Something very bizarre happened to me a couple of months ago. I received a call from someone at Rogers Canada, my phone company. They had noticed that the majority of the “minutes” I spend on my phone are taken in the evening on weekdays. This is because of my phone sex dalliances, of course.
The man went on to tell me that under the plan I could save about $10 per month if I switched over to a different plan, one that takes advantage of this evening calling habit of mine.
I was skeptical. I know that Rogers is one of Canada’s large telecommunications corporations, and that as a rule, these massive entities are not in the business of lowering the bills of their customers. So I asked the nice man on the phone as many questions as I could, and tried to get the best idea possible about whether what he was telling me was true or not.
I looked up the plans on the internet, on Rogers’ site. Sure enough, there didn’t seem to be any hidden catches, or other trapdoors that could have swung out from under my feet. Still, I felt like I was getting myself into something I’d regret later. I couldn’t shake the feeling that Rogers was in this to scam me.
I had experienced some very bad customer service from two of Canada’s other wireless carriers before. One very bad but mercifully short excursion with Bell Canada, and a truly horrific year-long debacle with Telus. I fucking LOATHE Telus. I damn near filed a complaint with the CRTC over their treatment of me, and I was considering taking them to court over their missteps and flat-out lies.
I eventually got my business with them resolved and permanently ended, but the experience had left me sour on the idea of taking anything a telecommunications corporation tells me at face value.
This being considered, I still couldn’t find anything misleading, fishy, sketchy or otherwise off in the offer that the Rogers representative was making to me over the phone. And since I’m generally satisfied with the service I’ve been getting from them, I signed up for another 3 year contract with them under this new plan that the man on the phone told me about.
Then I got my phone bill.
I am still stunned to this day to see that my phone bills are lower than they were before. I can’t get over it. It really wasn’t a scam after all.
This doesn’t invalidate my belief that corporations are out to scam the most amount of money from us with the least expenditure of goods or services from them in return. If you look it up, you will see that this is what’s called “Capitalism”. What Rogers did for me was a customer service ploy, because there are some more competing phone services now that charge less than what Rogers was charging. They know that they’d rather lower rates for customers and keep them than have those customers leave when their contracts are up.
I got lower phone bills in the end, so it worked out good for me this time.
Also, I was informed that I am due for a new phone under my contract. This is good news because my shitty Motorola Razr phone is getting old. I got it because it was the thinnest phone on the market back then. What I got stuck with was a crappy phone with terrible call audio quality, rudimentary and/or non-functional browsing capability and the bad habit of a button that turns the phone ringer to “silent” when it’s in my pocket.
Adios, shitty fucking phone.
I have just decided on getting an HTC Dream.
I found a very good review of the product, and even the things the review site gripes about I see as advantages for me. It’s a big phone. This is a plus for me because I don’t like shouting to be heard on a microphone that sits around my cheek, and I have big hands.
The keyboard is very easy to navigate with long fingers and thumbs like mine. Another gripe I read was that the camera produces crappy images. That’s no big deal to me because I hardly ever take pictures. The last time I did was to document something I complained about at work… and that was about 18 months ago.
The main draw for me with this phone is the OS. It runs the open source Android OS, which is built on a modified Linux kernel. I wanted an iPhone when they came out, but since Apple is becoming the new Microsoft, and since they’re being a bunch of pricks by forcing their restrictions on people, I’ll not be buying an apple product again.
When the Android OS first became known, I hated it. I hated it only on the basis that when I searched on Google for images with the term “android”, shit like this always popped up:
That’s not what I was looking for. I was looking for stuff like this:
That was the only non-Android OS image on Google Image search that I found, and it was in the middle of Page 2.
So, Google has destroyed my ability to find pics of sexy female androids by supporting the Android OS.
But I’m over that now. I can’t go and do something stupid like support Microsoft or Apple when I buy a smartphone. And I need one that can browse websites. Flash isn’t there, and I doubt it ever will be, but HTML 5 might just replace Flash in the future.
So… I will get me an HTC Dream. HTC makes a newer phone called the Nexus One, but Rogers doesn’t sell it, so I’d have to shell out $$$ for it. I can get the HTC Dream for $50 with my current plan.
I shall order it on the weekend.