When I left my job this spring, I bought a new phone. Twelve days later, the backplate that covers the battery fell off the phone. The Fido store staff proposed that I buy another phone, for 300$. I’d gotten this one for 50$ with a contract. So this was unacceptable: what if I bought another one for 300$ and the plate fell off again, then what? Buy another one?

I called Fido customer service, and got the same solution: buy another phone for 300$. I argued to get a replacement part or phone, as it wasn’t normal that through normal use, the plate had fallen off the phone after 12 days. They argued that I had put the plate on wrong. I said it was the Fido store representative that had assembled the phone for me. Getting no joy from one call-center employee, I called back a few times until I got someone more amenable. He said that because it had been less than two weeks since I’d bought the phone, he would send me a new one. It would take 10 working days, and I’d have to send my current phone back in the box provided.

Three months went by, no phone. I procrastinated because the phone worked fine without the plate.

A few weeks ago, the phone started having trouble charging. Thinking it might be due to the missing plate, I called Fido and asked them where the phone they were sending me was. They had no record of such a transaction, of course. I told the story and argued for a while, using my tactic of calling back to get another representative, and realized after speaking to a few that the most they were authorized to do for me was offer me a 50$ rebate on a new 300$ phone. So now, what I needed to do was get passed to a supervisor, who could do more.

Getting to speak to a supervisor can be difficult. The answer you typically get is, they won’t be able to do more. But you have two great assets on your side: the call-center employee has to keep call length to a minimum, and they’re not allowed to hang up on you.

Of course you have to invest some time, but call centers expect you to give up (and spend 300$ in this case). But this war of attrition is one you can easily win. And once in a while, you have to do it, if only for the principle.

This is what you do:

Before the call, prepare a nice, warm, cup of tea, take a comfortable seat and accept that you’ll have to invest time. You have it, they don’t. When they say “is there anything else I can do for you today?”, which means, “I need to hang up now”, you just take a deep breath and start telling your story again. Use the same arguments. As many times as it takes. Eventually, when the call length starts getting too long, the employee will want to pass you on to the supervisor in order to terminate the call. In some centers, calls beyond a certain length actually pop an alarm up on the supervisor’s console.

When I spoke to the supervisor, he was wonderfully helpful. He obviously had the clearances needed to give me the moon. He said it was possible to just purchase the plate (something I’d asked for at the Fido store in the first place), that it cost 8$ (not 300$), he checked and found that the downtown Fido store had plenty (hm, is it possible this happened not just to me?), and that he would credit my account 8$ so I wouldn’t have to pay for the plate.

Mission accomplished.

Post Scriptum: In the face of such helpfulness, my reflex was to be thankful. But this only happened after at least 6 Fido employees tried to get me to buy a new phone. Is this any way to treat your clients, Fido? Bad dog!

Spammers really need to try harder. I just learned that I’ve won 4 million dollars… and an iPod phone (whatever that is). By Nokia.

Amateurs.

“If one could build a system of morality absolutely independent of religious doctrine, as valid for the atheist as for the pietist, then theologies might come and go without loosening the moral cement that makes of wilful individuals the peaceful citizens of a community.

If, for example, good meant intelligent, and virtue meant wisdom; if men could be taught to see clearly their real interests, to see afar the distant results of their deeds, to criticize and coordinate their desires out of a self-cancelling chaos into a purposive and creative harmony…

The intelligent man may have the same violent and unsocial impulses as the ignorant man, but surely he will control them better, and slip less often into imitation of the beast. And in an intelligently administrered society… the advantage of every man would lie in social and loyal conduct, and only clear sight would be needed to ensure peace and order and good will.”

- Will Durant on Socrates, The Story of Philosophy

Nobody hated sharks more than I did growing up. I couldn’t even look at a picture of them without being nauseous, and I’ve never swam (swum?) in the ocean because of it. But when I saw this trailer I was intrigued.

Sharkwater just came out on DVD and I highly recommend it. Watching it this morning did make me nauseous, but only at the human indifference portrayed and the weight of the consequences. When you see what’s happening to the oceans and to the world’s top predator, you will not stand for it.

Alex rightly complains (en français mes chéris) that the towns of Hampstead and TMR are handing out free poop bags to dog owners… Whilst any purchase of anything is accompanied by a free plastic bag. Need we have more? Boneheads.

My borough is moving from the recycling bin to the recycling bag next week. At first I thought that the people who’d decided this had probably thought it through (yeah, sometimes I’m Zen like that, but it doesn’t last). However, the main reason seems to be that recyclables in bins tend to fly away (and all end up on my terrasse). Why then, can’t they give us a bin cover and pick up recycling more often, so the bins aren’t so full? (see what I mean about the Zen?) But my main gripe is that one has to pick up the recycling bags at the eco-quartier (open, like, 11-3 on alternate Wednesdays), and starting next year, pay for them. Bravo, way to make it much harder for people to recycle. You’re going the wrong way… BONEHEADS. 

