You may remember the near-disaster a year ago last spring when I received six packages of Organic Chickpea Pasta from Amazon instead of six cartons of the health-food I had ordered:
SUGAR FREE DOUBLE DUTCH DARK CHOCOLATE
premium hot chocolate
Dairy Free/Plant Based/Vegan/Gluten Free/High in Fibre
(all use of capitals and non-use of hyphens as per the label)
Or you may not remember. Not because your memory is going, but because mine is. I was sure I had written memorably, compellingly even, about receiving pasta in place of hot-chocolate mix. I certainly told everyone I knew, but apparently I did not write about it.
If I had written about it, I surely would have started with the horror of the moment I realized that I couldn’t use the online form to return this mis-shipment because although it was clearly their error it was also (nominally) food. Now what?
It took me 30 minutes in line on the Amazon customer-service line to ask that very question of a real-live person. It took me 5 minutes to explain my problem, another 5 to re-explain it (Whaddya mean you got pasta instead of hot-chocolate mix? That can’t be right. Exactly!), 5 more minutes to get photos of the pasta packages and the hot-chocolate-mix labelling on the box and to scrunch said photos so I could send them by text to a general Amazon mailbox while the real-live person waited for them, and then 5 more minutes while she consulted a real-live supervisor. (Whaddya mean she got pasta instead of hot-chocolate mix? That can’t be right. Exactly!)
And that was that. They refunded my payment, told me to do what I liked with the Organic Chickpea Pasta as long as it didn’t involve sending it back to them, and removed the hot-chocolate mix from their website until they figured out how big this mis-labelling problem was. Whew. Disaster averted, or at least mitigated.
All that remained was for me to find another source for . . .
SUGAR FREE DOUBLE DUTCH DARK CHOCOLATE
premium hot chocolate
Dairy Free/Plant Based/Vegan/Gluten Free/High in Fibre
. . . which I did, so hurray! Oh, and to get rid of six packages of Organic Chickpea Pasta without eating them, which I did, so hurray again!
With all that excitement, it sort stuck in my head, you know? I had not previously thought much about Organic Chickpea Pasta or even at all, really, but now I was attuned to it. And so it was that last week I came across an article about the healthiest kind of pasta. You’ll never guess–well, maybe you will. It’s pasta made from legumes, including–and now I’m sure you’ve guessed–chickpeas! Which of all the legumes taste the most like regular pasta! And, of course, organic chickpeas are the best of all.
So there you have it. The next time the universe drops six bags of Organic Chickpea Pasta on my front porch, I will not look them in the mouth again. Instead, I will try putting them in my mouth. Too soon old, too late smart.
Another subtle way humans are being irritated to death by AI algorithms , one chickpea at a time. It’s now a design feature in every digital exchange.
Barbara – I hope not quite to death but I take your point. It’s getting harder and harder to opt out of each Fabulous Digital Advance (R/TM/C). Here’s today’s article on that topic from a curmudgeon in his late 80’s. https://www.thefp.com/p/ancient-wisdom-a-middle-digit-to-digital-age-tech-culture
figure of speech — but I wouldn’t doubt it in future. I am already barred from some aspects of service because I do not have a mobile hone # — slippery slope.
I refuse to have a smartphone: I have already conquered several vertical learning curves re digital and prefer phone and my desktop computer. But if our WIFI goes out our Bell system shuts down our landline. I can’t call 911. So — death???
Barbara – As you can imagine, I am fairly twitchy these days about the ability to contact 911. Maybe they expect the laggards to fire flares from their balconies to attract attention.
Have I ever written about, or told you about, the morning I searched Costco website as I wanted to return something. Finally called Costco Customer Service. In the end, it turned out I had made the purchase at Amazon, not Costco.
It had “stuck in my head” I had bought the item from Costco.
Tom
Tom – Oh, that’s funny. Although it might not have seemed so to you at the time. If it makes you feel any better, sometime last year I couldn’t make my debit card work in the ATM. It wasn’t giving me the right options. When I took it to a teller, he advised me gently that it was for a different bank.
I need to add to this conversation that all things digital go sideways when you live in the countryside. Bell has gone to enormous cost to install “glass,” i.e., fiber optic cable to replace “copper,” i.e., formerly normal landlines. Every so often they call me to pressure me to connect to the new system for the landline. But the only advantage of the landline is that our number has been established in our small circle (and on published books, advertising, banks and government agencies, etc.) for over 40 years and I dread having to backtrack any, let alone all, of those phone numbers. A landline theoretically is best for reaching emergency help, but that might depend on the type of emergency. The ice storm last March took out the electricity for a week, which meant even the cell phones could not be charged. “Landlines” tied to computer programs were useless. I don’t know how the “glass” Bell customers fared but our copper phones did work. The only emergency our family faced was already in hospital the day before the storm struck. But that tells you something about a narrow margin. I have a creeping suspicion that some of the old-fashioned methods of communication were more reliable and fit more comfortably with human capacities (exactly why did we “need” 5-G?).
Laurna – I think that’s right – about older systems maybe being more resilient than newer ones. We add functionality but subtract uptime. I’m not sure it’s a good trade. I’m pretty sure no one asked me.
Isabel – my landline and internet are by Bell on fibre optic cable. My TV service is by Rogers. My cell phone service is from Telus. As you can see, I don’t trust any of them to always work as they claim.
BTW, during a recent service call to Bell about my new fibre optic service, the automated menu before I got to a real person advised me that Bell has stopped making repairs to older copper wire systems.
John – A good strategy, I think. Your diversification one, I mean – not Bell abandoning legacy infrastructure (although their investors might disagree with me).