Actual chat session with AT&T Wireless:


KaosDad: HI! My daughter currently has a Pantech phone which is just not doing hte job. A friend gave me an iPhone as he upgraded - can I just put her SIM card int heiPhone and then actibvate the iPhone? Or do I need to go to a store?

KaosDad: Wow - sorry for the bad typing!

Taureeqah Ruiss: Ms. KaosDad, thank you for your response. We at AT&T appreciate your business and value you as a customer. I will be more than happy to direct you to the department that can assist you with your question concerning switching your daughters phone number over to another phone.

Taureeqah Ruiss: Mr. KaosDad*

Taureeqah Ruiss: Please contact our Customer Care department by calling 1-800-331-0500. You can also reach customer service by dialing 611 from your AT&T wireless phone. Customer service's hours of operation are Monday through Friday 7:00 am to 9:00 pm and Saturday 9:00 am to 6:00 pm and Closed Sunday.

KaosDad: OK then - I'll do that.


Why do you have a chat room?

UPDATE

The weekend after this post I knew I had to get KaosGrrl's phone working, but dreaded the callto AT&T. I would have to do this on a Saturday. I was, undoubtedly, taking a virtual trip to Mumbai to speak with "Sam." KaosGrrl looked at me with those sad eyes that said; "Daddy, I love you and do not want to see you in pain, but you have to do this...." and handed me the gun.....er...phone. Miracles of miracles the call was answered by a sweet young lady in Texas who spoke perfect American, stayed with me for 45 minutes while we trouble shot an iTunes error (note: for the iPhone you must have an APPLE loging - NOT an AOL login).

The WHO, Mass Media & FUD

It is the job of mass media to capture eye-balls. Newspapers must sell paper, TV news must keep people tuned in to buy sponsor's products and web based news need visitors to click on pop-up ads. When one crisis flames out, then teh media has to find something new to excite the masses & generate revenue.

With the finacial meltdown now becoming old news, with the reports on executive pay becoming too disgusting to look at and teh certified death of Pontiac, the media needed a shot in the arm to keep eyeballs. And man did they get one from the World Health Organization.

The WHO sank their teeth into H1N1 Swine Flue Virus and held on like a puppy does to its toy. Spreading as much FUD as they could they kept themselves in the lime light and shoveled bucketloads of coal into the furnace that runs the mass media.

PANDEMIC!!!!!

Screamed the headlines. Thousands to die! World wide death toll expected to climb!

As of today, the worldwide case load just topped 1,000 confirmed cases with 27 confirmed fatalities. Again - that's worldwide. Compare that to 37,000 deaths from seasonal flu in the U.S. alone. This is hardly the image that the word "pandemic" conjures up recalling the mass graves of the Black Plague or the stacks of corpses from the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreaks.

Yet - the media still tries to capture as many eyeballs as they can by spreading as much FUD as they possibly can as fast as they can. Last night, on NBC news, some brave soul finally commented that this outbreak was far, far less leathal than the "normal" flu or even the common cold. The story was buried faster than a croaked goldfish.

Yesterday saw public interest start to falter. H1N1 was not at the top of all the papers and it didn't even headline the 7:00 News. Of course, the WHO and the media are not ready to give up the spot light, not yet. Now they warn us of the second coming - which could kill thousands.

Lemme run out right now & buy a gross of face masks.

I Guess I Shouldn't Be Surprised . . .

but I am.

Today, for the first time that I can recall, I was blatently lied to by a fellow employee. Two, actually. I guess I shouldn't be too amazed as they are both in sales. See, we have an internal IM system and yesterday (Thursday) three of us got a message from these two folks that a new client wanted six servers up & running by Monday AM - fours calendar days. We have some stringent QA standards - the first being we need a build sheet for each server to tell us what we are building. As of this writing I STILL don't have those.

We build ourown servers, so we kind of like to test them & put them under stress for 48 hours - it's this crazy idea that we want to float a quality product. So, as you can see, IF we got the signed contract Tursday (we didn't) and immediatly set to physically building the servers, got them into stress testing at 0000 Thursday/Friday, we could start loading OS at 0000 Sunday. The Linux would be quick but frakin' Windows takes at least nine hours so there we are Monday AM and we still have done NO QA and Oracle needs to be loaded which takes a day to do.

So, you see the problem. Today, our CTO called a phone meeting to discuss the issue. Durign the call the two sales folks flatly denied EVER having asked for a Monday delivery. They said they only "asked if it could be done."

BULLPUCKEY

How do you know when a sales person is lying?

Their lips are moving.

As we sewed, so shall they reap.....

Unless you've been under a rock the past six or so years you will recall that Baby Bush and Dick Cheney decided to go to war with Iraq. For what? Well, I really can't tell you. Supposedly there WMDs there. Supposedly there were the making for nulear weapons there. Supposedly it was a haven for Al Queda & the Taliban. Of course, the only plan they had for our forces was to depose Saddam & his ruling Baath party, which they did.

Of course there was NO plan for what to do after that. What followed was a travesty and a waste of human life. Over 4,000 of America's finest are now dead and tens of thousands wounded or crippled both physically & mentally. Hundreds of thousands of Iraquis are dead and their nation has been bombed out of "emerging world" status to "stone age" status. And for what? Our forces found NONE of the threats that Bush & Cheney said were threatening the world. In fact, their ill conceived and unplanned invasion has left such a void that Iraq IS now a strong hold for terroists.

