You want to violate the Do Not Call List? Alrighty then...

Every day this week, the message queue on my landline included a string of messages from a company that calls itself Card Services. Note that name well, please: #CardServices.

You know this call. The one that tells you "this is your last chance to lower your credit card interest rates." Positively the LAST. Even though a few months ago you got the same series of calls. Well, maybe it's your last chance this quarter.

I try to ignore these. But when the messages keep rolling in all week, and on some days they call twice, my tolerance wears really thin. Especially seeing, as you probably inferred from the title of this post, this phone has been on the Do Not Call List from that registry's inception.

If anyone from Card Services reads that last sentence, they'd probably laugh themselves silly. My waving around a piddling little infraction like that is like a mosquito bite to a rhinoceros.

"Why so cynical," you ask. "How do you know this isn't a genuine service organization, generously trying to help me lower my credit card interest rates?" Okay, Devil's Advocate. Just because I knew you'd ask, when this morning's call came in, I didn't let it go to message. Instead:

• I picked up the phone and pressed '1.' 
• I was the 13th caller. In a mere 2 seconds, I was the 8th. A second later, an operator picked up my call. Either they have a customer-operator ration of nearly 1-to-1, or most calls last no longer than mind was about to. 
• The representative identified the company as Card Services. I repeated this name to him, and it was confirmed. I asked "which cards." He answered "all of them," going on to list Visa, Master Card, etc. 
• I asked where Card Services was located. Yes, that was all I asked. A very basic question, I would think.
• Rather than answer, the operator queried back: "Are you responding to a call?" 
• I said "I'm responding to the eight calls your company has left me this week. My phone is on the Do Not..."
• And that was it. I didn't even get to complete the sentence before he hung up. 

Note that this wasn't my first attempt at getting these people off my back. Some months ago, during a similar flood of calls, I tried responding to one of the messages in my queue. The operator gave a similar description as the operator with whom I spoke today: that they served "all cards." When I pressed for more details, she stated they "are not affiliated with any one bank," and implied a kind of debt consolidation service. In that instance, when I said they were in violation of the Do Not Call List, she laughed and said smartly "Excuse me, you called us." It was only when I asked to speak with someone who would take my name off their call list that she hung up.

If Card Services was really providing a service, whether from altruism or for a big kickback from some link in the transaction chain, they would have tried to keep me on the phone and win me over. Or else, like the organizations that are exempt from observing the Do Not Call List, their operators would be taught to simple say so (politely, one hopes; I never understand why operators remotely think it'll help them get my money if the stick out a virtual tongue over this point).

You may have read my posts about a similar encounter with a company wanting to lower the power bills I don't have.  Since I made those posts, those calls have stopped.

So let's try this again. Okay #CardServices? Stop calling me and I'll stop posting about you!

Sweet Dreams are Made of This?

Last night. I'm watching Chris Hayes and Maria Shriver on television. It's a special, focusing on a discussion about poverty and women.

There is a particularly sobering conversation with a poised, professional woman whose life reflects two different story lines on this subject. In her youth, she worked hard and, with the assistance of some of the assistance programs, was able to complete her education and raise herself out of poverty. Success! The American Dream. For more than twenty years, she lived a comfortable middle class life and prudently built up a 401K for the future.

The future came much sooner than she expected. She lost her job and has been unable to find a new one in the current market. Is it her age? Is it that potential employers don't want to pay for experience? Or simply that there are so few jobs and, in a buyer's market, an employer has so many potential candidates that they can make up a laundry list of qualifications and wait it out until an exact match stumbles across their radar. She discusses all of these possibilities and observes that she knows 13 other women like herself, seasoned professionals who are willing and able to work hard, who are similarly unemployed.

Whatever the reason, this educated, experienced, hard-working professional, who played by all the rules, has been plunged back into poverty. With no work on offer, and with government emergency unemployment assistance having dried up, she can only keep afloat by gradually burning down her 401K. She'll never be able to "retire." With her savings evaporating in middle age, she faces the serious possibility of outliving her income and ending up homeless. The American Nightmare.

Then comes the commercial break. Directly on the heels of this sobering interview, a silly joyful celebration of vacation habits as a travel website reminds America that everyone watching is entitled to a holiday as "awesome" as they can imagine. Followed by a plug for an amazing new herbal supplement that is proven, absolutely, to prolong life to a vigorous old age.

