Art Machine
Just another former infatuation junkie

So many stories I encountered today were wrong. But I think the one with the most layers of sheer wrongness has to be this story courtesy of the Marijuana Policy Project.

The two men were sharing a cell because the jail was overcrowded. Typically, inmates are classified according to offense, criminal history, gender, and/or age, among other factors, when assigned to their cells. Because certain offenders need to be isolated for safety reasons, a jail’s capacity is in reality much lower than the number of beds it houses.

While the Alachua County jail could theoretically hold 920 inmates, in reality it could only accommodate an average of 782 inmates on any given day because of the need to separate certain offenders. On the day the college student was raped, the jail contained 918 inmates, far exceeding capacity. Such overcrowding had been typical in the jail since 1998.

Though the two men would normally have been separated, they were grouped together because delivering marijuana and sexual battery are both considered felonies.

In one single story we have:

1. Draconian drug policy


2. Overcrowded prisons


3. A correctional system more concerned with punishment than rehabilitation


4. A lack of empathy from those in charge of the prison system

My personal favorite moment has to be when the county sheriff says, “If there was space available, absolutely we would rather keep the weekenders in a pre-designated area. But because we don’t have much space available we have to do with circumstances on hand.” In other words: You go to justice with the prison system you have, not the prison system you want.

Back when I worked tech suppor—err, “customer service,” one of the things we were told not to mess with was peoples’ sports. It didn’t matter if we were Steelers fans and the person on the line was a Packers fanatic, if we felt the Dodgers hadn’t been any good since they left Brooklyn and our customer was from L.A., or if we felt it was ridiculous to subscribe to the 15-channel Cricket Network. We did not comment on their sports choices.

I also learned very quickly that the most outraged and violently-inclined customers were the ones who – because of a problem with our product – would not be able to watch the sporting event they had been looking forward to. Thankfully, I only ever had to deal with regular season games – I quit the day before a massive Oscar De La Hoya pay-per-view, and people I went through training with told me later that I dodged a bullet by doing so.

So what is the MLB thinking – beyond “Here’s a way we can make greedy little fistfuls of extra cash” – when they tell their fans the games they bought from the MLB’s website can no longer be played? And furthermore, what are they thinking when they tell their customers that they can’t have their money back? [link via Boing Boing]

Just got off the phone with a MLB customer service supervisor.

“MLB no longer supports the DDS system” that it once used and so any CDs with downloaded games on them “are no good. They will not work with the current system.”

Great. Just effing great. ... As I told the supervisor, this is right in line with how wrong-headed and stupid and ass backwards MLB does everything.

I was told there is absolutely nothing MLB can do about these lost games. Plus, they said my purchases were all “one-time sales” and thus “there are no refunds”.

ahem.

And on a further note – don’t mess with peoples’ sports. They’ll kill you.

I would be lost without Thud’s help.

For those of you who prefer your news sent to you via RSS (and who consider the ArtMachine “news”), you might want to update your RSS feed. Here’s the new one:

http://www.art-machine.org/feed/

Over at The Consumerist, you’ll find a consumer complaint from a man who called tech support to get Qwest Wireless connected to his Macintosh. He was told at least one time out of several different calls that they could not help him with his problem because “Qwest should not have to train its employees in a practically obsolete system.”

I know what it seems like I’m about to do. In the past, I have flown off the handle about companies not offering support for Macintosh. Usually this brings admonishments of “You’re not handicapped. It was your choice to get this operating system.” That’s actually not my complaint this time around.

My complaint comes from the comments section for this article.

First off, I admit I didn’t read the whole thing because it was WAY to long. People need to learn to be concise with their complaints if they want people to read them. Second, on the Mac issue. Let me preface this by saying I own an iBook, that’s what I am typing this comment on. However, when I bought it, I understood what I was getting into. Apple only has about 10% of the market (maybe less, depending on the figures you read). I do believe it is unreasonable to expect every company to cross-train their employees in Mac OS. When you buy a computer that is very much a minority as a whole, you cannot and should not expect the same level of support.

