10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 Blastoff... Responding to Pressure of Corporations and Federal Government - Living When Feeling Your Life is Out of Control...

 

Now a lighter note before the countdown begins...

I've wanted to read Jack Reacher on an ongoing basis... but there is always another free book on BookBub that tempts me... LOL Anyway, given number "1" on my list, I began watching my recorded video of this movie this morning... After about 5 minutes of watching, this was my conclusion and recommendation... (Almost...not...kidding...)

I nominate Jack Reacher for President of the United States... Or, at least his author... It is obvious that he not only knows more than anybody now in the Federal Government leadership or he has the strong need to ensure that what is done is done right! That's who we need right now!

To begin, I want to reconfirm that I consider myself an average citizen who has been greatly affected, financially and mentally, by this present administration and what the republic party has introduced into our nation.

It's all about the Money...

How does it become a countdown to blastoff for an individual diagnosed with Job Burnout? Or anybody, trying to live during the unknown day-to-day ongoing chaos? Well, it comes about when the very things that originally caused that Burnout have become the "norm" for an entire nation! I first became worried about it when all the reality shows started appearing... with big bucks as the prize... Talent shows especially are an ongoing drawing point for people all over the world. All for the hope of a million dollars for example... Or is it for the thrill, the potential fame? The need to feel special? Liked? Admired? Of course, by millions of people! I always wonder what does it do to a young child, when encouraged, but then doesn't win? We are a nation of idolatry to a small or great extent... Consider the fact that many young people, look at somebody like Taylor Swift and decide to be a singer--a star! Logically, most of us know that just doesn't happen. But here's the thing...

Few people are willing to sit down and talk to a child, a teen, and explain the realities of life. Even winning a talent show? How many of those people do you ever even see again? It's like the Boxer who continues to say through his life, "I coulda been a contender..." Around the world, other countries looked to America as a place where they wanted to live. A place of freedom. A place where you could go, work hard, and, maybe, even be president one day... Some would say it is based upon hope and dreams...

I say, that has greatly changed...

1. For instance, while I've been writing, I have tried to pull up and prepare to use a musical video. I have tried at least 5 different copies of that same song... None of them worked. I would say that is because, YouTube has overextended space limitations for the actual servicesit provided. By adding ads, increasing content per page... But, hey, I have no  control or ability but to "accept..." or pay for a formerly free site...
2. The same thing happened with AOL Mail when it was purchased by Yahoo. And here was the first clue. That computing sites were being allowed to do anything they wanted without oversight. NOBODY TALKS ANYMORE! About 99% of online corporate sites send email if they must, but will not allow a response!!!  This particular change at AOL was never even announced. There was no intro to me, for instance, who had been using AOL services since the original creation of the site. Suddenly, I was getting hundreds of ad emails daily and was told that could be changed if I paid... But it gets worse. I started looking at the Sender/address. These were often fake senders... Or fake giveaways if you did this, bought that, or just sent money... After all, that was what it had become. AOL had lost in the battle between social sites, given up chat rooms, etc., which we had all used initially... and was left with a good mail program that was soon often seen as antiquated, but never really improved in any way, except add hundreds of daily fake ads to attempt to overwhelm!
3. PNC Bank - This bank took over a smaller free-standing bank. Immediately trouble began. Each issue pertained to its online accounting system... The latest issue (I could write a book about all of the problems) was that I'd set up a payment account again after having been kicked off for weeks, going on months... Then a new system was installed which started the learning process again. I have NO idea what happened nor will I bore you with details. In any event, I was notified by the receiver that he had not receive mail. Please NOTE: There was no error messages, no contacts by the bank, even if I had been the one who made a mistake somewhere! Nothing. No internal systems control to ensure that an action initiated was actually completed correctly! That began the list of what began to be leading to reaching my breaking point...
4. This winter my furnace stopped working. The company who usually serviced my furnace said that the parts were no longer available. They would be ready to sell me a new furnace at any time... Money obviously was a worry, but not unexpected. I understood the age of my present furnace and had to begin to plan for this large expenditure. Winter was long. I had only a space heater to keep warm. Not ideal in the country where I was often snowed in. Wore layers of clothing to try to keep warm...
5. My car wouldn't pass inspection... Again, it was the timing that was the problem. I live in a location that allowed for cars to become susceptible to climate... But I also knew that where I lived required me to have a car in order to leave my home. I would now have to be totally dependent upon other people. A situation which called for much compromise and time adjustments...
6. Having a fall in my home becomes a major event. While unexpected, I was also unprepared because I live alone. I called Emergency Service and nobody answered. I also have little service for telephone. I added the old advertisement for Verizon to remind everybody that they used to use, "Can you hear me now?" to imply they provide service service... Not now... The only service that actually worked is a land line... Those are now no longer available. Instead they try to give you a phone which is really some version of a cell phone process. Which doesn't work... Finally I went to Straight Talk for more control of financial arrangements. However, an issue for all cell phones as well as other major activities in my life is... the reliability of my eyes...
7. Several years ago I had the need for 3 major surgeries. I scheduled them by priority to life expectancy and daily living. The third was cataract removal on both eyes when ready... My eye doctor had already identified the issue; however, with 3 priorities for surgery, I chose to use WVU for the cataract surgery as well... That was a mistake. There was no personal interaction in a teaching hospital environment. That would normally be ok. But...for me, the mistake was huge. My eyesight need was for distance. I had normal vision for all the reading I ever needed to do. Apparently a "standard" had been established to place "your prescription" into your eyes as part of cataract surgery. That sounds ok, until I discovered what had occurred. I lost all close vision!!! Including for my meds, reading books and more... But it got worse...  Recently, in desperation, I was determined to get a second opinion because, of course, nobody had "talked" to me about what this insertion of a prescription would do to my daily living!!! I returned to my eye doctor. He confirmed that the operations appeared ok, but, he routinely discussed with their patients the actual use of their eyes in daily life. They would have consulted about options related to reading, online work, etc. None of that had occurred. In addition, the prescription glasses that they gave me to supplement my eyesight Were Incorrect! I wound up having to buy new glasses, plus the consultation, to gain? At least a little peace of mind that another mistake had been made affecting my life... Due to the lack of poor communication.
8. When you come to realize a need for somebody to help you, you come to depend upon them. As a single person, having chosen to live in the country with weather issues changing often, I had hire a groundskeeper--who has been wonderful... Until he, too, had car problems. And his financial issues even worse than mine, due to, also, an issue beyond his control. But the key thing is that, even though it created instability for dealing with things, at least we were talking about it and deciding together on what to do... I add it, because he has not been able to work as man hours as we both would like...
9. Somewhere in this time frame, I get a message placed in my Kindle reader. I was informed that they were withdrawing service for a list of different kindle readers. No reason given; I lost 3 readers which now sit because I cannot now add books to any of these readers. You see, for some reason, corporations do not supply sufficient power to have a long session with any given reader--same goes for cell phones!--The result for anybody who is a serious reader is to be totally involved in, say, a thriller and suddenly you are told to close and recharge! I must say, I was very upset. Because I had multiple readers to solve this problem. When I wanted to continue reading a book and it needed to be recharged, I would just pull up the book on another reader, sync it, and continue reading... Now, even more interesting was that recently I was on the site and popups appeared that they were still selling the readers that they told me would not longer be serviced... Again...no message... and they expect you to talk to a machine... Which, by the way, I did recently, and the wrong book appeared... Having problems? They just send you to other ways to ask questions and never get answers. Unless it's a financial problem, frankly I give up and they lose a sale... Are people really NOT an asset to a company as they once claimed???
10. And then about 2 weeks ago, I started having problems with Direct TV. There had been a storm so I didn't pay attention. That had happened before and was resolved in a day or so. But that didn't happen this time. But a new system had been installed fairly recently. I wasn't impressed. Again, they were throwing more "stuff" on the screens, much of which were old movies, reruns, or stations not formerly on my program. I was not impressed, nor interested in what was considered improvement or expansion.

