To Rant or not to Rant, how about that for the %^%&^ question ?

A blog, I find, serves many therapeutic purposes for its author. Thoughts that would otherwise rattle around in the head bumping into more productive mental process, get launched harmlessly into cyberspace. Some thoughts are more poisonous than others, of course, and the ones in my head right now about our National Telecommunications Provider (The big "T") are particularly vitriolic.

So far I've resisted to the tempation to vent my spleen about various injustices here because I don't want to turn the blog into a rant. Even worse, I don't want to provide evidence of (or perhaps even accelerate) the slide into grumpy old man-dom.

You know there is a "but" coming don't you ?

In a previous post I spoke about "living in other people's worlds", the "worlds" in that case being those created by famous authors. In the course of a conversation I had with "Nizam" of the big T yesterday, it occurred to me that every one lives in their own world. Furthermore, differences in culture, age and attitude to life can create impenetrable barriers between them. You know this is the case when two people fluent in a common language are nevertheless unable to communicate.

Big T has been harrassing me by repeatedly calling my mobile phone with offers which I don't want and even if I did would reject out of anger at the practice of "cold-calling". After the third interuption in two days, I rang the telecommunications omsbudsman to complain (isn't "Omsbudsman" a great word ? Sounds like a Buddhist Gardener. We should have omsbudsmen and omsbudswomen for all kinds of things. A moustache omsbudsman for example would be a great boon to society. It could even be David Boon ! Hah !).

Anyway... the Telecommunications Omsbudman directed me to a complaints line at Big T where I ascended via a staircase of lesser complaint fielders and on-hold muzak plateaus to Nizam. I explained that I wished Big T to desist from cold calling me and that I had already asked to be removed from the lists they wantonly distribute to their marketing company lackeys. He said it would take up to 30 days for this to happen. I said "that isn't good enough because I want you to stop calling NOW !" He said that, firstly, it wasn't him that was doing the calling, and secondly that he couldn't do anything about it. I said "Yes you can, you can stop doing cold calling altogether, as it's offensive, intrusive and does not encourage people like me to embrace their services any time this side of...say...infinity". He said " I can't do anything about it". I said "Yes you can and furthemore...(insert your own piece of logic laced in increasingly acerbic wit HERE). He said more words to the effect of "it's not me" and "I can't"

You get the picture.

Reflecting on this interchange, I realised that my failure to communicate with Nizam was due to our differing fundamental assumptions about the world. He seemed to be saying that anything it was possible for Big T to do it was legitimate to do, so where was my problem ?" I started with the naive assumption that, as a potential customer, they wanted to make me happy. Even further than that, I assumed that, when Nizam came to work in the morning, his general aim was to add to the sum total of human happiness, not subtract from it.

In a sci-fi novel read long ago (can't recall the details) the author hatched a sinister plot whereby dark, conspiratorial forces gained control of the nation's communication infra-structure by stealth, in order to ...well profit I suppose but the general thrust was to spread evil in all it's forms and seize power.

I think it's happened.

Comments by pigeon post only please. If you would like your phone numbers added to the telemarketers "do not call list" managed by the govt, go to http://www.donotcall.gov.au/. If you could make particular mention of the Big T, that would be just peachy.