Things to do when your brain won't settle down

I want to be making deep inroads into the new WIP, I really do. But my concentration is still playing post-project pinball from launching The Upsilon Knot.

Instead of settling down to the task at hand, like a good little writer, here are some of the things I find myself doing:

• Basking in the end of summer sunshine in Washington Square Park while indulging in a caramel custard (with yummy figgy topping) from 5 Oz. Factory, and watching tentative trios of film students embark on their maiden forays into University-level filmmaking.
• Watching reruns of Castle episodes that I've already seen six or seven times and trying to determine which fluctuates more: Nathan Fillion's weight or Stana Katic's hair.
• Actually following all the links in all of those Facebook posts that I "like." Special thumbs up to Jason Gurley's interview with the wonderful Hugh Howey and David Harrington's piece on the new Yoko Ono album.
• Engaging in long off-hour text chats with friends who are either more gainfully employed during "normal" hours or live in very distant time zones from mine.
• Wandering aimlessly through Central Park, somehow inevitably being drawn to the Mall where the benches give me a feeling of stepping back in time. 
• Escaping into Ben Aaronovich's magical London via the Broken Homes, the latest adventures of Constable Peter Grant.
• Writing this post!

Bottleneck on the Boulevard of Death

Where I live, the main artery is Queens Boulevard. If you're not familiar with "The Boulevard of Death," it's a cute little 12 lane highway (may be a couple more or less, depending on intersection) that cuts across Queens from the slow-down-you-move-too-fast 59th Street Bridge (formerly formally known as the Queensboro, now officially called the Ed Koch—and we wonder why cabs can't find their way around??) all the way to Jamaica Avenue.

Right now, this artery is suffering a blockage. What makes it hurt most is that, when the blockage finally clears, other than the lack of pain, there will be no benefit to the community. We're going through all of this for nothing—and that's what's making me angry.

The Boulevard of Death

Queens Boulevard and Continental (71st) Avenue

There has always been a fascinating dichotomy between the people who drive the Boulevard and the people who live along it. To drivers, it's part of a highway system (technically, Queens Boulevard is a section of NY State Route 25). They often drive it as if they were still on the GCP, the BQE or the Van Wyck—never mind those pesky traffic lights and those obviously misplaced pedestrians. To us pedestrians, the Boulevard is something of a Main Street; whether you live North or South, you spend a lot of time crossing to the other side. Bear in mind that we wacky pedestrians some in all ages and are often pushing baby carriages or shopping carts, holding the hands of small children and/or walking dogs. Combine the village population with the thwarted expressway drivers and you can easily understand the "Boulevard of Death" moniker. Railings and cameras may have reduced the annual number of fatal incidents, but it's still one of the most dangerous streets in NYC.

Blockage in a Major Artery

Currently, a major construction project is causing bottlenecks on a the North side of the Boulevard, on the block that stretches between (71st) Continental Avenue and 71st Road. Note that this is entirely separate from the half-completed two-year (estimated) project to add an elevator to the subway station, which cuts off half a block and a subway entrance on the South side, as well as large portions of subway platform inside.

The preparatory phase gradually forced out five businesses, only one of which I know to have successfully relocated (to a significantly less-trafficked spot). Since the serious construction on the new residential tower began a few months ago, development has closed off half the sidewalk, diverted people away from and ultimately shut down a thriving sidewalk newsstand, and closed off a lane of traffic from the Queens Boulevard West-bound service road.

To understand the impact of the vehicular traffic bottleneck, note that this site is at one major intersection (where Queen's Boulevard intersects both 71st/Continental Avenue and 108th Street) and is only two blocks from another (where Queen's Boulevard, at one of its wider points, crosses Yellowstone Boulevard). This has been making the phrase "morning rush" highly ironic for anyone driving East-to-West. It also means that, at the height of the recent heat wave, a truck delivering dairy products had to park a block away from the grocery store—where it stood open to the heat, for what I thought was an uncomfortable length of time, while the goods were gradually unloaded and lugged to the delivery entrance.

