Divine InnerBitchin’

In my haste to clean out several hundred pieces of spam mail, I deleted comments from Vman, Karen, Bee Bee and Strider.

And, those are just the ones I remember.

Damnit!

Huh?

What?

What’s that, again?

I don’t think I heard you clearly.

We’re paying for what?!

Yeah, yeah. Sure. I know they say it’s fully self-funding, but who the hell do you think is making up the difference in premiums to the insurance companies?

CBRS? Oh. That’s supposed to draw a line in the er, uh, sand…literally. It’s supposed to be the deciding factor in whether a property is eligible for coverage.

What? Not all barrier islands are covered?

Let me think about this.

(thinking)

So, for every $3 that is paid out due to the Federally ’subsidized’ Flood Insurance Program, the taxpayers save $1 in disaster assistance?

Okay. Okay.

I think I get it now.

So. One more question.

Who is it, exactly, that’s paying for this?

Yeah.

I thought so.

Damnit!

I have had nothing but trouble with Comcast for several months now; disconnects, screwy screen jumps, etc… I haven’t had any service, at all, for several days now, and it’s not the first time.

I have spent too much time on the phone with them and they never seem to have a clue what they’re doing. Once, they said I hadn’t paid my bill, so I paid it…again. Then they discovered that there were system issues, that my payment hadn’t credited properly. Then, they said it was my modem, and I was out of service for a week until I raised hell and they sent someone to check it out. It was the cable at the pole.

Last time I was out of service for a couple of days, they scheduled an appointment to come back out, but they never showed up, and never called. After a day or so, the service magically re-appeared.

This time, I had had enough.

I called them last night to raise hell. The customer ’service’ agent with whom I spoke denied that “everyone eventually grows to hate” them. So, I suggested he go to Google and do a search for the words ‘Comcast sucks’. I had spent nearly a half hour on the phone with another rep, on Wednesday, while she instructed me to unplug the modem….turn off the computer…plug in the modem…unplug the computer…take the cable out of the modem…jump up and down on one foot…stand on my head and scratch my butt…etc, etc, etc… all to no avail. And, to make matters worse, I have never once been able to connect through their backup dial-in service.

I got so pissed off that I told them, in so many words, to kiss my ass and then told them to cancel my service. So…he transferred me to a rep in the cancellations department. He asked why I wanted to cancel and I told him. He cancelled the service and issued a credit for that last month of crappy service.

About five minutes later I was on the phone with Bellsouth, thinking to myself, “Hey, no problem! There’s always DSL.” Well, the little twit that answered the phone was so busy selling me the service that I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. I finally had to tell him to slow down long enough for me to have a few questions answered.

Me: What do I need to do to get started?
He: Nothing! We mail the equipment to you and you’ll have it in approximately 2-3 days.

LET ME SIGN YOU UP!

Me: What? I won’t have service until the unit arrives? I thought the service was through my home phone line?
He: It is, but you won’t have access to our fast-access DSL until it arrives. You can use the dial-in until then.

LET ME SIGN YOU UP!

Excuse me…

Me: What is the cancellation policy? Can I do it over the phone, or does it have to be some sort of certified letter?
He: Oh. Well, you have to sign a twelve month contract.

AHA!!

No damned wonder he was talking so fast. He must be working on commission.

Me: Well, I can’t imagine that anyone would ever sign a contract without first trying the service for 30 days first.
He: Ma’am. The internet is the internet.

Excuse me?

He: The internet is the internet. A trial wouldn’t make any difference.

Me: Okay. Let me rephrase it. I would never consider signing a contract for anything without first trying the service.

He: Well. We don’t offer a trial.
Me: Not even two weeks?
He: No. It doesn’t make any difference. The internet is the internet.
Me: Well. I understand perfectly what the internet is, however; there are issues that one might like to test before signing a contract. How steady is the connection? Do I get timed out? Do I lose connection? How about customer service? That one is certainly heavy on my mind right now. How quickly will any service problems be addressed? How do I know the kind of customer service that will be provided?

Then, the little bastard hung up the phone!

So. I guess I got my answer to that last question.

Pissed…I called them again to complain about how I was treated.

They didn’t give a damn! Not one little bit. They didn’t ask for my name, nor phone number. They didn’t even ask what had happened.

Now, I was even more determined to beat ‘them’. I was not going to be treated in such a manner, and I seemed to recall that one of the ISPs had recently mailed a trial disc to me. I dug around in the junk mail and found it. It was People PC. After about a half hour of screwing around with it, it was installed.

All I can say is…You think dial-in is bad? Try People PC.

Then, I remembered a commercial for NetZero. I’ll give that a try!

I called, and they were very nice. They set me up, gave me a free month of service and made clear that I could cancel, quite easily, at any time. I gave them a card number and they promised to have my disc to me in a couple of days. I was happy as a clam when I hung up the phone.

Then, it hit me.

OHMYGAWD!!!

I can’t be without the internet over the weekend! There are bombs in London! There’s another Supreme dropping out of the game! A hurricane is ripping through the Gulf!
My life is in that black box sitting there! My connection to the world around me is out of reach!

Velocimanis in there!
Ace!
Jeff!
Kelley!

