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**Sanna** · 01-29-2004, 10:39 PM

I do agree with you, and I don't necessarily support the following stated opinion (though I am by no means outside it), but this is what I have observed.

We live in America (or some other "Western" country). We have good medicine, good food, good lives. Up until the two or three decades after WWII, we hadn't lost a war or (really) backed down from any grief from any other country. They don't call the President 'the Leader of the Free World' for nothing.

We consider ourselves invincible. The 'power' (ie, lifestyle) has gone to our heads. We don't think about avoiding death; we don't have to. We think about meetings, we think about our children's school grades and soccer practices, we think about dinner, we think about TV, we think about Everquest. We are incredibly 'cushed'. We are desensitized in a most subtle way to even mild violence, much less the mass scale version (anyone else a little on the concerned side that we haven't seen too many images coming out of the last three years of 'conflict' in the Middle East?). No matter what, "it won't happen to us." Be it because we are not signficiant enough for the Universe to care (think 'main character syndrome') or that the RNG just won't hit us, we never ever assume that we are at that kind of risk.

And then my sister turns to me and says, "[L] died today." Her friend's mother had battled mid-course-caught breast cancer for over a year had seemed to get better, and then a month later... died. I waited for my sister to say, 'just kidding!' upon which I would berate her for the **** unfunny joke.

We live in small worlds. We live in safe worlds, sheltered worlds, where the worst thing that can happen to us is an unexpected frost makes us five minutes late for work and the 65 druid who 'cleaned out Unrest basement' failed to account for the tentacled terror that just killed me and lost me my level and refuses to find me a rez.

I have a tendancy to say, "Reality is a vicious thing and I interact with it as little as possible." Apparently I'm not the only one. It's not a good thing (and I've never claimed it was), and I wish we all did it less.

Your post comes at an interesting time for me, I'm three steps (metaphorically speaking) from taking a baseball bat and going to the Computing Disservices department and demanding that they just give us the hell some decent internet connectivity already ("am I not paying them enough", etc etc). I suppose I should lighten up some ^_^.

Many /hugs for your wife, for surviving in what to me is an incredibly high-stress job. And I'll try to keep this in mind next time I LD out of eq... for the third time in a day...

-- Sanna
heh, an egotistical self-centered hypocrit... maybe i do belong on sullon...

**Arakni Spellweaver** · 01-30-2004, 12:23 PM

We're all egotistical self-centered hypocrits at one point or another. Don't beat yourself up too much.

Seriously though, thanks for the reminder.... and you're right Sanna, by being so well protected from so many things (war, plagues, starvation) we focus in very narrowly on things that are truly insignificant.

I think, Draggar, that you hit on a point here:

I sometimes wonder, are these people's lives so perfect that they need to yell and scream about something as unimportant as a cel phone call?

Probably not. I know I'm much more likely to yell about something stupid when I'm unhappy. You know, how if you're having issues with one part of your life, you're likely to take it out in others? For instance, when my husband and I are having problems (as all couples do), I have to work really hard not to take it out on my co-workers, especially if it's something that isn't immediately solve-able. It doesn't make it any easier to know that, but the happy people with perfect lives don't need to yell at cell phone support guys to feel better about themselves/their lives.

That doesn't really help you, I know, but maybe it helps to remember that when you're dealing with them. "He's not yelling at me, he's just yelling"

Isn't it funny, we have so much here in America, and still so many people are unhappy?

**Draggar** · 01-30-2004, 08:32 PM

Don't worry, I didn't mean to be hipocrytical, I'll fully admit there have been times where I've lost my cool, but in seeing what my wife deals with, seeing how other people live, I now try very hard to keep my cool.

I got mislead (well, more like lied to) buy a car dealership who offered to buy my car. This cost me $500. I didn't yell and scream at the guy who mislead me, I didn't yell and scream with the service manager I had been dealing with for almosty a year. I kept my cool, when I got home I left a voicemail on his manager's line, my entire complaint, including this guy's inability to return my call. Sure enough, this guy calls me back, and yells at ME about my complaint, insults me etc.. The car is sold and gone (and I hope Cars for Tots gets a lot out of it!). What am I doing now? I'm drafting a nice and lengthy letter to their local corporate office about the fiasco, and apparently this sales manager does this, a lot.

Yes, $500 is a lot, and times are hard, but I'm keeping my cool, no more explosions from me (or at least I'll try my hardest to).

