For those of you unwilling or unable to keep up with never-ending drama of the staff here at 'Just Blowing Smoke', one of the members of the senior staff was recently sidetracked by a bit of major surgery. (OK, I admit it was me. But at least I was smart enough to get sick before the Affordable Healthcare Act kicked in.) That in itself is of no consequence however, except for the terrifying insight that this hospital visit provided.
You see, during the registration process, I was asked to provide some vital statistics to hospital before they would take me within this inner sanctum of medicine and carve me up like a roast chicken. Besides my insurance information, there were other vital statistics required for my induction.
Now in spite of the fact that it occurred at some point during the Cretaceous Period, I was still able to remember my birth date. Because it was illegally used during my college days as an identification number, I was likewise able to remember my Social Security number. If asked, I could even have repeated my American Express number after having used it for years to travel and having had to repeat it to hotel check-in and and airline reservation clerks. Without hesitation, I was likewise able to remember my current address, in spite of the fact that I have moved some seven times since the beginning of the millennium. When it came to my phone number however, I was stopped cold.
Let's see. Oh yeah, it's 330 ... no wait, that was when I lived Medina, OH. No, it was 706 ... oops, that while in La Grange, GA. Maybe 614 ... yeah actually that's from Columbus, OH, and I've used it a couple of times; but not recently and not in a while. Well I lived in the 913 area code now, but somehow that didn't feel right. You know what, I'll get back to them on that later.
OK, next of kin and contact phone number. No problem. Sons Sean and Joe both live in the Columbus area and their phone numbers are .... Well anyway, my daughter Laura's still out in Montclair, NJ and her phone is ... Wait. No worries. After all, my mom and my sisters Kathy and Maureen are right here in town and ... Oh crap!
Oh sure, I could walk across the lobby and ask them what their phone numbers are while they're sitting in the waiting room (my Mom and sister Kathy brought me to the hospital), but that would mean admitting to them that I didn't know their numbers. My God, asking directions from strangers while driving with a wife and a car full of kids would probably be easier and less embarrassing. There has to be another way.
What the hell had happened to me anyway? I used to know half a dozen hotel chain 800 numbers by heart and that of my four favorite airlines to boot. I used to have phone numbers of my top twenty customers at my fingertips. As for my family, dialing them was a no-brainer. Wait, that's it ... no-brainer. Years ago, I had all but given up on the expense of a land line telephone and used only a cell phone. All the numbers I now required were long since programmed into that cell phone and called up on a menu; or better still, voice dialed from that phone.
When did all that happen?
Oh sure, I've long recognized that there's only so much RAM memory in the personal computer and sometimes you have to overwrite existing data when you get a little short on space. Not to get too technical, but I even recognize that as the hardware (me) gets a little older, some of the the sectors in that RAM memory become corrupted (damaged) and either garbled or no longer accept attempted new data entry. I just don't remember when I turned this memory process over to a digital device that was designed to make phone calls on.
What else have I turned over to Samsung or HTC (phone manufacturers) over the last couple of years? Oh my God! I no longer remember any of my family's addresses. Oh sure I can get to their houses, but I can't tell you their addresses any more. What about birthdays or anniversaries ... nope, mostly gone. Directions ... long gone. How about appointments scheduled for my future? Gone as well. Oh no, what about the grandkids? Whew, I can still remember all of them, though at times their ages are a little fuzzy without looking them up in my personal phone directory. (Well thank goodness for that small favor.) I thought that I had lost it completely. (I have of course, but a lack of mnemonic acuity appears to be an unrelated problem.)
Somehow without noticing it, I have become utterly dependent on an electronic device to maintain the barest shred of memory with regards to the most important things in my existence. Somehow, and without my conscious consent, I've given over control of my most basic memory functions, my knowledge of friends and family, even my basic connection to the outside world to a device that I'm allowed to replace every two years. How could I, so proud in the achievement of my personal freedoms (within government strictures, at least), have become completely enslaved to a mere communication device? How could I have relinquished such control to a sim card? Oh, the shame of it all ...
So if I meet you on the street and you see me clutching tightly at my cell phone, fear not. I am not a part of a movie plot and waiting for a tormentor to contact me to pass on the next clue in a cross-town scavenger hunt to save the world. In fact, the device clutched in my fevered grip is my tormentor. While apparently serving in large part for the mind I apparently no longer possess (or at least control), it has become a serious source of addiction that I can no longer refuse.
If I appear unaware of you and others around me, take pity. Having supplanted all but the most basic parts of my memory to it (though the feeding reflex is still apparently in good order), I have allowed my latest 'Smart Phone' to become far too smart for my own good. This subtle and insidious obsession may have turned me into little more than a reflective simulacrum of its evil capabilities; a twisted electronic zombie, kept alive merely in service to Verizon Wireless. So phone home if you can, while you can you fools. There may be no such things as those pods from the B movies to worry about, but smart phones are real; and are coming for you too.
I have been debating whether to change cell phone carriers for a couple of months now. My current phone intermittently drops its signal, leaving me to interpret the things people are trying to tell me while losing about one word in eight. It's finally reaching a level of annoyance that I am no longer willing to tolerate (besides, I think it's time I got a smart phone).
My current carrier however has other ideas on the situation. They won't discuss upgrading my POS (piece of shit) flip phone until the end of summer, unless of course I want to spend $500 for the purchase of a new phone.
