Tuesday, May 20. 2008Truth - Now Sleeps With The Tasmanian TigerJohn Linton I don't know when it happened exactly, my guess is some time in the last 1 - 5 years, but truth is no longer found in communications between the overwhelming majority of organisations and people involved in Australia's telecommunications industry or between them and their customers or, perhaps even more strangely, between personnel within their own organisations. An end user would see the most obvious evidence of this in the advertisements placed in the print and electronic media with the series of 'head line' claims all having a symbol after them (*,+,-,#,^, etc) - I actually counted 9 such symbols in one insert last Sunday (there must be special keyboards for marketing people as mine doesn't have that many) - as well as a maze of words in minute print at the bottom of the ad explaining the symbols and adding further disclaimers to what the ad's 'head lines' were clearly conveying - except they weren't of course conveying what the average casual reader was being persuaded they were conveying by the double speaking marketing people of the advertiser concerned. I realise that these symbols are now used to "fully explain" the meaning of the 'marketing catch phrases' in the large print and are only there because the relevant government organisation stepped in to attempt to limit the outright misleading nature of many advertisements used to promote telecommunication services. Or put another way - in an attempt to reduce the outrageousness of the lies being rammed down the metaphorical 'throat' of the reader. The ad I thought should win the prize for for most blatant lie ever perpetrated by an Australian communications company was the Optus/Virgin: "We Think It's Time The Internet Was Free For All To Enjoy". That just took my breath away. However Telstra's: "$0 Laptop" was a close second - that also confirmed my view that Telstra's marketing personnel really DO think Australians are totally stupid. However that's just the most obvious, to everybody, indication that telecommunications companies have driven the truth to extinction and replaced it with either tortuous obfuscation or, for the most part, just down right lies. As a buyer of services from a relatively large number of telecommunications providers I don't think I have received a single answer to a straightforward question that has been true for, well, since I can remember. Starting with the unbelievably straight forward type of question such as "when will this new service be available" to the harder questions such as "why did your connection to our PoP fail" the answers provided bear no resemblance to the truth and take weeks to be provided. So entrenched is 'truthaphobia' embedded in the base methodology and processes of telecommunications companies and their personnel at every level I have dealt with over the past ten years that every statement made by an employee of a telecommunications provider may as well be spoken in Sanskrit for any resemblance to understandability is concerned. ( "truthaphobia = a new word coined by me just then but shortly to be included in a The lies told by telecommunications personnel, in almost every utterance or written communication on any subject regarding service activation dates or service performance, would astonish someone used to a more truthful environment of, say, the personal descriptions provided in an on line dating site or chat forum. With one exception in the past 5 years that I can remember (mainly because it happened yesterday) no provider from which Exetel has purchased services has ever had anything go wrong with any aspect of any service they have provided that was their fault and further more they have in fact always provided far more than they were contracted to do. No telecommunications service provider has ever under-provisioned any service at any time and no telecommunications service provider has ever missed a committed activation date or ever sent a bill that was wrong in any way. The only reason(s) why Exetel may believe such dastardly lying implications to be true would be because a piss ant, tiny company like Exetel has such stupidly incompetent people and laughably inadequate systems that we wouldn't be able to tell whether any of our inadequate people actually turned up for work or if they did their technical skills would be so abysmal they wouldn't be able to find the on on button on their computer work station let alone correctly read and understand any data on their screens. I don't know what it is that prevents employees of telecommunications companies telling the truth - the simple assumption is that the lawyers within these companies have insisted that no statement is ever made that can in any way be seen as being detrimental to the company and therefore no employee can ever admit that anything is ever late or incorrect. I sometimes wonder whether this inability to articulate anything negative about their company's performance spills over in to their personal lives as it must be really difficult to look at life devoid of the truth for 7 hours 20 minutes each working day without it impacting on other times of the day or week. For instance: what happens when these employees go to see their doctor during their normal working hours? When he asks them "what's wrong?" - do they, without thinking, reply "there's obviously nothing wrong with me a**hole - where on Earth did you get your medical training to form a view like that? - one more slur from you on my health and you'll be facing a legal bill you won't be able to jump over" Or when they go on holiday? When the check in clerk at the airline counter asks them if they still plan to return on their booked date do they glare ferociously at the innocent lady and yell "Don't you try and tell me what date I've asked to return on girlie - all dates are subject to a great many scenarios that a menial job working dummy like you couldn't begin to comprehend!" It must be hard to work for a telecommunications provider and have a relationship with any person outside the company you work for..... .......almost as hard as being a person who buys services from a communications company who employs such people.
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Yes, with the forthcoming John Grisham expose focusing on the cult of the dishonest, I am about to have "read the conditions" tattooed on my forehead, in fact (insert general sweeping statement) any deal that requires such codifying is not worth looking at, if a consumer has to go searching through subtext to find what he/she maybe signing up for, it usually is a take. My other, latest tattoo "the embarrassing truth shall set you free"
Comment (1)
So, what reason were you given for the failure of the connection to your PoP? Did the supplier somehow manage to fit in an attempted upsell?
Comments (2)
There have been numerous failures by suppliers who absolutely deny that they were the cause - it's always Exetel's fault.
Comments (4)
Funny - I didn't think Exetel actually put cables into the ground, provisioned UPS systems at data centers or twiddled with switches sitting in exchanges around the country.
I know what my company's outlook is, but does Exetel think more or less of a supplier for admitting to fault and proposing a path to resolution and future prevention? Comments (2)
We just resent the time and money wasted by suppliers who can't admit to their mistakes and make themselves look ridiculous by their pathetic lies in trying so desparately not to have to have their management find out how incompetent they are by paying compensation under the terms of their SLAs.
Comments (4)
and how come a telco "capped" plan costs more tahn the cap?
Seen in the news today "Tasmanian tiger DNA comes alive in mouse" (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/20/2249778.htm) Perhaps truth may be coming back from extintion as well. Comment (1)
...how apt that news item on the Thylacine should appear today.
It probably underlines my point though. A telco's version of the truth is similar to a mouse with stripes being put forward as a Tasmanian Tiger. Comments (4)
Any word processor -> Inesrt Symbol
There must be at least 9^2 symbols to choose from. I do like the idea of a symbol keyboard though... Comment (1)
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