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Joshi38

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Wrong Number

6 min read





















ANNOYING CUSTOMER STORY!

I work for a charity advice organization. That's kind of all you need to know about the job really, this story involves one of my clients.

So I come into work this morning and before I've even taken my jacket off, my colleague J lets me know that I have a message from "someone" (heretofore known as Lady) on her phone and she seemed quite upset with myself and the organization (note, I don't have voice mail on my phone... why, I don't know, but any messages left for me on the main line are forwarded to J since she sits on the desk across from me).

I give a listen to the voice mail and while I can't quote it verbatim, the general highlights seem to be that she's "trying to get in contact with Joshi38, my number is NUMBER, I've tried to contact Joshi38 8 times today" (that being the day before today since this is a voice mail), "your outgoing message said the line would be open until 4 and it's now 3:30, why has no one picked up, you're not doing what you've promised and I'm very upset. If you don't pass this on to Joshi38, or you can't be bothered" (her words), "I'll go down to the council and let them know that you're not worth the paper you're written on" (again, her words).

Couple of things wrong with that. First of all, she didn't actually leave her name. I have over 50 clients, at least half of which are female and I can't search by phone number alone. Second, I was in all day Thursday (when she allegedly called me 8 times), so either she was exceptionally unlucky to call me every time I was in an appointment with another client (unlikely), or, as I expected, she'd called the wrong number.

See, the thing is, we have two public numbers for our organization. The first is a general inquiry line, this is always manned, as long as there's someone sitting at reception, someone will answer that phone. The second is a dedicated appointment line, manned by a specific person, but said person was on annual leave this week.

Since we're a non-profit, we can't afford to hire a temp to cover her role, so this week, that line was shared between myself and my supervisor (neither of us were happy about this arrangement, but no one else seemed to want to do it), but on Thursday, neither of us could cover it (Sup was out of the office and my Thursdays are tied up) so it was left unmanned.

Other thing is, when I open a case for a client, I send them a letter explaining what the case is about and at the bottom, it has my contact number... which not only gives the general inquiry line, but also my extension, meaning it doesn't even have to be answered by anyone before it gets to me. Guess which number above lady didn't call.

No, instead she called the unmanned appointment line 8 times and didn't think to read my letter to see if there was a better way of contacting me.

While I was listening to the voice mail on J's phone, J informs my Supervisor (S) of the situation (not a co-worker suck, I'd have told her anyway). I explain the situation and S offers to call the number of the mystery lady to see what the problem is (and also find out who she is). She calls her in my presence, so I can hear S's side of the conversation.

After identifying the woman, I fish her case file out and hand it to S while she's still on the phone to her. Meanwhile, S has confirmed that Lady was using the wrong number and pointed her (in no uncertain terms... I'm way more soft to my clients, S on the other hand didn't become supervisor for nothing) to my letter where the correct number was clearly printed on the bottom (S later tells me Lady seemed a little embarrassed about that).

S then asks her what she originally called about... and then goes on to explain to Lady things that I had already explained to her in out initial meeting as well as again over the phone a few days after our meeting before reassuring the client that I am in fact doing my job correctly (and, not that I ever say or ever would say this to any of my clients, but they're getting all of my help completely free thank you very much). *headdesk*

I love my job.

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I'm guessing most of you have already heard about this thing with The Oatmeal.

For those who haven't, there's really no point in me explaining everything when a number of websites will do that for you. The TLDR is simply that a webcomic creator named Matthew Inman is fighting copyright infringement with philanthropy and as far as the collective internet is concerned... is winning. Read on to find out more..

Read all that? Good, now I suggest you donate to the Bearlove Good, Cancer Bad campaign while you still can, because the douchenozzle of a lawyer who is heading the lawsuit against inman has decided to file a further lawsuit... against Inman, Indiegogo, the National Wildlife Association and the American Cancer Association...

Because apparently you can't do enough to turn yourself into Dick Dastardly.

Just an FYI for those concerned, a number of fully qualified solicitors who specialize in Internet law and free speech laws (a lot of whom are more than willing to take on Inman's case pro-bono) have pointed out that neither of these lawsuits have any merit whatsoever and amount to little more than legal bullying... which would have worked real well had Inman not decided to fight bullying with philanthropy.


