BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter
From: leeneia
Date: 13 Jan 23 - 12:55 PM

That's terrible, Rap. That's no way to treat a veteran.

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 Jan 23 - 09:19 PM

I need some supplies for my BiPAP machine. It was supplied by the Salt Lake City VA medical center, so I assumed they'd take care of it. No, I'm to call the supply center in Denver.

Okay. I did, but they operated on Eastern Time so last Friday they were closed when I called. I called this afternoon -- "Your call is very important to us. Please stay on the line and someone will be with you shortly." I stayed. I stayed for an hour and the canned message cut off. Just the whisper of electricity through the lines then. I hung up and will try again tomorrow.

Oh, yes. They have the WORST country/western music on hold that I think I've ever heard.

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 03 Jan 23 - 08:53 PM

It's a specific sort of lead-in, where someone tries to make out they're reasonable when what they're about to say is anything but. But a closed mouth gathers no foot, so I'll stop digging.

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter
From: leeneia
Date: 02 Jan 23 - 01:50 PM

Good one, Hrothgar.

MaJo, I think your quote is simplistic. Applied literally, it would mean that no one could ever complain that someone else had taken a thing too far.

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 02 Jan 23 - 07:21 AM

I remember someone somewhere saying that one should listen carefully to what a certain sort of person says, and wait till they say "but" .... then invert whatever they've said up to that point, and *that*'s where they're speaking from. Example: "I'm a tolerant man but ---"   Works very well for politicians.

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter
From: Hrothgar
Date: 02 Jan 23 - 03:04 AM

The great lie in business used to be "Your cheque is in the mail."

Now it's "your call is important to us."

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter
From: leeneia
Date: 30 Dec 22 - 01:46 PM

The phone picture isn't all bad. The DH and I needed new cards for our prescription drug plan, and it only took three phone calls and 20 minutes.

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter
From: leeneia
Date: 30 Dec 22 - 01:42 PM

I meant to type "on me or my kids."

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter
From: leeneia
Date: 27 Dec 22 - 04:48 PM

I suspect his partners are wealthy and powerful too. That is, if the partners actually exist.

I like to read true-crime books. If half the stuff I read about Elon Musk is true, he seems to be headed for a starring role in a true-crime book somewhere down the line. The only question is, what role will he play?

If I were one of his exes, I wouldn't let him take out any life insurance on my or my kids.

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 19 Dec 22 - 03:25 AM

cos he's a billionaire?

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter
From: leeneia
Date: 18 Dec 22 - 11:21 PM

SRS, I agree 100%. And I wonder why his unknown, unnamed partners and creditors lack the power to stop him.

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 18 Dec 22 - 08:16 PM

what definition of "rational" are you using?

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Dec 22 - 06:04 PM

Now Twitter is in a silo of sorts, because they've broken the links to almost all other social media platforms. I'm sure all of my posts that I linked from Instagram are now toast.

How can a rational person commit that amount of money to a site and then trash it? It is mind-boggling.

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter
From: Mr Red
Date: 18 Dec 22 - 05:54 PM

Just spent 20 minutes waiting for the web space provider to connect, I'm paying for the call, a ony bit more than the usual rate. But that is all you think about as the time drags.
The techie had a pronounced accent which made the process longer.
Telephone the only contact.

PC died, so new FTP to service my web pages. Via back-ups, fortunately.

But on the plus side she listened, and I was calm so we got there, starting with permutations of all the obvious stuff.

Then she wanted me to change the password for logging on to their control panel. And you know the new password now worked on the FTP program.

The lesson is that passwords can start the same, but somehow the log on for the control panel can change without affecting the FTP .................

Until ! who'dathoughtit?

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter
From: leeneia
Date: 25 Nov 22 - 12:48 PM

Thanks. I'll remember that so I don't blast out people on the helpline.

Day before yesterday I managed to get the phone number for Hewlett-Packard technical help, and we spent over an hour getting my new printer/scanner to actually scan.

People doing a job like that really appreciate a friendly and courteous caller.

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 20 Nov 22 - 05:22 AM

Good MO, Leeneia; it also helps protect the ear from being blasted out, which I read once is one of the occupational hazards of manning (personning?) a helpline. Something I noticed many years ago is that sound coming in only one ear is perceived as being quieter than if it comes into both ears, so people on phonelines turn up the volume to compensate.

Real Soon Now, I'll have to write up that rant of mine on "How long is a long time?" [basically: much longer if you're mentally tapping your foot while you're busy-waiting on something].

