My latest encounter with Verizon Wireless

Verizon Wireless in the US, in my opinion, offers the best internet/celluar service whether it be call clarity, call stability, LTE, or FIOS, and Verizon seems to know this.  In the past, not sure if it has changed, but they have charged the most, got away with having just the rudest customer service you can ever imagine.  It is all flowers and rainbows when you sign up, but when you try to cancel, they throw you to the hounds.

I imagined their hiring practice to be that they had to be absolute killers when it comes to making people feel like they owe Verizon a favor for ripping them off one last time when they attempt to cancel service on a contract the customer has already fulfilled.  If you tried to cancel a contract you haven't fulfilled, then you are really put through the ringer.  It usually goes something like this.  They argue with you for about 20 minutes on why you're canceling service in a condescending tone, then they say they have to talk to the manager, and when they come back, they say they are doing you a favor by making you pay a slightly lesser balance you don't owe on top of your contractual obligations.  And when you try to pay, the only option they give you is to pay a service charge to pay over a phone, since they've blocked all convenient ways for you to pay such as paying online.

Well, that seems to have changed.  I had to get a Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE 4620LE  activated for a month.  And when I tried to do so, they conveniently mentioned that for 4G LTE, you have to enter through a contract that doesn't allow you to buy a prepaid SIM.  You have to sign up onto a month to month contract with a $30 activation fee, which you have to go through the trouble to cancel later, only through painful live conversation.  I thought "here we go again."  But since I really had no options that day, I signed up for service, thinking I will just have to endure a 30 minute hostile phone call later.  But that wasn't the case at all.  Signing up for service was easy as expected.  And the experience of cancelling was a surprise.  The woman on the phone was nice and friendly, and managed to cancel my service in a few minutes.

It is good to know that Verizon has adopted the motto, you can attract more return business with good customer service than trying to milk the customers for some cash on their way out.  So where have all these rude CSR people found jobs?  From what I recall from talking with the AT&T billing department, it seems that they are employed at AT&T now.  What a shame.  I used to like AT&T.

What is innovation?

My thought for today: Innovation is giving someone the ability to do something they should already be doing, without previously having the ability of doing it (as much as they wanted or needed to do it) in the past.

Expectation, Focus, Manifestation

I had a breakthrough thought when I was on the cruise watching people get seasick.  When people started hearing that other people were taking Dramamine because they always get seasick, people started focusing on how much the boat was moving, and the ones that believed that they were prone to getting seasick, eventually got sick.  Even though this is a bad example of something very positive I want to write about, it's what led me to this breakthrough in thought.  It's how we manifest our realities from expectations by focusing on the outcome.  Could everything we guide ourselves to (consciously and subconsciously) be broken down into 3 steps?

Step 1: Expectation
Step 2: Focus
Step 3: Manifestation

I am familiar with this pattern of behavior.  I've made a study of it for more than 7 years.  But being able to summarize it with 3 words is a breakthrough because the better we understand things is a step forward in mastering the principal.  It would be a nice book.  Although having just googled it, it seems like all great thoughts, it's not the first time someone has thought of it.

The more I go through this journey called life, I realize that life is surreal.  And it can be as surreal as you imagine it to be because the possibilities are infinite at any given moment.  The only time you really hit a limit is when you stop trying because you think something is not possible.

Relating this principal to my personal life, I remember 3 of the biggest challenges I've faced in life, and in those instances, I had to become someone who could move mountains because expecting any other outcome would be unacceptable.  I think since then I've let some situations get worse so I can transform into this being to get some amazing things done.

Instead of letting the situation get worse so failure is not an option, I should always have clear expectations of exactly what I want to create the momentum for step 2 (focus).  After that, step 3 (manifestation) is automatic.