Habit #12 -- Simplifying Life With Technology

I wish this was a piece about how Comcast/Xfinity has ruined my life, but that would be a lie.  The truth is that Comcast/Xfinity has robbed me of several hours of my life in my attempt to consolidate internet service, television, and voice into a single account.  Usually, I am too smart (!) to fall for the ploys of salespeople promising that by switching to this service or that carrier I will save tons and tons of money.  AT&T had me going a couple of years ago when they tried to talk me into adding television and internet via DSL connection to my existing landline service.  After patiently answering the salesperson's questions about the features we use, she presented me with savings of about $10 per month.  OK, that adds up to $120 a year but the trade-off is being stuck with DSL which is S-L-O-W.

Two weeks ago, I called Comcast about problems with my television service and even though they didn't fix the problem, they got my attention when they promised that I could save $100 per month by switching to their voice service.    Meanwhile, they sent me a replacement for one of my Digital Transport Adapters in the hope that it would fix my TV problems.  It didn't.  I spent three hours on the phone (mostly on hold) with a series of non-native English speakers before someone figured out that I needed a technician to come to my house (duh).

I was sorely tempted to tell Comcast to take their voice service and shove it, but they had made a compelling economic argument.  Currently, my Comcast bill is about $105 and AT&T charges approximately $120 per month for my two landlines.  With Comcast's "special promotion" I will pay $105 per month for everything (for 12 months) and not have to pay AT&T a nickle.  Well, I still want to keep my fax line so I will be paying AT&T for that and for my mobile family plan (a huge amount of money each month).  I asked how much I would be paying in 13 months and the salesperson said I could call in 11 months and ask to have the promotional pricing re-instated.  With any luck, we will have moved out of state by the time I need to remember to call so I won't be shocked into re-signing with AT&T because I forgot to call about the promotional pricing.

So, taking the plunge, I said "I'll try it!" and hoped I wasn't making the biggest mistake of my life.  A few days later, the big box arrived and I put off installing the breadbox-sized modem until it dawned on me that my AT&T Service was going to be cut off and unless I could get the Comcast voice service to work, I was going to have some explaining to do to my husband who never understands my explanations.  The installation instructions stated very clearly that the new "Wireless Gateway" needed to be installed in a central location within the home, away from a window or a wall. Failure to do this would result in poor reception for users on the other side of the house, namely the children, who could be reality TV Stars when their internet access is flaky.  I hadn't even taken the thing out of the box and already I was in trouble.

The location of my existing modem and wireless router is on the south side of my large, one-story house, next to a window and a wall.  Once upon a time, these dust-attracting devices had been in a more central location but were relocated to where the cable enters the house by a technician who was attempting to resolve internet connectivity issues.  No problem, I thought.  I'll install everything and then have Comcast come over and drop a cable in my kitchen.  Scheduling that was my first phone call.  An hour later, after having repeated my name, address, last four of my social security number, and my reason for calling to three or four non-native English speakers who did not understand what I needed, I had an appointment scheduled for between 3 and 5 pm two days in the future.

After installing the new "Wireless Gateway" and following the directions to the letter, nothing worked.  I could feel the love emanating from Daughter #1's bedroom and got back on the phone with Comcast.  Same routine as before until I was finally routed to an American who understood immediately what my problem was, or so I thought.  We tried this and that for an hour until he gave up and forwarded my call to the technical support team for voice.  After waiting an eternity for a human to come on the line, I was again speaking to Sri Lanka or Malaysia or Singapore or somewhere else, and attempting to make myself understood.  Finally, five hours later, the internet was back online and I was pretty sure the voice service was working, although there was no way of knowing for sure.

"While I have you on the phone," I said to the weary tech support person, "Can you tell me what is wrong with my television service?"  I then explained how I have four TVs, only one of which is connected to the cable box.  The other three have those little Digital Transport Adapters which only provide access to a limited selection of channels.  When I was no longer to tune into the station which runs "Law & Order" re-runs non-stop, which was the original problem I called about which led to my being talked into the voice service, which led to my wasting many hours of my life on the phone with Comcast.  Again.  And again, and again.

