Monday, July 23, 2018

Learnt As Bestest Could Be



One of the most oft-heard phrases of my adult life has been "Well, I still haven't used the insert subject here I learned in school for daily life." To a certain point, I agree. I do use algebra when I'm coding and also in and trying to figure out a calculation where I'm unsure of one of the numbers. But mostly, I don't use it to any significant degree. Paul Simon spoke the truth: "all the crap I learned in High School."

There are numerous things I learned in school I don't use in daily life. Some have been taken over by today's technology like how to calculate my taxes manually, and other things would only be necessary if I were in a particular line work, like using an architect's conversion ruler. I really don't think specific lessons where the point of school, but beyond reading, writing, and basic math the purpose was to teach you how to learn for the day when you got to college or trade school.

I admit when I graduated high school the one thing I was reasonably sure I would never use again was my pre-college, required, three years of a foreign language:  Latin.  However, later when I started globe-hopping, I found Latin was invaluable.  It gave me at least a cursory understanding of many other languages. Also, if I were completely lost and did not speak the local language, I would use some of the base elements of the way Latin was constructed to translate signs and other written advice.  The only place this didn't work was the Middle East. But that was trivial compared to the one incident which happened, in the fall of 1982.

I was in the Air Force, assigned in Frankfurt Germany, and had gone to the train station on a Friday afternoon to catch a train out for a weekend of camping.  I was standing in the ticket line with about 10 other folks impatiently waiting to purchase a ticket. There was only one ticket window open and the longer I stood there, the more I began to pay attention to what was going on with the one customer at the ticket window who seemed to be taking forever.

With all the noise around me, it took a minute for me to figure out the man was speaking to the ticket agent in one language while the ticket agent was demanding the conversation take place in German. I noticed the customer was wearing a long black coat and at one point when he turned, I saw a Catholic priest’s collar. I made the bold decision to thrust myself into this situation to try and help. Usually, when I was off base, I decided to stay out of other people's business, but this instance would not allow me to do so. No, I was not entirely selfless, I figured it would help me get out of the train station more quickly.

I went directly to the window and then tapped the priest on the shoulder.  Then I asked him in Latin if I could help. Now, my Latin -- even after years of taking it high school, was not great but it was functional. The priest's entire face lit up as he smiled and responded to me in Latin he was trying to buy a ticket but needed to trade in an unused ticket to have the full fare.  
  
I turned to the ticket agent who looked at me with a rather dour expression and using my best German, explained the problem as best I could.  The German then also smiled and responded to me, a little too quickly, what was needed to get the priest to where he wanted to go. After trading several phrases back and forth with the ticketing agent I finally understood what was necessary and then in the best broken Latin I could muster, I told priest the steps needed for him to get re-ticketed.  I continued to act as a translator between the two until the transaction was complete and then I walked the priest to the correct track so he could catch his train out.

He handed me his business card, but then flipped it over and handed me a pen motioning for me to give him my information - - which I did. This was before e-mail and cell phones so what I gave them was a mailing address to an APO. He took the card and waved energetically at me as he boarded the train, wishing me peace and prosperity-- at least I think that is what it was. Then, I went back to the ticketing window, got my ticket, and took off for a weekend camping in the mountains of southern Germany without giving it much more thought.

Several months later, just before Christmas, I received a Christmas card from the Punjab Province, India wishing me a Merry Christmas from the Archbishop of the diocese there. At the bottom of the card, was the handwritten phrase gratias ago vos pro succurro in meus iter itineris. Roughly translated: Thank you for your assistance on my travels. Who said Latin was a dead language?


Thank you Ms. Charlotte Naffin, my high school Latin teacher.  Apparently, I took from your class more than the memory of your beautiful blue eyes --. Yeah, aside from being a great teacher, she was young and kinda hot.

Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum sonatur


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Tuesday, July 10, 2018

New Customers Only/Existing Customers: Get Screwed


In Business 101 at the University of Maryland, one of the first rules covered was it is far easier and cheaper for a business to keep a customer rather than having to find a replacement or new customer. The concept seems somewhat common sense:  if you've already got a customer you need to do what you can to keep him, and you won't have to spend money find someone new. Therefore, I'm left to wonder what school the current crop of business leaders attended which failed to teach them this fundamental concept.

Since 2006, I have used DirecTV for satellite service. Except for one equipment upgrade a few years ago, I've been delighted with what they provided. Anytime I had an issue, question, or needed assistance they were all over it from the minute I dialed the phone. I admit being nervous when AT&T bought them out, but such things happen, and as long as I was getting the same level of service I would hang around. Then, almost a year after the buyout, the price for service was raised by about 35%.

