Shorthand has been with us in one form or another ever since mankind first developed a means to communicate with one another. Truncated text has always had a purpose in certain applications, such as dictation, semaphore, or telegrams; so it’s no surprise that texting has adopted its own shorthand much the same as instant messaging and chat rooms before it. For better or worse, text-ese is likely with us to stay. Which raises the question, how far might it go in our correspondence? For instance, what if sacred texts were to be translated into text-ese? Let’s start with the Ten Commandments:
1. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.”
Translation: GRWG. I am l33t. LOTR. I > other gods. It’s a very simple equation: God has no equal and deserves his props. Recognize.
2. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.”
Translation: Copyright © 5000 B.C. God®.
3. “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.”
Translation: TMWFI, Don’t dis me, Man. When God tells you to take his word for it, we think it’s best not to find out the hard way what the consequences are of dissing him.
4. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.”
Translation: TGIF. It wouldn’t take many characters to summarize the gist of this commandment. Just don’t text it while you’re driving if you want to wake up in one piece on the Sabbath, OK?
5. “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.”
Translation: <3 ur folks, BFF. OK, so maybe you don’t see them as your best friends forever right now, but TOWFI (take our word for it), someday you will. So love your folks, kids.
6. “You shall not murder.”
Translation: DNT U Kill PPL. Srsly. It doesn’t get much clearer than this. Seriously, and why we even need to have a commandment for this, OMG.
7. “You shall not commit adultery.”
Translation: DNT DV8. No BTYCL. This one is another pretty straightforward message. God doesn’t want you deviating from your commitment to your mate/spouse. No booty calls.
8. “You shall not steal.”
Translation: DNT b down w/ OPP. You read us right: don’t be down with other people’s property. Get your own stuff, and leave theirs alone.
9. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
Translation: MYOB. Yes, mind your own business, and don’t spread gossip or false accusations about your neighbors.
10. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”
Translation: Keep ur i’s 2 urslf. It’s OK to want things, but when you dwell on your neighbor’s goods, bad things tend to happen. So stay focused on the good things in your own life, and be happy for your neighbor’s good fortunes too.
While some of these translations might lack the coherency of the original, they certainly make up for it in brevity. But no matter which way you say them, the Ten Commandments are worth following. 2 good 2 be 4 gotten.
One of the biggest pet peeves among customers is the automated attendant. Ranking right up there with being placed on hold, the interminable purgatory of phone trees is enough to drive consumers up a real live tree. It’s that lethal combination of being sent through a maze of menu options, which never seem to cover every contingency, and the absence of any human contact that can make the pain go away that drives even the sanest person crazy. The following are ten of the worst offenders when it comes to auto attendant systems:
- AT&T – It’s possible to go full circle several times through their phone tree without ever reaching an option that can shortcut you to a live person. In fact, an irony of this list is that it includes so many corporate entities whose core business is communications.
- AOL – A company with an historically bad record for customer service, America Online, now AOL, has gained its notoriety as much for the extreme difficulty customers encounter when attempting to cancel their accounts as for the phone gymnastics required of them to do so.
- Comcast – They may have blazing fast internet speeds, but customer service can be measured with a calendar instead of a stopwatch. Don’t make any plans for a good while if you’ve got to call their customer support.
- Dell - We thought maybe with the decrease in desktop and laptop sales, it might be a tad easier to get to speak with a carbon-based unit at Dell tech support. We thought wrong. It’s still a half-day ordeal getting help – or at least it seems that way when navigating the phone tree and listening to that annoying recording.
- Time-Warner Cable – Another trend we noticed when compiling this list is that most of the companies that were rated worst for their automated answering services also received low scores on their customer service in general. TWC fits this category, though it’s unclear whether this is a case of simple correlation or causation.
- DISH Network – One of the cardinal sins of programming an automated attendant is poorly structured phone trees. That is, a caller should be able to navigate easily through the menu options in order to get effective assistance for the issue they’re calling about. Not so with DISH.
- Bank of America – It would probably be easier to procure the equipment and materials necessary to print your own currency than it is to reach someone who can assist you at B of A. As with many other automated attendants, there are not enough options to account for every circumstance, so callers are frequently transferred after long hold times.
- Sprint – Telecom companies love those IVR’s. Unfortunately, we don’t. And apparently not many of them can recognize salty language, so we constantly have to repeat ourselves – loudly – and with very minimal success.
- Citigroup – We’re guessing that banks, cable and phone companies get their auto attendants from the same flea market vendor, because the experience is fairly identical for customers of all three industries.