My reward for being so patient and not screaming at anyone was that a technician was dispatched to my house the very next day!  My patience was further rewarded because this guy knew what he was doing and quickly fixed my TV problems.  Not only that, he programmed all of the Comcast remote controllers so that they actually worked like they were supposed to!

There is nothing like technology to teach us humility because it all seems so easy and seamless.  Until we get it home.  When we first purchased our high-definition TV, I listened carefully to the guy from the Geek Squad as he explained how he had set this and tuned that and programmed the other.  He demonstrated all of the amazing features we would enjoy with our new digital, high-definition TV.  The minute he left the premises, nothing worked and it took a week to get him back.  Meanwhile, we were pushing the buttons on the TV itself in order to change the channels, the picture was less than high-def, and our one attempt to watch a DVD nearly caused a homicide.

So, today, I planned my day around my Comcast appointment, the one in which the technician would drop a cable into my kitchen so I could have an optimal location for my new modem.  As the clock struck five and I hadn't heard from Comcast, I called them (big mistake) and after spending 90 minutes on the phone learned that the appointment had been canceled!  "Not by me!" I exclaimed, "I've been waiting all afternoon and now I've spent another hour and a half on the phone and I am not happy!"

Twenty minutes later, an American (in America) explained to me that I could simply attach the new modem to the cable serving my main cable box and since that is in a central location, everything should work just fine and I wouldn't be charged the $39.95 (that no one bothered to tell me about) in order to have a cable installed in a suitable location for my voice service.   

SERENITY NOW!

The True Story of the Tortoise and the Hare

Forget the "slow and steady wins the race" moral of Aesop's famous fable, because Highly Effective People know some things that Highly Ineffective People do not.

In the true story of the tortoise and the hare, just like in Aesop's Fables, the hare challenges the tortoise to a race knowing full well that the tortoise cannot win, but he loses to the tortoise anyway.  The fable would have you believe that the hare goofed off along the way and taunted Mr. Turtle as he poked along.  What really happened is this:  Mr. Rabbit had a well-deserved reputation for speed and for being a bit of a know-it-all.  Mr. Turtle, on the other hand, enjoyed sunning himself on a rock while lavishing compliments on everyone who joined him in the sunshine.  In this way, he ended up with many loyal friends who would do almost anything for him.  When Mr. Rabbit had had enough of listening to Mr. Turtle as he held court while being waited on by his smitten groupies, he challenged the lazy and arrogant reptile to a race in order to set the record straight.  The only problem was that the "Toadies", as Mr. Rabbit referred to Mr. Turtle's friends, weren't interested in watching their beloved Mr. Turtle suffer the humiliation of certain defeat; so they hatched a plan that would silence the annoying Mr. Rabbit forever.

On the day of the big race, Mr. Turtle slowly made his way from his sunny spot to the starting line where Mr. Rabbit had been waiting impatiently for quite some time.  "On your mark, get set, go!" announced the referee.  Mr. Rabbit tore off at great speed, looking back only briefly to make a rude gesture in Mr. Turtle's direction.  Mr. Turtle then did something surprising, he took a look around, winked at his admirers and shut himself into his shell for a nap.  A bit later, someone knocked on his shell and said, "OK T, it's time."  The referee had been sent to get coffee and returned just as Mr. Turtle popped out of his shell, and acted like he had been moving forward all along, there was only one conclusion:  Mr. Turtle had crossed the finish line (which was also the starting line) first, with Mr. Rabbit a close second.

Mr. Rabbit, making the classic error of Highly Ineffective People, had failed to consider that not everyone values honesty and hard work.  Mr. Turtle, on the other hand, knew that he didn't have to move a muscle in order to win the contest for hearts and minds;  all he had to do was keep telling his followers what they wanted to hear; nobody cared that Mr. Turtle cheated because everyone knew that Mr. Rabbit was the faster contestant.  That fact was never in question.  

