John Linton
.....but I'm beginning to think that passive insanity can be just as injurious. It's either the absorption of insanity by association with deluded people (even if only via email) or I actually am losing my mind due to the ravages of time, imbibing too many distilleries of single malt and too many rivers of fine wine.
Having said that, I'm pretty sure that it must be my problem that I find myself failing to comprehend what is happening in the world of Australian residential communications - I also think that my failing mind and body and the realisation that life isn't infinitely long after all contributes to my general incomprehension of the silliness (I would use stupidity but the people concerned mostly don't appear to be stupid) that seems to be increasing rather than decreasing in interpersonal/person/supplier relations over the past whatever period it actually is.
I knew that the simple fix is for me not to continue to make myself aware of the various completely inconsequential and total time wasting situations that Exetel, and from first hand experience and second hand narration several other service providers I have some knowledge of or knowledge of people within, are continually confronted by and with. I know it is entirely my fault for putting myself in the position of coming into contact with some of the crazier scenarios that are apparently now part and parcel of commercial life (all I need to do is change my email address and use the 'junk' button on more email addresses as well as taking myself off various 'complaint' email addresses at Exetel). However, up to now, I have felt it to be important to be aware of as many of the deficiencies that customers/prospective customers see in the company I was a part of founding.
I have considered whether it has been the enormous pressures of the last financial year just ended and the subsequent relaxation of the inward restraints I've had in place to get through twelve very tough months that has resulted in these views and have to say that would be a contributing factor. However as I'm not prepared to go through another year like FY2008 I'm also not prepared to waste any more time with people who clearly have such a different interpretation of basic facts and logic than I do that one or other of us (possibly both of course which makes it even more pointless) are so totally off their heads - it doesn't matter whether it's them or me - there is zero point in any communication between 'people' one of whom may as well be talking Martian and the other Jupitian for all they can understand of each other.
Before making any decision I spent almost an hour last night reading through the correspondence in my "Twilight Zone" file (where before entering you have to, as Rod Serling once wisely advised, suspend belief in the normal and rational) in which I had saved the correspondence I had with various strange people since January 1st of the current year. I thought I was in a relatively rational frame of mind and quite relaxed when I opened the file but it took less than a few minutes for me to begin to remember the interchanges as I re-read the file and could again feel my anger and blood pressure rising. After almost an hour I couldn't believe that anyone but a saint (who would need to have been blind and deaf and preferably dumb to have actually carried out those 17 different 'interlocutions' without seriously doubting their own sanity. I went to bed with my mind spinning.
Last night's 'review, and now having slept on it over night and feeling rested physically and well balanced mentally (as as far as anyone can ever tell about themselves), I have made the decision that from today forward I will not involve myself in any way with becoming aware of the insane wastes of time that so many communications sent to Exetel are and simply let the people with the direct line responsibilities deal with them....they do an infinitely better job than they do if I comment or, God forbid, actually involve myself in some of the weirder 'disputes'. I did this because I'm having enough trouble retaining my sanity dealing with apparently real issues and I think if I keep reading some of the nonsense I've seen lately I will lose touch with the residual slim grip I have on reality as it is.
Hopefully, Exetel is now large enough for 'my absence' from the detailed problem solving for the 0.025% (I actually think it's less than that) of our residential customer base that, as best as we can estimate, takes up 85% of our 'problem resolution' resources every day of every year for that not to be a problem. I am fairly certain that I have enough direct experience to understand how this should be handled generically without having to go through the agony of being directly involved in one more specific issue. I've never held a view that a "CEO" is beyond dealing with even the smallest problem detail with the organisation for which he/she is responsible but I am now too old to waste any of the limited number of days I might have left on this planet involving myself with people who, in my opinion, have more than one screw loose and have definitely misplaced the plastic thingy a long time ago.(and yes, I aware that I am an ultra-combative personality with an intense belief in how ethically Exetel is run).
So, before writing this, I deleted my "Twilight Zone file" and also deleted my bcc accesses to four of the major sources of incredulity that deliver the more "off the wall" communications and I expect that will reduce the number of times a day I struggle to believe what can be put into writing in a commercial relationship and therefore reduce to close to zero the times I wonder whether I am losing my mind. Irrespective of what I may have learned from my dealing with the various issues over the past five years, and I assume I must have once held a different view to the one I hold today, reading such communications now serves absolutely no useful purpose for anyone at all. If I'm going to write hundreds/thousands of words each month to people who haven't got a clue what I'm saying and waste many other people's time ascertaining what on Earth has gone on, it would be infinitely better to address those words and all that 'research' to something that has slightly more than a snowball's chance in Hell of achieving something positive.
Maybe life will now become much pleasanter?