- Capital One – As we were saying, it doesn’t take Scotland Yard to figure out the trend here. Phone calls are often routed to the wrong service rep, and it’s unclear whether the calls are being dumped back into a generic queue after timing out on hold, or the menu is simply not routing calls properly.
It won’t be long before working folks everywhere are taken with a bad case of spring fever. Then again, cold winter mornings can be a compelling reason for calling out at work too. So it’s a good time to make a list of handy excuses, and we’ve got you covered. Here then are 10 great phone-in excuses to skip work:
- You’ve been stuck out of town on an airline layover. This one requires some preparation. If weather isn’t a credible excuse, use the overbooked flight gambit. Pro tip: It also tends to lose a little something when you call the boss from your home phone.
- You and ten of your friends have score tickets to the Super Bowl. Hopefully those friends aren’t all co-workers, or else this one may be a bit tricky to pull off.
- It’s your kid’s birthday. What kind of heartless cad would deny an employee the opportunity to share this special day with their child? If you have to ask, you may want to skip this one.
- You’ve got a job interview with another company. It’s a great excuse alright, provided the interview goes extremely well. Otherwise, not so much.
- You’re playing golf with a client. We’d like to believe that it goes without saying, but just in case: This excuse has a significantly lower success rate among certain occupations, such as morticians, pizza delivery, parole officers, etc.
- Your apartment is flooded from an unfortunate waterbed mishap. Best not to go into too much detail here. So keep the bit about exotic dancers with body piercings under your hat.
- Doctor’s appointment. As in the waterbed scenario, try to limit the information about the purpose of your visit. For instance, whatever vaccinations, specialists or surgeries that may be involved.
- You’re working from home. Be prepared to show some productivity from your homework when using this one, and make sure you are either at your home phone or have forwarded the number to the appropriate location. All bets are off if the location is Moe’s Bar and Grill.
- You’ve earned some time off. If you’ve documented sufficient overtime – late nights, weekends, and the like – you could justify some comp time.
- One of our personal favorites: My wife says she is going to conceive today, and I want to be there to witness it.
The chances of reaching a live person when placing a call these days get slimmer all the time. Every call turns into a form of techno-gymnastics, hopping through a maze of push-button options until you finally reach a human being, if ever. Time for revenge. Here are ten ways to get even with automated answering services:
- Share their number with your social networking friends, and invite everyone to call it simultaneously. You might not have as difficult a time gathering disgruntled callers together as you think.
- Leave a message for them to call you back. When they do, ask them to please hold, put down your receiver, and go back to watching your favorite show.
- Use their toll-free number whenever you call, even if you are local. If you’re going to be placed on hold for an eternity, let it be on their dime, not yours.
- Always try pressing ’0′, saying “operator” or “customer service”, when given an option menu. It often short-cuts you to a live attendant.
- Turn the tables on them when the company calls you. Let them follow an options menu from hell before you talk to them directly:
- “For English, press 1 …”,
- “To speak with a customer, press 1 …”
- “For my wife, press 1; for me, press 2…”
- “Your call is very important to us. Please continue to hold until NCIS is over …”
- Keep pressing buttons, even after you’ve reached a live person. Don’t acknowledge that you are aware of the keypad tones. Or, alternately, tell them that your finger muscles must have spasmed from repeated pressing.
- Threaten to take your business elsewhere due to interminably long hold times. Make sure you’ve got reasonably attractive alternatives before playing this card, though.
- When you are given an options menu, you may want to consider pressing the wrong option. Yes, this will add to your time on the phone, but it will also inconvenience someone on the other end who wasn’t supposed to get your call. It might just get the company to re-evaluate their answering service, but don’t bet on it.
- Pressing keys that are not options in the call menu will also prompt most answering services to re-direct your call to a live attendant. It’s just another way of cutting through the maze of options.
- Follow the menu through the billing options. When you finally reach a live person, tell them that you had initially called to pay your bill; but while you were on the line for 45 minutes, another bill came due that you’ve decided to pay instead.
There are few things that can inspire thoughts of vengeance and retribution in otherwise well-mannered people more than the dreaded telemarketer. Who hasn’t at least occasionally imagined ways of giving them their comeuppance? Well, we sure have, and we’re going to share some with you. The following are 10 tricks to play on telemarketers:
- Air horn – Crude, but effective. Use this technique only when you are sure that you are dealing with an actual telemarketer. Recognize that number on caller ID? Reach for your horn, place it near the phone’s mic, and let’ er rip.
