I'm Being Marketed

I had a problem with my Nook yesterday, so I googled and tried a couple of things which of course didn't work.  So first order of business this Sunday morning was to call the help desk.  Since help desks tend to have a minimum of people answering a maximum of calls, and horrible music interrupted by recorded voices telling you how important your business is and to please hang on, so that it's impossible to do anything constructive while waiting, I have learned that Sunday morning is the fastest way to get a human.

Despite the fact that Barnes & Noble probably don't have enough people on hand to tend to telephone help, they still manage to have someone answer the phone and take down your totally non-relevant information, email address, snail mail address, etc., before they put you on hold so someone from their "technical support" desk can help you.  I assume the middle-man was there in order to get you back on mailing lists, B & N data lists, etc.

So by the time I got the poor guy who had to help me, and he asked me the same personal questions the first person did, I was waving my middle finger around the room, but being polite to my assigned helper, which I learned to do in order not to be verbally rude and nasty to the poor guy on the other end, who is, after all, not at all to blame.

My help desk guy didn't seem to know much about my Nook (one of the older, cheaper, simpler "Simple Touches").  He had to keep looking things up, would forget to tell me to take a important step, or tell me to do something I had already done.  And of course, he had to eventually, more than once, "consult" with someone.

At one point, I realized that the questions that were being asked had to do with the validity of the book I had transferred that would give me an "account not activated" message.  Basically, the help guy was trying to find out if the problem was maybe I had "stolen" a book.  Without saying as much.  When I realized what was going on, and informed him that I only had library books on the Nook, the line of questioning changed immediately.

Eventually we got it worked out.  It was indeed a simple solution to a simple problem, and hopefully I learned something as a result of the 45 minutes we explored that little slice of technology together.

But it continues to infuriate me the extent to which my Nook tries to have a relationship with me.  It gives me recommendations; it needs to know how to contact me; I need to be attached to Barnes & Noble in order to own and use my Nook.

In all the centuries we have been reading, brief attempts at marketing in books (inserts, product placement) have been limited, and scorned.  Yet online we have the Brave New World of marketing.  Everywhere.  In every single aspect of our lives, including the books we read, much like in a J. G. Ballard story.  And it seems to be okay with us.

I would just like to ask anyone who may be reading this to step outside of the internet world and look objectively at all the electronic conveniences that stem from that world.  The mail that has advertising personally directed to you based on analysis of your emails.  The ads that are all over Facebook and Words With Friends.  Paid advertising on blogs, in newspaper articles, in search engines.  The ever more ubiquitous YouTube ads.

If you really paid attention, you might find that it was at the very least annoying, but at worst these messages control us.  We may not run out and buy what is being sold (although the assumption is that we just might), but the advertising is affecting the way we use our time, forcing us to sit through ads, or interfering with our reading of an article.  And for god's sake, they almost entirely represent electronic snooping into our computers.

We're all being marketed online, and we might just want to do something about it.  While we still have enough consciousness left to do it.

Targeting Target

Wal-Mart is not the only big, bad bully trying to kill Thanksgiving.  Target is one of several retailers who just cannot bear the thought of a dollar bill slipping past their grubby little fingers.

Meanwhile, employees will be forced to leave their families on one of the truly family holidays remaining.

So what can you do?  You can boycott.  Stay away on Thursday, and prove your compassion by staying away on Friday too.  When you do your holiday shopping, shop small.  There's been a lot of hot air about our reverence for small businesses, but until we actually walk into our local stores and pay a little more to support local merchants (and their employees), it is just talk.

Here's something you can do right now.  Sign the petition started by Target employees at:

http://www.change.org/petitions/target-take-the-high-road-and-save-thanksgiving#

Thankful for Wal-Mart?

I think not.

Whenever you think Wal-Mart has squeezed every possible drop of blood out of its employees, it twists the screw just a bit tighter.

The news this year is that Wal-Mart (and other jackasses) will be opening on Thanksgiving night so that you folks can take advantage of their great deals, while stomping on other bargain-hunters in the process.

Now, having been on the "customer service" side of the counter up to very recently, I have made it a policy not to ever shop on Sundays and holidays (like Memorial Day and Labor Day), and never, ever shop at Wal-Mart.  You may say, "But gee, they are providing jobs for people."  When you don't shop, you are depriving people like yourself the opportunity to earn a living.  Thanks, Wal-Mart PR Department, but I beg to disagree.

That bag of chips and bottle of soda?  You could have bought it on a day that would not have required someone who is not even making a living wage to leave their families on a Sunday or holiday.

And those great bargains you are going to pick up on Thanksgiving mean that Wal-Mart "associates" will have to leave the meal, the football game, or even just the post-turkey nap, to make sure you get your Christmas bargains just that much earlier.

You know what?  If they were giving away five big-screen TV's for $5 apiece, it's really not worth what you have given up, and forced others to give up, to be one of those five.

I'm talking morals, not dollars and sense.  I understand that that is a foreign concept here in the US of Assets.  But think about it.  Will you really be glad on Christmas day that you grabbed that Blu-Ray player out of that guy's hands so you could save $25 bucks?

You will?

Then I have one more question.  Why on earth are you reading this blog?  Shouldn't you be checking out Fox News?

And for the rest of my readers, consider boycotting and ending this nonsense.