THE NEGATIVE REACTION

IT IS WHAT IT IS. . .

Another day, another fruitful journey into the mind of a mad wonderer.

I usually like to go a few more days in between posts, but when my brain is consumed by certain thoughts, I must, inadvertently pull the plug and just let everything run out of my mind.

It's Wednesday afternoon, the trance music is in full effect and yesterday was a very interesting day to say the least. If nothing else, it confirmed my idea to start my own company (Logo below) so I can get paid for telling people how to use their cellphone. This way, I can at least start to change the perverbial paradigm that at times is so overwhelming to people. So who's the culprit?

THE FREE PHONE (Lesson 1)

Ever since the cellphone industry took the value out of their product, the entire world of the wireless cellphone consumer has been amiss. This explains why. when they bust or loose their phone, they're all under the impression they can get another phone for virtually nothing, or worse, for free?!

It's as if they ACTUALLY believe the phone they bought for $39.99 ACTUALLY costs 40 bucks. Okay, look at the picture below and tell me if you think the phone pictured ACTUALLY costs $39.99.



ummmmmmmmmm, yeah - right. Think about all of the technology it takes to put a phone like this together, the features, the color LCD, etc, etc. Then think somebody had to assemble this phone. It's not like putting plastic toys together - it takes some amount of skillful labor. then think about how the phone got shipped from Korea to the US. Then think about all the labor it takes to get this phone to a distributor, then to the dealer and finally to you the consumer. NOW TELL ME HOW THE FUCK SOMEBODY DOES ALL THAT FOR UNDER $40!!!!!!

So then, I get all these A-holes in my office complaining nobody told them about insurance and how much thier phone ACTUALLY costs. Which starts with another long tirade by me, telling them their phone actually costs $249.99 and we "buy down" the cost off the phone by offsetting the cost with the commission paid by the carrier on a new activation. This in turn is followed by me railing on the very industry I work in. I see this as a total failure by the carriers to give us (the salespeople) ZERO incentive to sign up and keep loyal customers. Ohhhhh no! How fucked up does this seem?

Lemme see if I have this right. . let's take this guy, who you have no idea how good his credit is, or if he will even stay on long enough for the carrier to re-coup it's cost. Let's give this individual the WORLD and fuck the customer who's been with the carrier for 10 years, has rock solid credit and has never missed a payment. It's no wonder the entire wireless world relies solely on ARPU (average revenue per user) and CHURN statisitics (the amount of customers jumping from one carrier to the next). When your entire business model is based on how many customers you loose each month, you would think they would change something - but they don't, and they won't.

Like the post says - it is what it is.

Which leads me to my picture of the day. I've always had a love affair with black and photography. It just strips everything down to it's bare essentials. To me, it reveals the raw emotions. Since I have a little dark place in my heart, it always taps right into those feelings. Nothing could do more than todays picture. Alas, the trance music stopped and the big band, Frank Sinatra tunes are quietly playing in the background. Dig this kiddies. . .



This is Bill Bradley on a cold Iowa day in 2000. Shortly before he would abandon his presidential race and succomb to Al Bore errrrrrrrr Al Gore.

Need I say more?


LATE