Supersize me, the AT&T way

File this under "etc."

I had one simple goal -- add a line to my AT&T family wireless plan for my son. I know, I know, I did check other carriers' plans and deals, since my contract with AT&T ran out long ago. But for various reasons I decided to stay with them. Why trade a known headache for an unknown one? Anyway, I went online with every intention of being finished in the space of 10 minutes. How naïve...

I wanted to get a basic plan, with just voice and minimal text messaging -- say 20 texts per month -- so that he can reach us in case of an emergency, but not abuse this disembodied conversation mode. And you would think that it would be easy to get this, right? Well, not so much. The only text option that came up on the screen was unlimited texting for $20/month. This was infinitely more than I needed, so I initiated a chat with a representative. He was effusively polite, and every time I volunteered information or responded to a question he thanked me very much for sharing this information. After several volleys, in which I thought I had conveyed my dilemma clearly and succinctly, he came back with "So, if I am understanding you correctly, you wish to change the text messaging plan on your phone." I did a rapid-fire "No, no, no," trying to get ahead of his rogue fingers as I imagined them poised to hit "change plan." You see, I am still traumatized from a recent experience with the cordial AT&T customer service representatives who "helped" me with an issue.

Just to give you the flavor for that episode, in the process of resolving a signal issue, they implemented such changes in my texting and data plans as to require several weeks of phone calls with the AT&T business office, a call and a correspondence with the Attorney General of Massachusetts, and a follow-up call with AT&T on the heels of their communication with the AG. So, no, I am not interested in having them "help" me with plan changes. I politely excused myself from the chat and decided to tackle it on my own.

But first I chose to distract myself from the problem at hand by doing another task that I had meant to do: increase my monthly minutes. This I was able to do without any glitches, and my success encouraged me to try again with the new line. Perhaps I missed something the first time?

Having considered my choices at this point, I made the decision that I would pay for a limited number of text messages for my son, at $.20/message, and this would take care of things. Smugly congratulating myself on such a creative solution, I went to complete the purchase. After addressing just a couple of minor issues stemming from the fact that my billing address is a PO Box and not a street address, and because lately everyone except the USPS has decided that I have played a joke on them by giving a non-existent address (don't get me started on the joys of living in rural America), I was almost home. I just needed to input my credit card information and... Wait a second! What's this? A credit check consent? I had to give them my social security number and consent to a credit check? Because I tacked an additional $9.99 monthly service fee to my (much larger than that) bill? After being a customer for nearly 6 years? After being able to up my monthly minutes by more than $9.99/month, without being subjected to a credit check?!!

Well, I did what anyone in my position would have done: I ignored this prompt hoping that it was optional. But it wasn't. Fill it in or else take yourself to a brick-and-mortar store to get this settled. Which is what I am choosing to do. But there is a larger moral here.

How did we get to this place, where our anti-trust protections have resulted in basically two gargantuan corporations essentially screwing the public in any way they see fit? Why do they get to dictate the devices and services that I need to purchase? How is this a free market? And how is it that this technology, whose intent is to make our lives so much easier, made me go through a bewildering amount of useless machinations only to end up with what? An offer to take my social security number and subject me to a credit check? Really?

And lest AT&T feel singled out by my rant, this is the trend with many events and purchases in life. Home insurance, for example, which, despite rising premiums, does not give you a penny towards rebuilding a retaining wall that collapses in a flood. In fact, the system is set up in such a way as to require you to file a claim, get it rejected and give the company the reason to fire you as a customer for filing too many claims. Health insurance (I don't have to remind you the galloping pace of the rise in those premiums), which covers less and less every year. Cable companies, computer manufacturers, automobile vendors, they are the ones that seem to know better than I what it is that I need, and they constantly and with impunity wrestle me into straightjackets of their packages. Where am I, the customer in all this? This old familiar strategy to maximize returns has been so successful in the food business that its legacy is the obesity epidemic, proliferation of chronic disease and shortening life spans. Is this really how we want to continue?  