Apart from being a pain in the ass for everyone who lives in or passes through this area, this construction site has made life more dangerous. The only thing that makes Queens Boulevard work at all is practice: the majority of pedestrians who cross it do so often, and at familiar intersections. You can imagine the consternation when the delicate ecology of this route is disrupted.

What "Walkway"??

Once the rat-killing was done and digging began, the construction crew for this tower began erecting various temporary plastic-barricaded "walkways," slowing encroaching deeper into the road. Occasionally I've seen a neon-vested human with a flag, but this seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

This weekend, the "Walkway" was Queens Boulevard

This weekend, there were men with flags, which meant I got to speak to someone when I found, without any prior notice, that the entire block was closed to both pedestrian and vehicular traffic.

For the length of this critical block, no traffic could pass along the Queens Boulevard service road. And for pedestrians coming from the East, it meant that we had to cross Queens Boulevard just to access the subway.

It's clear why this was done on a weekend.

A representative of Gilbane later assured me that this complete lack of access was only for this weekend. That doesn't excuse the lack of safe provision for subway access nor the lack of prior notification; nor does this heightened short-term inconvenience mitigate the impact of the longer-term disturbance.

Yes, the disturbance related to the subway station project is also a pain, and only the MTA could take two years to put in an elevator, but at least the station at Continental Avenue will end up better serving our community. I can't, on the other hand, think of a single thing this residential tower is going to do for us.  We're getting all the disruption and absolutely none of the gain. What do we get—okay, more selfishly, what do I get—when this building is finally finished?

Who Ya Gonna Call?

As a member of New York's downward spiraling middle-class, I'm not exaggerating when I say that the cool disregard this project shows to my neighborhood is making me feel even more downtrodden and disenfranchised than I usually do. This weekend's little detour was the final straw.

I got stuck at the intersection, waiting for the light to change. And after finding out the details of this little detour, I said to the guy with the flag, "This is ridiculous! You mean I have to cross Queens Boulevard just to get on a subway?"

• The Flag Guy shrugged and said "If you have a problem with that, talk to the guy from the Department of Buildings."
• Me: Where is he?
• Flag Guy: Over there somewhere. (points to far end of barricaded area)
• Me: Could you call him over? (he shakes his head and shrugs) So you  mean I have to cross Queens Boulevard, go to the corner, and cross Queens Boulevard again, just to talk to him?
• Flag Guy grins. He's absolutely certain he's gotten rid of me.

Let's just say that I was born under the sign of Mary Mary Quite Contrary. Rather than discouraging me, this only egged me on. So yes, I crossed the Boulevard twice to get to the other end of the same block. And the fact of having to do so upped my anger from mild irritation to absolutely fuming.

• I yelled out to the team on that end "I was told someone is here from the Department of Buildings?! Where is he?!"
• Another flag guy, a very young man who's been told far too often that he's adorable, grinned at me. "Hey, what's the matter?"
• I explained the reason for my now-simmering anger. "What is the community getting for all this pain?" I asked.
• He grinned again. "A really nice apartment building."
• "That none of us can afford to live in."
• "Hey, I can't afford it either."

The grin was getting to me. I asked for the representative of the DoB. The guy at the first intersection had thought to get rid of me off by telling me a rep was there; this one thought he could make me leave by saying the man couldn't be found; he asked me to move to the corner and wait. When I didn't, he pointed at some heavy machinery and advised me, with yet another grin, that they had a truck to move. I was blocking the way. This time it was my turn to grin; I told him that I wasn't going to leave that spot until the man from the DoB was found.

At this point, the site supervisor noticed the fuss and made his way over. He was very polite and professional as I aired my grievance, then asked me what I wanted. I told him I wanted to speak with someone who was not employed by the contractors, and that I had been told by one of his men that a rep from the DoB was on site.  Again, I was asked to move to make way for the equipment. Again, I stood my ground. It was all very 1969.

By this time, I was hot as well as angry. The rep from the DoB, another polite man, finally made his way to my corner. What I said to him can be summarized here:

I've lived in this neighborhood all my life. I've watched a number of luxury residential towers rise along Queens Boulevard (and take years to fill up; see sidebar below). I have never seen any one of them block off lanes of Queens Boulevard for weeks at a time. 

