that along with 3, billion, dollars, and year, you can hear a slight tapping, as if he’s banging his fist on the table to hammer home his point. He continues to sputter and stammer along. “So, uh..waaaa-uh oh, we wanna approach the internet service providers to take these sites down.” I stop him and ask him that if he has all this information about child porn sites, why doesn’t he want to go to the police and inform their child porn units? That’s what they’re for.

“Well…they’re good..but that’s only if they can figure out who’s behind it and track them to, like, their house or something.”

I ask him what’s more effective? Bringing the site down or getting the person arrested so he can’t hurt another child?

“Yeah..well…it’s not that easy. So…ya know..the government doesn’t wanna mess with these people because they’re making so much money.”

I asked him what on this green earth he was talking about. They’re getting this money illegally, so of course the government would want to mess with them because they’re tax-evading. And, aren’t the police an arm of government?

“Uh…um…waaa-uh-oh…ma’am, I’m just trying to tell you this stuff the best way I can.”

Well, you’re failing.

He then said that they wanted to get money so they could take these service providers to court so they could get the websites taken down. I asked him how they were going to accomplish this. “Um….waaa-uh-oh…with lawyers and stuff,” was the answer I got.

Exactly how stupid are you? Na, I thought you were taking them to Kangaroo court.

I then asked him what kind of court they were taking them to. He couldn’t answer that of course. I said if he really wants to get money from people, he and his fellow marketers should really inform themselves on what exactly their cause is. To that, all he could manage was, “Um…uh…waaa-uh-oh.”

Then, I asked him how in the blue hell they planned to take service providers to court. They can’t exactly be sued over what their clients put up. If they’re ordered to nuke the site by, oh, say, the police, they’ll take it down. But some kind of lawsuit isn’t going to work. “yeah…” he sputtered. “We tried court before, and it didn’t work too good…um…so…waaa-uh-oh..er…we’re trying again. Would you give $25?”

Why would I throw money down a hole like this? It’s not going to “work too good” this time either. Taking ISP’s to court doesn’t work. I told him that I’d look at their site and *if* it convinced me that it was a worthy cause, maybe I’d donate. In the meantime, I suggested that if he has all this information about child porn sites, he might want to get on the horn to the police. He didn’t like that. “um…yeah I don’t know…thanks…bye.” How quickly he wanted me off the phone.

Man, I’ve thought a lot of marketers were drones, but if it was possible to have a really dumb drone, I just met him. I wonder if this was his first, and last, day on the job.

Which Is Lower, The Temperature Or Your IQ?

The Cool Cash lottery game has been pulled from stores in the UK after a number of complaints from angry customers who
failed to grasp how it worked.

The game, unveiled late last month, required players to scratch off a window to reveal a temperature. If that temperature was lower than another figure shown on the ticket, the player would win a cash prize.

However, problems with the winter-themed game cropped up almost immediately when it became apparent that many players were too stupid to grasp even the most basic of mathematical concepts and didn’t understand negative numbers, leading to a rash of calls right from day one from people who couldn’t figure out why they hadn’t won.

“On one of my cards it said I had to find temperatures lower than -8,” said Tina Farrell, a complete fucking nitwit quoted in the Manchester Evening News. “The numbersI uncovered were -6 and -7 so I thought I had won, and so did the woman in the shop. But when she scanned the card the machine said I hadn’t.”

“I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher – not lower – than -8 but I’m not having it.

“I think Camelot are giving people the wrong impression – the card doesn’t say to look for a colder or warmer temperature, it says to look for a higher or lower number. Six is a lower number than 8. Imagine how many people have been misled.”

Oh believe me, I’m imagining it, and I’m dumbfounded.

“Poor numeracy” or not, I’m sure these people have at least seen or heard a weather forecast at some point. It makes me wonder how many people have called their local radio station to complain that the temperature going from -10 to -15 means that they can put the coats away, not break out the warm ones.

And just picture the confusion in the bank lines.

“I’m sorry Nigel, you’ve bounced another cheque.”

“The hell I have! I’ve got -20 dollars where before I had -10! I’ve got more money now, ya bloody tosser!”

I have horrible math skills, to the point where I have to count off simple addition and subtraction with my fingers. But even I, at my most retarded, had no trouble with the minus sign. Once the first teacher explained to me that 0 was the intersection between positive and negative, I was set. For some reason that was one of the few math-related things that totally got through.

But right now, I seem to be having trouble with another equasion. How is it that these imbeciles + day to day life = survival? That one I don’t think I’ll ever quite figure out.

So We Have Dog Racists Now?

Man oh man. This makes me sad. People, when they’re thinking about adopting a dog, don’t take the black ones. Why? Because they’re always the bad dogs in movies, or they don’t stand out in pictures. Boo friggin hoo. If you mistreat your white dog, it will get bad. And I can’t count the number of people who have said that Trixie is beautiful. There are ways to get her in a picture. Hell, the Tribune managed to do it outside on a field of grass.

Man, people are shallow. All I can say is if you want to be all picky about the colour of your dog, then don’t go adopt one at a friggin shelter. Going to the shelter is for people who care about giving an abandoned pet a good home, not for the fickle and cheap. If you want to be fickle, go shell out the dough and buy the puppy.

Aren’t I in a happy mood today?

Rogers Rage

Ok, now that I’m not full of Seething rage at the stupidity that I’m about to describe, I think I’ll describe it. What’s that, little part of my brain that’s looking at the rest of my brain wondering what’s wrong with me? What’s that you say? Why am I so mad at this? I really don’t know. All I know is it makes me madmadmad.

