25. You talk too much
“What troubles me is the Internet and the electronic technology revolution. Shyness is fueled in part by so many people spending huge amounts of time alone, isolated on email, in chat rooms, which reduces their face-to-face contact with other people.” – Philip Zimbardo
I bought my first answering machine in 1983. It was a good investment since I needed to sell some property and it sold quickly. Watching at least one motion picture, I saw the model machine I had. I’ve probably owned four of those gadgets, all different. They can be very helpful in many ways. So much technology has made communication so much easier. I mentioned Facebook earlier but didn’t give it much praise. It can be a great way of obtaining information. With friends and family members not speaking to each other – I wish it weren’t so – you can discover more about your relatives from social web sites than from your brothers and sisters. News travels faster even if it’s indirectly. Sadly, if families are at war, most methods of communication won’t bring answers.
For the most part, mail delivered by the United States Post Office has evolved into junk mail. Even so, we can’t close down the post office, thanks to the union of technology and corporations. Some people don’t use the Internet and are without email. Those that have PCs need the service because online banking doesn’t really allow them to obtain twenty dollars in cash by logging on. On the plus side, I pay my mortgage and utility bills online every month through the credit union. Moving money around works except for having the bucks in your hand. Some things have to be done through the USPS, as I mentioned in previous chapters.
I mentioned the feeling about not being able to live without a cell phone. Thirty years ago they weren’t around and yet we all survived. The majority of people insist that the cell phone is the worst invention yet. I won’t say that statement applies to the telephone, but here are a few thoughts that bring up doubt. I’ll bet you didn’t know that answering machines could talk to people. Actually they can’t but they try anyway. In some cases a company has software that works so the company can evoke answers from you by an almost human. However, when I hear a question needing a yes or no answer and I reply, no, only to hear, I don’t understand you, it’s obvious that the system is flawed and needs work. Even if these issues are remedied, the voice maze that has replaced human communication leaves much to be desired. The service economy has been replaced with the economy of greed. Too many times you’ll go through the maze and not find an agent to talk to when you have a question that needs an answer. Also, you may go through five panels and then hear the dial tone, which is truly annoying.
How about those phone banks? They’re the worst, but this creates an opportunity for answering machines talking to each other. The computerized system dials a number that finds an answering machine. No message is left or if it is, it’s ignored. Success denied! There’s another possibility of futility. The calling thing hears the answering machine and then proceeds to ask a question or two. Here’s a sample:
Calling phone: If you continue listening to this message, you acknowledge that you are indeed John Smith.
Answering machine reply:
Calling phone: Please leave you address and we’ll send you more information.
Answering machine reply:
Calling phone: Thank you. Have a good day!
Answering machine reply:
What the answering machine wanted to say for the last reply was, Thanks, but I have other plans.
I didn’t design these phone banks so I’m only guessing at how they work. I’m not a fan of banks that hold and disperse our money, especially the big, criminal ones, and I don’t like the tech ones either. A room has a computer hooked up to numerous phones dialing certain numbers with a few people standing by. If a person answers, one of the operators sees a light on a phone go on, so he’ll pick up it and talk. Otherwise, it rings a few times and then stops. If a machine of the dialed number plays a recorded message, the dialing phone may play one of it’s own. At the end of February 2015, I received a call but didn’t get to my no-answer machine before I ran into this situation. This accomplished nothing. I’m sure that this situation will happen again. My efforts in the future will be to get to the phone on time.
In February 2015, a friend invited me to join him on LinkedIn. I couldn’t because of tech problems but I had his email address – I hope it’s still valid – so I sent an email saying: Thanks for the invitation, but I’m not on LinkedIn. I was linked out. I was on it for a while but ended being there a few weeks ago. The others you saw there with the same name aren’t me. He must have entered my name and saw people with my name. I’ve done the identical search myself when I was on either that site or Facebook. I found a few people that way. On many occasions, when I tried that, the person I queried wasn’t my former acquaintance. Another possibility is that she didn’t see the invitation or really didn’t care to be my friend. That happens. I had someone’s email address from months ago but emailing her brought the response of a failed communication. Even in that case, the address may have been the right one but there was a problem with the provider. Justin invited me twice more, but as I said, I’m not on the site. I went to LinkedIn anyway to say that I knew him. There I saw at the top of the screen the message, Hmmm . . . looks like you already have a LinkedIn account. I disagree! Underneath the top line were the words, Create your LinkedIn account to join Justin’s professional network. The designer of this site either missed logic classes, web design courses or has the name of Amy, maybe all three of the above. I did a workaround by writing Justin a letter.
