“C” that’s just what I’m saying!

Whiplash: An injury to the neck caused by an abrupt jerking motion of the head, either backward or forward; And in the case of writing or speaking, can be caused by a rapid change of topic without prior notice.

Whiplash! – “C” that’s just what I’m saying

Living in a computer age we’ve accustomed ourselves to expect things to happen fast. In the ’80s when personal computers were making their premiere, we were amazed at the speed that those 5-½ inch floppies could load a program and we could write and edit things with relative ease. When modems came on board those 300 bps speeds were amazing. Simple advances jumped them to 1200 and then 2400 bps and our amazement increased.

Of course, those of us that couldn’t afford those faster modems but occasionally got to use them became very frustrated at the slowness of our 300 bps ones.

As time went on, things were created to work at faster speeds. And those changes came fast with more sophisticated programs leaving us to forget those slow days of innovation. Thankfully there is still something that we have on our computers that has changed little over time. Picture yourself, working really hard on a project on your computer, 

the due date is today and you have minutes to spare. You just complete it and you are ready to close down your laptop and get to that presentation to share your work. You hit shutdown and then it happens, you get that screen that says, “There are 36 updates being downloaded, Do not turn off your computer!” So you wait, and you wait, and you wait…

Whiplash!

Here’s a conundrum for you. If all these companies have our best interest in mind as their advertising says, why is it that when a better plan becomes available they neglect to tell us about it? Cablevision is one of my prime examples. It seems that every October I get an email from my cable provider (I won’t divulge which company I subscribe to. Let’s just say they don’t give me Optimum performance). The email warns me that my automatic payment from my credit card has been rejected due to the bill being over the cap that I set. I check the bill and discover that the bill is indeed higher than any of the previous bills, due to their increased prices. I call up the company and complain about the price rise and lo and behold, they can figure out a better plan that will keep my price close to what I’m paying now and under my cap. Unfortunately, they won’t send me an updated bill; I have to pay this one and the next bill will be prorated to include the change of service from the time I called. We are not being served in our best interest, despite what they say. I now keep a reminder set on my phone that reminds me a month before my year is up to check in with them. Of course, that didn’t stop them from upping my prices, mid-contract, forcing another call and, in fact, another lower-priced package with everything in my plan staying the same.

Call us. We certainly won’t call you.

AT&T does the same thing with my cell phone and data plan. They don’t raise my rates, but fail to mention to me of their own accord when there is a better deal…and I know for a fact that they monitor my usage! Somehow when I called up Newsday about my daily subscription rate, they were able to reduce my 5–week billing rate from $123.00 down to $65.00. Would have been nice to know before the bill came.

Whiplash!

So what kinds of things do you own that seem to be slowing do. rather than speed up? Have you checked your cell phone,  cable company, or newspaper delivery bill lately?

Till next time… You can “D”pend on more thoughts.