Let's start there to get into detail... The first thing that irritated me is that, I record almost everything I want to watch, so that I can schedule my reading and reviewing routinely. I noticed, and accepted that they had a built in override to ensure news programs were continued with additional time... I routinely did that, depending upon what the programming was. As you can imagine, I record many MSNOW news programs.

However, I also record the drama type shows I wanted to watch. Tracker a supposed popular one that was scheduled on Sunday... Also scheduled on Sunday were games--something that I never watch, so I have no desire to sit down to watch Tracker and find a game still playing. Immediately I was upset...why didn't they use the same extension process which would mean that when Tracker came on, the program would be at its beginning. Instead, they were allowing the game to end, and then we cut in to a show about which you have no idea of the plot! Then, notices started popping up that programs were now scheduled on a different time and day... Which helps not one bit. So why wasn't that changed by Direct TV so that when I turned on Tracker, it didn't matter what day it was now being scheduled...

Ok, I admit this was a PTSD flashback... Imagine if you would that if I or one of my staff scheduled a Physical Education class on the basketball court... AND then The Basketball Team schedule was schedule to start before the Physical Education class ended... An Overlap that would not be acceptable to anybody... Yet here was Direct TV, with a brand new system, NOT having ensured that this type of problem, which they already had planned for, for news programs...had not been adjusted to time conflicts for other programs?! I as a user of systems know it is possible so why wasn't the entire new system correctly done before implemented.

Ok, The TV had gone out, but I went ahead and watched the news programs from the previous day... turned the tv off and went on to reading...

The next day I was still able to get MSNOW, and ABC news which I normally would have recorded... But then a message started appearing "Looking for schedule..." or something to that affect.  When I couldn't get MSNOW, I tried ABC or some of the local stations. I was able to bring all of those up... I also had the sideways scrolling of what shows were on at that time...

Please note that I was being told to perform tests, some of which I did. When they just went on and then said to call,, I tried the "Little square" box they seem to feel that everybody knows exactly how to use...and that it actually does work... It didn't work! It could have been the TV, the lack of cell power in the area, poor programming, lack of better instructions to know how to actually do that process...or my poor eyesight... Take your pick. I was NOT OK...

By the next day I could not get any of the local stations or any other station, including music programming which I often use...