We live in America (or some other "Western" country). We have good medicine, good food, good lives. Up until the two or three decades after WWII, we hadn't lost a war or (really) backed down from any grief from any other country. They don't call the President 'the Leader of the Free World' for nothing.

The US military has had it's share of defeats before WWII. War of 1812. The American revolution, do you really think the colonists won it, or do you think that England gave up? But the US's track record is one of the world's best.

We consider ourselves invincible. The 'power' (ie, lifestyle) has gone to our heads. We don't think about avoiding death; we don't have to. We think about meetings, we think about our children's school grades and soccer practices, we think about dinner, we think about TV, we think about Everquest.

Before I make my statement, I'd like to say I was born in the USA. I've lived in New Hampshire, New Jersey, and now Florida. I am thankful to have been born in this country, and I don't think I'd want ot live any where else in the world.

With that said, you're coming very close to how a lot of outsiders look at the US. They will openly say "American ignorance", and I'm sad to say, it's very true. A lot of Americans are ignorant to the outside worls.

Few examples;

Last year, my wife's family and I took a cruise to Central America. Our first stop was in Belize. There was this elderly couple (full mental capability, and these people ended up on every excursion we were on). Now, I'm all for asking questions and trying to learn, in fact, I love talking to people from other places and learning about local culture. It's great. This guy began every question with "On the island of Belize...". Um, Belize is as much as an island as California is. OK, we'll get pass his geography ignorance. But.. "On the island of Belize, do you have schools?", "On the island of Belize, do you have hospitals?". This guy was asking questions like he thought all of Belize was like where Tarzan lived.

Same cruise, in Panama, the ruins of Puertobello (old Spanish fort). While in the ruins, this guy's wife pipes in, complaining to the tour guide, that there are no hand rails and no lights, it's unsafe. Um, lady, didn't you see the starving half-naked children trying to sell seashells for $1? And yes, my wife and I bought several of these seashells and necklaces). This country can barely feed it's people, and if it wern't for us, these ruins would be gone and in a quarry.

I also had a friend in college from Teheran, Iran. One of the most annoying questions she's been asked was "I bet you saw a lot of camels??". Um, Teheran is a huge city almost as big as New York City. Her response was always "I've never seen a camel". Sorry guys, Teheran isn't like the Indiana Jones potrayal of Cairo.

Another friend (well, several) from the UK. They found out that a lot of people think they live like it was still the rennisance / victorian period. Horse drawn buggies etc..

While in Central America, people complained because a lot of people there don't speak English (except Belize, which their national lanugage is English). Um, you're in a foreign country, not everyone speaks English.

Now who'd to blame? The education system? The individuals? I'd say 50-50. We're taught in school what the world was like 100 years ago, and we never seem to have time to get to today, and the people never want to go outside and look around to learn.

So, now we're back, a lot of people have these views of other nations, and that can even give them a "I'm better than everyone" attitude, which in return filters down to "You're wearing a name badge, working in a retail store, I'm not, so I can pounce on you".

I'm sure my rant pretails to at most, 1% ofthe people here. Good RPG'ers are usualy above average intelligence. Playing games like EQ, D&D, GURPS, etc.., works on your brain in ways no other games do. Math, problem solving, attention to detail, etc.. We're in good company, and I'm sure if it was available to them, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Stephen Hawkins, etc.. would all have had their weekly gaming groups (we know R.A. Salvatore does!). Maybe we need to teach the others?

EQ is a game where there are no outside distractions, I can game, in real time, with group members in as many different countries / time zones as there are members. We can learn form each other. We're all lucky, we all have a computer connection to the internet, where we can pay Sony $13+ a month to play Everquest. To most of the world, $13 is a week to a month's salary. We're all lucky, and we should appreciate why we're lucky.

(OK, I'll get off my soapbox now).

That doesn't really help you, I know, but maybe it helps to remember that when you're dealing with them. "He's not yelling at me, he's just yelling"

I've tried that, it doesn't work when they start throwing insults at you (You're incompotent). Don't worry, the insults go in one ear and out the other.

**Nhin Impious** · 01-31-2004, 07:44 AM

You dropped a call, big deal.

"Hey John, it's the service; your wife just called, the contractions started and she's headed for the hospital, can you meet her there? Oh and who's going to be on call while you're there? Thanks."

"Hi Debbie, it's the service; Susan at Nursing Center just called and Mrs. Smith's condition is worsening, they'd like you to come now so you can be with her when she passes. OK I'll call and let her know you're on the way."

"Hey Doc, it's the service; Alex Jones just called and his horse is colicking, he's down, they can't get him up. OK let me connect you to him."

