Brrrr!!!

Many of us have to go from time to time through long hours of seating for a whole weekend in a hotel meeting room during some type of seminar, be it a continuing education course, a preparation course for an exam, a training course or a working session.

Last weekend I took an interesting seminar. Saturday and Sunday from 9 am through 7pm. As interesting and engaging as it was, we all had to endure what I call the "battle of the thermostat". Boy, it was cold...Brrrrrrrr!!!!

Having been at both ends of the room, as an instructor and as a student, it's almost impossible to find the perfect temperature. While the instructor is active talking, moving around and thinking on his or her feet, students are just seating still fighting sleep. So right there there is a difference in temperature perception.

The bigger the room and the larger the group, the most difficult it is to reach the ideal temperature. While the front of the room is cold, the back is worm and vice-versa. He best suggestion is to go to those sessions dressed like an onion, in layers.

Stripping down and dressing up will keep you busy and distracted, especially if the course is mandatory or boring and you'd rather be doing something else. It is also an opportunity to show your fashion sense, by combining many pieces of clothing and accessories to protect yourself against extreme temperature conditions. So go ahead and be creative...

Word crutches

You now?, I'm starting to kind of writing this post, you know, and it's like trying to say something, you know?, that at the end of the day sort of makes you feel like, you know?, you said a lot but not really, you know?.

Would you use crutches to walk if you don't need to?

Why then do people use so many word crutches to speak?

It's a trend, I know. But an ugly one, like many of the horrible shoes ladies are using these days. The shoes make them look like they have swollen feet and the word crutches sound so repetitive, like someone's banging your head everytime you hear them: bang, bang, bang.

We do it unconsciously, like we do many other things. But for communication's sake, let's try to talk with a continuous flow of words to make communicating among us more pleasant. Maybe we could even get to try and listen to one another and put our heads together to get out of the confrontation mode we are all immersed in. Huh?

The world at your fingertips

It's been a while since my last posting. Life became a "big" little annoyance for a while. Too many things that didn't go as desired: Expectations weren't met, efforts weren't compensated, etc. At the end of the day (this is one of the verbal crutches that annoy me) it's all in ourselves. The river of life goes back to its course, or we get easily used to its new course. Whichever way it is, we go from one side of the river to the other without drowning.

It all goes well until your video on demand system doesn't work!

I know, I know. It sounds so vain, so empty, right?... Video on demand! Is that the worst thing that can happen to us? No, it is not, but it is one of those you can joke and laugh about.

It all started a lazy Sunday night: Preparing for the Sunday-syndrome night sleep one wants to unplug and immerse oneself in an easy viewing movie.

So, resigned to pay $6.99 for the privilege of watching a movie all for me, and nobody else, I pressed the button: SELECT.  NO WAY BACK!!! I Own it!!!

Ten minutes into the movie a window pops-up: "An error has occurred. Message SRM8114". Go Figure!!!!

It has happened before, so I unplug the cable box, and count to 20. Plug it back again. Wait 3 minutes. It's coming back...It's back... Go back to one screen, then the next, and the next. Here comes the movie,,, No. Not again. Message SRM8114.

Now is the moment to call the cable company. I dial it and get an upbeat music with all the offers for movies, games, etc. Then comes the first menu. I press 2, then the second menu, I press 4, then the third menu. At that point I press 0 and start yelling: Agent!, Representative!, Agent!

More music. This time more mellow..."Do you know that you can check your problems on line?"... More music.

Thank God for speaker phones. 18 minutes later, Shelly answers with her melodyc voice and her well rehearsed speech. "Thank you for calling Comcast. This is Shelly... How can I help you tonight?"

I go on explaining my frustration just to hear her ask me for my account number, my wife's social security number's last four digits, my password, my pin number and the answer to the secret question we selected two years ago when we opened the account!

All alarms go off. I don't know where all that information is. I want to watch my movie. That's all I know and that's all I want.

Shelly patiently helps me go through all the hurtles. She assures me that she's going to help me solve my problem and that she's really sorry for the inconvenience. All she needs to start is the serial number of the cable box. It should be in the back of the box on a sticker with a bar code.

I sit on the floor and start pulling out the cable box. There are fifteen cables behind it, all tangled up. I can barely turn the box 90 degrees. I am finally able to take a peek at the back of the box to discover not one, but five stickers with bar codes.

She needs the number that starts with MSN. The numbers are reeeeeally small and it's dark inside the cabinet. I start calling my wife, asking her to get me a flash light. All this time Shelly is waiting and I get all flustered and sweaty.

The flashlights that are where they're supposed to be have no batteries. Ten minutes later, here come the flashlight. I locate the number on the sticker. It is, as expected, the last sticker in the farthest corner of the back of the box. I read the number for Shelly four times until she gets it right.

Please unplug the box, she says.

NO, I say. I already did and it doesn't do anything. We argue back and forth and she says that she's going to send a "refresher signal" to my box. That will live me without "on-demand" for half an hour, but she assures me that everything is going to be fine after that.

It's too late now and I decide to go to bed. I'll watch the movie tomorrow.

Well, tomorrow is not much better: back to square one! This time it's not Shelly, but Shoshanna. We do the same dance. Same questions, same answers, but this time I refuse to go down and pull the box to give her the number. Shelly didn't write it in her report. Of course she understands that I'm frustrated. Of course it shouldn't happen, but she can not credit me the $6.99 for the movie I didn't see. I had a full 24 hours to watch it and I didn't.

More refreshing signals and reprogramming vibrations!. I have to wait again for the signal to come back. Another night without the movie.

One week later, here I am talking this time with Amy. She seems to know what she's talking about. I'm optimistic. She's making all kind of noises with the keyboard and asking the same questions that, by know, I know the answers for by heart. I even learned my wife's whole SS Number and who her favorite actor is (the answer to the secret question).

I'm able to convince Amy at this point that I'm so frustrated that she has to send a technician to solve the problem. She puts me on hold to get the appointment and....guess what....we get disconnected!!!!!!!!

AAAAgghhhhhh!!!! I'm going to kill someone!

One final phone call and I get Tony (from Bangalore, India...) on the phone. I yell at Tony. Scream, threaten to take my business somewhere else, and end up answering the same set of questions. This time, though, I get the appointment with the technician for the next day, get my $6,99 credit and get to lower my monthly bill $50.

I went to bed relieved. Got the TV box repaired earlier today and here I am writing this post, rather than watching a movie I'm not interested in watching any more.

So is life.....