South Park once hypothesized that the writers of Family Guy are manatees, and write episodes by lining up balls containing words to create jokes and plot lines. According to wikipedia, manatees exhibit complex associated learning and advanced long term memory, making them smarter than these company decision makers. But turkeys are known for their low intelligence. And so, I ask, are the executives of these companies really dumb humans, or are they turkeys?

I give three examples to elaborate on this reasons behind this question.

A monopolistic internet cable company (with phones, mobiles, etc.)

Due to technical reasons, I got stuck with the big telecom monopoly for internet. I was originally with a smaller company, but due to technical reasons (that is, due to evol Bell), I had to switch to cable. For months now, and I mean MONTHS because I was out of town for quite a while, I have been getting phone calls from an “affiliate” of “*my internet company*”. The phone call goes something like this:

“hello, may we please speak with the chrysalids?”

“yes, speaking”

“we are XXX company, representing *your internet company*. Your promotion with *internet company* is about to end and we would like to offer you a new promotion.”

“Sure. What is is?”

“Oh, before telling you about it, we will need to verify your identity with some security questions”

“But I don’t know if you are who you say you are. Why would I give you my personal information?”

“Well, we can’t offer you the promotion without verifying your identity”

“Okay. Well, *internet company* has my email and mailing address. Can you ask them to email or mail me information of this so called promotion?”

“Oh, you would have to give us your email for us to do that”

“but I just told you that *internet company* already has my email. If I am to believe that this is *internet company*, they should just be able to send me an email”

So, apparently people fall for this! What I don’t get is that if it *is* *internet company*, they think I am stupid enough to give personal information to a random caller that I can’t verify. If they are not *internet company*, then of course they would tell me what “*internet company*” just told me. In which case, if it is *internet company*, they are setting up a situation where people will get used to people impersonating companies and requiring personal information. If it’s not *internet company*, and this “affiliate” has been calling me for months (harrassing?) then why don’t they put a stop to it? (I have not received an email or notice from *internet company* about this). Either way, this makes *internet company* look really stupid to me, because either way, they clearly think their customers are idiots. Recently I got another phone call, where the same general conversation was had. I finished it by explaining all of this to the caller. When he tried to legitimize his call, I explained that a fraud would also try to make the call sound legitimate. I repeated I was happy to hear about promotions to benefit me, but not at the expense of less security. So, he seemed upset, which, again, I pointed out a fraud would act upset too. So, the phone call ended with him pointing out it was my “loss” for not going along. Uh huh. How *internet company* thinks that this improves any bid for customer loyalty is completely beyond me.

Next thing you know, *internet company* will be calling me telling me that they have inherited one million dollars and could I help them with a few thousand dollars for start up costs.

*internet company*: I was not born yesterday. Are you turkeys or dumb humans?

Big American and International Airline Company

In short, I flew long distance on this company last summer. I did not apply for their *miles program*, but heard about it on the plane. Then I flew again recently on the same company. I also flew a few times on an affiliated airline. I signed up for *miles program* a few weeks ago.  I tried to register my miles. I got the miles for the last trip. The August miles did not go through, and the website rejected the affiliate miles. So, I called the company to try to get the August miles through, as well as the affiliate. After 38 minutes on the phone, I was rejected for both. I was supposed to have claimed all miles within 30 days, but they make an exception to 60 days when you are new. If I want to claim affiliate miles, despite my proof of purchase, I was supposed to keep my boarding pass and fax it to them. (Who uses a fax machine in this day and age?). I pointed out my proof of purchase of the affiliate tickets, but they told me that paying is not good enough–they want proof my bum was in a seat, and they can’t go get it themselves. US airline, you fail. And here’s why: your miles program will probably never yield me great travel benefits, but the point is to create loyalty, right? Well, you are not. If you had told me on the plane that I needed to register within 30 days, I probably would have done this and been so thankful I knew. If you had given me all the miles I asked for, I probably would have been more likely to try to get my next ticket with your company because I would have been so invested. But, you didn’t, so I have less miles, so I’m still pretty open to your competition. In terms of the 30 days, ethically, if you are willing to make a 60 day exception on a first timer, then what’s 60 more days? There is no difference, it’s just a dumb arbitrary rule. Same with the affiliate miles. US airline, I don’t care that much that I didn’t get your miles. But, your program purpose is customer loyalty and you really missed the point.

I ask: are Big American and International Airline Company decision makers possibly turkeys attempting to play with the lives of miles program participants?

British-Canadian Mobile Company

Yes, I have evidence that you may land on a thankgiving table sometime soon too. Here we go. I want an android powered smart phone. Mobile company, you only have three, and I don’t like Samsung phones. Dr. A has the very cool HTC legend. However, the HTC legend only has Android 2.1. According to Dr. A, the HTC legend was upgraded to Android 2.2 in Europe, but not in Canada. When he did a bit of digging, he found out that mobile company would have had to request an update from HTC, and HTC has made it publicly clear that the mobile company never did. The result? British-Canadian Mobile Company, if you had gone with the update I would have switched to your company for the HTC. Instead, it is not to be, and it’s your OWN FAULT. I mean, how much can an update cost compared to launching a new phone? Dummies. The other companies have more variety to choose from.

I rest my case, gobble gobble.