Just a dad who'd miss the birth of his daughter. A patient who'd die alone, without the hospice nurse that's been at her side every day for weeks, in the hospital, at home, and in the nursing home. Just a horse (possibly worth thousands of dollars, and certainly cared for by the family that owns him) who might die in agony if the vet doesn't get the message. Yeah, big deal.

You lost your phonebook. You'll have to manually enter them back in, at least you have fingers to enter them in.

Here's what I don't get. Someone in your family works in a hospital. Now you KNOW that injuries, accidents, illness, and death don't just affect a person. They affect the family, the friends, the co-workers, everyone. So why do you assume that if someone is upset about re-entering info, that they're just being petty and stupid about the inconvenience? Couldn't they be the fathers, sisters, bosses, best friends of the people that just kissed an embankment at 55 and became organ donors? Not everyone is going to say "Look, I can't figure this out, I'm frustrated, and by the way go slow for me, my father and brother just passed away this week." (Sometimes they do: The company I work for also answers for a few heat-and-air places. Every fall, I get to talk to a dozen or so new widows whose husbands had checked the heater last year, and this year..well, there's cryin'. He might have been gone since last Christmas, but it just opens the whole subject up.)

And I may have fingers, friend, but the lady who told me most of the numbers I have... is beyond answering any more questions from me, for the rest of my life. She was my grandmother. If you said to me what you said up there, the way you said it, I would be upset, even if I don't obviously go around bleeding and twitching with pain and announcing it all over. (However, one of the things she taught me quite well before she went was to always make a backup copy; while many people have grandmothers as loved as mine, very few have grandmothers as smart as mine.)

You can't spot the pain from the outside, all the time. Maybe it's not a "big deal" to you, right now... but you have it in your power to make it a big deal.

I wish you would.

Nhinx Aphsion
"Sometimes, even the evil cleric has to get serious."

**Draggar** · 01-31-2004, 11:27 AM

You bring up some valid points, but if I had a dollar for every person who said they had a loved one on their death bead, not only would I be the richest person in the world, but everyone would be on a death bed.

All the points you brought up all revolve around one point. Wireless phones are in no way as reliable as wired phones. Anyone who makes that claim is flat out lying.

It's electronis, and wireless technology. Electronics break, calls drop, wireless networks all have areas (some know, some unknown) of no service. These are facts, and there facts that no one in the industry will deny (and if they do, their either lying, or misinformed).

I used to get people shouting at me because "I lost a multi-million dollar deal because I dropped the call!' If the call is *that* importnat, try using a form of communication better than a piece of plastic and silicon that you got for free. You pay for a service that doesn't make any claims about 100% coverage everywhere, 0% dropped calls etc..

Your computer locks up, but people don't go screaming to Dell demanding a new one. Cars don't always get conistent gas mileage, but you don't see a line of people at the Toyota dealership demanding new cars.

Your points, while very valid, are still no excuse to come into the store and yell at me because it didn't hold up to a claim we didn't make. Research shows that a little over a billion peope own wireless phones. That means (what's the world's population now, 6-7billion?). That means 14%-17% have the luxure (yes, it's a luxury) of a wireless phone, while the other 83%-86% either don't want one (minority) or can't afford one.

Do I seem apathetic? Probably. I'm not an evil person, I'm not naturaly apathetic, but when you deal with this day in and day out, people yelling at you for the company not keeping promises that it didn't make, people openly lying, people trying to cheat you every way they can, you start to get immune to the complaints, and it's nearly impossible to distinguish the one person who honestly did miss the call form the hospital telling him that his wife is about to have his first daughter, from the countless others who use the same excuse to try to get whatever they want.

Just think, only 10 years ago wireless phones were for the elite. 5 years ago it was just starting to become affordable that most people could have one. The commercialized aspect of the industry has only been around less than 20 years, and since competiton is making everyone upgrade their networks quickly, no one has time to test and make it as reliable as it can be.

**Grenoble** · 01-31-2004, 11:32 AM

Take a breath and just remember, what is important to someone else, is not important to you, and vice versa.

I'm a cable/ISP rep, and when my cable's out...I don't call. I don't care. I shrug it off and figure, it'll be back on eventually.

But an elderly person, maybe 85 or 90, who is alone, who can't get outside to enjoy the day, and maybe has poor eyesight so reading is not an option...to that person, the tv is often their world. Perhaps they are even bedridden. That television is their lifeline, their only enjoyment.

