Mahone

I use all of the popular browsers... where does that place me? :/

That entire scenario sounds like a logistical nightmare - I feel for you. How long did that powercut last? I think I may have been tempted to decline any method of payment other than cash. I guess it depends on how many customers you get per day, but 25 minutes sorting payment out sounds infeasible

It's funny how so many people fail to ensure power is actually reaching a device before assuming it is broken. In a place I've helped out at in the distant past, the cleaners did a thorougher sweep of the building over the weekend. In order to plug things like vacuums in, sometimes other things (i.e. computers) had to be unplugged. These were often not plugged back in again after the cleaners had finished. I think we had about 20 people contact us for help, all of which were resolved by plugging them back in again. At the same place, I'd get a few calls where people would inform me they had checked the plug and it still wasn't working. Once I get there, I see that they have checked the plug is actually in the socket, but obviously forgot to check the cable was connected to the device itself. Extension leads plugged into themselves are more common than I'd like to think too. In another place I've worked at in the distant past, we had a power dip for half the day. This meant that we had enough power for the lights, and for a lot of the workstations, but the power hungry stuff like servers and the networking equipment just couldn't draw enough power to operate - we had to shut them all down eventually as we couldn't risk them being damaged. Try explaining that there is a problem with the electricity board, and thats why the network isn't operational when most of the other electrical devices across school are still working.

The wording of the wallpaper reminded me of this:

I'm even less unworthy - I didn't know who jar jar binks was until a few minutes ago. I'm an odd geek/nerd, I never enjoyed watching any of the star wars series.

I prefer the usage of a modified cattle prod - one that outputs a higher voltage. A much higher voltage. People don't mess you around too much when you have access to one of these

It's far from uncommon. I get the impression slamjet will be able to tell you that if you work with computers, you automatically become on call 24 hours a day for those around you and their computer problems. The lack of ability to use their computer is seen as an emergency, which warrants my immediate and freely provided attention - which is fine, but among my various friends and family, it seems to happen on a very regular basis. It got to a point earlier this year where I got so stressed with my work load at work (being part of the small team flattening and rebuilding a large corporate network from scratch takes up a lot of time), and then people expecting me to give my evenings up to fix their stuff, that I point blankly refused to do anything for a while and offended a lot of people.

I know what it is :) I just posted it here for the amusement factor (especially in the usage of wording). It's not my laptop either, I got given it to fix it.

You answered your own question really. I stated why I didn't agree with that method, as people do in debates. I also didn't really get a particularly good answer as to whats wrong with simply pushing the bill completely onto the initiator of the call. It's technically possible and simple. I've given disadvantages of the method that's currently in use.

Break my life, really? (sorry about the quality, I snapped it with my phone as getting a screenshot off an infected laptop wasn't a risk I was going to take).

If you mean that there aren't any facts to fully counteract opinions, then yes you're probably right. But then debates wouldn't be fun if we only used facts and nothing else. You don't think I started this thread because I genuinely thought there would be a valid answer do you?

More precisely, I think not wanting to talk to someone and then not doing so and not returning their calls regardless of left messages on the answer machine is rude. It's impossible to help not wanting to talk to someone, that's human nature. The rest can be resolved though choices. I accept it's possibly due to culture differences, but this wasn't the primary topic of this thread.

The thread wasn't started to discuss whether it's normal or not to leave a message. It was about US phone companies charging both the recipient and caller for the call (or deducting it from both their free minutes). The "leaving it for the answer machine" part came about when someone mentioned they just don't answer to phone to those they don't want to talk to, to save wasting money/minutes on those phone calls. This isn't really relevant anyway, as calling someone back after they've left a message on your answer machine does exactly what I had an issue with in the first place: it charges you money/deducts minutes for a phone conversation that you didn't initiate. It's only if you don't bother calling the person back that the issue of charging the recipient money/minutes is solved. This is what I would call rude. We then come back to the original issue of the phone companies charging both the caller and recipient. Hopefully that clarifies this part.

That's great, but not everyone knows the phone number, and what type of phone it is, of every friend, colleague and acquaintance. Only yesterday I had to phone the missionaries of my ward. I've never contacted them before, but I know they have both a landline and mobile. As they were on their way to an investigator, it was nice to know I was calling their mobile phone as calling their landline would be pretty useless and a waste of my time. This information also helped me know what kind of message to leave, as I could guess roughly when they'd receive it (i.e. they would most likely have it before they got home). Correct. But part of human intelligence is the ability to spot patterns, and use of averages to figure out that there can only be a certain amount of times you really and genuinely weren't available to take the phone call. Do you have a facebook account? Ever deleted a friend simply because you don't like them, and they notice? Ignoring the phone to some people and not others can create the same type of hurt feelings. By all means, it's well within your right to do it, and people do it all the time. This isn't the same as being polite. That's all well and good, but I was talking about people withholding their numbers and it's (sometimes incorrect) association with telemarketers.

