August 27 2010 by The Systemic Analyst.

This editorial cartoon ran in the Metro today:

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August 27 2010 by The Systemic Analyst.

I still remember the launch party for Virgin Mobile in Canada.  It hadn’t been a week or so since I had started working at SeaBoard Group, a telecommunications consulting company. The launch of the new cellular service was huge in Toronto. Everyone was excited about a new entrant, especially one led by entrepreneur extraordinaire Richard Branson.  Still overwhelmed in starting a new job, I was completely out to sea when at the very-select pre-launch party, Mr. Branson himself tapped me on the shoulder and asked what sort of work I did.

Those were the days. Hope was enough to get us through our communications challenges. And for a while, Virgin Mobile was great in Canada. I had a prepaid phone for years that never once was cause for complaint.  Then two years ago I went to work for government and no longer had need of the phone.

That is, until I returned to private sector a few weeks ago. Shopping around for Blackberry offerings, Virgin appeared to be the most competitive and least committal. Three-year contracts or extremely expensive phones turned me off most of the major service providers, while the smaller guys just weren’t covering enough territory outside the cities. Naturally, I turned to Virgin.

On August 10, 2010, I placed the web order for a new Blackberry Bold 9700. That was 16 days ago and as of writing this, I still don’t have the phone. Someone in “sales”, I was told by a manager, shipped it to the wrong-wrong address. You see, I had been working out of a Toronto office when I ordered the phone and requested that it be shipped there. Eagerly awaiting the phone after the shipping notice had been emailed to me, I checked the Canada Post tracking number, only to find that the package was en route to Ottawa.

It’s true, my home address is in Ottawa, but what was really alarming was that the phone wasn’t sent there, but to an address one number off from mine. Of course, the mailman upon finding that I did not reside at this wrong address returned the phone to Virgin Mobile.

The first of many calls into customer service was made that day. In looking into the issue, the call-centre girl had been so pleased to offer me a tracking number, as if in knowing where the package was would help me. I asked her if she had bothered to look it up online; she hadn’t, but when she did, she saw as I had discovered that the package had been sent to the wrong address and thus returned.

Meanwhile, Virgin Mobile begins sending me billing notices, announcing that my billing period for a phone I have not received has begun. Concerned I call in again, waiting the obligatory 10 to 12 minutes before reaching an agent, who inevitably is never in the correct section to deal with my issue. This time I am assured that when I receive the phone, calling in yet again will result in the crediting to my account all days this billing period, which I was without the phone.

Another few days passes and I return to Ottawa. Still there is no phone. Yesterday, I call into customer service again, concerned that the phone will not make it in time before we move houses. (Yes, all this in the middle of a move and new job.) After providing the new address, I’m told that someone will call me the next day. Being out at work all day, I have no idea if anyone ever called.

Upon returning home, I call in to Virgin for a marathon session: a whopping two hours total between hold times and inefficient customer service (42 minutes alone on one hold period). The first woman tells me that she handles only pre-paid and transfers me back into the customer service abyss. The next guy can’t even find my file or the notes from past calls. At the same time, he tells me that the phone I have never seen has already been activated. Eventually his answer for resolving the problem is to return after another pause on hold, with yet another tracking number. Relief and triumph can almost be heard in his voice as he reads out the number, hoping that this will quell my complaint, as if yet another tracking number would rectify this situation.  Of course it doesn’t, because after all of this, I have no faith that Virgin can possibly track, much less effectively ship, an order.

After the first eighty minutes or so, I am finally passed to an unsympathetic manager who says he can do nothing to compensate all of the lost time, as the mailing of the phone to an incorrect address is actually the responsibility of the sales division, and he is in customer care. Two hours, plus the 70 minutes cumulative time in prior calls, and all the manager could do was open up a complaint, which will be dealt with (maybe) in two to three days. I, of course, don’t expect to hear from them again and so, have written this testimonial.

Had they just shipped the phone to the correct address in the first place, I’d have three hours of my life back. Had they just been able to apologise and do something to compensate their customer for all of her wasted time – I wouldn’t be writing this.

I’m not sure what is more disappointing, the fact that it is practically impossible to find good customer service in telecommunications in Canada, or that Virgin, on which so many high hopes had been placed back in 2005, has effectively turned out to be just like all the other service providers. Well, as someone wise always tells me, expectations beget disappointments.

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August 25 2010 by The Systemic Analyst.

While this analogy is likely to anger most Canadians, it will be posted in the hopes that there are some with open minds. Sometimes, when reading the news, I get the impression that Canada is like some sort of national carcass, with vultures encircling to scope the remains for scavenge. You see, we starved, waiting in vain for one of our masters (either Britain or the United States) to re-emerge with enough to feed us as well as themselves. Our belief in these feeders was so great, we weren’t willing to do anything else but wait.

The latest news bite that brought this analogy to the fore, was that of Russian planes edging near “sovereign” Canadian territory. (The same Arctic sovereign territory so remote we can’t prevent boats from entering it.) It is the second time in two years our government has told us that Russian planes have flown very close to Canadian airspace. Each time the image heralded is that of some bygone era, the Cold War.

