Civilized Living

Outsiders often consider New York to be this glamourous hub of extravagant living where opportunity rockets as high as the buildings. Unfortunately, those who live in New York, know that this mistake quickly fades and the "I love NY" fades to the "This too is Ghetto". Walking to the subway station you see that the tracks have not been repaired since possibly the Confederate days. In fact, in some places in Brooklyn, if you look closely, the tracks almost resemble the bones of wary travelers with the common misconception: "Oh no Brooklyn has changed, it's nice now".

Outsiders also often seem to think that New York is a place where if you have money you can live a comfortably and make people do anything for you. I assure you this is not true. You could throw millions of Dead Presidents in the air and I'm sure the cabbies would still ignore you. When you do flag one down they have restrictions for you - if you don't like them smoking in the cab - you have the option to complain. They have a non-smoking section in the trunk. Also there is no concept of Quality of Service. Time Warner will usually tell you that there are frequent cable outages and there is no reimbursement. If you are upset with something, you are welcome to wait for the one operating manager that services 18 million people.

After realizing that seething with rage is futile because then you look like a local lunatic, there is only one way to maintain civilized living. Anticipate risk. A week ago I received a note in the mail saying that my electric and gas services were being used illegally. When I called in, I found that it is apparently my invisible neighbour that the mail was addressed. Imagine my surprise when my landlord informed me that I should ignore the love-making sounds that come from next door because no one actually lives there. Clearly someone is there. So to anticipate risk I bought renters apartment insurance. I also called the Utilities company (Con Edison - the emphasis on CON) and pre-threatened to sue in case they shut my power off.


Grr of the Day...

I bought a device a few months back and mailed in the rebate and then A FEW DAYS LATER registered the rebate online. Since I have yet to see the rebate, I decided to call the company and complain. The clerk told me that apparently USPS had delivered my mail-in-rebate to them before I had registered it online. Thus they had no record of my purchase and pitched the mail I sent into the trash. I informed them that I was not responsible for predicting that the US Postal Service would be so efficient that they managed to get mail there before it was intended. They informed me that perhaps I should get a faster internet connection. Touché.