It’s Due to COVID…

“Due to the ongoing pandemic crisis we have made changes to our enterprise systems to protect your health and the health of our employees. This may cause longer than usual wait times. For faster service please use our voice prompt system or our website. If the answer you’re looking for is not available please continue to hold…”

Alright, I call BULLSHIT!

First of all I as a customer don’t care. Whatever you’re doing to protect your employees is your business. It’s between you and your employees. This is especially true if I’m calling someone like a credit card service or my insurance company. I DON’T see you people in person EVER!

Second of all, I’ve been noticing that there are a lot more errors. Errors in Billing, Errors in shipments, Errors in services rendered.

And when I call folks on those errors, the response is “Oh well with COVID, blah blah blah” The problem is, computers don’t get COVID. COVID doesn’t suddenly and mysteriously change due dates, causing late charges on credit bills. Someone commanded that change but it wasn’t COVID.

COVID doesn’t add two days to shipping in the one second between the time I click on “Checkout” and the time I press “PAY”. If you’re going to quote me a delivery date on my whole order, then split that order and space it out of 4 days after I’ve pressed PAY and entered my credit card info just quote me the real date not some fiction.

“But it’s due to COVID”

NO, IT ISN’T!

You know what’s in your warehouses and you also know how long the shit I order is going to take to get to me.

Somewhere in the billing systems for credit cards there’s an algorithm that says, “If customer pays bill two weeks ahead of schedule, then adjust Due Date to three weeks earlier.” Deposit collected late fees in account marked “Profit Skim”.

A second algorithm says note in customer account for representative. “If customer calls to complain reverse charges and allow customer to choose new billing date. Blame it on COVID”

The hope in the case of the credit card companies is that most people won’t call ‘em on it and will just pay the late fee, assuming that they (the customer) made a mistake.

The best case scenario for the credit card company is that the customer won’t notice it at all, and is an auto pay customer. If they pay a fixed amount monthly, then the unpaid late charges generate another full amount late fee that continues to add up month over month until the entire monthly payment is consumed in late fees but nothing is applying toward the actual debt. 

Once that happens the late fee cycle resets causing the customer to essentially make no headway towards paying off their debt.

My plan is to pay off all the credit cards and not have more than one. I prefer CASH or debit card transactions. I’ll keep one credit card for those weird life emergencies. But I’m cutting up cards as quickly as I can. 

COVID has become the Catch All phrase that is supposed to be the acceptable excuse for whatever someone has screwed up.

I’m sick of it. 

Own your screwups, don’t blame your mess on a virus that appears to be 99% survivable without intervention.

Yeah 1% of the population is a big freakin number. But to date, less than 1% of the population has died and the financial computer systems are still running.

It’s funny that for all the mistakes I’ve been seeing, I’m still getting the bills. You’d think that at least one of these institutions would have an outage that takes out their billing wouldn’t you?

Grrrr!

Sadly Portland you’re dead to me

Much like Seattle and San Francisco.

Portland at least grew it’s own roses for the funeral.

It’s really simple. As beautiful as these cities are from the air, and they are beautiful, I have ZERO desire to visit them. Why the hell would I knowingly walk into cities where I’m not only a target, but where I can’t be responsible for my own protection and the police have been gutted?

Why would I want to visit one of these cities now? Places where the wrong word or the slightest of incorrect reactions could get you beaten by a mob?

Doesn’t do much for your tourism does it?

57 Days and nights of rioting? Really?

You people are out of your damn minds. And even if the rioting stops (and it will), the people responsible for all this civil unrest will still be there, just below the surface, waiting for another excuse, or opportunity to mete out their particular brand so-called justice.

Seattle, and San Francisco are no better. Los Angeles is heading the same direction. Los Angeles is slightly different because it’s always been a dangerous place. You know what you’re getting into there, and you never travel in certain districts alone or at night.

I remember a scene from Logan’s Run. The hero and pretty girl are heading to a part of the city overrun with rabid children. There’s a voice from their conveyance repeating, “Warning, You are now entering a personal hazard zone,”

That’s how I feel every time I go into Los Angeles. A similar message should be playing on every flight landing in cities in the Pacific Northwest.

I don’t know anymore what these people are rioting about. I don’t know the cause of their lawlessness and further… I don’t give a shit. They can burn their homes and cities to the ground, then start slaughtering each other, over scraps of bread or some imagined insult or lack of respect. I don’t care.

If the feds march in and just start shooting the rioters, I won’t shed a single tear. Nor will I be shocked. In fact I might make popcorn and watch the show.

This is what happens when stupidity, lawlessness, and anarchy are allowed to go on for too long. It loses its impact, and the original message is long since forgotten.

All I see now is people who look and behave like they’re straight out of Fallujah. In my eyes they are no longer human, or worth saving. They’ve become rabid animals and the only way to deal with that, is to put the animals out of their misery.

I would enjoy seeing the Mayors, Governors, and so called city leaders literally ripped apart by the very rioters they’ve been making endless excuses for. They’d serve as an object lesson to other weak willed political leaders.

I know I sound harsh.

I worry for my friends in Portland because the bullshit is happening right there outside their apartments. I’ve told them it isn’t going to get any better until someone steps up and says “NO MORE”.

My friends respond with, “It’s better today… The ‘protesters’ only burned one dumpster and broke only a few windows.”

That blows my mind. My friends are starting to exhibit Stockholm Syndrome. They’re grading the quality of their days not by there being no violence, but by the level of violence that has become constant.

That’s like saying it was a good weekend in Chicago. There were only 35 shootings instead of 37. What!? That there were any shootings in Chicago is a concern, more so since shootings are so commonplace that no-one takes much notice. That speaks to a much more serious problem.

A rather large problem that no-one is talking about.

What about the rights of the people who live at ground zero? Don’t they have the right to live in a safe and secure place? Why do “Protesters” and I use that term loosely get a pass to make everyone suffer? How insane is it that normal average people are fearful leaving their homes?

It’s way past time for LAW AND ORDER to be reinstated. If that means bodies of protesters in the streets, so be it. At this point while the media would loose its shit, I bet that the majority of America would stand up and cheer.

You can take your “New Normal” and shove it!

This “New Normal” as it’s called is bugging the shit out of me, and I think it’s built on nothing more than fear itself.

I’ve had a belly full of it. It’s starting to damage my calm.

All I’ve ever wanted to do is live my life in peace and unfettered by bullshit.

Now, in this “New Normal” I have bullshit aplenty.

Riots, burning, and looting are not normal.
Wearing a mask everywhere isn’t normal.
Eliminating Police isn’t normal.
Avoiding large areas of cities, towns, & parks out of fear of being caught up in violence or some protest thats roving around, isn’t normal.
Autonomous zones aren’t normal.

I refuse to submit to your version of “normal” 

So all you Media Morons & Politicians; Take your fearful NEW NORMAL and shove it up your ass sideways! Grow a pair, and bring this shit to heal.