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Global Warning - Jun 4, 2006 - Printable Version
- A Shoving Leapord
by Robin Buckallew
Earlier in the week, I tried to print a document, thus beginning an odyssey of idiocy that somehow vaguely resembled a George Orwell plot with Laurel and Hardy playing the leading roles. Innocently assuming my printer would function properly (after all, it was only 3 months old), I sent my important work to its doom, shredded in the incomprehensible interior of a machine that has too many working parts to work properly. My usual techniques of cursing softly and gently clearing the paper jam failed to resolve the problem. I began investigating alternatives. And thereby hangs a tale. It didn’t take me too long to discover that the place I usually take my computer for repairs doesn’t handle printers. In fact, it didn’t take too much longer to discover that virtually no place in my town does. Now, you might think this is because I live in some bucolic, rustic backwoods area, but no, I live in a large metropolitan center where about a million souls live, work, play and shop. Printers are not a foreign, unusual item here, but a regular, standard part of the working day. So how come no one works on them? Well, I was told, it’s because printers are so inexpensive, they’re considered throw away items. So, they suggested I throw it away and get a new one. Now, I was faced with a true dilemma. I was caught in a conflict between my two most firmly held principles. On the one hand, I absolutely refuse to contribute knowingly and consciously to planned obsolescence. I don’t want to encourage the juvenile delinquent behavior of the marketplace, thinking they can con us into buying all new stuff every couple of months just because the last stuff they sold us conveniently broke. On the other hand, there was my other principle of finishing the things I start – in short, never let the bastards beat you. So, I sat down in outrage and tried to find a way to steer a course between these two insurmountable principles. I also wondered what strange point we have reached in this country when a product that costs you $100 has become considered throwaway, disposable, too inexpensive to bother repairing. Are we that rich a nation? Are we that glutted with excess cash that we can just throw away $100 every 3 months for a new printer? Not to mention the $30 every few months for a new mouse, the $200 or more every few months for a new television, and so on, and so on and so on? Damn, this nation must be rich! But that belies common sense. I don’t know any people who can afford that sort of luxurious lifestyle. Perhaps for Bill Gates or the Walton family, printers are “disposable”. Perhaps for those folks who are listed on the Fortune 500, $100 is mere pocket change. But for most of us in Realityville, USA, $100 is still a lot of money.
For several years in the 1990s, I ran a business out of my home, and I relied on my printer. Without my printer, I couldn’t complete the work I was doing. Whenever it was down, I panicked. During that entire time, the best year I had brought me a gross income of $7500. I relied on my printer to make that $7500, but I would never have been able to replace it every few months. It took everything I made just to keep body and soul together. I lived on food stamps and hope, and my son and I struggled from month to month just to make the rent and pay the bills. So, earth to Hewlett-Packard – reality calling, HP – we’re real people down here. We do a lot of work, we produce a lot of goods and services to keep America fed, clothed and entertained, and we need a bit of a break. We need products that work and that we can rely on, OK? It doesn’t seem too much to ask.
Anyway, after a time, my funk expelled in various manifestations of raving and ranting, I began to search for reasonable alternatives. Visiting the HP website, I discovered that, contrary to my belief, my printer was actually still under warranty. I called the support number provided, and was eventually routed to someone in India named “Jason”, who attempted to walk me through the clearing of a paper jam (telling me nothing I didn’t already know, and having me do nothing I hadn’t already done). Eventually, when he decided that he was unable to figure out any good reason why my printer was now a paper-eater, he informed me that HP was willing to make good on the warranty, and ship me a new printer, free of charge, in replacement for the old printer. I had a couple of choices – I could ship them back the old printer, and when they received it, they would ship me out a replacement. I would be printing again in the short space of time of only 3-4 weeks (give or take a week or two). Or, if I paid them money for the FedEx shipping, I could have the printer the very next morning by 10:30. I opted for door number two, since I don’t have the luxury of remaining printer-less for a period of only 3-4 weeks (give or take a week or two). That’s when things got REALLY weird, and Stan Laurel – Ollie Orwell stepped into my life. That was Wednesday, about 11:00 a.m.
