Alarming Robosales Fail

Customer service and I are having our usual love/hate relationship--which means that I love to hate them and they love to give me reasons to hate them.  And although I try to cut the humans on the line some slack, since I am kind of in that line of work myself; I have virtually no patience with automated systems and robocalls.

The other evening I was sitting at home minding my own  business when the phone rang--a blocked number. I have family and friends with blocked lines, so I needed to answer, but almost immediately the robovoice came on the line:

"Hello, You have been identified by a family member or friend as someone living in a high crime area who is in need of an alarm service."

Normally they would have lost me at "hello"  but since I deal with alarm companies a lot at work I thought it would be fun to appraise their sales pitch professionally.  But my robosalesperson was already in danger of being cut off since the only thing in his first sentence that was true was the part about "high crime area". Namely none of my friends or relatives would give my unlisted phone number out to anyone, let alone an alarm company.  Moreover, I know burglary alarms are mostly a huge pain in the neck for police officers since over 90% are false. Many bigger cities don't even respond to routine alarms any more, or low prioritize them.  But I let robosalesperson continue.

"Our alarm company will provide direct connection from your home to your local police fire and emergency medical services." Ha, I really do know better than  this one. Unless you are a local service in a small town, or a very large business, you don't ring directly into a police or fire department.  Your alarm rings into a call center which then calls your local public safety providers. Frequently the calltakers are in a region completely different from where you live, and they not only mispronounce your street and city but they can be pretty rocky on the state as well. And yes we do occasionally get the calls that sound like they were outsourced to Calcutta.


 (By the way, should you ever decide to get an alarm service make sure you know where you actually live and who your service provider is.  The address on your bills isn't necessarily the place you actually live in, and if you live in the boonies it can be anybody's guess who responds. Just another helpful hint from your friends at Meg on the Go.)

At this point I was so disgruntled by the halftruths, not to mention the intrusion upon a  perfectly nice evening of "Sherlock" reruns, that instead of hitting the "Remove me from the call list"  button I hit the "tell off a live human" option instead.  I was to be thwarted however...the phone rang about six times then disconnected.

I never got the name of the company, nor their phone number  because it came up blocked on my caller ID.  If the ever call back though they are getting a piece  of my mind--for the sake of my peace of mind.

T is for A Tale of Two Cities

I wasn't going to get through an A-Z book challenge without coming to Charles Dickens eventually.  I came close several times, but always settled upon a different book to write about, until now.

A Tale of Two Cities is one of my two favorite Dickens novels, along with Nicolas Nickleby.  A Christmas Carol which is more of a novella, is my absolute favorite work by him, but I have written about it before. So its off to the French Revolution we go, and one of the great historical novels of all time.

This is the one that begins "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" (and then goes on in that vein for a whole chapter, because Dickens was like that) and that's appropriate because this novel is all about contrasts: between London and Paris, Justice and Vengeance, Rich and Poor, so on. Most importantly its about the contrasts between two men: Charles Darnay (an exiled French Nobleman) and Sidney Carton, an Englishman of good family who has wasted his opportunities on drink and debauchery. Both men fall in love with a woman name Lucie, and Darnay marries her, after Carton takes himself out of the running saying he's not worthy of her.

As it happens, the two men share a striking physical resemblance. 

As in most good historical novels, the private lives of these people play out against the backdrop of history, in this case the French Revolution.  Darnay is eventually captured by the Revolutionary forces and sentenced to death--not for anything he himself has done, but because of the sins of his forbears against the common man. His death is largely because of the personal vendetta of Madame Defarge, one of Dickens' greatest charecters, a woman eaten alive by vengance, who knits cheerfully while counting victims at the guillotine.

For Lucie's sake Carton substitutes himself for Darnay, the family escapes back to England and all ends well, even for Carton, who going to the guillotine reflecting (In a quote so famous it even got into a Star Trek movie) "Its a far far better thing I do, than I have ever done. Its a far far better resting place I go to than  I have ever known. "

In between there's all sorts of drama, and unforgettable characters, just the sort of thing Dickens is good at. As usual Dickens contrasts the lives of the poor and helpless with the lives of the rich and privileged.   This is actually one of him more straightforward books, not burdened with excessive subplots.   

The last couple chapters of the book detailing Carton's thoughts and feelings on morning of his death are among Dickens' best. A young seamstress makes a heartbreaking cameo her as well. 

There have been several good film versions of A Tale of Two Cities, but the one that is not to be missed is the 1935 version starring Ronald Colman. Not only does it stick quite closely to the book, but no one could die nobly like Ronald Colman.  

I know we came up a little short last week trying to finish up the 

A-Z challenge, but work and a bad round of spring sinuses kind of got in the way.  I promise to not let anyone down though, there will be a post finishing up the remaining letters of the alphabet, as soon as I find a book for "X".