Yesterday, another by-product of the Bush/Cheney Idiocracy began to make itself visible - because we threw the weight and might of the American Military against Iraq, we could no longer keep an eye on Afghanistan & Pakistan - two KNOWN strongholds of Al Queda & the Taliban. And now the Taliban is moving towards Islamabad in a not at all covert bid to impose Radical Islamic law and establish Pakistan as a Taliban controlled nation.

Yet - this was not the act of just two men. The entire U.S. Congress failed to act properly. They did not review the President's actions as required by the War Powers Act. Instead - Congress voted overwhelingly to authorizr further military action against Iran. And the Taliban rolls on.

Below C Level

I have come to accept the fact that I will never be a "C-Level" executive. Nope - never a CEO, CTO, CIO, CSO, CEIEIO. Why? Several reasons;

1) I refuse to trivialize people. I work in a very technical environment. We have processes & procedures for almost everything. The way to kick off an action is thru our trouble ticket system. It's very easy to open a trouble ticket; you send an e-mail. So, why do my C-Levels, send ME e-mail to open a ticket for them?

2) I am not afraid to spend the cash NOW for expansion in the future. My mother used to say; "Sometimes you need to spend money to make money." So true. If your sellable item is space, and you are running out of space, you need to expand your facility - right?

3) Play hard or go home. Every business type has a list of "must haves" for day one if they are going to be taken seriously. For example - a grocery store wouldn't stay open long with no refrigerators. A gas station would quickly fail with no pumps. The idea that you can start an enterprise by skimping on the essentials and back fill later is rediculous and will bite you in the rear in the long run.

4) Boards of Directors RARELY know what the Hell I am doing. If you opened a hospital, would you populate your BoD with actors? If you were opening a security firm, wouldn't it be nice to have some security professionals on your BoD?

5) No cronyism from failed firms. When a firm fails it's, generanlly, for one of two reasons - bad management or failed sales. So, just because you worked at XYZ does not mean you have to hire the staff FROM XYZ - especially if that staff was the group that failed!!!!! Seriously - would you hire Bernie Ebbers to manage ANYTHING????

6) Suits. My God I hate wearing a suit or necktie. Seriously - what does the suit represent? I've heard fools say it's a show of respect. TO WHOM?? And what does that really say? "I recognize you as a superior being so I am going to dress myself in layers of cotton & wool during June in Washington DC." Seriously - WTF? Do cops on duty wears suits? Fire fighters? Soldiers? Sailors? Airmen? Marines? Hells no! I really MUST question the sensibility of a man that ties a noose around his own neck every morning. Besides, when the Zombies attack - they will be attracted to wool & silk. Good luck running in those shoes, lunchmeat!

But, is the cat really worth that?

Let me just say that if you need to ask that question then I seriously hope you never breed.

I have a couple of wonderful cats; Daphnie & Smokey Joe. Smokie Joe I inhereted from this guy:
http://kelvinmeeks.blogspot.com/

Kelvin landed a dream job taking him away from Virginia to Seattle and couldn't find housing that allowed pets on his short time frame. So, Joey took over my life.

Joey is simply amazing. He has this sense that he knows when something is wrong with his humans. He'll wander into the room, plop down next to you and purr away, making himself very available for much petting & scruffing. He'll roll over on his back and squirm about & purr. When he's stressed, he sneezes. I think he's about 14.

About a year ago I took him in for his very first "senior physical." The vet walked in with the file, looked at this massive (20 POUNDS!) "old" cat and I could tell by the look on her face that she was about to write Joey off.

That's when Joey's cat sense kicked in and stood up, perked his tail up, looked her right in the eyes & purrrrred.


The vet went htrough her whole checkout routine; felt his joints, took his temp, took some blood, x-rays - the works. At the end of it all she was astonished. The only "problem" she could find was a bit of tarter on his teeth. He was proclaimed the healthiest 20 pound cat she had ever seen. But, he had to loose weight.

OK - fine. So, off we went, looking for a "diet food" he'd eat and we settled on some of this new fanlged, crazy, low grain food. More meat, less filler. Little did we know that we had condemned Joey to great pain. It seems that over the six months he was on the diet (lost 6 pounds!) he was also accumulating Struvite crystals in his bladder. This past Friday, his bladder became blocked and it was off to the vet.

For the most part, Veterinarians are good folks. There are Vets that are "bad" just like there are "bad" doctors. Then there are Vet practices that are down right evil, prey on your emotions and run up the bill. Joey is very lucky in that we have a very good vet.

Joey's doc and I had a very serious discussion about treatment & the cost. Crystals are very, very treatable. Usually a simple diet change is all it takes and cats live on very healthy & happy - crystal free. The hard (and expensive part) is getting them unplugged & keeping them unplugged long enough for the diet to work. How expensive? Well, let's jsut say that by the time this is all over I will have run up a bill that is equal to a down payment on a decent auto (no - not like in a BMW, think more like a five year old Datsun).

Which gets me back to the title of this post: IS the cat really worth it? Well, yes. But then, how do you put a value on life of any kind? Especially a life that has been so full of love & devotion. You can't, and, of course, you don't know Joey.

Now, if Joey was 20 years old, half blind, deaf and miserable, we'd be having an entirely different conversation. But he's not, so we are having this one. How deep into debt am I willing to go for this cat? Well, I think $1 invested in Joey will bring a MUCH greater return on investment than $1 in the stock market.

I plan on wakeing up with Joey for many, many more years to come.