I never dreamed that my relationship with the telephone would become so complicated.But it has, and as a result, I barely use my phone anymore. It's partially my own fault. I hate the tyranny of service contracts of any kind, the unwelcome surprise of extra charges, the cutting of service if I don't pay by a certain date. So I have a pay-as-you go arrangement, which I've managed, tenaciously, almost desperately, to retain through the various mergers and acquisitions of the company that issued it. Of course, the corporate world hates this type of freewheeling arrangement, they want to hold you by the short hairs in every possible aspect of your life. Thus, they "grandfather" in the older, more liberal agreements for their original users while eliminating them as an option for more recent subscribers. Meaning that only if you've had pay-as-you-go for some time can you continue to use it--albeit, with new limitations. In my case, they took away my caller ID, and that's how I found out that nowadays, people generally avoid unidentified callers. If they can't see a name on the little screen,they just don't answer their phones. So if I want to talk to a human being, not a recording, I can't use my no-name cell phone. I must resort to my landline, which features,not my real name, but one of my more ridiculous screen names as caller ID. Don't ask. I don't know how it got there or how to change it, and as long as it functions as caller ID, I don't care. I can resign myself to the situation because I'm also on its receiving end--as are millions of telephone users, at least in the United States. These days, I mostly use my phone for texting, not speaking, because it allows for more time control and filtering of unwanted calls. I don't answer my phone unless the caller ID reveals a person or a company I recognize. As far as I'm concerned,all else can go fuck themselves because these days, nobody calls to help you or give you anything. On the contrary,it seems everyone has their hand out. But God forbid you should call anywhere for aid or information
on some service or item you've acquired --you probably won't get a human being on the line, and the proffered websites will be next to useless. Narrow in scope, some won't even include spaces for written complaints or online chats with LIVE customer reps. In general, you'll only experience
"live" calls if they are intended to make you part with your money. Everybody who calls you wants something, and the sales schemes are as aggressive as they are ingenious. The caller ID often shows what looks like a "real" person's name, intended to make
you wonder if it's somebody you know but maybe forgot about--and trick you into answering the phone.
Pitches come under the guise of offering you something useful "for free"-- but only, as it turns out, if you'll buy this or that. I once had a caller promise me valuable news about my labor union's new, improved benefits. She was a fast talker and I couldn't get a word in edgewise. She roped me into scheduling a phone video conference with a "specialist", while
deflecting all my questions about who she was and what she represented. It was only after receiving a text confirmation that I detected, in small print, a company name I didn't recognize, and I looked it up online. It was a supplemental insurance company--they wanted to sell me INSURANCE, using my labor union for cover! (I'd like to know who, in my labor union, approved such a scam.) Of course, I cancelled the video conference. I've also received pirate phone calls in Chinese (again, don't ask) and some rapacious calls even come from people I know, or know about. Dentists and audiologists call to corral me into appointments I do not need. Bank "advisors" call to sell me new credit cards or investment schemes. A physician's office once called me to propose a "concierge" service, whereby I'd pay them a monthly amount whether I saw the doctor or not.Most recently, I got a phone call urging me to reschedule a doctor's appointment that I never made to get checked for a mysterious progressive ailment I didn't know I had. Thankfully, my caller ID labels some of these annoying phone calls as "Scam Likely", so I can head them off at the pass. I hope that's one service that won't ever get lost in the shuffle. My advice: Save your breath. Don't answer your phone if there's no caller ID or if you don't recognize the name it presents.