First off, if you had bothered to read the whole thing you would have seen that it was more than just a “boo-hoo, they insulted my computer” complaint, but rather a long list of grievances to do with billing and rude customer support in general that continued even after the initial problem had been resolved. In other words – it was not a complaint about a single event, but rather a complaint illustrating what the consumer felt was a systemic problem that manifested itself through a prolonged series of infractions that simply would not end.

Second, let me let you in on a dirty little secret of tech support. Now, when I say this I know that I am not indicative of the entire tech support community and that other companies may not operate the same way the one I worked at did – but I’ve heard enough from other former tech supporters to suggest that it’s a fairly standard industry practice.

Our hands-on training consisted of almost thirty-minutes with the equipment in which only one of the trainees actually got to handle the equipment, and the rest of us stood around and watched.

Our factual knowledge tested before we could work on the phones consisted almost entirely of being able to name the different parts of the system and what each individual component did. Not how they interacted, not how they connected to each other, and not what potential problems we might encounter – just names and basic descriptions of their functions.

How could we possibly troubleshoot a system given this minimalist training?

Because what we were trained on – almost exclusively – was how to use the company’s internal computer system. The system allowed us to troubleshoot by reading a script off the screen and following steps given to us – not by actually having to know how the system works.

Another friend of mine worked setting up students’ internet connections in the days of ethernet – before wi-fi was even a buzzword. Her managers focused their training almost exclusively on how to interact with students and be friendly.

How could she set up the computers without being trained on every single system?

Because they armed her with a 3-ring binder. In that binder were three dividers for three different sets of thorough set-up instructions – one for Windows, one for Mac, one for Linux.

Welcome to the new world, folks. Your tech support does not necessarily know what they’re talking about, and it no longer costs the company a fortune to train their employees on a given system. The benefit the companies reap is that they only have to pay one person to create the monkey sheet for any given technical issue. The downside?

Have you ever been told to unplug your cable box, wait five seconds, then plug it back in by a customer service rep who then disconnected? Only to have it fail to fix your problem and send you right back through an automated voice mail system again?

Have you ever been told that no troubleshooting was necessary, it was another company’s fault, only to have that other company tell you there’s nothing wrong with their hardware?

Have you ever spent an hour on hold for a customer service representative, an hour following troubleshooting steps over the phone, and then two hours just begging to have a trained technician sent to your home only to be told that it will cost you an arm and a leg for that to happen?

Why is it when conservative pundits open their mouths on holiday issues, they almost invariably wind up sounding exactly like the satirists? Or, in a lot of cases, even worse?

Above, you’ll find embedded Stephen Colbert’s satirical rant on Halloween. At the end of the entry you’ll find Jon Stewart’s interview with Jerry Seinfeld where – toward the beginning – Stewart reiterates Colbert’s opnion on Halloween.

Why am I embedding these videos? Because of what Hannity said just recently about Halloween. What follows is just a snippet – but if you check out the transcript over at Media Matters you’ll see that not only does Hannity take a very “Bah! Humbug!” view of giving children candy, but he cares enough about it to return to the subject every thirty seconds or so.

HANNITY: But I’ll tell you why. Because we’re teaching kids to knock on other people’s doors and ask for a handout. That’s how we turn—
COLMES: Is Christmas a liberal holiday, then? When people give things away?

HANNITY: No, but you offer gifts. You give on Christmas. I give gifts on Christmas?

COLMES: Well, what you give on Halloween?

HANNITY: No, you don’t give. The kids [knocks on table]—“Please, can I have some more?”

[sound effect of witch laughing]

I’m a bit tired of having Halloween bah-humbugged out from under children, and I know we’re drawing near to the “WAR! On! CHRISTMAS!” time again, which is the most serious bit of humbuggery that I’ve seen in recent memory.

