So we moved.

To Toronto.

And I will write all about it, all about the tough decision to move and the stressful and gutwrenching process of selling the home I loved and packing and moving and long distance and adjustment soon, but in the meantime, do I have a story for you.

It’s a story of corporate bullshittery, laziness, and accountability or lack thereof.

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I’ve had a cell phone account with Rogers since 2007. Just a plain old cell phone account with some data. Over the years, we have had to resist numerous attempts by Rogers to consolidate my account with the account we had with them at the house for cable and internet. I wanted to keep the account records clean for bookkeeping purposes. I’m a consultant, and if I need to expense any part of my cell phone usage, it’s easier to do if the bill is separate. But Rogers has this thing, you see. They can’t stand having more than one account at the same address. (It made the news a few years ago when a woman’s affair was exposed because Rogers merged her cell phone account to her husband’s account without permission.) I mean, why should Rogers care if I want my own cell phone account? I could have 15 separate accounts and they shouldn’t give a shit. But they do. Even if there are perfectly valid reasons to maintain separate accounts, they want to merge them. It’s almost pathological with them. We consistently refused. Little did I know that it would bite me in the ass this way.

Three weeks ago we packed up and left for Toronto, and when we left we moved all our cable and internet services the same weekend. My cell phone, however, being independent, didn’t have to move anywhere. I had decided to keep my Ottawa number for a little while since that’s the number everyone has to reach me. And up til yesterday, I hadn’t called to change the address formally yet. It’s one of those things on the to-do list, which is many miles long after a move. I do all my bills online, so no big, right?

With a few minutes to take care of things yesterday, I sat down and logged on to my Rogers account to start dealing with loose ends. As I logged in, I noticed the bill was suspiciously high - twice as much as it should have been. As a consultant and traveller, this wouldn’t be the first time I had a shockingly big bill, so that didn’t set off any alarm bells yet. In a moment, though, I got concerned. I started scrolling through my account and things were… off. There’s my cell phone, sure. But then I noticed a service I didn’t previously have on my account. Hmm. That’s odd. This is a cell phone only account. Why is that there? Did they merge it with our other services after all? Then I noticed more services. Shit. Maybe they did merge it? Assholes. And then I noticed another one. Wait, what is going on here? We’ve never used that service! And then I looked up and discovered….

that my name was no longer on the account.

My cell phone number and all my previous bills were still associated with the account. But it was all now under someone else’s name. Specifically, the name of the person who had purchased and was now living in my old house.

I still had full login access. I could log in to the account and see all my old bills. But my current bill was lumped in with their new services, all of which I could see.

Everything. The new owner’s name. Their phone numbers. Their services. And not only could I see them, I could manipulate them. Cancel or upgrade. Schedule appointments. Reset PINs. Order new channels. Pay per view. Dirty movies. The power was all at my fingertips.

I immediately called Rogers and spent the better part of my afternoon on the phone with them as they attempted to sort this out. They were just as confused as I was, trying to sort out the mess. And they were apologetic that it had happened, certainly, but really, that doesn’t fix anything.

The upshot is, some phone jockey got lazy and instead of creating a new account at that address which is what s/he totally should have done, they instead just pulled up my existing account and did a name change on it because it was at the same address.

I suppose I can see the humour. I can now call Taiwan all I want and be completely not responsible for the bill, since it’s not in my name anymore! But really, there’s nobody I want to call in Taiwan, and now I have this mess on my hands to sort out.

You would think it would be easy to fix, wouldn’t you. Just split the accounts and Bob’s your uncle.

It’s not.

Because of the kind of services the new owners have (which I should not know about but I do), the account number with all of my account history is now irrevocably tied to that service. So unless I somehow want to take over that service, that account number is all theirs. And I mean, it’s not like giving up a child or something, it’s just a number, except I have six years of back bills and records and upgrade history that I will now lose and I will have to set up my account all over again, through no fault of my own, and that still leaves other people with my old account. Rogers claims that they will separate my cell phone service and delete all my history from the account so that the new owners can’t see it, but you’ll forgive me if I am skeptical.