That's probably true, I know it is here. But this kind of thing is fairly easy to work around - laws like this always have loopholes. Company one, based in Sweden, has has a daughter company, company two. Company two is based and registered as a company in the USA. Company one is only registered in Sweden. Company two has a discreet check box that a lot of their customers miss that says they can share their contact details with relevant third parties. In this case, that means sharing them with company one. Company one calls the customers of company two, without having to worry about any lists or regulations that exist in the USA, as they are based in Sweden, and aren't registered as a company in the USA. They don't do business directly in the USA either, only company two does. This is obviously something I've made up off the top of my head, and there may be some clause in there which stops them doing specifically this. But as with anything international, there is always a loophole somewhere due to the fact that you cannot control what happens abroad (no matter how much our respective countries try to).

It only applies to places within the USA too. An easy way to get around this is for a company to place their telemarketers in India, where they aren't bound by those laws and they can call whoever they like, regardless of what lists they are on.

I guess there is a cultural difference here as to what is polite and what is rude. This information can be useful. I always take note of what type of phone I'm calling before I actually dial the number. I'm not sure if a lot of people realise the initial numbers of a telephone number actually mean quite a lot (you can always tell what type of phone, and usually what network, and if it's a landline, the metropolitan area), maybe it's just the nerd in me that pays attention to it. Anyway, knowing whether it's a landline or mobile will give me a rough idea as to whether they are actually going to answer the phone or not before I call them. If I know they aren't home, it's nice to know it's a mobile I'm calling and not a landline number. Besides, there is never any harm in keeping things organised. Makes any changes you'd want to make to the numbering system en mass much less complex further down the line. It looks like the US intended to have a similar system to the UK to begin with, but expanded way beyond their expectations. People aren't idiots. Well, not everyone is anyway. Those that aren't soon pick up a pattern and the message that comes with it. As I said, I think there is a culture difference here involving the boundaries of what is rude and what isn't. Or maybe just indifference, who knows? Interesting. I was under the impression it was standard practise for any company or organisation that would prefer not to have return calls. Unfortunately there are more reasons for this than telemarketing. People who work from home, volunteers who do work for organisations from home etc. It's not as simple as saying "oh if they were important they'd let me know who they are". It's a useful feature that has been destroyed by people who abuse it. Isn't someone lucky :)

In the first scenario given, this could be the difference between "you've got the job" and "you didn't get back to us on time, so we've given it to the next best candidate - sorry". HR departments can be mean like that...

I have no choice you understand. My decisions are all hers unless it goes horribly wrong, in which case the decision was all mine

Dravin that's a little pedantic (re: choices - sounds like a lesson about agency at church) A lot of companies withhold their number, due to having internal extensions that don't have a corresponding external number (in other words, all external calls get routed through a single number to save money). They block the number, so people that miss the call don't call back and end up talking to the poor switchboard operator who usually has no way of telling who actually called them from within the company. While a lot of companies are only trying to sell their products, and got your number from goodness knows where, there are some companies that you do actually need to talk to. Filtering out all of these calls could be something of a problem. An example of this is when one is applying for jobs. When I worked at the temple voluntarily for a little while, calling people back was something of a problem too, as many people put a block on all withheld numbers (the temple withholds their number for the above mentioned reason), and they then get mad because I didn't call them back. Leaving calls to go to answer machine is also something of a problem (at least for me) because as Dravin said, it deducts minutes/money just to call the answer machine. It then deducts more minutes/money to call the person back. If I ever end up on such a plan in the USA, I can see myself ignoring pretty much all calls apart from one or two people, and expect everyone else to e-mail or text (unless you get charged for receiving SMS too). I really don't like the idea that I can get charged for a phone call that someone else initiated. Maybe it's just me lol.

Not entirely fair, as the recipient is bound by technical restrictions (you can't always tell who is calling if the caller decides to withhold their number or it's a number you don't know, but could still be an important call) and by etiquette (it's not polite to tell someone you don't want to talk to them, or don't think they are worth paying the phone bill for).

I know why they do it, just not sure I can see the advantage over alternative methods. I see it as more like the postal system. I think people would be pretty peeved if they had to pay 50% for each piece of junk mail arriving through their door Another random analogy: a friend needs your help to do something, so they come to collect you in their car, take you to their place, you help them, and they then drive you back. They then try and charge you for 50% of the fuel. Even though they only wanted you there so you could do them a favour, you're landed with 50% of the cost of them getting your help. Not fair really. If you call someone, it's your choice to call them, therefore you should pay the bill for both networks involved in my opinion. It's not always the recipients choice to take the call.

I understand that. I'm still not sure I understand the concept behind charging both caller and recipient, but I understand why the numbering convention is a lot more complex - any system that has expanded way beyond the boundaries of the original design has this issue (another good example would be the internet).

That is essentially the same as it is here, although I took from JohnDoes post that you weren't able to tell which numbers were mobile numbers. I see from subsequent posts that this varies lol.

Lol. Yes. All mobile phone numbers begin with 074, 075, 077, 078 and 079 (076 is used for pagers). That's another thing that confuses me about the US phone numbering system... the apparent inability to distinguish what type of phone you are calling. I assume you can at least tell which network you are calling from the phone number in the US? The phone network needs to know where to route the call simply based on the phone number.