They're watching you, too...

About an hour after Comcast's repair man left the house, my cell phone rang. It was someone from their "Escalation Department" checking to make sure everything got straightened out. It was nice to be able to report that yes, indeed, everything had turned out well, and that the phone was fully functioning. If I'd have continued my blogging bellyaching, I fear that the sniper posted on the roof across the street would have been forced to "silence the target," as I'm sure they say over at "Escalations." In truth, I was stunned by how well they responded.
So much so, that I even argued with Kate about the bill. Her mentality, no doubt derived from too many hours behind the wheel on the New Jersey Turnpike, is to argue that, because we didn't have service for the first eight days of the billing cycle, we shouldn't have to pay for it. I can see the logic here, but given that our bill is all of about $20, and the prorated portion is essentially like arguing over the cost of a Venti latte, AND Comcast seemed to genuinely want to fix the problem, I'll happily pay it.
Kate still thinks that not contesting the bill, at least on principle, is crazy. I feel like maybe it is just service karma, so I want to call a truce by quietly paying the bill after they return service. Keep in mind that she recently dealt with multiple thousands of dollars of disputed charges and payments from both Washington Gas & Electric and Marsh & McLennan. D.C.'s utility company continually sent her double charges, misplaced her refunds, and lost her bill info. She happened to meet their CEO at a federal policy meeting she was attending for work, and the problem was magically solved. Marsh & McLennan kept her on the payroll for months after she quit, continued her AT&T account and charged her for it, and never reimbursed her for some expenses. It might be solved now that she's called their general counsel. These two companies need some internet monitor software and an Escalations Department.

Speaking of the man monitoring your every move...

When I lived down in New Zealand just after college, I had zero contacts and even fewer marketable skills other than the muscles in my back. Accordingly, I worked some pretty shite jobs. Worst of the bunch was unloading 60 pound boxes of frozen squid from boats that had recently docked in our town of Dunedin. My roommates were also expat Americans looking for some cash, and together we'd sit in our living room and peer out the window of our rented flat down towards the harbor. If no boats came in, we'd return to our Scrabble, tea, and rag weed, and debate the benefits of staying home. Sure, we weren't making any cash, but all three of us knew how bad the work on the boats really was. Neil, one of my roomates, had grown up on construction sites and was no stranger to some tough manual labor. When he looked at me through exhausted eyes one day while we were working and claimed, "This is the hardest goddamn work I've ever done," I was equal parts bouyed and deflated. On one hand, if Neil thought it was hard, it meant I was pretty tough if I'd survive the shift. But on the other, it was the hardest godamn work I'd ever done, too. Clawing at icy bricks while angry Maoris yelled at me to work faster, occassionally tossing a loose squid like a football just past my ear to make sure I was paying attention, was just not much fun.
On the days when the boats would come in, they'd be accompanied by a cloud of seagulls looking to pick up a snack from the boxes that broke open during the unloading process. We'd all look at the birds, look at each other, sigh, have one last cup of tea and scrabble game, and pack our lunch. Work was calling, in the form of a hungry gull screaming for lunch.
We'd walk the mile or so down to the harbor and check in to the foreman's office. In New Zealand, they do nearly all payroll through direct deposit. We'd tell the guy in charge our bank account number, hope to god there'd be a deposit instead of a withdrawal in a week's time, and put on our uniforms. We'd find our size of rubber galoshes with steel toes, a hard hat, a high visibility reflective vest, and whatever clothes we'd brought along. The holds of the boats are giant freezers, so we quickly realized that multiple hats, coats, and long underwear ensembles were required.
The shifts would last for 40 minutes, and then a third of the workers would get a 20 minute break. This cycle would rotate for as long as it took to unload the entire boat, usually 12-18 hours. During our breaks, we'd drink a couple of cups of coffee, eat a sandwich or two, and try to shake the cold out of our bones. On the dot, a different work crew would emerge from the boat, and we'd have to head back in. All the workers were free to leave at any time, and usually a 10 hour day was all our skinny American asses could handle.
At the start of the shift, the hold was packed so tightly that it would be impossible to even get in, so we'd have to open one of the hatches and start digging like miners. Once workers had exposed a big enough space in the hold, the roof hatch could be lifted open and a crane would swing a giant basket into the clearing.
From this point forward, the crane would lower an empty basket into the hold through the hole in the roof, and pick up a basket that was full of boxes, continually rotating the two baskets. This cycle would continue until the only frozen things left on the boat were humaoid.
I think we got paid $14 NZ Dollars an hour, or about $10 American.

When the boats weren't in harbor, we would occasionally work for a temporary labor agency. HireEquip would scour Dunedin for businesses that needed chores done, and send out the underling Americans to weld, stock grocery shelves, sweep floors, whatever. Thank god I had an iPod. We'd contracted on to do a number of different jobs, and swapped off working for the docks when a boat came in. When the agency called our house one day and asked if we wanted to work, we made one crucial mistake. We should have looked out the window.
The HireEquip guys arranged all the day laborers who had answered their call in front of the waiting van. They explained that they'd be driving us to the harbor. Tom, my other roommate, looked at me and mouthed some choice words, and I knew exactly what he was thinking.
HireEquip paid all of its employees a flat rate of $10 NZ Dollars, regardless of the job. They'd hire us out for whatever they could get, and keep the difference. That's how they made their money, and that is exactly how we'd be losing ours. Tom and I spent the day knowing full well that we'd be paid about 30% less for the exact same work we'd been doing on our own just a few days earlier. The next day, we decided to cut out the middleman.
We went back to the docs, knowing that there'd still be work. The morning saw us back in the boat, loading the last of the boxes into the crane basket. After that, we were above deck sorting different kinds of seafood, and loading them into various containers bound for California, China, and Japan. During our time out in the open air, we saw one of the HireEquip overlords milling around. He'd brought a crew of guys to the docks, and was making sure everything was in order.
"Oy. What are you two blokes doin' about?"
"Working."
"Not for us, so hell no you ain't. That violates your contract. You're going to be paying HireEquip $1,500 in restitution."

The bad guy in this story had clearly been established.

His threat centered around a clause in the contract we signed with the temp. agency that limited us from taking employment with any group we'd worked for on behalf of HireEquip. I checked the contract when we got home from the docks that day, and there was some wording that certainly tried to prohibit this kind of behavior. It makes sense from a business standpoint, but we felt like it was pretty lame given that we'd worked for the squid companies before ever doing a day through HireEquip. I started freaking out, thinking the cops would knock on our door and I'd be liable for a sum of money that I didn't have at the time, regardless of the exchange rate. I called my dad, an attorney, and he pretty much lawyered up on it.
"Do they define employment?"
"No."
"Unenforcable." Then he started referring case law and lost me immediately. I was too wrapped up in the cozy blanket called unenforcable.
For the next few weeks, we'd all gasp when someone would knock on the door, cry when the phone would ring, and gingerly open the mailbox like there was an anthrax scare on the South Island. Nothing ever came out of it, but we certainly weren't keen on returning to the harbor to look for work, and we could pretty much count temp. work as unavailable. With fewer and fewer work prospects, it was only a matter of time until we'd run out of funds and need to book our tickets home.
Eventually, we did just that, bringing the New Zealand chapter to a close. I couldn't help feeling like some international criminal when I went through customs. When the feared strip search didn't materialize, and armed guards didn't appear at passport control, I took a big breath of relief.
Big Brother in New Zealand wasn't nearly as pleasant as his American counterpart. Here, they might try to fix your problems, but down there, they just threaten you with fines.