Then, in a cold sweat unlike any that could ever be summoned by a man standing before a firing squad, I called AOL.

Now. I have AOL.

OHDEARGAWD! I HAVE AOL!

What the hell have I done?! Well, I’ll tell you what I’ve done.

You see. I’ve learned a valuable lesson.

Cingular Wireless has to be nice to me. If not, I can go to Verizon, or to Bellsouth, or to Alltel, or to one of a dozen different companies out there.

AOL and Netzero have to be nice to me. If not, I can go to People PC (AS IF!), or to Earthlink, or to Bellsouth, or to, dare I say it…Comcast.

Comcast has a monopoly on cable.
Bellsouth has a monopoly on the phones.

Comcast and Bellsouth don’t have to do a damned thing. The market is theirs and they damned well know it. “Go on you pissant. You’ll come crawling back to us on your hands and knees.”

And damnit!

I don’t suppose I have any choice. I’m going to have to call the bastards back!

Suddenly, I know how my teenage daughter felt when, after a fight, she would come around and hug my neck and call me “Mommy”.

It’s the equivalent of waving a white flag.

And, I’ve been beaten.

Hello. My name is Michele, and I’m a net-aholic.

I wonder.

Others have struck a chord with me and, lately, with the way I’ve been working, I’ve really begun to wonder.

Am I conscientious, or am I a sucker?

What drives a person, a salaried person, to work after-hours, long after everyone else has gone home?

I was thinking of a friend of mine. This person has, for more than eleven years, handled her job adeptly; asking for ever greater responsibility, and succeeding at every task she has been given. She was selected by a committee of ‘higher-ups’, unanimously, as a future leader of the company.

Throughout the years, she has worked 60-80 hour weeks and uses her vacation as sick days. She’s missed plays and concerts for which she had tickets, and has, on more than one occasion, missed her daughter’s performances at school. When her best friend called because she was in labor, my friend felt guilty about leaving work in the middle of the day and arrived, eventually, and ten minutes too late to be permitted into the birthing room.

About a year ago there was a shake-up at work and many of the higher-ups left the company. Now, all of those with influence, those who had watched her work so hard for so long, have left. They have been replaced by people who know little of her and have taken even more to the ‘buddy system’ than their predecessors.

This past year she has become progressively more depressed about her job yet, still, she stays late at night and works from home over the weekend. There is little likelihood that she will progress any farther.

She doesn’t have a degree, which may be partially responsible for her failure to rise more quickly, but then again, neither do others of those who have risen to the top. She could probably come in, do her job for eight hours, and go home, and would never be the worse for it…professionally. Yet, she can’t let it go.

We’ve all known people who work like a dog, and we’ve all known those who did just enough to get by.

The person who works like a dog feels guilty for doing less, and the one who barely scrapes by doesn’t feel guilty at all.

So. Again I ask:

Am I conscientious, or a sucker?

Long ago, it was the British.

Then, the Germans.

The Japanese.

Korea

Vietnam

Now, Afghanistan and Iraq.

There have been many conflicts in between; So many, that it’s difficult to get your head around them.

The one thing that has remained a constant since the inception of our great nation is that wherever there’s a need to defend, be it our own nation, or another, our men and women have answered the call.

They sign up to serve knowing well that they might give their lives for their country.

They live in wretched conditions: numbing cold, sweltering heat. They lie awake at night listening to the bombs drop, and during the day, they walk miles and miles through jungles and deserts, always alert to the enemy. They often go to war without seeing their children born and are thousands of miles away when their grandparents take their last breath.

And…

They ask for nothing in return.

No parades.

No hero’s welcome.

During most of these conflicts, communications were difficult, if not impossible. A simple letter would take weeks, if not months, to reach our troops in the fields. And, any reminder of home was all that they could hope for come mail day.

That is no longer the case.

We now have the ability to communicate instantly via email. Cellular and satellite technology allow a soldier to hear his newborn’s cry from all the way across the globe. It allows a soldier to see a picture of her little girl heading off to her first day of school.

It is an improvement, but it damned sure doesn’t make up for not being there.

They need to know that it’s not just their families who love and appreciate them…

It’s their countrymen as well.

This weekend, while sipping lemonade and grilling hot dogs…

While watching your grandchildren play…

While enjoying all that your life has to offer…

Remember that the very fireworks over which you marvel are but a symbol of those even brighter flashes our men and women are facing each day.

And, show them that you care. It is a very simple gesture, at a very modest price.

How can you refuse?

They deserve, at least, that…don’t they?

What the hell is wrong with me?!

Is my headache really that bad? Am I just lazy as hell?

WHY?

Why in the hell would I lie here and do nothing while ‘Being Bobby Brown’ is playing on t.v.?

This is, without a doubt, the worst of the worst in reality t.v..

And that’s saying alot.

Honestly, unless you’ve seen it for yourself it’s not possible to explain it. And, I’m ashamed to even think it, but certain unacceptable thoughts kept running through my mind.

Words like, “It figures”.

This is the equivalent of saying to someone, “I think this milk is bad. You taste it.” but, really…you MUST watch it. Just once.

Chalk it up to purgatory when you’re done.