What amazes me is how Sean Hannity actually managed to hit dead-on exactly what the satirists staked out as their property. Somewhere, some satirist is knowing they did their job way too well.

In Sicko, Michael Moore relates the story of a man who wrote to his insurance company after being denied to inform them that Michael Moore’s next movie was going to be making a new movie about health care.

I wonder from time to time if the more popular bloggers get the desire to pull that card every now and then. For instance – when Blue Shield decided to deny his claim, re-evaluate it, pay only a portion of what they promised, then lie to him about having paid it and lied to the anesthesiologist about where to go for payment, do you think that maybe, just maybe, Kos had the desire to call them up and say, “Do you know who I am? Do you who I am? I’m the Daily Effing Kos!”

Their out is the line “preferred rate”. And the preferred rate for that procedure was apparently around $400.

Of course, we never asked them to process this at the “preferred rate”. We ask them to pay for the service. That’s why we’re paying over $800/month in insurance premiums. To be insured.

It gets worse, the office of the anesthesiologist has letters from Blue Shield claiming that the insurance company had sent us the money directly, so to bill us for the services. Of course, we never received such money. No such checks were ever cashed (which would be easy enough to verify if they were really interested in the truth, and not shirking their duties).

So they lie to us, claiming for seven months that they’ll cover the procedure. They lie to the anesthesiologist’s office, claiming they’ve already paid us the amount owed, and to bill us directly.

And now, finally, they truth comes out—they have a problem paying what’s owed and will refuse to do so, even though they sent us a letter saying they would.

[link via Boing Boing]

Well, not my success. You’d have to be crazy to think I’d share my secrets of success for free.

Buns and Chou Chou, however, have discovered the secrets to the Food Network’s success.

It’s time for another radom 10! The answers to the last 10 are now posted.

So you know the rules. I post 10 lyrics. You know the artist and the title, drop it in the comments. Partial credit will be awarded. If it’s a song that has been covered, just name any of the artists who have done it.

1. “I Beg Your Pardon,” by Kon Kan – “You say that you do, but I think it’s you just don’t care – why do I feel you’re using me?”
2. “Pirate Jenny,” by Nina Simone (from Threepenny Opera) – “But I’m counting your heads as I make up the beds!”
3. “The Workout,” by Utada – “I was talking with a born-again Christian – ‘So what’s it like to start life all over?’”
4. “Ohio,” by Bowling For Soup – “I really like Drew Carey and I’d love to see the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame.”
5. “The World Before Later On,” by They Might Be Giants – “Where’s the fount of acquired wisdom that eludes me now?”
6. “Humble Me,” by Norah Jones – “Heard you kicked the bottle and helped to build the church.”
7. “Fiddle With Volume,” by Lady Sovereign – “Where’s my debit card? NOBODY MOVE!”
8. “Once Upon a Time in the Projects,” by Ice Cube – “First he tried to wrap me up, slap me up, rough me up – they couldn’t do it so they cuffed me up.”
9. “Zombie Me,” by No More Kings – “Now I speak with all the eloquence of livestock.”
10. “You Never Give Me Your Money,” by The Beatles [artist guessed by Thud – “All the money’s gone, nowhere to go.”
11. “Dear God,” by Sarah Maclachlan – “Sorry to disturb you, but I feel that I should be heard loud and clear.”

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Art-Machine has moved and upgraded to a new content management system! You may have noticed we look a little bit generic at the moment. You’ll excuse me if I don’t change that look for a while as I focus on NaNoWriMo. Funny how the move happened just at the moment I was to begin work on my novel.

Speaking of NaNoWriMo, every time I sit down at my computer to write, you’ll be able to watch me. The hot literary action comes courtesy of Stickam and their free user account. You can check me out at my profile page there. They encourage chatting, but you’ll excuse me if my typing is elsewhere. As an added bonus, you’ll get the audio of whatever it is I’m watching/listening to while I work.

Tune in tomorrow for the slightly-delayed random 10…