But all this hassle, me losing my account history and having to set it all up again is a right pain in the ass, that’s for sure, but it pales in comparison to the enormous privacy violation they’ve created.

Rogers merged the accounts of two complete strangers. Our only interactions with the new owners have been through lawyers and real estate agents. I did meet them once and they are perfectly lovely people, but you’ll forgive me if I don’t really see that as a basis for shared ownership of a service account. I can see things that these people specifically do not want other people to see. I could order up piles upon piles of stuff and leave them with the bill. I could wreck their credit ratings from now til Sunday. And they could do the same to me.

And Rogers doesn’t seem to see this as any kind of big deal.

When I notified them, I assumed they would immediately cut off access to the accounts until they got it sorted out.

Nope. I still have full access. And so do they.

They do not care that both parties have full access to each other’s accounts, and will for the three days to three weeks Rogers have told me it will take to fix this.

So, PSA: If you want to mess with someone’s life? I suggest you simply call Rogers, say you’re moving in to someone’s address, and let them give you access to your hapless victim’s account. It’ll be super easy, and Rogers won’t give a damn.

In the meantime, I am researching PIPEDA complaints. Because this one’s a whopper.

Postscript: I have images I meant to put on this post, but I am having uploading problems with WordPress, so just imagine all kinds of nifty screenshots with blurred out account and phone numbers pointing out the shit I should not be able to see on someone else’s account but totally can oh my god.

{ 5 comments }

Going Blue, For The Sake Of A Child.

by zchamu on February 19, 2013

This weekend, I’ll be getting some blue hair to support the Make A Wish Foundation of Eastern Ontario. To support our team, click here. Or read on, to find out why we’re going blue and who it’s for.

Do you remember what it was like to be a child?

I used to think I remembered. I remembered being the youngest. I remembered trips and adventures. I remembered elementary school dramas. I remembered our pets and our family and the woods behind our house and living in my imagination, so much in my imagination.

Then I had a child. When I had a child, I really remembered. I remembered everything I had forgotten about being a child, because I saw it all in her. I remembered learning. I remembered how I thought everything I was learning new, WAS new, how that colour “turquoise” must have been just invented because I had never seen it before. I remembered the wonder of small things: of bugs and icicles, of frost on the windows and the magic of stories. I remember now how important the little things really were. And as I watch the memories form in my daughter, I realize how important they are. I know now that when I play her a song and she asks me to play it over and over and she learns the worlds and dances her little wiggly dance with her fingers pointed in the air, that song is becoming a part of her. And when she’s 24 or 44 or whatever and hears that song, I now know she’s going to be instantly 3 years old again and dancing with me in the living room, and now I know how precious that is.

This past weekend, we were at a Children’s Gala - a fundraiser for CHEO - and Cinderella was there. My girl’s favourite princess. She was not more than 2 metres from Cinderella the entire night. She danced with her, she hugged her, she cuddled her and wouldn’t leave her side. That was a special night for her, and a precious, precious memory for me.

This stuff… this stuff is so important. Memories are the things we build our lives on.

The Make A Wish Foundation is in the business of making sure that children and their families get good memories. They grant the wishes of seriously ill children - whether it’s a trip to Disney, to ride on a fire truck, to meet a real pony. These children have faced enormous struggles - hospitals and tests and procedures and illness - and in many cases, their futures are uncertain. The Make A Wish foundation changes their lives every single day by making sure these kids have amazing memories. But they can’t grant these wishes without the generosity of the community - of people like you.

This weekend, some friends and I are going blue. Our hair, to be exact. That’s right. Me and my overly-processed hair are going to go blue - at least some of it - all to raise money for the Make A Wish foundation of Eastern Ontario. And we’re doing this in honour of a little girl, a little girl who left too soon. She went to bed one night, and she didn’t wake up. She is now sadly, devastatingly, gone in body - but she lives on in memory, in the memories of her family and her friends, in the memories of wonderful trips, of adventures, of laughter, of dancing and of love.

I’m asking you to help us honour her memory. We’re raising money and going blue. Please donate. Join us to make a sick child’s dreams come true.