And just a quick end thought. I've had The Oatmeal RSSed for about a year now so I found out about all this around an hour after he posted his blog. When I went to donate, he'd already hit the $20,000 mark (Inman later confirmed he'd hit the target in 64 minutes). As of writing this now, and with a week left in the fundraiser, he's raised just under $200,000. Of all the terrible things I see day to day, this is the kind of thing that makes humanity worth it.

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SOPA isn't one of them.

First, I'm not going to go on a huge rant, many many other people have already done that, and better than I could. Instead, I will link you to the blog belonging to Wil Wheaton (Star Trek TNG) who seems to make some decent points.

wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbac…

I do want to say a few things though (this is longer that I expected, sorry).

First, I don't like piracy or copyright infringement. I feel like, because we are artists and we exist on a website like this, we understand copyright in ways that a lot of people on the internet don't. Many of us have probably been on the other side of this fight, trying to deal with people who've taken our copyrighted work, taken money out of our pockets. The problem is, using SOPA to fight piracy is like cutting down a forest to spite a splinter. The proposed legislation is so vague, the entire internet would, essentially, be under control of the US governments (and whichever corporations can pull the Governments strings hard enough), the only websites that would survive the purge would be corporate owned ones. And even those would be in trouble; say goodbye to deviantArt as we know it.

And yes, despite being one of the few websites that publishes user created content and yet still comes down hard on copyrighted material, deviantArt will go down one of two avenues, either it'll shut down entirely because of one or two submissions that contain copyrighted material that weren't caught yet... or they'll have to start moderating the submissions before they're published... which, with the volume of submissions they deal with means your work will likely spend months in moderation before being allowed on due to backlogs... but we won't get into logistics here, the main point is, SOPA will change deviantArt for the worst in extreme ways.

And this is just one website.

Now remember, this problem has come directly from the music and film industry, two industries that simply refuse to move with the times in order to combat piracy. Do you know how Microsoft and Adobe fight piracy? They don't.

Something they likely don't want you to know, but think real hard about the last time you heard a story of the RIAA suing the pants off of a teenager or his parents because he downloaded a song or twelve. I'm guessing some time in the last year. Kid downloads a song that costs 99c on iTunes and gets sued for thousands of dollars.

Now think, when was the last time you heard a story about some kid getting the pants sued off of him for downloading a copy of Microsoft Office, or Adobe Photoshop?

They haven't. This is for a couple of reasons and both fall under the heading of "Bigger fish to fry".

First of all, hands up. Who here has a copy of Adobe Photoshop on their system (any version)? Now keep those hands up if you paid upwards of $800 for a license? Thought so.

Microsoft and Adobe will happily sue large companies that do wrong by their intellectual copyright. Why? Because they're easier to catch and they have more money. But they won't target the hobbyist or general bootlegger who simply wants to use their stuff for personal use. Not really worth it for them. And hey look, they're still raking in the dough. Piracy is huge for them, Microsoft Office gets downloaded illegally all the time and yet Microsoft is still one of the richest corporations in the world.

This may be due to the fact that they build piracy into the price of the product. Notice how I said Photoshop costs upwards of $800 (this is my best recollection, though I have a feeling it's much more). Hobbyists won't pay that. But companies will. They have to, there's more risk of getting caught and more to lose if they get sued. So they pay, they pay everything, multiple licenses and all, and Adobe makes huge profits.

I've focussed here on Adobe and Microsoft, but really, most big software companies have adopted this approach. The law office I work at uses a software package to manage appointments and cases. We're a non-profit organisation and even with the discount that affords us, we still pay £1000 per license for this software. And in return software companies turn a blind eye to 12 year old Johnny who downloaded a copy of Photoshop CS5 from Limewire; they've made their profits elsewhere (for those of you who feel this equates to businesses getting screwed by having to pay through the nose for software, first think about what they're paying for and second remember that they'll make that money back in spades and usually in very little time).

Now obviously, this approach won't work with the music or film industry, They start charging $50 for an mp3 or $200 for a movie ticket and watch the profits drop. The point I'm trying to make is, the software industry saw a problem with piracy and instead of pointing the finger at the end user, they tackled the problem at the source, suing distributors of illegal goods, or even just adjusted to live with it. They adapted, and now they've not only survived, they've thrived.