On the upside, today I noticed that I’m actually down to two plastic bags (from this many) in my cupboard, all others having been reused. Happy Earth Day all. Write to your local boneheads, please.

I have seen people start life out with many strikes against them, and succeed, and I’ve seen the reverse. I believe that in Canada, individuals are to a good extent in control of their ultimate condition in life. I feel that as a member of the middle class, I am overtaxed without having need (and especially access) to most of the social programs financed by said taxes. I do not believe any one lifestyle choice (like being childless and taking a high paying job, or staying home and having lots of kids) should be penalized by the state.

I strongly believe in the separation of Church and State, but I think some recent blanket bans on religious iconology in schools are excessive and xenophobic.

I believe governments should establish and maintain serious, long- and short-term measures to reduce global warming.

I believe in the right to abortion, in gay rights to marriage and adoption.

I think it’s important to protect French in Quebec. I believe the province has been given adequate power to do so, and has done so efficiently. I believe the language is well-protected and no longer threatened. C’est assez. 

I believe that basic medical care should be accessible to everyone, but I think it would be best overall if people who can afford it could pay for faster treatment. 

I abhor unions. I believe in the defense of basic workers’ rights, of course, but I also believe that companies should compete for the best qualified resources by offering attractive working conditions. I don’t believe in a system that is based on an adversarial relationship between employers and employees. Meritocracy has its flaws, but it’s more productive, and I believe conducive to happiness than the blind hatred of The Man I’ve seen in unionized industries.

Some of my values contradict each other, some of them contradict yours I’m sure. But they reflect what I think we should be talking about and working on. As much as I would like my values to decide what I do in three weeks, they won’t. What’s most important to me is to make sure Quebec doesn’t spend any more time, energy and money on such an out-dated and low-priority diversion as separation, but rather on the issues here. Therefore, I will vote for the party most likely to keep the PQ out of power, whoever that is. Doesn’t that suck?

My friend Dr Wank, a psychology professor at the University of Ottawa, holds as his first maxim of human behavior that People are Stupid.

A lot of the history I’ve been reading confirms this, but this morning, a particularly sad example of it popped up in my feeds:

Radio station holds a contest to see who can drink the most water without peeing, for the grand prize of a Wii.
Yes, the obvious puns are made.
DJs make jokes about previous water intoxication deaths and responsibility waivers as contestant has bad symptoms on air.
People call in to warn about water intoxication risk.
Contest continues.
Contestant dies.

Q.E.D.

I’ve been reading a lot of history recently, and it’s caused me lose pretty much any faith in god I had left. This isn’t a good thing. I believe it’s a more meaningful, less lonely world if there’s something else out there, but I can’t make myself believe in it if I don’t.

At my family Christmas dinner, an aunt asked me how I’d been, and I had the ill-advised impulse to launch into a born-again agnostic rant in response. To my surprise, despite the horrible timing, everyone was quite open to my views.

Douglas Adams says about religion,

“If someone votes for a party that you don’t agree with, you’re free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. … But on the other hand, if somebody says ‘I mustn’t move a light switch on a Saturday’, you say ‘I respect that.’”

Well, it seemed that agnosticism had also reached that status of unimpeachable opinion, at least in my family.

Half an hour later, the conversation turned from God to Céline. Bolstered by the previous open discussion (and wine?), I was candid about my views on the diva. Sure, she’s extremely talented and… uh… thin? but I can’t help but be embarrassed as a French Canadian whenever I watch an interview with her, because she comes off as a flake at the best of times, and a complete moron at the worst.

That’s all it took for the golden gates of open debate and mutually respectful exchange to slam shut. Tears shone in my aunt’s angry eyes as she defended the songstress, so vehemently and emotionally that I left the house to wish the neighbors a good yule. As I crossed the cold street and felt the tension dissipate, I made a mental note on future family party etiquette. God touchable, Céline not.

In this year of environmental wake-up calls, T wrapped my gift in reused paper and plastic and still managed to make it look attractive.

(It was Stefie Shock’s new album, Les Vendredis).

-What’s the matter?

-I can’t sleep.

-Why, what’s wrong?

-I’m worried about global warming.

Of course I’ve always known it was a problem, and in fact, the trailer makes it sound like the movie will only restate what we already know. But it doesn’t. I didn’t know how bad - and how immediate - global warming was until I’d seen An Inconvenient Truth. The Scotsmontonian and I rented it this weekend, and we had to pause it to let our heads stop spinning. That night I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that my condo might be under water within my lifetime. My condo, Old Montreal, the Netherlands, San Francisco - basically my home and those of about 100 million other people, too. Watching it felt like waking up.

Most ecological warning documentaries are so incredibly dire that you are discouraged from believing that true global change can come from local action. Probably the most amazing thing about An Inconvenient Truth is that while is probably the most alarming ecological warning I’ve ever seen, it managed to convince me, for the first time in years, that action isn’t futile.

There’s something about watching it in during a green Christmas season in Montreal that just brings the whole thing into sharp focus, too.