4. Actual human

[jack]

Ironically[1], when I actually spoke to someone, he was very helpful. I have a reasonably good contract, and a new phone.

I couldn't STOP them giving me a new phone, the deal with the phone was better than without. The phone costs nearly as much as the contract! I wondered if maybe they could just... give me the contract a lot cheaper (or cheaper AT ALL) and not manufacture so many extra phones, please, despite the fact that would indirectly put me out of a job.

I mean, I could go and sell it on ebay, but once I've got it, it's probably cool. It's the INHUMANITYNEFFICIENY of it that annoys me, not the specific waste of my time. Though that annoys me too, as I explained at great length and depth in my previous post, using the word "fiants".

[1] I decided my acid test for "irony" would be "if this were a play, would it be dramatic irony". This seems to identify situations we would all agree are ironic, and leave all of Alanis Morrisette's examples out in the cold, and generalise fairly well to intermediate examples.

Does that make sense?

Comments

[mair_in_grenderich]

this thing it is truncating your tags!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah :( I decided I didn't care.

[mair_in_grenderich]

ooh, have you finished now? :)

it was all exciting. I kept reloading and there were more posts!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh, there's number five, but I wasn't sure if it was worth it, I decided to post later.

There's a very large list of things about it I was going to rant about, but only a few happened to be at the top of my brain when I started writing and admit any humour at all, so I did those. I think there may be diminishing returns here.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Even if they were selling you this service to you at a loss (which they aren't as they will get the phone cheaply) they can happily do so in the knowledge that you are statistically likely to spend some money on phone calls that will recoup said costs, and / or stay with them for many more years.

I agree though. I wish you could keep your phone and just get a much much cheaper contract. Why doesn't any network do this? There must be a market for it.

[thethirdvoice.livejournal.com]

http://www.greenmobile.co.uk/

They give you a bonus every 6 months you keep your phone, amongst other things.

To be pedantic, to be dramatic irony, everyone reading this would, unlike you, have previously been fully aware that he would be very helpful.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh, hm, thank you! I think I probably have a better deal at the end of it, but it's nice to know *someone*'s trying.

To be pedantic, to be dramatic irony, everyone reading this would, unlike you, have previously been fully aware that he would be very helpful.

I think that was implicit. I meant it, anyway. Not just that there would be an audience watching me, but that they would be aware of the story. Perhaps that in life, you always discover something *later* and say that's irony (unless someone knows something you don't in which case it's already dramatic irony), and in the metaphor the audience would have to know that. If not, NOTHING would ever be irony in the metaphor, which I didn't mean :)

[thethirdvoice.livejournal.com]

For no good reason, I was assuming people reading as your audience.

I'm now imagining a play with a customer on the telephone, getting ever more irate, interspersed with scenes of really helpful call-centre employees. I would like to see that used as a central theme in a play. It would at least be a challenge. It might be fun. :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

No, that would make sense, seeing as how they actually are my audience :) It just doesn't quite work.

Worryingly that play actually sounds intriguing... I don't see why but I see it going somewhere interesting :)