- Kill time – They’re taking up your valuable time, so why not turn the tables. Play along with their sales pitch for a while, then tell them to kiss off.
- The Seinfeld Maneuver – Speaking of turning the tables, this technique is another fun way to get your message across in language they can understand.
- TMI – When they ask for personal information, or even how you’re doing today, tell them. Every minute detail of your life. Tell them about your recent surgery, your cat’s allergies, your kid’s grades at school. You’re sure to make friends in no time.
- All Business – Make them think they’ve reached a business number, and answer with a receptionist’s greeting.
- Say What? - Pretend you are hard of hearing, and ask them to speak loudly – very loudly.
- Push His Buttons – Press buttons on your keypad at varying intervals, and don’t acknowledge anything if he asks what those sounds are.
- Que? – Speak in another language. If you aren’t fluent in one, make one up.
- Hold, Please. – Ask them to please hold while you tend to something else (kids, dinner in the oven), then leave the phone, still connected, and go back to whatever you were doing.
- Zap Them – A high-tech alternative is to employ one of these gadgets. You won’t even need to answer the phone, plus your number will be removed from the telemarketer’s calling list.
Telephone landlines into the home or business have been around for a long time, long enough to have given us many reasons for being unhappy with them. Here are 10 reasons that people give for disliking their landline phone.
- Expense. Local telephone landline service is a monthly expense that many folks are tired of having to pay. With the predominance of cell phones, a number of people are deciding that paying for that monthly service is something to be done away with.
- Asking for Help. Trying to get help with a bill or a service problem from some of the landline service companies can be a little bit like pulling teeth without an anesthetic, only it takes longer. Those endless minutes stretch into fractions of hours spent on hold. People have been driven to distraction waiting for the only person that can actually help them.
- Long Distance Plans. If you believe the advertising, there are a lot of really good, really simple long distance plans available. Most people have finally learned not to believe the advertising. The plans are almost always more complex than advertised, and virtually never as inexpensive as they’ve led you to believe before signing up.
- Contract Bundling. “What do you mean I have to buy your internet service and alarm service and pet walking service in order to get the best price? I don’t even have a pet!” Sometimes it feels as if you’re being blackmailed to pay for multiple services, when all you want is to be able to call 911 for an ambulance after the stroke that their so-called service department gave you while not solving your billing problem.
- Limited mobility. Ever forget that you’re on a landline call and walk out to the mailbox, only to find that you’ve lost the signal on an important call? Now you have to call that person back and either lie, or admit to having forgotten which phone you were using.
- Fax Machines. Ever answer the phone, just to find that you’ve been called by a fax machine? That annoying sound of maniacal electrons would simply be ‘annoying’, if it wasn’t always coming through at maximum volume. It can be loud enough to hurt!
- Answering Machines. How many times do you try to listen to a message that your answering machine has garbled beyond intelligibility? Beating the recording unit with the handheld unit doesn’t seem to help, does it?
- Telemarketers. Need I say more?
- Wrong Numbers. There is little in life more frustrating than running from the shower with nothing but a towel around you, slipping on the kitchen linoleum and stubbing your toe while tripping over a chair, only to pick up the phone and get yelled at because some guy’s delivery pizza hasn’t arrived yet.
- Interruptions. The cliché about phone calls always coming as you’re sitting down to a meal or right at the most dramatic moment of a television show or sports event, is a cliché because it’s true. It’s been suggested that this is a conspiracy between the phone company and satellite surveillance companies, to delay calls from being completed until these moments, but that may simply be paranoia creeping in.
These are the 10 most cited reasons that people are unhappy with their landlines, so this must mean that people are in love with their mobile phone service, right? Well, from reports we’ve heard, there may be another 10 frustrations to report about, soon.
With the popularity of mobile phones and the competition among long distance calling plans, collect calls are becoming less common than they used to be. When I was young I would call my folks collect from a payphone about once per month, because I couldn’t afford a phone in my apartment. I don’t think I’ve ever received a collect call from any of my children, since they all have cell phones. There aren’t many folks I’d accept collect calls from, nowadays, but here are 10 that I would accept.
- Sons. If I were to receive a collect phone call from any of my three sons, I would accept the call. In each case I would have to assume that something negative had happened to cause the call, and I’d have to take the call to find out what was up.
- Grandchildren. Collect calls from any of my grandchildren would be accepted without question. No reason needed; they’re my grandkids!
- Mom. As with my kids, a collect call from Mom would be accepted, in part, because I’d be worried about what was wrong that caused her to have to call collect. She is, after all, the person that taught me the most about how to worry and fret effectively.
