Ernistine's Revenge

If you're more of a baby boomer than a Gen XYZ you may remember the lady pictured here - "Ernestine the Operator" played by Lily Tomlin. Her short skits lampooning the monopolistic phone company of the 1970's were hilarious - in part because they resonated with viewers who had been frustrated getting decent customer service. With the breakup of ATT Ernestine got a pink slip as - theoretically - competition among the baby Bells would deliver an attitude adjustment towards customers if they had a choice.

But I'm beginning to think that Ernestine is alive and well at ATT/Cingular, and is just having a blast dissing all the cell phone customers. Case in point - about four months ago Deb's phone went on the fritz so she went in and picked out a new one. There was, as usual, a rebate that you could have if you extended the contract. And the representative actually cut out the barcode, filled out the form, and dropped it into an envelope for us to mail. So imagine our surprise in about four weeks when we get a note saying that they're sorry but no rebate because there was no barcode enclosed. How do you prove it was in there? Guess next time we need to photocopy it before sending it off.

Then the bills start coming. Aren't cell bills fun? It is positively painful to try to assess one for why your bill has jumped by $20, especially if you have 3 phones on the account like we do. After wading through comparisons I finally figured out that they had increased the "family plan" base rate - a facet of extending our contract that the saleswoman conveniently omitted. But then looking further there's also a "multi-media" charge for this new phone - again, a feature not asked for (Deb is not about to be sending & receiving pictures with her friends). So Monday I'll be at the ATT store dealing with the latest incarnation of Ernestine. I'd switch companies but somehow it always seems that right as we're near the end of the contract somebody's phone gives out - and besides, would it really be any better over at Verizon? Nahhh....

If That's True, Why Bother?

So I'm reading the Examiner today and see the story about the annual crack down on drivers not wearing seat belts. Knowing me you might assume that this blog will be a commentary on how a law that was sold to voters as a "you'll only get a ticket if you're stopped for some other infraction" has morphed into what it's become today - but you'd be wrong! No, what has my ire is the opening line of the article, "In Maryland, 52 percent of drivers killed at night last year failed to wear sear belts."

This is supposed to be a compelling statistic that makes the case for wearing a seat belt - that nearly just as many people wearing their seatbelt are killed as those who blithely disregard the law? Forgive me, but in the words of Dick Cheney, "So?"

Does anyone read these articles? I know we're not talking about an article for a peer reviewed journal but my rant today is that the article is really nothing but a press release and probably should have been paid for as advertising (wait - maybe it was....). The article then goes on to state that seat belts could have saved an estimated 180 lives, but then I'm wondering if we could also say that 170 lives could have been saved if people didn't wear them.

What's missing here of course is information on the percentage of people that routinely wear seatbelts. If the article had stated something along the lines of "while it's estimated that only 10% of drivers fail to buckle up they accounted for over half of the nighttime fatalities last year", then you have compelling statistics for buckling up. So while pouring resources into this enforcement campaign is not a great ROI in my opinion, what troubles me more is the lack of critical writing (which probably comes about from a lack of critical thinking).

For the record:

• I wear my seatbelt religiously
• I make all human passengers wear their seatbelt