Monday 19 August 2013

Alexander Graham Bell. I Hate You.



I am so full of rant, I don't even know where to start. Well, maybe first, I want to complain that cell phones these days just don't do my rage justice. See, the big black rotary phones we had when I was a kid, they had some weight to them. Someone pissed you off on the other end? You could slam that puppy down and hear it in the next room. It left a high, reverberating ring clanging into the silence. It was a beautiful thing. 
I don't care how hard you tap that icon, it will never give the same satisfaction. Not. Ever.
So why do I need the physical gratification achieved by the slamming of a telephone receiver? Rogers. Every month when the bill comes in, I have to call them to figure out why they are forever, endlessly, inexplicably, adding charges onto my bill I never authorized, asked for or okayed. And believe me, I never get explanations. Hell, they completely cancelled my Ipad account without a word to me, then continued to charge my credit card for data I couldn't access because they had disabled my sim card without telling me that, either. All on an account that was pre-paid. In other words, I had to request the data and pay for it before I could use it. At least, that's the contract I signed. So how did three months go by where they charged my card for data I hadn't asked for and couldn't access? And then tell me that was my fault? Um....no.

And seriously, don't get me started on the Iphone bill...

And then today, hubs, who is home all day with the kids doing the stay-at-home dad thing asks me to arrange for the school to call me at work and arrange a time for him to go register our son. Oh. And can I call the girl's dance studio and figure when her classes and registration is? And set up a time for him to go do that with her? Really....what?  

The girls at work tell me this is a generic male trait, this thing I can only describe as phone phobia. Because seriously. I don't even have a phone on my desk at work and I can't turn my cell on except on my half hour lunch break, so this is not just a simple little thing for me to do between work files. This is a major get up, find an empty desk with a phone and hope my boss doesn't wander by and wonder what the hell I'm up to kind of thing while I spend a half hour arranging his appointments for him.

And they want to reconfigure our jobs so instead of writing letters, we phone our clients to get the information we need. Shoot me now. Really. I'm not kidding.

4 comments:

Marci Baun said...

Oh, Jaime, I do get it. This morning, I received an email from the local school about how they are now offering a online homeschooling program combined with independent study. (The schools are losing a lot of kids to homeschool here and not because they are rated poorly. More because people are tired of the crap, but that's a blog post in and of itself.) Charlie is on the same list I am and gets the same email.

He turns to me and says, "Did you know about the schools?'

"Yes."

"I think we should check it out."

Any woman with any sense knows what "we" means.

Me: "No."

Him: "Why?"

Me: "Part of the reason I took her out of school was the curriculum. I didn't like it. Now, they are moving to the Common Core curriculum, and I am less than impressed with that."

Him: "I think we should."

Me: "You mean, 'You should check it out' because we both know you won't be doing it."

You know, Jaime, I work from home, so that means I have all the time in the world to do all of this. o.O You go to a day job, but he stays home to school this kids. There is nothing to stop him from calling. But I get the same thing from Charlie.

Yes, it's a guy thing. :(

Jaime Samms said...

Is it not the most annoying thing in the world, Marci? I swear....

Marci Baun said...

Yes, it is. One of them, anyway. I can think of a few more... LOL

RuthZ said...

Great post. Recently, my husband wanted to get rid of our landline. "Nobody uses it. We all have cell phones." Well, we do all have cell phones. However, my Emergency and Contact phone number for every store, credit card, insurance company, etc. is the land line. Who is going to make those calls to inform them that we need to change a number! Thankfully, the phone company told him it'd cost more to take away the land line phone and they offered him enough money off a month that he was satisfied to keep it. WHEW. Because again, who would be the one to make THOSE Calls-ME!