- Dad. Sheer curiosity, if nothing else, would cause me to accept the charges on a collect call from Dad. He tends to lean a bit toward, shall we say, frugality? So, though a bit of worry would cross my mind if he called collect, I’d mostly want to find out how he was going to justify asking me to pay for the call.
- A Friend in Jail. With caller ID on my phone, were I to receive a collect call from a county or city jail, I would assume that a friend was in trouble, and I’d accept the charges. I’d be nervous about what sort of help I’d be asked to offer, but I’d take the call.
- A Friend in Transit. I have some musician and artist friends that do a lot of travelling around the country. Some travel by car, some by bus, some by air, and some by whatever means of transportation is available at the time that the travel urge strikes them. If any of them called me collect, I’d accept the charges for what would likely be a really interesting conversation, and, of course, in case they were calling for a ride.
- Minnesota Lottery Headquarters. I’d have no choice but to accept a collect call from these folks, due to the implication that I may have just won such a large amount of money that they couldn’t afford to call and notify me any other way.
- US Internal Revenue Service. Okay, I’d refrain from making any assumptions about why they were calling collect, but curiosity would also make this an impossible call to turn away. Maybe they’d heard about the Minnesota Lottery call, and needed a short-term loan?
- The Pulitzer Prize Committee. Yah, I know, I’m dreaming again. But no one said that the calls on this list had to be within the realm of actual possibilities.
- God. Look, I’ve seen the movie “Oh God” with John Denver and George Burns in it. I’ve read much from the Bible. I’ve experienced some amazing and unexpected gifts in this life. It would surprise me not at all to learn that God had chosen to reach out and touch me by long distance collect call. I’d accept the charges on this one without hesitation.
When I started this article, I wasn’t sure whether or not I could think of 10 collect calls that I would actually accept. It turned out to be easier than I thought it would be. Hmm. Maybe I should start calling collect to find out whom and how many would accept the charges from MY collect calls.
Sometimes, it appears that cell phones have become a required accessory attached to every kid and teenager that you see in public. You see them being used for calls, text messaging, music listening, and game playing, virtually everywhere that kids are found. So, how did kids survive without cell phones in the 80′s?
- Notes in Class. Kids in the 1980s may have been one of the last generations to have to rely on passing notes to communicate with each other during class.
- Pay Phones. Though they are rarely seen in public places today, coin operated pay phones were available on virtually every street corner and in most public buildings. If a kid needed a ride, or otherwise wanted to make a phone call while out and about, it was going to cost them a quarter.
- Home Computers. When personal computers first began to be common in homes, kids were some of the first to begin finding new ways to use them for fun. There were few games available for early home computers, but they were perfect tools for role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, which were extremely popular with the young people of that era.
- Video Game Arcades. In the 1980s, video game arcades became widespread, and functioned as gathering places for kids and teenagers. Games such as Pac-Man and Space Invaders kept kids feeding quarters into the machines.
- Walkman. The Sony Walkman was introduced in 1979, and it changed the way people, especially kids and teenagers, listened to music. By the early 1980s, young people wearing lightweight headphones and bobbing their heads to music had become a common sight in public places. Kids could have their music with them at all times, without annoying people around them.
- MTV. In the early 1980s, MTV debuted, and kids everywhere gathered in front of the television to watch and listen to music videos. MTV literally changed the way the music business operated, as videos became a required part of virtually every new music release.
- Game Consoles. Atari, Sega, and Nintendo became household names in the 1980s, and the first stores devoted completely to electronic game cartridges and accessories began to appear. During this period, many homes began to have at least one television that was devoted completely to video games.
- Game Watches. It may sound a bit hokey to today’s kids, but the introduction of Game Watches by Nelsonic Industries was a huge step in the evolution of gaming. Game watch combined a timepiece with an electronic game, was worn on a wrist like a watch, and could be played anywhere.
- Game and Watch. The Game and Watch from Nintendo was a handheld device that, like the Game Watch above, combined a timepiece and a video game. The early versions were made to play only one game, but later versions allowed the user to play various games on one unit.
- Teen lines. Many homes in the 80′s had more than one phone line for their land line phone. Often times, the second line was referred to as the ‘teen’ line. If they wanted to call their friends, they used the their land line at home to call their friend on their friend’s home phone.
It may be hard for young people today to imagine, but life in the 1980s without cell phones was not only survivable, it was an exciting time of innovation, and many of the applications that kids use on their cell phones today were born during that decade.