By the next day, I was getting different messages and different codes to use if I called... And then a new message saying that multiple issues could be the problem...

By the next day, none of the new system programming was visible. NONE. The same old messages began to play again, using different codes. Frankly, there was no way, since those codes changed every time I turned on the television, I was going to take MY TIME to play with their system that I could not even see any more!

By the next day, I began to use my recorded programs. BUT None of the previously marked for recording were now being recorded, also. That meant that no news was coming in from Direct TV... I started going to YouTube to watch that part of my life as well as music...

BTW, The Hughes Network is my other contact with the world. On that night of the storm, the Network never went down that I was aware of... Meaning I was maintaining my regular blogging schedule as desired...

Also, four years ago, I had to have a new roof replaced (after a bad job by another group) which was also a major flashback time for me... During that time, representatives from both Hughes New and Direct TV came out to check/deal with satellite issues. Both reps double checked functionality and they had been properly functioning since then...

BUT, the implementation of this new system by Direct TV occurred more recently. There was no testing activity on my property at that time by that company.

By the Next Day, I discovered that I had lost many of the videos that I had been watching, for instance, in a series... They were now gone...

By the Next Day, I realized that the number of available videos for me to watch was fast decreasing...I now had 93% space availability and if nothing occurred I would then have NO TV to watch, even though I was sure I was still paying for the service...

Now, I repeat, this was No 1. I knew that I was mad, disgusted. A system that should have been at a minimum backed up now appeared to be gone. Days were going by with the message "looking for schedule, please be patient..." Give Me A Break

But, I am NOT OK! My known responses would be to cry or get angry. I was waiting for one of my nieces to visit to confirm all of the testing that I could not. Due to my emotional status or due to poor cell phone service.

Blast Off Day Arrived. Two nieces were here along with a husband who went out to check satellite, while the interior screens--what were still available--were checked and rechecked. The plan was for Rachel to make the call, following instructions, with me in te background in case there were questions...

The call began...Another check of everything was required by that first person. Again...Apparently there was a discussion about having somebody come to my home... she was transferred...

Did you ever talk with an employee who you can assess really has no idea what he is supposed to do? Well, this guy was one of those... He began the rechecking requests, even though he was assured that it had already been done multiple times and with the first individual!  We began to seek setting a schedule to come... The guy began to say, "I will have to check my resources..." Yes, that's where I got the claim that people who come on site were resources... And every time she pushed for a time, he would claim to have to check resources and we would be asked to wait...

Here's the thing, my relatives had come to deliver a repaired car, which had been washed, cleaned out, and inspected. It required only one discussion and the work began. Parts were ordered; I was told. New parts were needed. I was told of the delay. I was then told they were coming. I was called by my caretaker and wanted to bring me lunch as well. She called me at the restaurant and went over the menu for me to verify what I wanted... This is the type of employees we are. We talk with each other re particular needs and issues. This is what we expect...

Now one guy, who clearly was giving us a con job, about having to check resources... Now once using the word schedule!!! That went on for at least 15 minutes during which Rachel was repeating everything over and over and confirming we had been referred to him to schedule a home visit... I listened as he attempted to keep talking without saying or doing one thing... And I was getting madder...

BlastOff!!!

I got up from my chair, grabbed her phone, introduced myself as the owner of the television...And the guy had the nerve to want to start over. Loudly I said We need to schedule an appointment. Again, resources needed to be checked. I got louder... I knew he could hear me... I pointed out that he had been saying nothing for at least 10 minues and I pointed out that she had children she needed to pick up...Nothing phased him. Not even my screaming by this time... So I got louder, and louder, and louder...

And just like Musk's last rocket I then broke, refusing to once again be confronted with an employee who clearly was untrained, and didn't really care to help us, and if he did, clearly knew that there was something really wrong with my television and/or the system and MANY RESOURCES HAD BEEN LOST OR DESTROYED AND NOBODY THERE HAD EVER THOUGHT ABOUT CREATING CLOUD BACKUPS (?) and I slammed that phone down and ended the call! 

Hey, who knows! But at least we now know that corporations have no desire to actually serve the customer. We are merely guinea pigs to be used as testors and maybe if enough complaints are made, WE would be the ones who are testing out a new system...but it's AFTER it was already approved for implementation... Because, let's face it, if you don't want to deal with training, supervising overview, testing, with PAID employees to save money, why not deal with the complainers who expect systems to actually be tools that work to provide that service that was promoted...

But hey, say a new boss is here, and he wants to do something cool and update, so everybody is told to get it done or we'll find somebody that can do it instead... Sound familiar...

And in the meantime, the United States is now in a competition to implement AI so everybody has to be on board with that, even though employees have no idea exactly what that means related to their jobs but are expected to fumble through it... Who knows...

All I KNOW is that I'm Not Okay and I've written all of these pages as a catharsis, mainly, because, I am sure, that...given what I've seen since January, it's goin' get worse...

And, We The People Are Going To Suffer...

BTW, I'm now exploring options for Direct TV... and other things... maybe even moving to Canada...or deeper into the woods...

Just kidding! I know God is With Us So I'll keep Talking!

Gabby