After receiving the bill, I went to their website and looked around to see if I should just downgrade my package a bit to get my old price back, after all, sometimes prices go up. Then I noticed they were offering new customers the exact package I had subscribed been maintaining for the last 12 years, for the exact price I had been paying before the increase.  So, I called them up and told them if they wanted to keep me as a customer they needed to match the same deal they're willing to give a new customer. They balked and said the deal was for new customers only and there were no current discounts for which I was eligible. Having been through something similar with another company, I tried to call back later to see if I would get a better answer but I received the same response.

While considering my next move, I started to look at other alternatives which were available in the marketplace. I discovered if I added an attic antenna for local channels and a streaming service for things like Discovery and NatGeo I could match all of the channels I had previously been getting. Of course, I would need to raise my Internet speed to guarantee no lagging, but even so, I would save 50% over what I had been paying prior. The bottom line was rather than facing a 35% increase I was going to say 50% and maintain the same channel selection. Even with the minor upfront cost of the antenna and a few other odds and ends to make it all work; I came oput ahead very quickly.

I'm not sure if it was out of some misplaced sense of loyalty, or maybe just a bit of insanity, I decided to give DirecTV one more chance to make things right before I bought the necessary hardware and got on with the transition. When I called them back this time, I started by having them first look up how long I'd been a customer. I wanted the representative to be aware of how long I had been with them before we started discussing the actual problem. The answer remained the same, even though I added the logic there was no extra cost to them for me to maintain status quo since I already had all the equipment versus the costs of bringing in new customer online.  Rather than keeping a decade's old customer relationship, they chose to throw it away, and offer a better deal to an unknown prospective customer which will cost the company a few hundred dollars in equipment and setup costs. This way of doing business is completely abzocky -- or maybe they are having a flashback to when they were a monopoly and there were no alternatives.  If I was a stockholder, I would sell as this business model is not sustainable.

So, a month after cutting the cable. I have full DVR capability for both local channels and my streaming service which costs me zero and is only limited by my own available hard drive space. I am now using a fantastic piece of media management software called Plex which combines all of my available entertainment choices (music, video, streaming, photos, and more) in one easy to use interface. Plus it is costing me 50% less than what I was paying initially.

Last night, I made the mistake of answering a call before I looked at the Caller ID and I was confronted by a sales agent for DirecTV. Before I could say I wasn't interested, the agent launched into a spiel offering me a fantastic deal to come back into the fold.  Interestingly enough, the deal was still more than what they were offering a new customer. I hung up without saying a word.

These people genuinely don't understand the sustainability of a business is based on keeping customers, not continually recruiting new ones while kicking the old ones to the curb in such a way they will never return.



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Sunday, July 1, 2018

Then Came a Hero That Looked Like Me


As Ashley cut my hair, she started talking about how her own hair changed as she grew up, going from dark to the honey blonde color it is today.  It caused me to reflect on my experience with hair color which changed as I grew up.   At age 5, my earliest recollection of such things, my hair was light blonde and then turned to dirty blonde around 7th grade before eventually setting on a golden brown in 11th grade.

I recall being upset as I grew up because none of my heroes from TV looked like me:  Superman, Batman, Spiderman, the Green Hornet,  and Kato, Rowdy Yates, the guys on Time Tunnel, the GIs on Rat Patrol and Admiral Nelson on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. All of them had dark hair. In some cases (Batman) it might have been lighter but due to B&W TV, it all looked dark to me.  The only superhero of that age with blonde hair was Thor -- and I was not a fan.  

Then came The Man from U.N.C.L.E. In brief, the story was about two secret agents, one American and one Russian who worked for the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement and they had the mission to save the world on a weekly basis.  U.N.C.L.E.'s arch nemesis was THRUSH, Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity.  The show focused on two agents, a dark-haired American, Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn), and a blonde Russian, Illya Kuryakin (David McCullum).  

Putting aside how bold it was to have an American and Russian working together during the middle of the Cold War, it was a turning point for me.  Kuryakin did cool things.  He was bold and saved the world -- he got the girl and didn't require a magic hammer to do it.  Most of all he was a hero I thought looked like me.

Every kid deserves to have a hero they think looks like them so they can identify with them some level. Therefore, it is essential a variety of people be seen as heroes.  By the way, it is not always about race -- it could be about something as simple as right vs. left-handedness, a specific physical characteristic or uniqueness, accent, faith or even something as simple as hair color.

When I was in college, I spoke to a CIA recruiter who visited campus.  They were looking for analysts -- since I wanted to be a secret agent, it never went any further.  Even though my career took me into technology, I can say with absolute certainty I was never part of THRUSH either.  But my hair turned darker as I got older leaving me with many choices for how I could fight evil.



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