Telephone landline service has been the historical norm for home and business communications, and despite the surge in mobile communications technology, it remains a large player in communication services. Prices can vary between providers of landline services, or within plans offered by a single provider, and here are some of the reasons for that variation.
- Location. Your landline pricing will vary based on where you live or locate your business. One survey of pricing found a variance of average local service pricing among major cities, ranging from $27.01 in Seattle, WA, to $39.22 in Minneapolis, MN.
- Location-II. If you live in a rural area, landline prices are going to be higher than they are in more densely populated areas, unless your state regulates providers and does not allow such differences.
- Who Owns the Lines? Landline service pricing can vary based on whether a local company owns the lines that transmit calls, or leases them from another company. It’s not always consistent, though. Either one can be cheaper or more expensive, based on line-lease costs, line maintenance costs, and cost of lease rights for land crossed by the wires.
- Signal Strength and Speed. Local landline service companies will often vary in price based on their capacity for transmitting data at higher speeds, or in for transmitting larger quantities of data at a time, as in fax transmissions.
- Per Call vs. Per Month. Some landline service providers will set pricing based on how many calls are made, or how long calls last, while others set prices for a time period without regard for quantity or length of calls.
- Emergencies Only. There are a number of communities in which service providers offer extremely inexpensive plans that only allow incoming calls and calls to 911 operators, making them available for emergencies and nothing else.
- Voice Messaging, or Not? Some landline plans come with the price of voice messaging services automatically added in, whether you want them or not.
- Local or Local Plus? Landline service pricing may also vary based on whether you have local service only, or local service plus some long distance service. Prices may vary within these service plans, based on how large a network of long distance service is included in the billing, and whether call quantity or length can bring added charges.
- Bundling Encouraged. Basic landline service is priced high by some providers, in order to encourage you to consider bundling phone service with internet and other types of services. You may find that it costs so little to add more services that it simply makes sense to do so. Whether you bundle or not, the company wins.
- Because They Can. In some cases, the availability of competitive services is low, or the population base of a service area is unaware of competitive services or resistant to making changes. In these situations, the dominant company is simply able to operate with higher profit margins than would otherwise be the case.
So now you know some of the reasons that landline service prices are variable. In landline telephone service, as in any other business dealings, the rule of thumb is that the buyer needs to arm herself or himself with as much information as possible, in order to get the desired services at acceptable prices.
There are certain companies I never call unless I have at least half and hour to waste. You inevitably get put on hold, often before you even get to talk to an actual person. I always make sure I’m at my computer so I can check my facebook, email or at least play solitaire while I’m waiting for someone to come on the line. Here are 10 of those companies that always seem to put you on hold.
- Credit card – The biggest culprit is credit card companies. They never hesitate to call you about special deals, especially during dinner, but it’s a different story when you actually want to talk to them.
- Insurance – Another company that gives you the automated run around is insurance companies. Make sure you have your account number and all sorts of other pertinent information “handy” while you wait, and wait.
- Long distance – If you have a question about your long distance bill, you better have some time on your hands. By the time you get someone on the line, you’ve forgotten what you called about.
- Cell phone – The same goes for cell phone service. What’s really annoying is the sales pitches you have to listen to while you’re waiting to tell them you want to cancel your contract.
- Internet providers – If you have a large company like Comcast or AT&T for your internet provider and have a complaint, be prepared to get in line on the hold waiting list. When you hear, “Your call will be answered in 37 minutes,” you know you called at the wrong time.
- Television service – Whether you have satellite or cable television, those companies always seem to put you on hold. Just when you have the sequence of numbers to push to get to a technician memorized, they change their call menu.
- Clinic – Why isn’t there ever anyone available at the clinic appointment desk? Whenever I call to make an appointment, I get put on hold.
- Hospital – Calling a hospital to check on a family member or friend is always going to get you put on hold. By the time you finally get a nurse on the line you’ve forgotten who you were calling about.
- Government offices – Calling any government agency is a nightmare. You not only get put on indefinite hold, but when they finally put you through to the person you need to talk to, you only get their voicemail.
- Merchants – If you have a question about a product you want to buy or want to return a defective item, be prepared to sit on hold. All these companies sure like to sell you stuff, but they don’t want to have anything to do with talking to their customers.
One consolation is that you usually have a toll free number, and while you’re waiting, it’s on there dime, not yours. How frustrating it is when you finally get someone on the line, but can’t understand a word they say because they live in Bangladesh. Life is too short to be spending so much time on hold.