I got a happy Rogers newsletter. It said that I could participate in the customer appreciation contest by going to this happy website. Any other blinks see a problem with this website? Anyone? Maybe the fact that it’s designed so JAWS can’t make heads or tails of their flash and you can only see the title?

Since I’ve already screamed blue murder about the Rogers website and its serious accessibility woes, you can understand why I’d be a little pissed. So off I go to the contact form to tell them what I thought. I said:

I am getting supremely frustrated with the chronic problems I have with accessibility and your site.  This will be the third time I have had to complain about website difficulties.  I am blind and use a screen-reader, and every single contest you run is made completely inaccessible.  Please, please, please, consult someone on how to build a site that is accessible to screen-readers.  It is an insult to your customers who use them that you do not care enough about their issues to make your site work.  It is not that hard.  the current contest I am trying to access is http://www.rogersthankyou.com/

I am sorry if I seem unreasonable.  I am just sick of having to send these messages and seeing no improvement and more problems.

Thank you in advance, and I sincerely hope someone on your team takes this message to heart.

I thought, ah, I’ve said something. Let’s see what they say back. And this is what they said. Hold onto your hats. this is going to be fun.

Dear Carin Headrick,

Thank you for taking the time to write to us, we appreciate your use of online customer service.

In your recent email, you have informed us that you are experiencing difficulty when trying to enter the Rogers Customer Appreciation Event.

Please feel free to visit
http://www.rogersthankyou.com
and follow the steps to register for your chance to win.  If you are experiencing difficulty please click on Contact Us at the bottom of the page and complete the e-form.  You will receive a response within 10 business days.

We do appreciate your feedback because this is very important for Rogers to hear comments, opinions and suggestions from our Valued Customers. This feedback is used to create ideas for new products, services, policies and procedures in the future.

We do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you and thank you for choosing Rogers.

For future reference with respect to this e-mail, please quote reference
number xxx

Regards,
Support Gerbil
Rogers Online Customer Service
http://www.rogers.com

Must start counting to 10. 1….2….3….4….5….6….ok I think I won’t explode or have an aneurysm now. .

In case you’re wondering, she didn’t sign it Support Gerbil and my reference number isn’t xxx. I just figured why would I reveal anyone else’s identity or stupid reference numbers. Plus, I think Support Gerbil is a better name for her. Let me dissect this piece of complete dumbassitude.

She says I’m experiencing difficulties. That’s an understatement. That would be like saying when your TV screen blew off that you’re having a little trouble seeing the picture. Ga!

Then, right after I told her that I am having troubles with the site, she tells me to go back to the site and complete the steps for the contest. Hey dumbass! If I could register, would ya think I’d waste your time and mine sending you emails? You’re an idiot.

And, if I could see the contact link on the bottom of the fucking site, would I be contacting her department?

And, 10 business days? We really matter, don’t we? Way to demonstrate that we’re valued customers. It’s a good thing the contest isn’t closing any time soon.

Because I just couldn’t handle the stupidity that I got, I sent the following back:

If I could read the site and follow the steps, I wouldn’t be emailing you. Please try to read the messages you’re responding to before responding in a formulaic manner.

Carin

I wonder what kind of a response that will bring me. But, if some circuits blow out at Rogers, you know why. It’s because some drone had to think too much, and the sparks messed with the whole place. Seriously though, what kind of an answer was that?

I know some people would probably think that I’m being stupid because this is just over a contest. But since this has happened three times now, I’m afraid this cute new Flash style is going to spread to the main site and when I need something from there, it will be inaccessible too.

I hope somebody somewhere sits up and takes notice. What’s that, little part of my brain? What am I smoking? Nobody will notice? Yeah. You’re probably right. But I have to try.

Now That, That Is The Face Of Trouble Waiting To Happen

Every time I watch Jesse & Festus wrestle, I can’t help but wonder about something. If the whole point of the Festus character is that whenever a bell rings he either transforms into a crazed madman or back to being nice and calm, why doesn’t somebody on the other team just ring the bell when they’re about to lose and then pin him? And if they’re ever being beaten down after a match while the bell is ringing almost nonstop, what happens then? Does Festus keep changing back and forth really really fast while he’s getting his ass kicked? And in a situation like that, how would he ever be able to save himself short of throwing one lucky punch and knocking somebody out before it rings again and he has to turn nice?

I can’t help but think that the moment creative pulls the trigger on the bell ringing thing [which I’m sure they will sooner or later], the gimmick is dead. I know that wrestling requires you to sometimes suspend disbelief to an amazing degree, but once you expose the one major flaw in the character here, there’s no way it can be taken seriously again. As soon as one person figures it out on TV, anybody who doesn’t do it is an idiot, which then leaves you with even more characters that the audience has no reason to see as important. Unless WWE has a really good way around this [and I’d be surprised if they do], they’ve written themselves into a bigtime corner here.

I feel bad for Jesse & Festus, because when you look at WWE’s history of failed ideas, it’s usually only a matter of time before the people who have to execute them and deal with what’s written for them wind up fired. Hopefully that won’t happen here, but if ever there was a setup for being wished the best in your future endeavours, this is it.

For Your Listening Pleasure

I don’t know how the site has survived for so long without getting busted for some kind of stupidity by the film industry, but hey, more power to ’em. There is a site called ListenToAMovie.com. What amazes me is that sighties actually like this site! They want to listen to movies at work and while they’re driving! I understand audiobooks, but why would someone who is used to watching movies actually enjoy listening to them? I mean we’re used to only getting the audio part, so can often figure out the visuals, but I can see that as being quite frustrating for someone who isn’t familiar with the old fill in the blanks game. But hey, that’s pretty sweet. So, listen to a movie some time.