I have been using the same cell phone for at least a few years now.  Probably longer than that.  It's a phone.  No camera, and I don't know how to go on-line with it, or text.  It's a clamshell design and recently I had begun to wonder whether the sound quality had gone downhill, and if I should get a new one for that reason.

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I had saved a small lanyard from my previous cell phone, and installed it on this one.  A lanyard is simply a small sort of leash.  I found it convenient.

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However, I didn't find it so convenient when, getting into my car last Saturday, the lanyard got caught in my car door handle and was thereby jerked out of my hand and went scuttling onto the asphalt of the parking lot I was in.  The battery popped off the back.  I put the battery back on, powered the gadget back up and that's that.

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Only that wasn't that.  Three days later I realized that my phone didn't work.  It turned on.  Actually it did everything it's supposed to, except the audio seemed to have gone bye-bye.  I could place calls, but not hear the person, or, more frequently I suppose, the answering machine at the other end.  The phone would ring, audibly, but I couldn't hear the person who'd called.  The rest of the functioning attributes of the phone were rather superfluous without this one, all important function.

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So I went to Sprint, my wireless carrier - which is my pet name for them - and priced a new phone.  There was a similar, but slightly sleeker, slightly slimmer, slightly less easy to use the slightly smaller buttons phone, that didn't have a camera - something I crave in a phone, the not having a camera - for only $19.99 if I signed up for two more years of service. 

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I'd finished my last two year contract years ago, and really didn't want to sign up for another.  There were also 2 phones I could get for some higher price, the entirety of which would be refunded as a rebate - a strategy I simply don't understand.  This will cost you 80 million dollars, but we'll give you back 80 million dollars after you buy it.  How in the world does that make any sense? - but these 2 phones each had cameras.  See above.

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So.  $19.99, comes with a charger for the home, but not for the car.  Requires a 2 year use contract.  Fine.  Ring me up.  So the nice gal starts the paperwork.  First I have to read the contract, which is available for me to read on a 4 inch by 3 inch screen in tiny font.  Then sign, or at least click on "OK".  Oh, and there's an $18 activation charge.  Why would anyone buy a phone and not want it activated?  Therefore, why isn't the activation charge included in the price?  Easy answer.  They can't say it costs $19.99 then.  This is nearly identical to the strategy pursued by Dell which I blogged about 2 days ago.  It is, I think, part of American business practice.  If you've ever bought a new car, you've experienced it.  Did you want the protective coating?  Tinted windows?  Extended warrantee?  Upgrade the stereo?  Tires?  An engine?  Did you want the car activated....

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I could, of course, have said no.  I'll go get a phone from T-Mobile, or AT&T or whoever else is out there with a cell phone business.  The problem is that I'm not dealing with a Sprint employee who cares one whit whether I go or stay.  The bottom line is not this person's concern.  Customer satisfaction is not this person's concern.  Very little about their job is of concern to them.  They have to be there and do this work in order to get their paycheck.  Everything else is just noise.

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And, like with Dell, I would hesitate, and then decide that my time was more valuable to me than this additional charge, and this one, and this one.  Does that mean I throw my money around, or even away?  I don't think so.  I think it means that this sort of wearing down is effective, and at some point I want my life to be about something besides getting the best deal.  I'd rather put up with being mildly - and not so mildly - ripped off, and have time to read a book or watch a movie.

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But I hate being a faceless consumer, of no importance at all to the businesses I do business with, except as a pocket they can put their corporate hands into and withdraw money.  The consumer society may have made life more liveable for many many more people - I'm not sure it has, but it may have - but it hasn't made any of those people enjoy the experience of being treated as domesticated animals.

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And one final, contrary, positive note.  Phillip Moon, the guy who helped me put my website together (www.markchaet.com) for a very reasonable price, has since then helped me update my website, when I couldn't remember how to do it myself.  Just this week I had to contact him again for the same purpose.  I couldn't remember how to make the changes.  And, as usual, he helps me, is very nice and friendly and efficient about it, and doesn't charge me any more money.  Phillip reads my blog sometimes, so I hate to say I'd be willing to pay him for helping me, but I would.  Phillip, of course, is not getting rich by doing this.  And the people who run Sprint, and Dell, and lots and lots and lots of other ....U.S..... businesses are primarily concerned with getting rich.  They're corporate ....America...., and they want to run the world.  Phillip is a nice guy with some worthwhile saleable skills who wants to make a decent living.  Oh ....America...., we need more Phillip Moons and less Dells or Sprints.  At least we need more of the one and less of the other in terms of the way things are run.

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Did you enjoy this blog?  That'll be $9.95, please.  Did you want it activated?