John meets Mary at a party. They’re different from the couple of an earlier chapter. The two develop a liking for the other and exchange email addresses or phone numbers. One means to contact the other, but forgets. Then Mary emails him, but the email doesn’t reach John. It may be in his email box as spam, so he deletes it since the email address is devil318@gmail.com. She meant to change it but didn’t. That name is a whole other story. A few days later John calls Mary and leaves the message with her roommate, who forgets to give the Mary the information. This could go on for a while, but they never see each other again.
Two phrases you may have heard are: People are like deer – they enter our lives and then are gone; People come into our lives for a reason, season or relationship. There are times when someone will enter your life and you think it’s for your sake. It may well be for the sake of the other individual, or for both. Technology is one cause of departures but there are others. People move away or someone is offended by the actions or words of another, even though it was intended as a compliment. The friendship of two individuals could end because one talks too much, or not enough.
Chris and Pat meet through online dating. Chris is a college quarterback in his late twenties and Pat a former high school cheerleader, in her early twenties. They found out about each other through a social network and began emailing each other. Pat’s photo is on Facebook while Chris’s is identified by his college mascot. They discover that they live in adjacent states, about 50 miles from each other. After some time they agree to meet for lunch at a restaurant about halfway from both. On the given day, Chris sits at a table waiting for Pat, but Pat never appears. Chris heads home. A week later Chris discovers that Pat not only has been arrested, but that her real name is Harry Franklin, an embezzler. Chris never played football but has the name of Jennifer Adams, a forty-year old dancer. Things could have turned out a great deal worse.
George Washintun saw a 1963 Mustang for sale at a web site. The owner was Abraham Linkin, not related to the social site. George contacted Abe and they agreed to a price. George was told to bring the cash to a restaurant in town. The former brought the dough and Abe – certainly not the Honest One – killed George. Linkin was apprehended not long afterwards. One man was murdered unnecessarily because of technology and many suffered because of the crime. On the other hand, technology aided in finding the perpetrator.
I can’t leave out one of the greatest technical innovations of all time: Talk radio. Those things don’t talk – and they really don’t come close – and what they say is all talk and no action. Some inform and others speak without any concern for the truth. Maybe I’m making a Rush to judgment, but what once was a great invention, the radio, has been corrupted by people whose partners won’t even listen to them. I can’t blame the former. Thank God, we still have streaming music.
On the Fourth of July in 2013, I was writing on my desktop and experienced a puzzling technological experience. The room was quiet with neither YouTube videos, FM stations streaming or CDs playing. I was expecting a call from my sister Pat. It didn’t arrive. By chance I went to my bedroom where the answering machine was. The message light was blinking with Pat’s message, but I didn’t hear the phone ring, the response from the machine or the words she left on it. As an aside, why do they call it an answering machine? When I call a friend who’s not home, the gadget doesn’t answer; it only records someone’s voice.
I had the same thing happen to me in February 2015. This time I was in the bedroom and I heard talking so I picked up the phone. I’m not sure what I said or who called, but then I woke up. Returning to the Independence Day fiasco, maybe I had a brief hearing deficit. Do you think that aliens were involved? The answer is that it was just a technological glitch.
I mentioned my phone with speaker capabilities and it seems I could use that device as an answering machine in addition to the other one. How about if set both up with identical responses for the caller and the same number of rings – kind of like stereo? That way I probably wouldn’t experience the same thing that happened on that Fourth of July.
My answering machine – just the one – has a few issues. If I want to set it up or reset for some reason, I click a button or two and I hear, to change the hour, press clock. Then there’s something about pressing skip or repeat. When I follow the directions to change the hour – I must have gotten it wrong – I wind up changing the year. With a few more changes, which shouldn’t work, I wind up with the right year, day of the week, hour and minutes, or something close enough. With a power outage, even a minute or less, I get to do it again.
What can be done about the communication problem? The answers aren’t easy. As far as stopping the junk – mail, email and unwanted phone calls – you can find web sites to help. One is:
consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0262-stopping-unsolicited-mail-phone-calls-and-email
It may not end the problem but could result in less of stuff. Above all, recycle the paper that floods your postal mailbox. Companies will complain but the USPS should charge institutions more for sending it, even charities. If you want to make money, you have to spend it. Don’t give criminal corporations breaks in costs. This will help save the trees, which those companies aren’t enthusiastic about. Sending catalogs in the mail is unnecessary, since they’re online. If you don’t have Internet access, find a site that sells computers and buy one. Then you’ll have it and can get the electronic catalog. If that is out of the question or you hate technology, ask your granddaughter or nephew to place your order. One of the sites I buy vitamins from includes a catalog. I now obtain my vitamins elsewhere.