(the first version rhymes, but grammatically incorrect )

Olhar os animais de zoo, eu parei.

Mas, uma lembrança eu comprei.

De loja eu sai

Meu carro eu abri

Um rugido com orelha eu peguei

“Um leão fugiu?” em meu mente, eu coloquei

Temerosa, perto do carro eu desci

Olhei par o outro lado, e ri

Um leão! Bem grandão!

Mas não!

Ë o João!

(Second version is grammatically correct, but does not rhyme)

Parei de olhar os animais no zoo

Comprei uma lembrança

Sai de loja

Abri o carro

Peguei um rugido com orelhas

Coloquei minha lembrança, e pensei  “Um leão fugiu?”

Desci, temerosa, perto do carro

E ri, olhando para outro lado

Um leão! Bem grandão!

Mas não!

Ë o João!

My poetry assignment from Portuguese class.

Em Brasilia, eu gostou de ‘self-service’, de concertos de graça, de Parque da Cidade, de Parque Nacional, e de cerveja Stadt.

Eu não gostou de motoristas em Brasilia, ou dos fogos.

Eu podia tentar mais coisas e falei como mais pessoas porque eu fiz aulas de português na escola de idiomas, como a professora ‘D’. Eu gostei dessas aulas, e eu aprendi muito português, muito rapido. Muitas pessoas estiveram surpresas que eu estudei por pocou tempo. Acho que minha professora é melhora que as outras.

(The speech I prepared for my final Portuguese class!)

On the thesis front, I have pretty much come up with an in-depth, never before done conceptual framework where I’ve identified the elements affecting the desirability and use of “smart grid” options for consumers. Great. The unfortunate part is that I have been in an elaborate dance of negotiation to get any damn data from anything, and according to schedule, I really should have started collecting data by now. For this, I am not pleased. I have had to take stock, and now I have planned a negotiation with the powers that be to help me get this data, and if it’s not possible, I shall be switching subjects. Perhaps my first two publications will be of use, however, they are both kind of random. They are good research, but I don’t think they are *contributions*, or at least I am not sure I can defend them as such. Hopefully I can just channel the frustration energy towards getting something out of what I’ve worked on for the past eight months.

Portuguese class is even more intense: I had six pages of  “deveres de casa” (homework) this weekend, and I’m just blitzing through the preterite and imperfect tenses. Hard! But I found out while Dr. A’s parents visited that novelas (soap operas) with the captions on are a great way to practice listening and language. For instance, they describe every family relationship (sogra, marido, neta, etc.) and *love*. It’s election time, so the novelas are interrupted by political campaigns. As much as these are generally annoying, I have realized that politicians tend to speak more slowly, and with a more simple vocabulary, which is also improving my language skills.

One more thing I learned about Brasilia that I did not know before: you can buy beer at the barbershop. No lie!

I have also conquered the walk to the class and around the neighbourhood. I have not figured out traffic here, but I got some lessons from other pedestrians or I just sort of followed their lead and am double careful. I figure this is best since I’ve already had a motorcycle run a red light at the pedestrian walkway I was crossing, and today I saw a car accident due to a bad driver missing a red light at high speed and rear-ending someone. The rear-ended car flew into the pedestrian walkway about 15 feet in front of me

Luggage helps to easily differentiate the foreigners from the Brazilians in the airport. Brazilians take all of the oversized luggage off the luggage belt, while foreigners have duffel bags or suitcases which clearly don’t contain the 32 kg limit. I chatted away with a Brazilian returning from living in Atlanta for 6 years, and he had…seven suitcases.

Despite me having three suitcases, only 1 and 1/4 of them was my stuff, and the rest was Dr. A’s as he’d been in Canada for four years. The border officer asked me if I had anything to declare (you can bring in $500 to stay in the country), and I said no. And then he asked how long I was staying, and I said one month, and he looked down at the giant, humongous caravan of luggage (I had two carry-on too!) and then looked at me very skeptically. I clarified that Dr. A had just moved back and I was bringing stuff for him…like, clothes, and hangers and stuff. heh.

So far, the plan in action is this: I am signed up for 3 sessions per week at 2 hours per session of intensive Portuguese classes. Classes are a 15 minute walk from home, and luckily I must pass the police station. Dr. A is currently out of town, so I am under strict rules for travel: I can walk during daylight (i.e., til 6 PM), only on main streets, with one ID and exactly enough cash, no flashy objects, give up anything at all if I get mugged, and ask the police for directions. I’m hoping the neighbourhood turns out fine, and soon I want to be taking public bus to downtown so I can check out the museum and art galleries on my own. The rest of the time is for my research proposal, and then hanging with Dr. A after work and his family on weekends.

It is not all bad! So far I’ve made it to the fair, enjoyed cafezinhas (espressos) nearly *everywhere*, ‘self-serve’ restaurants (more on that amazing phenomenon later) and we saw a free concert at the CCBB (Centro Cultural do Banco do Brasil) featuring an off-key girl rap/RnB group sampling Brian Adams (yeah!), a dancehall reggae band, and a very cool funk band that the crowd went wild to.

More to come.

The psychic flux of enjoyment associated with this town is currently low to very low

Looking at the previous post, my car love didn’t even last a week!!!!