Our prices went up? Okay, to me, it's $2 more a month. Not a huge whoop.

But...I also don't pay for my cable. If I didn't get paid as well as I do, and was struggling paycheck to paycheck, that $2 might be huge to me.

So it's all in perspective, and yes, I agree, some things get blown way out of proportion, but it helps take a little stress off if you sit back and think, "Well, I'm lucky that I don't get so worked up over something that little, too bad for this person that it's such a big part of their life, but I can really do them a favor if I can resolve it."

**Saleani** · 01-31-2004, 12:41 PM

People yell and scream at you because they can, and because s**t rolls downhill. They take their frustrations out on you, and on their spouse and children when they get home. Worse is when they pretend that their rudeness is honesty.

Most folks are incapable of distinguishing between what is important and what is urgent.

Code:

                    Urgent      |    Not Urgent
                 ---------------------------------------
                                |
Important             1         |         2
                                |
                ---------------------------------------
                                |
Not                   3         |         4
Important                       |
               -----------------------------------------

Things that are both urgent and important are in quadrant 1. Things that are important, but not urgent are in quadrant 2. And so on. Time management books and classes have some drawing just like this. The drawing is usually called a "2 value karnaugh map" and is used to display 2 independant variables. There are versions for displaying more than 2 variables, but they get complicated past 4 variables.

Things in quadrant 1 (also called firefighting corner):
Some phone calls (Nhin's examples, for instance, those are mad rare in my profession, but very common in healthcare)
Your taxes on April 14th
Work when a deadline comes due
Traffic situations where an accident can happen: someone pulls infront of you.

Things in quadrant 2:
Your taxes before April 14th
Work with a deadline that is in the future.
Eventually, everything in this quadrant moves to quadrant 1.

Things in quadrant 3:
Most phone calls - the **** thing rings and you have to deal with it now, even if its only someone trying to sell you siding for your apartment.
Co-workers coming by your cubicle.
Some pretty female/male/store catches your eye as you are driving down the road.

Things in quadrant 4 (also called the watercooler corner):
games. things like EQ.
most meetings at the office.

If you spend all your time in quadrant 1, then you need a lot of time in quadrant 4 to cool off. Productive people (and companies) do most of their work in quadrant 2, which keeps quadrant 1 to a minimum. If you get wrapped up in the tyranny of the urgent, you spend all your time in quadrants 1 and 3, and never have time to do anything in quadrant 2. I had several bosses who were so addicted to urgency, that if he caught you doing work in quadrant 2, he would make up crises to stop you. I frequently had to take work to an empty conference room to get quadrant 2 work done so that he could not see me doing it.

I lived in Teheran when I was a youngster, my dad's company made factories for the shah. Teheran was interesting. The climate was more like Flagstaff or Pueblo (high altitude desert, dry weather, snow most winters, hail in the summers, flat rooves you had to shovel off when it snowed or hailed). In the 2 years we lived in Iran, I only saw camels once, and we got lost in the mountains that day. There are mountains to the north of Teheran, much like there are mountains to the west of Denver (or Pueblo), and Mt Damovan, visible from Teheran, is the highest peak between Mt Kilimanjaro (in africa), and Mt Everest. What I miss most about the place was the bread (especially barbari nan, and I can reduce any Iranian shopkeeper to tears asking if they has any for sale) and the melons. What I don't miss were the 3 wheeler trucks that drove like maniacs ("it is God's will if we get in an accident or not, who am I to argue with God?"). Nice country, nice people, it is the politicians that screw things up.

**Arakni Spellweaver** · 02-04-2004, 11:49 AM

The problem is... most likely if he didn't care, he wouldn't be posting.

The problem is... most of us do care, but it's so, so, so, so, SO hard to help someone who is screaming at you and insulting you for something that isn't your fault.

Trust me, I do desktop support... I do the best I can for my office. Sometimes, that isn't enough. Sometimes, I get yelled at because computers are frustrating, students are frustrating, and I'm an easy target.

Do I find it hard to want to help the user after that? Yes.
Is that a human reaction? Yes.

It basically comes down to, you can overlook certain things. Death in the family. Divorce. Other issues. But some people are just jerks. That's all. And I'm pretty sure it's the jerks he's talking about here.

Oh, and I used to work for a phone company. There probably isn't much he CAN do about reception, dropped calls, phones that break, etc. The people who can do something about it are intentionally removed 6 or 7 steps from the customer. He can tell his manager all he wants that there's no reception at Main and 7th, and it won't get anywhere. Unfortunately, that's the unvarnished truth of the situation.