Thursday morning. 10:30 came and went. FedEx was suspiciously absent. I checked the HP website, where my recent “order” was displayed proudly, showing it had not been shipped yet! The delivery date was there, listing a FRIDAY delivery, but clearly indicating that I had paid extra for a next day delivery. I called India again (well, I didn’t want to call India – but there is no one else who was willing to talk to me, so, India it was). I spoke with “Steve”, who informed me that, because my order was placed in the second half of the day (10:30 a.m. by my clock, but who knows what time zone HP is operating in?), it couldn’t be delivered until Friday. BUT, he assured me, he GUARANTEED that I would receive it, as promised, first thing Friday morning. AND, he would refund the overnight shipping charge. Was I mollified? No, not really. Was I suspicious? Hell, yes. Friday morning, I rearrange my whole schedule, knowing FedEx has a habit of not leaving packages on my doorstep if no one is there to receive them. Morning came and went, and no FedEx. I did receive e-mail notification from HP about 9:30 a.m. that the package had actually been shipped (just then), and giving me a FedEx tracking number. I tracked the package through FedEx. No good – they had no record of having received that package yet. In other words, it had been “shipped” – probably to the HP warehouse loading dock, where it was awaiting FedEx pick up. Now, FedEx is a pretty good delivery service. For the most part, they deliver the goods when they promise them. But no matter how good a delivery service they may be, it is impossible for them to deliver a product by 10:30 a.m. that they have not yet received by 11:00 a.m. No one’s that good. So, back on the phone to India, speaking with a gentleman whose name I never did quite get. Do things get really weird now? You bet.
Now, by this time it had occurred to me that the blame that HP had laid on FedEx the day before (i.e., they wouldn’t deliver the following day if they received it after noon) was probably not totally accurate, since even HPs own records indicated that they had not yet shipped it until two days later. This was just a good old-fashioned game of pass the buck. But getting back on the phone with HPs India branch just got worse in the passing the buck game. Of course, if it hasn’t been shipped until this morning, you’ll receive it tomorrow instead. But, oh, tomorrow’s Saturday. FedEx doesn’t deliver on Saturday. So you’ll receive it Monday (need I point out that, since Monday is a holiday, I won’t receive it then, either?). But, hey, we refunded your money on your shipping, so that’s why we didn’t ship it quite as early – you really should be pleased that you got the “quick” shipping for free (!?!?!?!). Being somewhat of a logical mind and also compulsively clock-oriented, I pointed out that the refunding of my money couldn’t possibly have been the motivation for it not being shipped on Thursday morning, since for it to logically arrive Friday morning, they would have had to have shipped it before noon, and it was already after noon before I called them and they refunded my money. Such logical arguments typically fall on deaf ears at corporations, however, and this was no exception. I pointed out that all this could have been avoided if they had simply authorized me to return the printer to the place I had bought it, which is a mere 4 miles from my house, and then that shop could have returned the printer to them. No shipping fees, no delays, no angry phone calls, and all of us happier than any of us currently were. Patiently, my contact pointed out to me that he had no authority to authorize such a thing; he eventually agreed to put me through to his supervisor, who could do that. When I was finally connected (after a 10 minute wait listening to lousy music), it turned out his supervisor was – an answering machine, that promised me if I would leave my name and number, someone would get back to me, possibly that very afternoon, but it might be on their next working day (which, I assume, is not until they’ve completed the holiday for Christmas, 2012). Frustrated, I left a message informing them that I was not interested in their return call, because I was going to report this incident to the Attorney General of the state where I originally purchased the product. And I will do that, of course, as soon as I receive the forms that were promised to me by the Attorney Generals’ answering machine. #$*#%%*!