The recycling concept brings up another question. I ask a lot of questions. If you have fourteen all different calendars, you have every possibility. I think I have most of the fourteen. If everyone also has that many, there’d be no need for any more calendars to be printed. March 8, 2015 was a day that we set our clocks one hour ahead. Assuming I have an old calendar in my kitchen from 1998, it doesn’t give March 8 as the day to do the switch. Since I believe in reusing resources, the answer to this hour adjustment reuse dilemma is simple. Just cross out the April move an hour ahead and pen in the actual day of the change in March. If necessary, handle the autumn switch the same way.
I’m an environmentalist and proud of it. The planet needs saving, before it’s too late. A big way we can all make a small difference is by practicing the four Rs: rethinking, reducing, recycling and reusing. I mentioned this earlier. One small idea that involves more than one of the four is to have your name and address – all of them – removed from mailing lists. You can find catalogues online and I don’t want any free gifts. Because of the preponderance of mail from the United States Post Office, I get bombarded with all this el toro crappo. It’s not the government’s fault but that of big business.
It seems like I’ve been sending emails to the latter to stop this for a year, but the crap still shows up. Here’s what I more or less email:
This is an environmental issue. Could you remove my name from your mailing list since today everything is done electronically? If you gave any of my information to other organizations, notify them to do the same. Thanks.
Jack I. CantStandIt
45 Land Fill Drive
Dumpsville, XX XXXXX
It’s fortunate that I live near a place that recycles as well. In January 2015, I had mail from five establishments. I sent emails for a few of them, including one site where I found the words, contact us. On approaching the two words, they disappeared. Being creative I somehow managed to send the email, using the workaround. I just hope they received it. I had two more places to email, but no way to contact them through their site. So I used the reverse email find. Some of the sites that failed included spokeo.com, whitepages.com and email.directory.intelius.com – the intelligent reference shouldn’t be there. Two sites seemed to have difficulty obtaining the email address by entering the name of the establishment. The white pages site wouldn’t let me enter anything, responding, We did not find a match.
Maybe I’ll just use a more sophisticated approach, the telephone. The next challenge was to discover the person from a phone number. I tried over half a dozen web sites, with no luck but some lies. Some were free but then asked for a credit card, which I didn’t provide. One site worked when I entered my phone number, but I know where I live.
If someone won’t communicate with you, there’s not much you can do. Whether you write a letter, call or email, you may never hear from the addressee. That’s for a variety of reasons and a different approach may be needed. Be kind and don’t give up but stop your pursuit when it becomes clear that this person is like the deer who enters your life and then is gone. This isn’t easy to do. With all the technological possibilities of reaching others, technology itself closes many doors. Advances giveth as well as taketh away. The gift we receive is frustration and stress – a bad tradeoff.
Abraham Lincoln once said, Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. It’s a well-known fact that someone who listens learns much more than another with his mouth open all the time. Two people sitting in silence benefit greatly as one only needs the company of the other because of some misfortune. There is a time when silence is a problem. Do you think this could be tech related?
On the first full day of spring in 2015, my friends and I shared dinner in my home. During that time there were no technological problems because no music played, phones weren’t ringing and my ERD was inactive. Our conversation and enjoying the food filled that time. After that, we sat down to watch the 1976 motion picture, Marathon Man, courtesy of my sister’s DVD. I turned on the remote for the television followed by the same gadget for the DVD player and the movie began, but there was no sound. We tried quite a few things even reconnecting cables and playing the 1982 flick, Still of the Night, but the difficulty remained since that was quiet too. The problem was narrowed down to either or both remotes; pressing a button or two locking a mute. Finding menus that would undo this failed, as did toggling the mute buttons. We ruled out the possibility that Roy Scheider starring in both movies was the cause. It was very frustrating to the three of us. It seemed like we spent an hour with this situation, but it was probably only half that. We gave up and saw neither DVD that day.
They departed at 7 pm. Two hours later I watched two episodes of Newhart, the show of the 1980s. I turned off the TV using the remote adapter – you know more about that then you probably want to know from my involvement. I was about to do some reading when I decided to try one more thing. The second DVD was still in the player. I turned on the TV remote followed by the DVD player remote. The movie started accompanied by sound. It was bewildering and bewitching, but I wasn’t bothered since I wasn’t surprised. I was relieved.
The song, “You talk too much”, was performed by Joe Jones in 1960. Frankie Ford also sang it that year and other artists released it later. Another relevant song is “Enough” from the CD, A new flame, by the English pop and soul band, Simply Red. That song could also apply to chapter 19.