Ahhh, catharsis. After 13 years, I am finally cancelling my *AT&T service. It's been a customer-provider relationship I have dreamed about terminating, and today is a day of liberation. I've never been treated as poorly by a company, yet I stayed in an abusive relationship, hoping they'd get it right.
*formerly SBC. The real reason why AT&T went from the pinnacle of the telco companies, the standard-bearer for quality, to a cesspool of Texas-style predatory capitalism that cared nothing for customers or the long-established telecom divestment laws. (Which 'W' eliminated)
I have rather strong opinions about this because I used to be a contractor/vendor for them, among the broad spectrum of providers. AT&T pre-merger was a class act, the company which Ameritech/SBC modeled themselves after (poorly, like a person who learned a word but doesn't understand the concepts behind it). I used to be an expert on the Telcordia standards (a SME) which AT&T developed, and also a SME for SBC and the 600 page document they tried to pattern after it. Fail.
When SBC bought AT&T's name, and forced their staff out in early retirement, and soon thereafter began divesting telecom assets and closing capacity (all the while bragging about their temporarily having the largest network--Cingular plus AT&T Wireless--in the nation) down, they pulled a massive bait and switch on their customers and I am not proud that the equipment I built for them enabled them to do so.
Many factors led me to stay with them, price, and two long bouts of unemployment plus fear of change were a few. Plus, I tried to get TDS Metrocom when we moved into our house in 2001, had an appointment, and was surprised when they called and said that they don't serve the 'hood (in so many words). So now I have options, and we're finally gainfully employed in such a way that I can close this ugly chapter. I've been overbilled for the last 15 months on our combined bill, and 16 different calls or visits to stores and toll-free numbers could not straighten it out.
Now, it just doesn't matter. I'm shaking the dust off of my snazzy Keen size 12s and saying the loudest 'buh-bye' that Uptown Crossing has ever heard.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Apathy Slam
As Anthony, one of the three people in this doc said, in the 'hood if you're just ordinary you'll end up dead or in jail. You have to excel just to survive, and you have to do it with much fewer resources and infinitely more obstacles than someone does who doesn't come from poverty or a lower social class.
OK, now a bit of poetry slam from me (dusts off skaldic origins):
THIS is what I am trying to get through to the haters and the 'personal responsibility' proselytizers out there who find time to pigeonhole the poor and stigmatize the lower class because of their lack of success. YOU had the chance to be ordinary and survive. You had the ACCESS to exponentially more resources at your disposal. You had a SAFETY NET where these kids have none.
So for EVERY FEEL-GOOD RAGS TO RICHES STORY which helps us to feel more justified by our collective bystander syndrome there are the rest who remain in rags or end up in body bags. Every single soul who transcends the 'HOOD in a tear-jerking biopic tends for the 'haves' to cauterize our own inaction. We of the privileged few, 99% or not, who did NOT live in poverty or with the stigma or race, social class, or zip code, have NO IDEA what difficulties lie in the way of success for those we call 'other'.
So it's time to do a collective cranial-rectal extraction, to understand their poignant dissatisfaction, and create an equal and parallel reaction to the grief and the grandiosity of the problem of poverty. We can no longer stigmatize the victims with the condescension of our perspective. In this case life isn't merely about the size of where we put OUR EYES. No, we must find theirs.
http://www.youtube.com/
OK, now a bit of poetry slam from me (dusts off skaldic origins):
THIS is what I am trying to get through to the haters and the 'personal responsibility' proselytizers out there who find time to pigeonhole the poor and stigmatize the lower class because of their lack of success. YOU had the chance to be ordinary and survive. You had the ACCESS to exponentially more resources at your disposal. You had a SAFETY NET where these kids have none.
So for EVERY FEEL-GOOD RAGS TO RICHES STORY which helps us to feel more justified by our collective bystander syndrome there are the rest who remain in rags or end up in body bags. Every single soul who transcends the 'HOOD in a tear-jerking biopic tends for the 'haves' to cauterize our own inaction. We of the privileged few, 99% or not, who did NOT live in poverty or with the stigma or race, social class, or zip code, have NO IDEA what difficulties lie in the way of success for those we call 'other'.
So it's time to do a collective cranial-rectal extraction, to understand their poignant dissatisfaction, and create an equal and parallel reaction to the grief and the grandiosity of the problem of poverty. We can no longer stigmatize the victims with the condescension of our perspective. In this case life isn't merely about the size of where we put OUR EYES. No, we must find theirs.
http://www.youtube.com/
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