fed up with bell canada!
This is a long one. I was a customer of Bell Canada, having had my home phone service with them for over twenty years. The phone service itself was always reliable and customer service was good, during most of the time, the few times I ever had to call them. In my last few years with Bell, however, I had my long distance package with Rogers because Bell couldn’t compete with 1000 North American minutes for $5. Then, completely out of the blue, Bell started charging me for long distance calls, although I still was paying for my package with Rogers and all was well on their end.
So, I called Bell Canada, thinking it would take just minutes to resolve. No such luck. I honestly could not understand a word the client service agent was saying as English was obviously not even his third or fourth language. Regardless, I thought I’d resolved the issue and that I would be credited the wrongly charged long-distance fees. But that would be too simple, wouldn’t it? I called again. And again. Always seemingly getting this same heavily-accented client service rep, until it dawned on me to ask where the call center was located. India! WTF? A Canadian company exporting Canadian jobs overseas was bad enough but the fact that I couldn’t get competent service as a result was even worse. These Bell Mumbai Canada reps wouldn’t even transfer me to a supervisor when I asked. Since I am bilingual, I thought I’d call the French-speaking line to see if the service was any better. And guess what? French-speaking clients get to speak to fluent Canadian client service reps that are located right here in Canada! Now, this really pissed me off for the obvious reasons. Obvious to all English-speaking Canadians, at any rate. Anyway, it turned out that somewhere along the line, an internal decision made without me or my consent – verbal, written or otherwise – to change my long-distance charges to Bell Canada, although I’d been paying Rogers for them for years. The rep couldn’t explain how that happened but he couldn’t change it back either. By this time, two months had passed and I was no closer to getting the matter resolved so switched my home phone to Rogers and I contacted Bell’s head-office for a final resolution.
In: WTF?, give me a break!, not the brightest bulbs
caffeine in foods and drinks
Caffeine is a bitter, white crystalline xanthine alkaloid that is a psychoactive stimulant drug.
It is found in a myriad of foods and beverages such as coffee, tea (including white and green teas), colas and other soft drinks, chocolate, medications and more. On medication labels, it is listed as either a medicinal ingredient or an active ingredient, as shown on the Excedrin label information, whereas other inert ingredients are listed as either inactive or non-medicinal ingredients. It begs the question, then, if caffeine is technically a drug and if it must be listed as such on medication labels, why isn’t it also listed on all food and beverage labels? Now, I don’t drink “energy drinks” such as Red Bull so I don’t know if the caffeine content is listed on those, however, I do know that it is not listed on colas, chocolate bars, instant coffee, etc. It also is not listed at coffee shops such as Tim Horton’s or Starbucks. At least, not here in Ontario. Doesn’t that strike anyone as being odd, especially as it is a drug and as such, can cause side effects?
Caffeine is known to cause a dependency to it, complete with withdrawal symptoms when too much time without it elapses. It can also cause caffeine-induced sleep and anxiety disorders, according the the American Psychological Association, the result of long-term excessive use. Also, studies show that caffeine can increase the heart rate and blood pressure, especially in more sensitive individuals, as well as increasing the risk of miscarriage if more than 200mg is consumed. But how are you to know how much you are consuming if it isn’t listed?
So, readers, what are your thoughts on this matter?
Source: Wikipedia
pet peeve #1035
I’ve got another pet peeve!!
(collective sigh from the readers “gee, this Norm guy has yet another pet peeve, what a surprise”)
Yes, yes dear readers, something else in life has annoyed me of late and I feel it’s my duty to spread the word on it.
Back a year or so ago, the City of Toronto imposed a bag fee of 5 cents on absolutely any bag you get from a retail store. If you have more than one or 2 items you have no choice if you’ve forgotten your reusable bag. Some stores decided that to be fair, they will charge the same for ALL their stores even the ones outside Toronto’s borders. That part bugs me. The fact that more stores seem to be following suit bugs me even more.
But the clincher….. Have you ever noticed the bags? What ever store you’re purchasing from has their store logo emblazoned across the bags as large as can fit. Now, if you read my previous rant about being a walking billboard for designers and companies by buying their t-shirts and such you know how I feel about paying to advertise for companies. Does the TV station pay Geico to run the caveman ads? Does the magazine pay Harley Davidson for the privilege of having that 2 page spread in there? Not friggen likely. But here we are forking over a nickle to be a mobile advertisement for Home Depot. It’s a marketing exec’s wet dream!
Well, enough of that crap but this time I have a solution. From now on if a company is going to charge me for a bag, I am going to request they turn the bag inside out. Maybe it’s stupid, maybe it’s pointless. Most of the ones working the cash will obviously think I’m an eccentric old fool (and they may not be far off) but I’m not putting up with crap like this. Maybe if enough people joined in with requesting bags inside out, companies would realize it’s time to get back to old fashion values of serving and appreciating customer patronage.
Then again I suspect that is far to much to hope for.