I will get that line for my son, and I will get only what I need. I would prefer not to be so dependent on this stuff; alas, I am. But mark my words, there is enough bad taste building among my fellow humans to start exploring alternatives. I only wish that the government were really in the business of protecting its citizens from unethical practices rather than pandering to the highest bidder. I am ready to stop being viewed as a giant walking ROI potential, and start being respected as a citizen and a human. How about you?                

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How many diseases does it take?

It is not a secret that I dislike tobacco companies. Intensely. I do not see the point of allowing them to sell a product whose value is all in the negative. I am appalled that we are looking for expensive ways to diminish lung cancer mortality before considering a complete ban on this disease promotion apparatus. Yet this story in the LA Times got my goat. Briefly, a woman who has smoked for years and has had smoking-related obstructive lung disease since 1989 decided to sue tobacco companies after developing lung cancer in 2003. The suit has been making the rounds in various levels of courts, since the defendants asserted that she had exceeded the 2-year statute of limitations following the onset of her smoking-caused disease, referring to the 1989 COPD diagnosis. However, the California State Supreme Court has ruled that she can still sue the manufacturers, since she filed her suit within two years of the lung cancer diagnosis. So, why am I bothered?

Well, here is the thing: once you develop lung disease, followed by periodontal disease, as this woman did, had she really remained unaware that cigarettes are bad? That they cause problems? Is it really possible to live in our world and NOT be aware that tobacco kills? And if she was aware and continued to smoke, whose responsibility is it that she developed lung cancer, hers or the manufacturer's? Well, you say, but the tobacco companies are unethical and lied about making cigarettes more addictive by adding undisclosed ingredients. So, how are we, the consumers, to know? Well, this is pretty simple: We have free will, don't we? And if you have the free will, you have to exercise some will power, no? Is this not what the human condition is all about? Consider what would happen if we just let all of our desires run rampant. At the simplest level, who would want to get up early and do back-breaking work to produce food for our communities? And why contain anger at town hall meetings, when my humanity tells me to get into a brawl? These are basic ways in which we conquer our instincts and do what we need to do to live in a society with human beings and other organisms. But what is peculiar is that we have not extended these exercises of will to the area of consumerism. In other words, it seems to me that whichever way the market, and more importantly marketing, goes, so goes the perceived need for personal will and responsibility. Ergo, smoking despite warnings of its dire effects is OK, since the poor soul is addicted, and she can always sue on the back end, while the murderous tobacco CEOs and investors walk away with the profits. I don't know, I think it is embarrassing to give up your will that way personally.

There are two nuances to this view that I want to express. First, I do believe that cigarette companies are unethical, cruel and in debt to us, but the debt that needs to be paid is to the society, not to individuals. It is a debt to our public health that requires complete withdrawal of their product from the market and a large monetary compensation to promote healthy habits among human beings. Second, I believe that there are shades of this personal vs. societal responsibility balance that are important. Take, for example, food options for an inner city youth who lives in poverty. He may want to exercise his free will to get better nutrition than a $1.25 meal at McDonald's offers, or spend his $1.25 on an apple instead of a bag of potato chips, but for this he has to go across town, a trip that he does not have the means to undertake. This, folks, is where this young man's personal responsibility needs to be supplemented with societal commitment to equity.

So, should this unfortunate smoker with severe and life-threatening sequelae of tobacco abuse be able to sue the producer of the poison, even if she knowingly took the poison? I guess as a society we have decided that this is OK, but as an individual I am dubious. Yet it really is in the interest of our common health and wealth to punish and eliminate producers of such poisons as a society. Relying on individuals to do this job is just a perpetuation of the idea that we are not responsible for our actions. And furthermore, this becomes but a small pimple on this giant's ass, a nuisance, and not a necrotizing fasciitis that is required to kill it once and for all. 

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