The Wireless Sc's Part 3a: Where do these people work?(language)

[icantbelievethesepeople]

It really is shocking that people can be this idiotic, in fact I think it would be a productive use of time to do a case study in order to determine what exactly it is about wireless retail stores that causes parts of the brain to cease functioning once what one would imagine to be otherwise perfectly sane and rational people enter. Seriously, where do these functionally illiterate people work where this sort of behavior is acceptable?


On with the types of customers!

1.) The person who doesn't have the slightest clue what the relationship between a "phone" and "wireless service" is. They dont understand that these are actually two different entities (actually they do, they just dont apply the same principles they do when interacting with other service providers)

This one is quite amusing, it goes like this-- Ill put it in the form of a deductive argument.

I like to call this one "Argumentum ad ignorantium et obsequium", which translates to "Argument from ignorance of service"

P1. I pay my phone bill
P2. [Therefore], my phone should work.

The bracketed word is obviously added by me in order to form the argument.

We can see easily that this argument commits the "non sequitur fallacy".
For those of you who dont know what that is,
"Non sequitur (Latin for "it does not follow"), in formal logic, is an argument in which its conclusion does not follow from its premises."

Now, I would like to point out that this is specific to phone issues unrelated to the service provided. I.E. phone wont power on. What exactly is it about this argument that these morons find so tempting? Notice how there isnt even an attempt to justify the move from the first premise to the conclusion.

Lets just play this game in a different context,

P1. I pay my internet bill
Conclusion. Therefore my computer should work.

No sane person would call their ISP in order to bitch and moan about how their computer wouldnt power on. I will submit however that I find this one amusing given that it opens the door for me to respond with

"Sir/Mam, Indeed you do pay your phone bill and that ensures that your PHONE LINE remains in working order. This however, has nothing to do with your phone"

This is typically met with a blank stare. This customer is a nice segway into yet another non-sequitur customer.

2. The next ignoramus on our list engages in some cognitive dissonance of their own!

Heres how this typically goes

"Yall should just be giving us these phones!"
or
"I spend money with your company, you should just give me phones for free"

Now this is just laughable on its face, imagine demanding that your local gas station give you a free car because you buy gas from them, or insisting that your favorite condom manufacturer ship you a girlfriend because you buy condoms from them...etc...What sane person would be tempted to make these idiotic claims? How disconnected from reality must one be in order to engage in this level of solipsism? Its like when people enter a phone store, they gain a self-appointed licence to fatuous statements and reasoning.

Lastly for this part we shall introduce....

3. The self-righteous, self-entitled commander of the universe who need only speak their desires into existence, while you the mere oven peasant bow and scrape to their every caprice.

This one will come in anecdotal form.

Just some background information, basically a rather nice lady came into my store informing me of a problem with her phone. She wanted to know how she could get her a new one. I explained the options to her and she took pause to consult the account holder(her mother) in order to discuss the options with her. Her mother wanted to speak with me. This is where the temper tantrum began....

Me: Hello, my name is blah how can I help you?
SC: Can you please explain these options to me?
Me: Sure, here are the options...*proceeds to explain options*
SC: Those options are unacceptable
Me: *rather baffled* excuse me?
SC: THOSE OPTIONS ARE UNACCEPTABLE! BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH
Me: *interrupting* Mam, your opinion regarding the acceptability of the options has no bearing on whether or not the options are ACTUALLY acceptable or not.
SC: This is ridiculous! I have been with your company 10 years, I will cancel..blah blah blah
Me: *interrupting* Mam, once again, your tenure with the company has no bearing on whether or not the options on offer are ACTUALLY acceptable or not. I would also like to make you sensitive to the fact that your cancelling your service will not cause me to lose even 1 second of sleep-- threats will get you no where.
SC: *more random and pointless noise*
Me: *interrupting* Mam, I have given you options, two of them in fact. Given that no more options are available...and also the fact that no amount of claiming otherwise louder and relentlessly will change that, which of these will you choose?


At this point she picked option 2, rather sheepishly. My DM was standing to my left, he couldnt stop laughing, neither could her daughter for that manner.

So again, where do these people work? Would they like it if we were subvert the idea of basic sanity at their place of employment?

Part 3b coming soon.

[South Texan]

"Yall should just be giving us these phones!"
or
"I money with your company, you should just give me phones for free"

I hate to admit it, but I am old enough to remember when the Bell System provided a black, rotary dial desk phone to each home as part of the subscription to its phone service. If you wanted more or a different model, it cost more each month. Of course, the Bell System owned the phones, and the customer had to return them when the service ended - and had to wait and rely upon the phone company to come to the house to repair the phones if anything went wrong.

Yep, those were the "good old days."

[Ironclad Alibi]

... or insisting that your favorite condom manufacturer ship you a girlfriend because you buy condoms from them...

I suspect if that did happen, the manufacturer supplied girlfriend, just like the free phone, would be of the less desirable variety.

[CoffeeMonkey]

I suspect if that did happen, the manufacturer supplied girlfriend, just like the free phone, would be of the less desirable variety.

And most likely refurbished.

[Argabarga]

And roaming charges

[MoonCat]

I hate to admit it, but I am old enough to remember when the Bell System provided a black, rotary dial desk phone to each home as part of the subscription to its phone service. If you wanted more or a different model, it cost more each month. Of course, the Bell System owned the phones, and the customer had to return them when the service ended - and had to wait and rely upon the phone company to come to the house to repair the phones if anything went wrong.