So go easy, Nhin. Most of us are trying to do the best we can for the people we support.

**Dawnlin** · 02-04-2004, 02:13 PM

/rant ON
Phone companies have been doing nothing but driving me nuts the last couple of days. My fiancee and I got 2 cell phones back in July 2003. We lived in Kentucky at the time, but knew that around the first of the year we'd be moving to Illinois just outside Chicago. We asked the sales rep if it'd be a problem to switch the home area of our service (AT&T Wireless) to Rockford when we moved, and he said no. For us to just call when we got here and it could be switched without a problem. After we got our first bill we realized they billed the 2 phones differently, so we called to resolve that and just to be sure again asked if, when we moved, we could switch the calling area over. Again, we were told we could. Around the first of December we called again just to be positive, saying we'd be moving in 1-2 months. The guy said no big deal, call when we got settled.

Well we moved Monday. We called Monday. Even though we were told on 3 different occasions by 3 different people that this would NOT be a problem... guess what. "We no longer have service for your phone in that area." We argued with about 3 different people on the matter but none of it seemed to make a difference. They didn't care that it was basically a verbal contract because the people we called "didn't make any notations on your account info to prove it." They didn't care that we wouldn't have entered into the contract if the guy hadn't told us we could switch them over. They didn't care that we don't have the money to upgrade to more expensive plan just to be able to use the phones. They even admitted that when we got the phones in July they DID have service here, so the guy did not lie to us. But they have no proof of him saying that, so they don't have to hold up to it and take responsibility for this.

So basically they're telling us that we either have to
a) Upgrade our phones to a new service they have here, which would include more money per month and buying 2 new phones.
b) Upgrade to a nation-wide calling plan so we can use the phones we have. (But when people call us, it would still be considered long distance and be charged 3.00/minute... so we'd only be able to call out).
c) Downgrade to a $20/month plan per phone, but not be able to use them at all unless we want to pay roaming fees.
d) Cancel the contract (since they're claiming it would be OUR fault the contract is breached) and pay $175 per phone for breaking the contract plus the $75 for last months bill that's in the mail right now.

So anyways I'm pretty frustrated with the entire wireless community right now. It's quite disheartening to take precautions for stuff like this (or at least think we have) and then be told that it's not possible and there's absolutely nothing they can do about it. He just got off the phone with them again. They have an entire clause in the contract saying that service isn't guaranteed in every area, so being that they have no written notations of the times we called as proof that we were told this, they don't have to do jack. So we just lowered the plan. Yes on paying for phones we can't use for 5 more months.

/rant OFF /hijack OFF

**Lothay** · 02-04-2004, 04:31 PM

I ache every time a thread like this comes up.

People need an outlet, and we like to let them have one. And ususally, people are wise enough to keep it clean, keept it within the rules, and keep away from personal attacks.

Please, people keep to the posting rules. Emotinally charged issues often devolve into personal attacks because they are so intensely personal to the people feeling the emotions.

I'm just dropping in as a word of caution.

**Ilona** · 02-05-2004, 04:15 AM

They don't call the President 'the Leader of the Free World' for nothing.

I wasn't aware the president of the United States was the leader of the world... (free or not)

**Aandaie** · 02-05-2004, 04:18 AM

I'm 37 and both of my parents are dead. I have no parents.

You might say this is worse than getting your pizza delivered late, yet if my pizza is supposed to come in 15 minutes I'd still not accept it in an hour. I wouldn't rip the delivery guy a new one, I'd just say "goodbye", call the pizza place and tell them why, then order a pizza from somewhere else.

Its called service and it has nothing to do with the bad things that happen in people's lives. In fact, service can make the bad things better sometimes.

I don't quite understand the Cell phone and "phone booK" "manually entering" stuff, since I don't have a cell phone. I think you are saying that there is a way to enter in phone numbers, but sometimes the cell phone loses them from storage? Yeah, if I had a cell phone I'd be peeved.

The issue is that you pay for a product to perform as specified. If it doesn't, why are you paying for it? If it will take the pizza an hour to get here, I'd go and get it myself instead.

Being able to walk has nothing to do with expecting things. If I did not have the use of my legs I'd be even more peeved if the pizza did not come, since it would be harder for me to get one myself.

Lots of things are important.

--------------------

If the President of the US is not the leader of the free world, who is?

Hint:

The US invades Iraq, no one stops them.

Someone else invades a place the US doesn't want them to invade, the US stops them.

Who is the "leader of the free world"?

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