We have a lot of elderly people in this neighborhood, disabled people, families with small. I don't care if it's only for two days: you are forcing all of them to cross a 12-lane highway in order to access the subway.

This isn't a hospital, for a neighborhood which once boasted proximity to several and now has none. It doesn't include an office building that might bring in long-term employment. Did the developers donate $2 million directly to our schools or to our struggling library? If our neighborhood is being disrupted to this extent for the creation of private wealth, we should have some recompense.

A new luxury apartment building will serve no one other than the developers and the people who decide they can afford to live here—or, perhaps more accurately, the people who can just about afford to and think its overpriced, but have been priced out of apartments in neighborhood that have the amenities that ought to go along with these prices.

[Sidebar—my personal note to developers of Queens luxury dwellings: Watch how they do it in Brooklyn! First the neighborhood has to develop a thriving sense of community, including places to gather, and stores and restaurants with local personality. Maybe then you won't be stuck for years with empty apartments. People are only willing to shell out big bucks to move someplace after it's become a 'destination.' How come you smart millionaires and billionaires don't know this and I do??]

He listened to me and said "you have a couple of good points there." He also said "I'm only here to supervise the construction. If you have a complaint, talk to the community board; they approved it. Or talk to Mr. Bloomberg."

I wrote this blog entry instead. 

Close Encounters of the Paper Kind

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting near the bandshell in Central Park, reading.

A woman, who'd just walked her dog past my bench, called out "is that good?" I looked up. She was calling to me. Even while walking along the Mall, she'd been able to read the large gold letters on the spine. The book was one she'd been hearing about (it was Kate Atkinson's Life After Life) and she was glad for the opportunity of speaking with someone who was already midway through it.

We talked for a while before she moved on. She was happily excited at the prospect of buying the book later that day. And me, well I felt some satisfaction in being able to support a writer whose work I both enjoy and admire.

Have you ever stopped to speak with someone this way? Did you ever see someone immersed in a book you never heard of and taken the time to jot down (or make a mental note of) the title?

It's a bit of serendipity that won't be around much longer. I don't know about you, but I'm going to miss it.

I'm Calling About Reducing Your Power Bill (postscript)

Follow-up to yesterday's post:

I've just had yet another call claiming to help the consumer save (very specific, this one) "7% of your energy bill." Again referencing the amazing government program, the tape also stated this company was reaching out to "all customers of Con Edison."

It was irresistible. So I pressed '5' to speak with an operator.  Oh, happy day! The tape informed me that all calls would be monitored for quality assurance and training purposes!

• The operator "Keith Andrews" spoke with a decided Indian accent. 

I should make an aside here to note that I'm aware how standard this practice is. I once worked for a company with a large offshore division. Our Mumbai client-facing team members were each assigned an "American" name. It's meant to deflect the known consumer resistance to offshore call centers. 

• Anyway, "Keith" immediately asked the name of my utility company. I did my best dingbat and said "don't you know? You just said this call was for customers of Con Edison."  We had a jolly little circular conversation in this manner for almost a minute.

• Finally, I said: "Wait, I'm confused. Are you from Con Edison?"

• He explained that he was from Kiwi Energy.  I even had him spell the name, to make sure I had it right.
• 
  
• I asked if he was from New Zealand, a very poor joke that he didn't get.  He reassured me, "No, Kiwi Energy, right here in Brooklyn."
• 
  
• I acted confused again and said "I still don't understand, what does this have to do with Con Edison?"

At that point, the line went dead.

Naturally I did a search. Indeed there is a company called Kiwi Energy. They are not a service organization nor are they in Brooklyn. According to their website, Kiwi Energy is "a private oil & natural gas exploration and development company located in Houston, Texas."

So the scammers are too lazy to even set up a proper shell company of their own! Not only do they want to steal your identity, they've already stolen a corporate identity in order to do it!

I'm Calling About Reducing Your Power Bill

It's evening, a prime time for fundraisers, pollsters and scams, and the phone rings. This isn't the phone I use for business, and none of my family or friends call at this time of day, but I still answer pleasantly—you never know when it might be a real call.