Yep, those were the "good old days."

We had a wall phone like that. It was yellow!! When we replaced it, we put it aside somewhere in the warren we called a house, and couldn't find the damn thing. The company insisted we either pay for it (can't remember how much) or return it. We paid up. And of course a while after that, we found the phone...

[wolfie]

I hate to admit it, but I am old enough to remember when the Bell System provided a black, rotary dial desk phone to each home as part of the subscription to its phone service.

And those phones were rock-solid and reliable. After all, if something broke (other than through abuse, naturally), the repair cost would come out of the phone company's pocket. From their viewpoint, it was more cost-effective to spend a bit more on the phones to begin with as insurance against having to make service calls.

One example of intelligent design (not THAT kind, which belongs on Fratching) is the "cradle" where the receiver goes when the phone is hung up. The "bumps" are high enough and strong enough so that if you accidentally drag the phone off your desk by the receiver cord (e.g. receiver cradled between chin and shoulder, reaching for reference material), and it lands upside-down, the "cradle" will keep the "hang-up" buttons from hitting the floor. The "guts" may be damaged enough that the phone needs repairs before you can place another call, but the accident won't cut off the call that's in progress (unless, of course, the base-to-wall cord is "pinned" under something on your desk, so it makes virtually the complete fall before it's stopped by a jerk on the cord, breaking the wires inside).

[sirwired]

I hate to admit it, but I am old enough to remember when the Bell System provided a black, rotary dial desk phone to each home as part of the subscription to its phone service. If you wanted more or a different model, it cost more each month. Of course, the Bell System owned the phones, and the customer had to return them when the service ended - and had to wait and rely upon the phone company to come to the house to repair the phones if anything went wrong.

Yep, those were the "good old days."

Fun Fact: Not that long ago, I saw an article about how the pathetic, reduced, remains of the Bell System, now in the form of the "Lucent" part of "Alcatel-Lucent" STILL, after all these years, raked in decent amounts of essentially "free money" from people that never discontinued their phone lease. The income was slowly dying as the customers moved and/or died, but it was still more than you'd think.

Even now, you can pay a monthly fee for a "Service Protection Plan" where they will generously loan you a basic corded phone for up to two months while you have your current phone repaired (or you undergo the herculean and expensive task of buying a new corded phone), should it break. (I'm having trouble picturing the idea of having your phone repaired by a 3rd-party, ever. By the time the equipment monopoly was broken, hadn't phones advanced to the point where it'd never make sense to have somebody actually repair them? (Outside of purchasing a spare part like a new cord or handset.))

[DGoddessChardonnay]

I hate to admit it, but I am old enough to remember when the Bell System provided a black, rotary dial desk phone to each home as part of the subscription to its phone service. If you wanted more or a different model, it cost more each month. Of course, the Bell System owned the phones, and the customer had to return them when the service ended - and had to wait and rely upon the phone company to come to the house to repair the phones if anything went wrong.

Yep, those were the "good old days."

At least in my area we had Southern Bell phone stores back in the 70's (and into the early 80's) where you could go buy the latest styles in phones. My mom went crazy with that and somehow we ended up with 13 phones in the house - and each one was wired up to a jack and working.

Yes, 13 phones. In a 3 bedroom/1 bath house.

3 in the living room alone (I recall one being a vintage 1920's candlestick phone, I think we had a Mediterranean style in black/gold and I can't recall what the other style was)

2 in my grandmother's room (one on the nightstand by her bed and another one on the other side of the room where her recliner was)

2 in the kitchen (one Trimline was orange and had the corkboard/phone book storage built in mounted to the wall - I haven't seen another one like it online so far and another trimline by the bar near the stove on the wall)

3 in the back porch (which Mom converted into a bedroom/party room for herself. One was beside the bed - brown Trimline mounted to the wall, chocolate brown donut style phone by the sofa another by the sofa and another wall mounted Trimline behind the bar)

2 in my room (I had a blue French style phone by my bed and a Winne The Pooh lamp phone - those are very rare to find nowadays)

1 in my brother's room (Mickey Mouse lamp phone)

1 on the front porch (Mom kept a trimline for us to use out there)

And on occasion we'd have one phone not quite disconnecting and guess who would have to go through the house and disconnect every SINGLE phone, wait a couple of minutes, then go back through and reconnect every single phone back up again?

Now those were the days for me . . .

And speaking of maintenance plans, my Mom carries that for our home phone line . . . she's carried it for at least 30 years or more. And believe me, that plan has more than paid for itself over all those years.

[Silent-Hunter]

Nothing wrong with collecting things. Unless it wasn't a hobby and more of an obsession.

[SongsOfDragons]

You've forgotten to tell us about what must have been a roof-lifting cacophony whenever someone phoned, DGoddess?

[DGoddessChardonnay]

You've forgotten to tell us about what must have been a roof-lifting cacophony whenever someone phoned, DGoddess?

Oh, you mean every single phone ringing through the house at the same time? NOwhere was safe, that was for sure. Couldn't even pee in peace (phone was right on the wall behind the toilet.)

Hell, Mom could be across the street on Butt's (her BFF, now deceased) front porch and hear those damned things going off!

And forget hiding in the basement . . . everything ECHOED down there. But I can say this: if our basement had enough head clearance and was level, Mom would have finished it and had at least 6 more phones down there too!

But of course, this was the early 80's when the masses didn't all have cordless phones (they were just coming out and VERY expensive).