SteveJamieson.com

I wish I could remember who, but I recall hearing someone talk about the tyranny of the phone. For some reason I’ve been thinking about that lately. As a culture, we are conditioned to answer the phone whenever it rings—in most cases despite whatever else we are doing. The sharp ring of the phone piercing the gentle sounds of the house demands our attention. We jump up, drop what we are doing, and run towards the nearest handset. The phone trumps all—even the person who is physically present. Of course, cell phones have only compounded the problem. Now we are on call and slaves to interruption wherever we go.

Why does it feel so bad to ignore the phone? Can we not bear the thought of disappointing the caller? Should the caller be disappointed to not have his or her call answered? Is being able to contact someone anytime a rightful expectation? Is that an expectation we ought to fulfill?

I say no. The phone is a convenience, a tool. People managed to communicate before the phone using much slower forms of communication. It’s nice if you happen to call when the recipient is available, but if they are otherwise engaged, then you’ll just have to wait. That’s what voicemail is for. Let’s mind our priorities and not let the phone be our master.

Episode 1: Motivational Seminar

In the August 1, 2004 issue of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, I came across a full-page ad for a large motivational seminar that was held on September 14 at the Savvis Center. The top banner proclaimed:

Get Motivated
Attend This Dynamic Seminar to INCREASE Your PRODUCTIVITY and INCOME
Motivation! Inspiration! Career Skills! Wealth-Building!

Okay. Pretty standard stuff, I suppose, but bear with me. Under the banner there were five large columns displaying prominent pictures of five of the key speakers and their topics. What struck me as odd was the center column. Listed as speaking on the topic of “perseverance” was Jessica Lynch, the rescued American prisoner of war. Her session was titled “Survival is a Choice”, and was described, saying:

Private Jessica Lynch astonished the world when she survived the unthinkable and was rescued from Iraqi capture. You will be amazed as she shares the key strategies that she used to survive and thrive in the most brutal of circumstances.

Okay, now hold on a minute.

First, let me say that I in no way want to minimize what Ms. Lynch experienced. Being captured in battle by an enemy force must be an extremely frightening, horrific, traumatic, and harrowing experience that I cannot even begin to imagine.

That being said, it seems that this ad has perhaps overstated Ms. Lynch’s expertise resulting from her experience. Let’s do a little history review. If I recall the news reports correctly, the convoy that Ms. Lynch was riding in was ambushed after driving off course. Several members of her unit were killed during the attack and several were captured. Several days later, an Iraqi hospital worker reported to American forces that Ms. Lynch was being held at the hospital where he worked. A unit of marines was promptly dispatched to the hospital, who then “rescued” her while facing little to no resistance.

“Survival is a Choice”?

If what I recall is indeed correct, then Jessica Lynch had very little choice in the matter of her survival. In fact, it seems that she played a largely passive role in the whole affair. If she had been captured after fighting on the front lines of a brutal war and had been held in a P.O.W. camp for several months while being subjected to torture and interrogation, then she might have something truly meaningful to say about survival strategies. However, given her actual experience, I can’t imagine how she has the qualifications to teach what this ad claims that one would learn by attending her session at the seminar.

What were they thinking?

…the last track of a CD contains two songs separated by an extended period of silence? That pisses me off so much!

1. It totally screws up the listening experience if you have the player set to shuffle.
2. It even screws up the listening experience if you are merely listening to multiple CD’s in a row.
3. When I rip the CD, I have to take the extra time to slice the track into its parts and cut out the silence.

While I’m all in favor of bands putting secret extras on their albums, for the love of Pete, simply make it an extra track! Stop this extended final track nonsense! ::GRRRRR::

The other day I received in the mail the renewal notice for my health insurance policy. Now, this past year was my first year with my own health insurance policy, so this is my first renewal. Nevertheless, I’m guessing that a 30% hike in my premium is a little steep. Actually, I’d say that’s outrageous! 15 times the rate of inflation? Insane! Oh, BTW, I requested a quote for a new policy with the same terms from their web site, and the response was the exact same price that I paid last year! Can someone say rip off?

When dealing with large corporations, logical assumptions do not often apply—either because of incompetence, or tyrannical greed. Case in point…

A couple months ago, my church bought a font (or rather a license to use a font) from Adobe to use in all of our publications in order give everything a simple, uniform, attractive appearance. Part of my internship involves generating new teaching materials, so I need to use that font. Since Adobe fonts come with a 5-user license, and the font was only being used on two computers at the church, I figured that I would become user number three under the license, and that I’d just have to instal the Mac version of the font. Unfortunately, the church didn’t have the Mac version on hand. Nevertheless, since we have a multi-user license, I assumed that I would just have to contact Adobe to find out how to acquire the appropriate files under our existing license. Oh, what a wrong assumption that was! The licenses that Adobe sells apply on a platform-dependent basis, rather than on a cross-platform basis. That is, the license that the Church owns applies only to the Windows version of the font. Thus, in order to get the font installed on my one computer, the church would have to buy another 5-user license—a 5-user license for the Mac version. I don’t know about you, but I find that to be absolutely ridiculous.

I didn’t want to bother the customer service rep that I was talking to with the issue, so I got the customer service supervisor, Nicole, on the phone. However, she just got snooty and told me, “that’s the way it’s always been”, as if tradition somehow justifies a stupid business practice that discriminates against small businesses running cross-platform computing environments. I asked Nicole to talk to her supervisor, but she informed me that I’d have to schedule a call back. I knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere even if I worked my way up to President and CEO Bruce Chizen himself, so I gave up. Far be it from a giant corporation with lots of lawyers to offer flexible licensing options to its small customers. In the parlance of International Talk Like A Pirate Day, “Arrr! Those scurvy bilge rats oughtt’walk t’plank!”