I think more the question should be for those Canadians squawking about sovereignty when such things happen, why does any other government think so little of us that such actions would ever be commanded? It is doubtful that it has anything to do with our Cold War allegiances, and much more to do with the current state of a affairs in those countries to which we have so consistently tied ourselves. Could it be that the model our young men were encouraged to fight and die for, capitalist democracy, is heaving its last systemic breaths? If yes, planes edging near our shores is a much worse omen than some forgotten past.

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August 20 2010 by The Systemic Analyst.

David Descôteaux has an excellent piece in the Metro News today. It simply must be added to this week’s Friday Fun pile:

“Funny dream last night …

I walk into a dark room. Above the poker table, six faces are lit by a hanging lamp. From left to right: Ms. Economic Crisis, Government, Consumer, Taxpayer, Banker, and a strange creature — farmer’s thighs, artist’s hands, torso of a business CEO and head of a union boss. Let’s call him Pressure Group.

Consumer and Government play like beginners, wasting chips like there’s no tomorrow. After a failed bluff, Consumer loses all his chips. He’s already borrowed from Banker three times to keep playing, and remortgaged his house. “That’s enough!” He gets up and leaves.

I look at Taxpayer. He plays carefully, but loses chips at every turn — because Government plays aggressively. And because Pressure Group, seated beside him, dips into Government’s chips and pesters him constantly, driving up the bidding, Taxpayer just can’t keep up.

Meanwhile, Ms. Economic Crisis scoops up other players’ squandered chips …

The most hated player is Banker. He bets big each turn, whatever his cards. He doesn’t care. He knows that his friend Government will bail him out if he loses everything. The next turn, he makes a risky bet … and is wiped out. Bah! He gets up, winks at Government, and heads off.” Click here to read more.

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August 20 2010 by aliciaw.

The cartoon below is brilliant. This week’s Friday Fun was published earlier this week in the Montreal Gazette by Terry Mosher (a.k.a Aislin):

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August 19 2010 by aliciaw.

Well, if that isn’t inciting the battle of Armageddon, I don’t know what is: several news sources are reporting on the limited time frame, as short now as six days, Israel has to prevent Iran from developing nuclear warheads. By prevention, what is discussed is Israel attacking Iran, which really can’t end well either way - derailed nuclear warhead ambitions or not.

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August 19 2010 by The Systemic Analyst.

These people get points for creativity; the proprietors of an outdoor marijuana growing operation lured black bears as a front line of defence for the farm. Police encountered the curious and relatively friendly bears in British Columbia along with a house-raccoon and a pot-bellied pig.

I wonder what will happen to all the animals now that the owners are in jail.

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August 17 2010 by The Systemic Analyst.

The news is awash with the parents in Barrie who attempted to block the use of Wi-Fi in their children’s elementary school and lost. Call me crazy, but if parents didn’t want something that they believe is harmful to their children, and which isn’t likely necessary for their education, why is it imposed on their offspring? The School Board is there to serve the parents and children, no? Not there to rule them. Or have I missed something?

The focus on the debate as to whether or not Wi-Fi and the electromagnetic radiation it produces, (regardless of how slight,) is harmful misses a bigger point: why do elementary school children even need to have Wi-Fi access? Shouldn’t they be learning to read and acquiring other fundamental mental skills, not surfing the internet and dependent on technology for answers?

As a society we have become mental midgets. Ask anyone under 30 to navigate a road trip without the aid of a GPS and see how far you get. What if all of Canada’s spellchecks failed in computers one day, would documents created be intelligible?  Heaven forbid the electricity ever going out for an extended period of time - most Canadians wouldn’t know what to do with themselves, much less survive.

The issue with Wi-Fi isn’t just a health concern, it’s one of mental competence.

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August 16 2010 by The Systemic Analyst.

Here is an unsettling story; apparently, the equivalent of 1.16 micrograms of bisphenol A was traced per litre of urine. Along with the plastic hardener, some 88 percent of Canadians also had noticeable amounts of mercury in their blood. While the thought is unsettling, it shouldn’t be surprising, just consider the crap we are putting in and on ourselves - cardboard fast food, chemical creams and dyes, botox injections - and this is to say nothing of the containers in which we store consumables. In a city such as Toronto where the sewage is treated and then water reclaimed from it released into Lake Ontario, the main water supply for city dwellers, the list of additional chemicals that might be found in bodies there could be even more startling.

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August 10 2010 by The Systemic Analyst.

Why these things make news is beyond me. I am not sure what is worse, that it made the news or that someone actually did it. The Toronto Sun reported:

“A student from Brazil entered a Florida bar Tuesday morning, peed in two cups, then placed them on the bar, police say.

The 24-year-old, who is in the U.S. on a student visa, walked into the House of Blues bar at 1:15 a.m. Tuesday, the Orlando Sentinel reports. He had been thrown out of the bar earlier in the evening, but returned wearing a different shirt. When he got back into the bar, he allegedly peed in two plastic cups, setting them on the bar where other people were drinking.”

Beyond the general  stupidity of the event, isn’t anyone asking how a change of shirt was enough to gain re-access to the bar?

Ever watched the movie Idiocracy? You should.

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