To this day, Mr. Rabbit has no idea how he lost that race.  He left the area and headed south in search of a better life, only to find that there are tortoises and toadies everywhere.  If he could have grown a shell and shut himself inside, he would have done it.  Instead, he discovered Happy Hour thereby consigning himself permanently to an lifetime of ineffectiveness.

Copyright 2013 by Teresa Friedlander, all rights reserved.

Java, or Habit #3 - Coffee Breaks

Time for a little something.  Be right back...

Pandora

The other day I broke down and bought an iphone because I have a dog who loves to escape at inconvenient times and makes me late for appointments and exercise classes, etc.  I Googled dog-finding applications and devices and found two which sounded promising.  The first was designed for hunting dogs which go far afield in search of racoons, boars, etc.  This system has two components:  a collar with two antennae and a radio receiver which communicates with the collar via satellite.  I liked the way this one sounded because it was rugged and my dog loves to go into the back country of Jupiter Farms.  So I went to Gander Mountain, a big NRA outlet, and bought the $500 system, after being assured I could return it if I didn't like it.

The Red Dog tolerated the ridiculous collar quite well and didn't seem to mind that everyone who saw him laughed at him.  I was able to find him when he went on the lam although it required a bit of compass learning on my part.  The problem with this elaborate system was that the batteries on the collar and radio receiver ran down rather quickly meaning that the Red Dog could go missing at any time even wearing the My Favorite Martian collar.  So, I decided to try another device, the Tagg collar, which works with the iphone.  That meant buying an iphone which I had resisted for years just because. Fortunately, I was due for an upgrade and AT&T sold me the 4s for $99 (plus an exorbitant fee for this that and the other).

It took a few days for the dog tracker and the iphone to learn to love each other, but in the meantime, I discovered itunes and then, the love of my life:  Pandora.  I am totally addicted to my Bluegrass and Country stations.  My earbuds are always in place and I no longer speak to anyone.  This is a blessing and a curse because I find people to be distracting even though I crave conversation and connection.

What I am discovering is how much great music there is out there that I do not have to work to enjoy.  Life is good. 

Habit #5 - Losing Focus

It doesn't seem to matter how hard I work to organize my life and prioritize the items on my to-do list because every year, from November until April, I completely lose my ability to focus.  During those fuzzy months, I cannot seem to do more than get dressed and make my bed each day.  Weeds take over the yard, the dogs find new sources of dirt to carry into the house, the mail piles up, the laundry ceases to fold itself, and I find it difficult to read, let alone write.

November marks the beginning of the holiday season and my brain automatically shuts down.  Every year, about a week before Thanksgiving, I realize that I have not ordered a fresh turkey nor have I given a moment's thought to what else I plan to serve.  So I call the local organic grocery store and order the turkey and decide to quell the holiday panic that is beginning to set in by checking Facebook and researching Important Topics on the internet.  Somehow I always manage to brine the turkey, make the stuffing and other side dishes, bake an apple pie, and remain standing until the last dish is washed.  Black Friday is when I start to panic about Christmas.

Buying gifts for my family is like bringing coals to Newcastle.  Everyone not only has everything he or she could possibly need or want, the girls are equipped with credit cards (which Mommy and Daddy pay for) so they have no sense of deprivation.  None.  Every Christmas I agonize over what to get them so they will feel loved and know that Daddy and I were thinking of them and missing them.  I feel successful if they like one out of five gifts under the tree.  Hubby, is another problem.  He doesn't want anything, he doesn't like anything, he doesn't want me to spend money, and he hates it when I try to improve his fashion sense.  I repeat the Serenity Prayer several times every day while I muddle through the "most wonderful time of the year" and try to stay on top of the extra laundry generated by having two adult children in the house who can't seem to remember how to do their own.  By mid-January, the house is empty again except that my in-laws are down for the winter months, which is not a problem except that each December they arrive at death's door or recovering from surgery or both and a good bit of my time is spent driving back and forth from home to hospital to apartment.  By late February, the health crises have responded to the Florida sunshine and the incessant driving ceases, but my mental health is shot and my creditors are hounding me for payment of the bills that piled up and got lost while I was being a caregiver.