Interestingly enough, it seems that many of the other carriers out there will be all too glad to give me a new smart phone if I sign a new two-year agreement with them. Of course I will have to pay a $150 fee to cancel my existing contract, but the potential net effect of this transaction is a savings of $350.
While the math is simple, the philosophy causing me to use it is counter-intuitive to me.
It seems that some of these companies are far more interested in getting your business than keeping it over the long-term. In fact I was shocked to find out from a former employee of my present carrier that the reason I was sensing that employees of this company were less than enthusiastic about retaining my business was that they could care less about it. Getting customers was something that they are measured on and get credit for, retaining or losing existing customers was not.
Now I worked for a company about a year ago on a sales program that was very much in the same vein. It's not that they didn't give a damn about customers who had signed up with them, but interest did seem to drop off rather quickly in the weeks following sign-up. They were OK with the idea that the shiny in this relationship with their new partner would wear off quickly, as long as it lasted long enough for the sales team to take credit for the sale. (My tenure in this position did not last long, as I found such thinking incompatible with keeping a clear conscience.)
Even in the relationships between men and women, I have found that it's much harder to maintain a relationship than it was to begin one. And while I'm sure that all of us go into any new relationship with the best of intentions, familiarity soon begins to work its evil designs on this bond as well.
Now having twice been divorced, I have some experience at this in my own life. I cared a great deal for each of the women I wed, and I carry a fair amount of guilt for both my actions and the lack thereof contributing to the ultimate demise of these relationships. While I would hesitate to say that contempt actually entered the picture (or so I like to believe in order to protect a rather fragile ego), I think it would be fair to say that in the end, "Absence made the heart grow fonder; and the longer I was absent, the fonder they became of it".
The one that most seems to irk me the most lately however is that with our elected officials. (Yeah, big surprise, I know). Don't we often see much the same thing from politicians at every level?
It certainly appears to me at any rate, that a number of them only seem to care whether we agree with what they are doing or want to do, in the days leading up to an election. Once safely in office, they become far too familiar with their jobs, and soon seem to lose interest in the will of mere voters.
They tell us that instead, they are 'voting their conscience'. Of course the fact that their conscience seems to be in direct opposition to the will of said voters; and identical with the views of lobbyists and major contributors to their campaign is strictly a coincidence I'm sure.
It does in fact seem that in many cases in our life, familiarity does breed contempt. Perhaps with the time I spend writing about politics these days, my own views are simply another example of the truth of this notion. There is after all, little doubt that the more familiar I become with politics and politicians, the more I hold them in contempt.
An interesting posting on Roland's Ramblings caused me to make use of my personal "Wayback Machine" to dredge up a bit of nonsense that I had written before Just Blowing Smoke existed as a blogspot blog. I have updated and edited it as my own small way of paying homage to Mr. Hansen, a constant source of interesting information.
I don't know about you, but one of the most annoying things in my life today is the cell phone. You can't seem to go to a restaurant, family gathering, or even church (or at least, so I have been told) without one of these marvels of modern technology interrupting the event. Not content with this level of intrusion into our lives however, the manufacturers of these electronic Torquemada torture devices have added the ability to listen to music, text message, and even receive emails 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There is now no longer anywhere we can go or any time of the day when our friends, our customers, and our employers can't disturb some part of our lives with something of inestimable importance (at least to them).
Whoever thought that one of the greatest pleasures of the modern age might become the chance of being inaccessible to our fellow human beings for however brief a time? Why is it that the ability to communicate with other people at times and in places where any sane person would once have been ashamed to do so is now not only acceptable, but necessary behavior? When did being at the beck and call of any yahoo with the ability to sign a two year contract and a yen to share information become the goal in and point of our lives? When did we reach a point in civilization when no one is content unless they are constantly communicating useless information with a person that they cannot see every minute of their probably pointless lives?
And don't even get me started on the subject of personalized ringers (oops, too late). I know that it's supposed to be cute, but so is a baby alligator until it bites you. Is it possible that people might realize that their current favorite song (or that from the night they lost their virginity) might not something that everyone wants to hear every time some idiot wants to extend their electronic social life? Isn't it burden enough that we have to share the musical tastes of every juvenile delinquent with bass enhancement each time they pull up next to us at a stop light without having to suffer it in places where such vehicles are not allowed? No offense to those of you out there sharing these bits of melodic rhapsody with the world (OK, maybe some), but your choices usually leave something to be desired. With all of history's music to pick from, you would think that people could find something that doesn't make the fillings in your teeth work loose, and you would be wrong. (And for those of you who still have "Who let the dogs out" on your phone, for shame.)
Add in the special ringtones for special callers, alert tones for text messages or emails, and the music the phone plays when turning on or off; and you reach a point of mind-numbing tonal madness that we insist on subjecting our friends and neighbors to on an everyday basis in the name of self-amusement.
And once the din announcing that someone would like to share some part of their idiotic life with you electronically has finally been silenced, you treat us to conversations that nobody cares about, at a decibel level that is suited only to a rock concert.
While I am sure that their life is important to them (and it should be), can we agree that it means little or nothing to the rest of the world and that the necessity of subjecting us to it ad nauseum just because we happen to be standing within a block of you is ridiculous? Can we likewise agree that perhaps if these people actually had a life, that they wouldn't feel the need to share it with the rest of us quite so much?
I can't take it any more! I hereby reject all of the ignorance, lack of good manners, and sheer stupidity of the behavior constantly committed in the name of non-stop, nonsensical cellular communication!
... and that's just my phone. Don't even get me started on how annoying yours is.