The Music and Film industry needs to do the same. SOPA won't do that, SOPA is a kick in the face to every single internet user.  And the only reason the MPAA paid $94 million for this act to go through was because they knew they'd make it back. This is a money play, they control the internet, they control the content, they make the money. They're "protecting" their intellectual property by hurting everyone else.

It's a case of them forcing you to buy their goods instead of convincing you to.

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WARNING RANT AHEAD

So I don't use Facebook, my reasons are numerous and largely boring. But I haven't logged into my Facebook account in months. Every so often Facebook sends me an email telling me that I have "notifications pending" without actually telling me what kind. These are simply ploys to try and get me to log in again, I've learned to ignore them.

Then today I get an email saying that someone I actually know (though haven't spoken to in literally years) has sent me a birthday card (as Facebook likes to tell everyone about my upcoming birthday)... and they have sent it through "Cards", an app of some kind designed to... send cards I guess.

So I think... well what the hey, someone decided to take 5 minutes out of their day to say happy birthday to an old friend, I can take 5 minutes out of my day to read what they said and say thank you, I'm not that much of a curmudgeon.

So I log in, and then click on the card to see it, and I get presented with this page.



Now granted, you've probably all seen this before for other apps, but really, how excessive does this get? In order to see a birthday card, I need to grant this thing almost complete access to my Facebook account, including permission to post to Facebook as me and access my data at any time... and this is an all or nothing thing. Now, of course I'm not going to say yes, but does anyone else remember a time when you got cards through the regular mail without the postman asking you for all of your personal information before delivering it to you?

Yes, this is why I don't use Facebook any more.

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Long Story Short: A local newspaper has just taken credit for work I'd done.

Short Story Long:


Okay, so I'm going to try not to get into specifics here, for a variety of reasons, so bare with me while I rant.

So I work for a charity organization that gives free advice and assistance to people with legal issues. I work in the benefits department, I help people claim what they're entitled to, I specialise in disablement benefits.

So about a month ago, a woman comes to see me, lets call her Starchild (names changed to make them more awesome). She had been getting a Disability benefit for a while and now, after assessment, they'd taken it away from her. Her leg fell off in a freak laser tag accident, so she should be eligible (some of that is obviously a lie, it was actually her arm). So I do my due diligence and file an appeal for her. I write a nice long letter to the Department of Work and pensions, explaining exactly why they were wrong and how much shame they should feel.

About a month later, I hear word that the decision had been reversed, she is now in receipt of full benefits and her appeal has been struck out as a result. Happy days, everyone's giddy.

Here's the annoying bit. At some point, Starchild had gone to the local news about her plight where they'd published her story. Fair enough, I don't much care about that. But after the decision had been reversed, they wrote up a follow up piece stating that she had won her case. This is the headline to that follow up piece:

"Disability Living Allowance is re-instated after story in the Times*"

Now, everything in that headline is true, the benefit was reinstated and it did happen at a time that occurred after the story was published. But suggesting that they were responsible for it kind of irks me. They mentioned the organization I work for once, here's the quote "It came just weeks after the Times* published a story in support of the 24-year-old, who had been taking advice from Super Awesome Legal Advice Place*."

No word of the fact that an experienced case worker spent a good hour writing a letter to the DWP highlighting exactly why Starchild deserved the benefit along with references to supporting material from her Doctor. I'm perfectly used to clients not thanking me after I put a lot of time and effort into their cases, it's part of the job, but for some second rate newspaper to up and take all of the credit, that's just annoying.

Now obviously, I can't categorically prove that the article had nothing to do with the decision... but well, it's a local newspaper, it doesn't get distributed nationally and the decision maker is in a city a few hundred miles away. The likelihood of of them seeing the article is a lot less than the likelihood that they'd receive a letter from myself, her registered representative... especially when that letter was sent along with the appeal request. They got the appeal request, so they had to have gotten the letter (and by law, had to read it and take it into consideration).

Anyway, this is really a storm in a teacup, I'm not nearly as annoyed about this as I'm making out, I just wanted to get it out there.

So how are you all?

*names changed

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Featured

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