March is a busy birthday month so I spin my wheels for several weeks trying to figure out how to make the birthday boy or girl feel special.  Rarely do my plans work out.  This year, I wanted to have a little dinner party for Hubby (who's having a big birthday).  Everyone I invited was free to join us -- except for Hubby.  He had booked a flight to London and couldn't change the ticket.  Plan B didn't work out because my best friends were not free that night.  Maybe next year.

At some point in April, the in-laws return to the north and my focus begins returning, and then Daughter #2 comes home from college for the summer where she has a big deal internship with a Fortune 500 company.  Perhaps it is the longer days, but despite the heat and humidity I am always extremely productive in Summer, especially after I have taken care of the other birthdays.  I go on cleaning and weeding binges that actually make a difference.  I give the horse a haircut or two, depending on how fast his coat grows in, I wash the dogs, I work on my novel, and then it is back-to-school time.

From mid-September until early November, I often have time and the focus to write.  And then the fuzzy vision sets in and my novel languishes until the snowbirds fly north in the spring.  What I need is a stay-at-home wife to run the household.  Oh.  That's my job.  Never mind.

Copyright 2013 Teresa Friedlander, all rights reserved

Aging

The older we get, the worse we look, feel, and - sometimes - act.  Pain is a factor, as is arthritis and loss of padding in the derriere.  Psychiatric problems can arise as a result of pain, making us cranky, irritable, and - sometimes - incoherent.  Recently, my 93-year-old father-in-law fell and hurt his lower left leg.  The emergency room physician who examined him looked at the x-ray, said nothing's broken, and sent him home.  Three days later, the leg was red and swollen.  Under duress, my father-in-law agreed to return to the emergency room where it was determined that he had a cellulitis infection - MRSA.  While in the medical wing of the hospital the doctors discovered that his kidneys function at 20% on a good day and that he has fairly advanced diabetes.  Tipping the scales at 120 pounds, my father-in-law had no appetite and seemed as if he was making a quick exit from this life.  The doctors ordered installation of a PICC line in order to medicate and nourish this increasingly frail elderly man.  Compounding his problems was the inability to pass urine, despite constantly feeling the urge to go.  So, a catheter was inserted into his penis to drain his bladder.

After a couple of days, his physical state seemed better but his mental state continued to deteriorate.  He asked repeatedly what was going on, who was in charge, why he was here, and why we thought he was sick.  On the day he was to be discharged from the hospital to a rehabilitation facility (next door), his nurse removed the PICC line and the catheter, to my dismay.  How, I wondered, was he going to receive his antibiotics, and did they really think that his appetite had magically returned?  Four hours later, after failing to pass urine (duh!), the catheter was reinstalled and he was transported to the rehab facility.

The first thing you see when entering this rehab facility is a large poster proclaiming their commitment to compassionate care for elderly clients.  My father-in-law saw very little of this compassion from the nursing staff.  We waited for hours before his nurse deigned to come into his room and meet him.  After we got him settled in for the night, or so we thought, my husband, mother-in-law, and I went home for some much needed sleep.  I arrived at ten the next morning to make sure he was OK and here's what I found:  a confused, depressed, distressed, lost soul who had been parked at the nurses' station so they "could keep an eye on him".   There wasn't a nurse in sight except for the occasional CNA who buzzed by on her way to do something other than acknowledge the existence of a clearly distressed and suffering gentleman.  The problem, they explained to me, was that he kept trying to get out of bed and walk around and they were afraid he was going to fall, so they had to put him in what amounts to a traffic island so that if he fell, someone might see him and put him back in the chair before any harm was done (i.e., a family member showed up and raised holy hell).  It took me two hours to calm him down but I failed to convince him that he was not being held prisoner.

