More and more I’m finding things I want either aren’t on amazon or are buried under so many inferior products that they are hard to find. Earlier I was looking for geek themed ugly Christmas sweaters, and the ones on the first few pages of amazon results were absolute garbage. Found several viable suppliers elsewhere in no time.

What the fuck.

I used to be a long-time AT&T customer. One time I wanted a new phone after a long time of being the ideal customer, so I looked into making a new contract. Called their hotline and the rep said “We only do deals for new customers, but you can buy a new phone for full price. It’s no problem.”

It seemed weird to me. Shouldn’t the long term customer loyalty be encouraged? I’m not locked into a contract any more, so why aren’t you worried about me jumping ship for a better deal? I tried explaining this to the rep in different ways, but they were genuinely confused. I finally told them “Alright, I’ll just get a deal through Verizon.” and he asked “Why? I don’t understand. I told you that you could buy a phone at full price?”

Never used AT&T again. I haven’t tried the same conversation with Verizon, because I won’t really have many viable options left if I boycott them too. I hear lots of people say “Well you can’t really blame them, it’s a smart move!” which seems weird to me because the smart move they made was to alienate me in order to get new customers. Of course I can blame them. Me blaming them was the acceptable loss they decided was OK.

I knew lots of kids who wanted to be teachers. Ask a kid that age to list their favorite people and their teacher will pop up often, because it’s someone they know. Teaching is something tangible to them.

I also knew several adults who wanted to be a teacher, but quit shortly after starting because they literally couldn’t afford it due to unreasonably low wages. We should really treat good teachers better.