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter
From: leeneia
Date: 19 Nov 22 - 05:26 PM

Some systems will not connect to a person. I've heard a robot say, "I know you want to connect to a person, but..."

I have tried my best to communicate with robots, speaking normally, speaking loudly, Speaking. Distinctly. Trouble is, I am calling because my problem is unusual, and the robot cannot recognize unusual words.

It can recognize "How do I pay my bill?", but it cannot recognize "Website says I don't have an account, but when I try to start one, it claims my e-mail address has already been used and won't let me set up an account."

When I get Muzak, I press the SP-Phone button on my phone, lay it down on the desk, and do other tasks till somebody answers. I'm getting better at remembering it's on speaker when the other person answers, so I don't pick it up and blast their ears with my speech.

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 19 Nov 22 - 08:24 AM

MaJoC's €0.02, re phones: I read once that phone robots have been trained to detect raised voices and cussing, and to translate it as "I wish to speak to a human". Since then, we've found that said robots can indeed be intimidated. (I can hear Herself laying on the blasphemy from the other end of the house .... then commenting, fortissimo, about forty minutes of hold muzak.)

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Nov 22 - 07:54 AM

There are Chinese and Saudi Arabian investors along with Musk.
Musk has locked out twitter employees. He has a pattern of wiping away all traces of a project and starting over. IMO he stinks as a person.

Musk definition: Natural Musk is found in animals, in particular the male musk deer or from a cat with musk civet. They secrete an unpleasant strong-smelling brown substance.

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter
From: leeneia
Date: 18 Nov 22 - 02:05 PM

So I understand. I hear of fake accounts, lost ad revenue, essential people being fired and then asked to come back. And yesterday I heard on a YouTube video that nobody can get in the HQ building. It was surmised that they had fired the people who run the system that recognizes badges.

I haven't seen anything about Musk's partners in the acquisition. Who are they and how are they responding to all this? It's an omission that gets me wondering.
==========
About phones: if we had some time over a couple of beers, I would tell you the story of me in Kansas City trying to reach 911 in Milwaukee to help my sister. "Press 9 to reach a number that might possibly be answered by a human. Brring! Your call is very important to us..."

I hung up on that call after being told 5 times that my call was very important. Meanwhile, on another phone, I could hear my sister screaming "No, no, no!" But not to worry, I finally reached my BIL in Milwaukee and he helped out.

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Nov 22 - 12:43 AM

Twitter is a hot mess right now. The Wild West.

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. haha-Twitter
From: leeneia
Date: 15 Nov 22 - 11:43 PM

That's nice about the free insulin, Backwoodsman.

Sandra, I know what you mean. Surely the people who have bothered to telephone the company have already tried the website. I never telephone the company unless something unusual is wrong.

Eli Lilly's stock went down after the announcement appeared, and I thought, "Maybe this is an investment opportunity." However, it had gone from $345 a share to $340, and I do not regard that as a bargain.

If I were one of those Lilly executives, I would get with a lawyer and contrive a way for a process server to serve papers that got my message across. That would be faster than trying to get somebody in a vandalized corporation to answer the phone.

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. ha ha
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 15 Nov 22 - 03:43 AM

There used to be an option tht if you didn't press any of the keys on offer, a real person would come on the line ... but that was of course in the Olden Days.

I too love the messages suggesting use of the organisation's website - especially on the occasion I called my ISP cos I had no service!

Subject: RE: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. ha ha
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 15 Nov 22 - 03:43 AM

Insulin IS free here in England, courtesy of our National Health Service.

Subject: BS: Y'r call is very important to us. ha ha
From: leeneia
Date: 15 Nov 22 - 01:48 AM

You've probably heard that somebody impersonating drug co. Eli Lilly put a fake post on Twitter saying that insulin will be free. Investor's Business Daily wrote:

"According to the Washington Post, Lilly is pulling its advertising from Twitter after a fake, but "verified," account claiming to be the Big Pharma stalwart said insulin would be free. The message spread widely for hours while Lilly executives scrambled to reach Twitter. Mass layoffs at Twitter didn't help."

I laughed when I read that.

I wish somebody had filmed it when top execs from Lilly tried to reach somebody at Twitter and got nothing but electronic operators who claimed they couldn't understand what the execs just said.

Or when the execs pressed O for operator, they heard "I'm sorry. That is not a valid option."

Or when they listened to five or ten menu choices, none of which are the problem they are calling about. All these, of course, interspersed with "Did you know that you can go online at Twitter.com and blah blah blah?"

Welcome to the land of The People, Lilly execs.