So, what’s the purpose of all this narrative? Well, it got me to thinking about the many times I’d encountered similar Orwellian-LaurelHardian situations. Situations where you feel like you’ve fallen down the rabbit hole, and woken up in Oz. In fact, nowadays it seems like nearly all my commercial encounters are more surreal than a Dali painting. Such as the time I ordered something for my wedding, paid $10 extra for rapid delivery, and when I receive it two months later (a month after the wedding), I was told when I demanded my “overnight guarantee” payment back that I wasn’t entitled, since they had used overnight shipping once they finally shipped it! Or the time that I called my credit card company to determine why they’d charged me a late fee when my bank had cleared the check before the payment was due, and they informed me that I was charged the late fee for paying too early! Is this real life? Is it a nightmare? Or is it some sort of abnormal hallucination that has arisen from a bad trip following an overdose of Diet Coke? I would suspect, my friends, that you, too, have stories similar to the ones I have just shared. You, too, have found yourself frustrated and angry at expensive products that wear out before you’ve even got them paid for, leading to the need to replace them with still more expensive products you’ll never get paid for. You, too, have worked your way deliriously through a labyrinth of telephone contacts, hoping against hope that you will eventually get to someone who IS authorized to answer your question or deal with your complaint. Why do we keep doing it? Well, as the ever quotable Reverend Spooner once said, “Sheep will always follow a shoving leopard”. Corporate America has come to believe that we are sheep, and that they, a shoving leopard, will be able to herd us in whatever direction they choose. And we, consumers instead of citizens, stripped of our basic individuality by a constant barrage of ads and enticements, blindly stumble along in the direction of our “shoving leopard”. From time to time, we timidly and haltingly shove back, but one show of the leopard’s teeth, and we desist, falling back into blind submission again, numb and wearied by the constant surrealism of our increasingly Orwellian world. Now, my sheepish friends, I say, no more. We shove back. We aren’t sheep – we are Homo sapiens - roughly translated, that means “Man wise”. So, let’s show our wise side, and leave our ovine side for our woolly friends. Of course, we can only do it together; as we moved together in a herd as sheep, we can hunt together in a pack as wolves.
So, what would make life make sense again? How can we substitute realism for surrealism (don’t get me wrong – I love surrealism in an art museum – but in my home, I prefer a heavy dose of realism)? Well, for starters, let’s look at Germany. What? Foreigners? What can we possibly learn from foreigners? I say, a lot. In Germany, there is a law that gives corporations cradle-to-grave responsibility for their products. If something quits working, they have to replace it. You return it to them, they fix it or replace it. They also have to take responsibility for disposal costs for the defunct item. Needless to say, products sold in Germany tend to last longer. They are made for endurance, not for obsolescence. You can buy a product, and don’t have to sink your life savings into replacing that same product within a couple of months. While it might cost a little more up front to make a quality product, the savings are there in the long run. The savings are not only in the constant replacement of poorly-made products, but also in the cost for raw materials, the cost for landfilling, the costs of environmental degradation, and, of course, the cost of your time in constantly having to deal with the nonsense you currently have to deal with. I suggest this should be our first goal. If we all get together, we can do it. First, we draw up a plan, do some research, and get real numbers in place. Then, we write up a proposal for the new law. Then, the real hard part – we begin presenting it to our Senators and Representatives, to get a sponsor, and we begin fighting for it. I assure you, none of this will be easy. We will have to actually work. If we can’t get it through on the federal level (and I seriously doubt it’s feasible in the current Congress), then we work through the states. We begin by targeting states where we have a decent chance of success – such as Oregon or Washington, which have shown a great deal of progressive leadership on such issues. Once we can demonstrate the viability of this option, then we can get the dominoes to fall, one by one, until we finally reach the pinnacle – the United States federal government.
If we are ever going to make a difference, it is going to be up to us. The current system, surreal and nonsensical as it is, obviously benefits someone. That someone is the corporations who benefit every time you give up and just buy another one. They will not be on our side, and they have a lot of power. But the corporations have been reined in before. Back in the early part of the 20th century, many people thought the corporations could not be controlled. They had run amok, and it seemed futile to resist. It was a daunting job, but America got off its duff and tackled it. The reforms that arose out of the popular mobilization were sweeping. Now, they’ve been rolled back, and we have to start again. So be it. We now have a choice to make – we can continue to be like sheep, following after one shoving leopard after another, until we get delivered up to be sheared. Or, we can live up to the name that our own species decided to honor itself with, and stand up and say “NO MORE”! I, for one, am ovine no more.
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