Electronic tax receipts will be issued for all eligible donations. Thank you in advance for your support.

{ 2 comments }

Sand Dunes And Sad Posts

by zchamu on January 17, 2013

One night just before Christmas, I had a dream.

In the dream I am back in my hometown, outside at my father’s house. I am standing on a sand dune that doesn’t actually exist, but this is a dream so work with me here. I’m standing on this sand dune with someone who used to be a friend, but I’m not so sure they’re a friend any more, not sure if they’ve been a friend for many years. Not sure I’ve been a friend either, to be fair. But either way, we’re standing on this sand dune and suddenly I realize that a sand dune isn’t all that stable and I think to myself, this can’t be safe, and I say to my friend that I think the sand dune could collapse, and just as I say it the dune gives way and I am swallowed by the sliding, disappearing sand and I’m suddenly buried, I can feel the tons of sand falling on me, entombing me alive under a pile that I could not possibly climb out of. And the sand stops moving, and it’s quiet and it’s silent, so silent, and I can’t move, and I try to pull in my arm or leg and I can’t, there is too much weight, too much sand on top of my body and and a dawning horror washes over me and I think, this is it. I’m going to suffocate, run out of air. This is how I am going to die.

Then I wake up.

I can’t shake it, this dream. I return to it every day, that feeling of terror and hopelessness and helplessness and fear and sadness. And every day, it’s with me as I read the news, learn of the dreadful ways in which people can destroy each other in an instant. It’s with me with every piece of unbearably sad news I hear. It’s been reinforced by the fact that it’s January and the days are short and cold; by the fact that we are in the middle of an enormous life transition; by the fact that I’m getting older and mortality is suddenly far less abstract than it once was.

And then here is the part where I identify this for what it is: a garden variety depressive episode, triggered by That Motherfucking Asshole January and its Stupid Short Days And -20 and WTF Is With All This Snow, with a side dish of We Have A Lot Of Shit Going On. The identification of it does, in fact, make it a little easier; if I can get out of my own heavy head and recognize that my brain is just fucking with me, then I can snap out of it at least enough to tell it to go fuck itself right back and get on with things. Well, sort of. I can get my work done, get my kid to school and back, keep us fed. So you know, the bare minimum I guess. But the house is a disaster, I snap too easily and have no patience for anything or anyone, and commercials are making me cry.

So the fact that this dream, and everything else, is lingering with me isn’t so much a harbinger of actual doom as it is my brain lying to me, like Jenny says.

But still, acknowledging it isn’t making it go away. It’s making me realize that life isn’t exactly hopeless, true, but it’s not making it any easier to get out of bed in the morning or load the damn dishwasher. I’m like one of those commercials about depression where Very Sad People mope around in their Very Sad Homes, like in the one where the dog looks forlornly at their depressed owner and the owner can’t get out of the chair and the dog is all PLAY WITH ME PLAY WITH ME PLAY WITH ME and the owner is all, dude, this chair owns my ass right now. What I didn’t quite realize, though, is that the person in the chair not only can’t get out of the chair, they currently actively despise themselves for not being able to get out of the chair. They feel unbearably guilty about the fact that all the damn dog wants is to someone to throw the ball, how fucking useless are you, you can’t even throw the ball for the stupid dog, you suck as a dog owner and you suck at life.

They don’t put that part in the commercials. Probably the commercials are too short. That’s it.

How do you snap out of a sad funk? I need ideas. Because telling myself to snap out of it doesn’t seem to be doing it.

{ 5 comments }

I’m trying out a Windows Phone.

If you read this blog, you know I rarely - in fact, I never - do paid reviews. Hell, I barely blog at the best of times, and most PR types worth their salt generally make a point of working with people who actually write things once in a while (not to mention working with people who don’t actively say things like this, heh.) So for me, actually committing to doing something for a client (in the first place) around Christmas when there’s piles of Stuff Going On was certainly brave, if uncharacteristic.