Five hours later, the facility manager - intuiting that we were not happy with Dad's care - came and made nice with us.  Finally, we thought, he will get the attention he needs.  Nope.  The next morning I arrived and found him in a guest chair with his head banging into the glove dispenser and sharps disposal.  All someone had to do was move the chair five inches so his head wouldn't bang into those objects, but apparently this did not occur to anyone.  Again, it took me two hours to calm him down but he continued to insist that a nefarious plot was afoot and that I needed to be extremely careful lest I get caught in the web of deception.

I noticed that someone had left a stapled stack of papers on his table with a pencil.  It turned out to be a list of menus for the next two weeks which my distressed, depressed, demented father-in-law was expected to select from in order to plan his meals.  I did it for him because he was completely unable to do it for himself.  Again, I asked myself, has anyone here noticed that he is losing his mind?  Do they really think that he will be able to make food choices?  Have they not noticed that he eats nothing?  Moreover, we told everyone who would listen (and it seems we were talking to ourselves) that he was in extremely fragile shape and needed help with everything.  Their policy, we discovered, is to "get to know the patient" before intervening.  Excuse me?

Once I finished selecting his meals from the fourteen page menu I noticed that he was sliding off the chair and tried to lift him back up.  He told me that his testicles ("balls") were hurting and he was trying to find a position which was less uncomfortable.  I asked if he needed someone to help him adjust the position of his catheter and he said that he was in pain and that no one was paying attention.  To indicate how bad, he insisted that I, his daughter-in-law, look at his male parts!  Having no experience being a man, I could see that all parts were swollen and inflamed.  I called a nursing assistant in to look at the catheter.  She concluded that all he needed was a change of depends.  After an hour during which nothing happened, I sought out his nurse (who had not shown her face in the two hours I had been with him) and explained that he was in significant pain and that his penis and scrotum were inflamed.  A little while later, a nurse practitioner entered the room and examined my poor father-in-law's private parts.  She concluded that the catheter was "leaking" and someone needed to address that.  I explained that he was in increasing pain and needed to see a doctor.  She explained that she could make him an appointment but he wouldn't be seen for two or three days.  "Your other option," she said, "is to send him to the emergency room."

I have to say that I was incredulous.  Here we have a frail, infirm, very elderly man who has a history of infection and whose penis is looking severely infected and the nurse practitioner is acting like it was OK for him to wait until a doctor had an opening in his schedule instead of saying "get him to the emergency room, STAT!". If I were passive or stupid, my father-in-law would probably still be sitting in that room, dying from pain or infection.

This facility, "The Pavilion at Jupiter Medical Center" is considered one of the best.  One of my good friends who suffered severe head and body trauma from a car accident spent several months there and has almost completely recovered.  So why was my frail, demented, very ill, father-in-law neglected to the point that we had to have him readmitted to the hospital?  [Sidebar: he is not on the dole, so no one could claim he was a charity case.]  The answers point to a shocking attitude toward frail elderly people in America, that because they are at the end of their lives they do not need the same attention as a younger patient with a longer life expectancy.  It upset me tremendously because we are not trying to keep a dying man alive at any cost;  all we wanted was for him to be cared for with compassion and to have his discomforts addressed immediately, because he is old and fragile and he matters to us.

Long ago and far away, I worked for AARP when the headquarters building was on K Street in northwest Washington, DC.  In the 23 years since I worked there, in spite of tons of rhetoric and lobbying on the part of this mammoth organization, care for the elderly is still grossly inadequate.  My father-in-law has a wife, son, and daughter-in-law nearby who can advocate for him and still he received lousy treatment at a so-called rehabilitation facility.  All he needed was for someone in that facility to sit with him and hold his hand until a family member arrived.  Instead, he was left isolated in a strange place being "cared for" by people who couldn't have cared less.

AARP should get its priorities in order:  instead of selling insurance, they should be developing care standards for people who move from hospital to rehabilitation so that no one gets parked in the nurses' station or left with his head banging into the sharp's disposal container. There is no excuse for the shabby treatment this World War II veteran, entrepreneur, job-creator, philanthropist, husband and father received when he was at his most vulnerable.