Corporate Ego Compels Verizon to Charge $18,000 for Data Download

This article was originally published by Technorati on 1 May 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

Most of us have been there: shouting into the phone at some poor, underpaid "customer service representative" who was with us shortly. No doubt a great deal of acrimony has been exchanged in the case of Bob and Mary St. Germain over an $18,000 Verizon cell phone bill racked up by their son back in 2006. The account remains in dispute.

To be fair, the St. Germain's have a few good points. First, wireless contracts are indecipherable gibberish. Hard to argue with this one; their purpose is to confuse the customer.

Second, experts say unlimited data plans are marketed by other companies for $30 a month. Another good point. If that's the case, its hard to imagine how $18,000 could be fair a price.

Third, the St. Germains say they were unaware that they had just gone off a promotional plan under which data downloads were free. Verizon reps admit this contention, though Verizon claims the St. Germains were duly warned of the expiration of the promotion when the patriarch of the family renewed his wireless contract with the company a short time before the bill came--nothing like a reverse signing bonus, is there?

Word didn't make it to their son, however, who continued to download songs at a respectable clip.

Father of Slain Marine a Modern-Day Job

This article was first published by Technorati on 15 April 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

Albert Snyder, father of Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder (pictured), a slain Marine whose 2006 funeral was picketed by members of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church, is a modern-day Job.

Like Snyder, the sons and daughters of the biblical Job were killed by a mighty wind. Like the biblical Job, Snyder has enjoyed the company of a set of "friends" who give him unwise counsel as to why travesty has befallen him.

In Snyder's case, these "friends" are a slightly deranged, thoroughly unconscious group of people who wish to advise him that his son's death came as the result of national tolerance of homosexuality. This message is not so much offensive as a shock to the collective faculty of logic, since the two are so utterly disconnected, especially while "Don't ask, don't tell" still holds sway.

Counter-Intentions

It's interesting how things come together. I've always wanted to move from Naples up to Rome, but the challenges of such a move have always seemed daunting.

This morning, my friend who lives in Rome called to tell me he knew of an apartment that might be right for me. I agreed to come take a look at it this weekend, but at the same time, a pang of impossibility hit me right in the solar-plexus. It told me quite clearly, "Nice idea in theory, but it just can't be done."

This sort of thinking has always plagued me, I now realize. It sends conflicting messages to the universe, so to speak, as to exactly what it is that you want, so you stand no chance of bringing that idea into being. The initial creative thought--I'd like to move to Rome--is completely negated by the destructive thought--it's impossible.

This has always plagued me, but now this negativity has bubbled up to the surface. Unconscious thoughts have become conscious; their days of destroying what I would create are numbered (see Conscious Backgammon).