But I wanted to do this one, for two reasons:

1. I like toys.

2. It’s time for someone to shake up the smartphone world, and I wanted to see if this device was the one to do it.

I received it a couple of weeks back, right in time for life to completely explode. Business trips and holidays and work craziness and plenty of things have been going on, so I’ve had a very thorough chance to kick the tires on my new toy.

The screen is far larger than the iPhone, and I’m loving it. I thought at first it would be too big and awkward to use properly, but on the contrary: It’s much better. Angry Birds Star Wars is a cinch on this puppy.

The interface is fresh, with the colored blocks scheme a cinch to use. Within about 15 minutes, I figured out how to hook up my email and combine all my inboxes, had a bunch of apps downloaded, had my colour scheme and layout changed and had a bunch of photos taken. It’s also intuitive: I can put as many boxes as I like on the home screen (at least I haven’t been told to stop yet) and organize them however I want. (I can’t figure out how to get the rotation lock on so that I can read in bed, but I’m working on it.) I also love having active widgets on the screen - much more useful and informative.

The camera I’m finding particularly satisfying. Once I figured out how to use it, I realized it took really good, crisp, clear shots. I also like that I can control a bunch of stuff manually such as white balance and exposure.

It’s still early days for Microsoft in this smartphone game, and nowhere is it clearer than in their App store. It is decidedly sparsely populated - notably, I can’t get Instagram, Words with Friends or the official Starbucks app - and the apps that are there are less mature. This isn’t a flaw of the device or OS - it’s just a matter of time until third parties up their game on the Microsoft OS, the only question being how much. Still, this phone is really nice. Really, really nice. And if as many people pick it up as probably will, the app store will mature rapidly.

Overall: It’s a superfun little device. Stay tuned for Operation: Chocolate Bomb Cookies and other fun with the #microsoftphone #holidayswap.

So here’s the disclaimer: I got my hot little hands on a new Nokia Windows Phone all complimentary-like from the good folks at Microsoft Canada. I have been asked to write blog posts about my experience and I will be compensated for these posts. I think. Although as long as we’re disclosing things I haven’t actually read the contract so I might be getting paid in guacamole and nacho chips. Which come to think of it wouldn’t be that bad, but anyway. All opinions, experiences, assessments, bad jokes, screwups where I say the device does something wrong that then actually turns out to be user error and everything else are all my own.

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A Big Deal About Wimpiness.

November 1, 2012

I’ve decided to start publishing some of my drafts. I have dozens if not hundreds of posts written in draft that I never quite finished, wanted to tweak, didn’t hit publish. I’m going to start digging some of these out and putting them under the harsh light of day. I originally wrote this in December [...]

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On The Occasion Of Their 40th Birthday

October 29, 2012

I am older than CTV Canada AM. I’m not telling you how much older. But what I do remember is this. I remember Helen Hutchinson and brown bowl cut on my TV set every morning - the same haircut I had and probably my mother had too. I remember Norm Perry’s angular face and laughing [...]

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Somewhere In Between

October 24, 2012

Once I got back in to my car and started it, I felt it melting away. I wasn’t sure if I was sinking back in to a dream or waking up from one. The previous 4 days had felt hyper-real, extra crystal clear reality. Like some kinds of drugs people have told me about. Sharp [...]

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Oh No! I Got What I Wanted!

September 10, 2012

I’ve decided to start publishing some of my drafts. I have dozens if not hundreds of posts written in draft that I never quite finished, wanted to tweak, didn’t hit publish. I’m going to start digging some of these out and putting them under the harsh light of day. I originally wrote this sometime last [...]

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My 13 Year Old Self’s Dream

March 21, 2012

I’ve thought often lately about how my 42 year old self has, at times, been living my 13 year old self’s dream. It happened last August when I was walking along the path in front of the vast concrete hulk of the San Diego Convention Centre, leaving one fabulous party and heading to another. I [...]

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The Potty Is My Alamo.

March 15, 2012

I am pretty sure I’m doing this potty training thing wrong. I mean, I think I know “how” to do it “right”, or at least “right” by various wise people’s definitions. When one has a toddler who does not know that feces go in to the toilet instead of in their trousers, one must show [...]

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