I made a big change in my life today and that Al Stewart tune, Time Passages, from the late 70′s keeps rolling through my head. I dropped my long-held association with a land phone line.

Bell Telephone logo circa 1900

If memory serves me correctly I’ve had a personal phone line relationship with either U.S. Bell (or one of the off-shoots from the anti-trust actions) since at least 1975. Everywhere I’ve lived one of the first activities was to contact the local phone company and have a land line installed. And if you got back to when I was a kid and teenager…one of the first business phones I ever used was the switch board at the motel my parents managed.  If you don’t know what a switch board looks like – it’s about the size of an upright washer/dryer with a slew of pairs of color coded chords  – you plug one into the ‘line’ to answer the phone and then plug the other half of the pair into the hole for the phone you want to connect the call to. Same for outgoing calls.  Yeah – I know.

That phrase ‘land line’ is new, of course, coming into wide use ever since the cell phone arrived.  Seems we needed a way of differentiating what number we are using.  “Call me on my land line. I’ll be home.” we say. Or, “Call me on my cell, I won’t be home. That way I won’t miss your call.” In the early days of personal cellular phones it was a significant gesture to provide someone your cell number. The high cost of minutes made each call a bit pricey.  Today, that’s not such a big deal. These days I have friends who only have cellular phones, no land line, and they wouldn’t think of adding one. At first I found that unsettling. Now, I understand. Mostly you find only businesses and older folks who only have land lines. Although even a business associate of mine has gone to a universal number and uses only his cell phone. He also gets email on his phone.

I still have independent internet service and prefer getting email on a computer. That may change. And as far as dropping my land line, I still have home phone service – couldn’t quite let it all go you see. But it’s now through my cable TV provider and it’s the same phone number I’ve had for about 10 years. When I made the switch to High Definition TV service I couldn’t resist the combo offer they made for adding phone and internet service to the deal. It saved money and made life easier for me. Since I also have business class internet service, the extra internet capacity isn’t even used – but for the next year or so, it’s a luxury that still results in overall cost savings.  I just figured I was paying too much for regular phone service with a long-distance prix fixe and the additional voice mail features.

Qwest corporate logo

Of course it didn’t help that a few months back a payment I’d made to Qwest got dropped in the mud by the mailbox of my home, same thing happened to the rent check. I only realized this when I found both mud spattered envelopes by accident one day as I stooped to pull a couple of weeds peeking through the wooden steps, where the mail box is affixed. My landlord is a human and sent me a reminder note about the rent check, and laughed about it all when I told him the story.  But Qwest unceremoniously suspended my phone service. No email. No phone message. No letter. One day the phone line was dead when I picked it up to place a call. I had to use my cell phone to report the problem and a customer service representative (oh man – that is a job equal to hell-on-earth) told me my phone service was suspended due to non-payment.  He/she could of cared less about the mistake (by the mailman? another hell-on-earth job) which caused the problem or that I’d been a customer here in Seattle for more than 10 years (this time).

Comcast corporate logo

No, I was just a number and the person had a script to read.  It just kinda galled me that “they” would do that. Notice how I use the human sounding word “they” when, in fact, Quest is an “it.” I don’t have a relationship with people – I have a business contract with a company. I certainly realize the hassle it would be for a large corporation to think about and treat customers as individual humans, actually knowing them as good customers  and when a problem popped up they’d say something like: “Hey – lookey here Gladys, Barry must have made a mistake – let’s give him a call and check to see if he’s OK!” Instead “I” am nothing more than an account number in a data base with a data profile. But  the whole experience pissed me off. “It” pissed me off. So when the new deal was dangled in front of me – I bit. Hook, Line & Sinker. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons they call it the ‘Triple Play.’

At some point I may be disappointed. Ah hell, you know I will. Yep – I can already predict that. In effect all I’ve done is switch from one corporation to another. One ‘it’ to another ‘it.’ One monopoly to the next. But I must say, the HD pictures on  my 1080P wide screen TV are absolutely wonderful and, in a  significant way, this change represents a promise fulfilled.  You see, more than 12 years ago I moved to Seattle because I consulted and helped obtain funding from Microsoft for the digital broadcast conversion at KCTS public television. We did some breakthrough stuff and it’s all showing up today. Today it was so cool to see that station HD images in my home. I actually signed my name on the new digital antenna at the ceremony the station held to celebrate the installation.  My son was only 3 and he was there.  I think he scrawled his name on the antenna as well. There’s more to that story. Ask me, I’ll tell you.

Verizon wireless corporate logo

First thing this morning my son discovered the new all digital TV service has a 24 hour music channel devoted to Heavy Metal – so he’s in a catatonic state of bliss. (Nirvana? – nope they were more grunge, right?)

So far the phone service seems just fine.  Matter of fact I just got my first call and it was a wrong number – so nothing’s really changed in that part of my world.  And, should the new phone ‘it’ fail when the cable goes out or is interrupted – I still have my cell phone “it.”

~blm