• A hesitant female voice says "Hello. Is this Miss Bear-honn?"

okay, it's not a real call, but I keep a cheerful tone 

• "And who is this?"
• "This is Angel from (carefully mumbled unmemorable corporate name). We're calling to help you reduce your power bill."

ahhh; one of those calls.  Yes, of course this number is on the "do not call" list, but people who are running a personal information collection scam are hardly going to worry about violating a polite little constraint like that.

It was originally the occasional automated call, the kind where you have to press 1 to speak with a person. At first I hoped they'd stop calling if I just kept hanging up; but after the first half dozen, I started pressing 1. I would immediately be asked if I had my utility bill handy. Whatever I said next—including "why?"—was never on the call script, so whoever it was would immediately hang up.

I don't know about you, but I'm getting pretty damned sick of this and there doesn't seem to be a damned thing anyone can do to stop them. So since they've dropped the recordings and gone straight to human cold-callers, I've been trying a different approach: 

• "I see. And how did you get my number?"
• (hesitantly; this is not on the call script) "From the power company."
• (with apparently genuine, friendly interest; sometimes the old acting chops come in handy) "I'm afraid that's impossible. The power company doesn't have this phone number. So how did you get my number?"
• (groping now) "From the (mumble mumble) department of my company."
• (still friendly and curious) "Really? How did they get this number?"
• (increasingly nervous) "From the power company."
• (puzzled) "But I've just explained, that's not possible. This phone number is not connected with any power company accounts." (a little less friendly) I'd really like to know how your company got this phone number."
• (fumbling for words) "I'm sorry to have disturbed you..."
• "No, no. I understand. You're in a call center, probably halfway across the world, and you were given this number." (that last bit was based on an observation of her accent; note that I've heard a number of national and US regional accents on these calls.) Would you have a supervisor that I can speak to?" 

I've now allowed a bit of steel to slip into my own voice. When she replies, her voice is muffled, as if her head has turned away from the mouthpiece. Is she looking around the room in panic?? 

• "I'll have to call you back tomorrow, Miss..."
• (I employ the cool, "not so fast, buster" voice) "No. I would like to speak with someone right this minute. May I speak with your supervisor, please?"
• "I'm sorry to have disturbed you Miss." 

And she hangs up.

Do I feel just a little bad for the timid young woman at the other end of the call? She is, presumably, only trying to make a living. Maybe she's so naive that she doesn't understand her employers are crooks. Maybe, for one miserable reason or another, she can't afford to care. 

My hunch is that she is being exploited, but so are the thousands of people who fall for the con and volunteer their personal information. I'm assuming there are thousands of them, because what used to be an occasional nuisance call has now become an almost weekly occurrence. It's got to be pretty damned lucrative for the number of companies trying this con to have escalated to such an extent.

Con artists and scams are nothing new in human history, but 21st century technology has made them more virulent. That can be said of all the ways in which humans traditionally prey on one another. Seems as though the more technology we create, the less civilized we become.

Like reality tv, only real-er

Telenovela playing out on the subway today.

By the time I board, a family beach outing has already gone sour (never figured out why) and the whole car has to bear witness for the next nine stops. Mom is shrieking (in alternating English and Spanish) at teen-aged son Aidan, who is sitting across from her. Aidan, earphones plugged in, is high as a kite and swigging beer from a supermarket water bottle.

The main burden of Mom's screaming is that whatever-it-is IS ENOUGH, and she wants him OFF THE TRAIN!  At every station, she "threatens" that she's getting off RIGHT NOW and he'd BETTER come with her. He mumbles stubbornly "I'm goin' to the beach" and slouches into his seat. Ashley (cutoffs, giant shades and purple dandelion shoulder ink) stands between her Mom and bro' and switches sides in the argument approximately every five minutes. When Aidan spills booze on the passenger sitting next to him and the woman presumes to complain, both Mom and Ashley gang up on HER.

Will Mom stop threatening and haul ass off the train? If so, will Aidan go with her or stay put? Whose side is Ashley really on? And what of the beer-sprayed bystander??

Music of the Spheres?

Every now and then, something is so perfectly, almost painfully, beautiful that it makes me want to simultaneously laugh and cry. This soul-lifting piece of art, for example, which is being described as the first music video made in space. David Bowie's Space Oddity – recorded "on location" at the International Space Station by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield.

What an amazing gift to those of us who can only dream of touching the stars.