The Phoneless in Society

June 25, 2011

Mr. Randall L. Stephenson

Chairman, CEO and President

AT&T

208 S. Akard St.

Dallas, TX 75202

Dear Mr. Stephenson,

I would like you to regale you with a short story about AT&T that I am sure will amuse you.

We have been AT&T wireless customers for over ten years and Robb Hall at our local store, Wireless One In Bella Vista Arkansas,  is one of the best customer service people out there. He has helped us for more than ten years.

But my tale  began June 3 when I decided to take advantage of AT&T's offer to upgrade my system, with a new two year contract and new phones for my wife and I, several months before our contract expired.  What a nice offer!

We went to the AT&T Corporate store, 20 miles away in Rogers, Arkansas, to look at selection and features for the phones. We concluded a nice Motorola Atrix 4G would be just what the doctor ordered for $99.00 apiece.  But I thought I'd better check online first!  Lo and behold, online offered  a refurbished Atrix 4G phone at 49.99 each!  Such a deal!  We ordered them and they duly arrived several days later. Unfortunately we couldn't turn them on nor unlock them, no doubt due to our decrepit age.  We are both 70 after all.

So, we sent the phones back and asked for working ones.  Your nice customer service representatives  agreed to Fed Ex them to us, and we received the working replacements within a couple of days.  You then received the non- working originals back on 6-20-11.

The new phones were magnificent! We could get e-mail! Text! Go on Facebook and twitter! Check our minutes! Navigate and track our positions on the earth with a GPS! Magnificent!  Unfortunately, what we could not do was to figure out how to answer the phone, transfer our contacts, set up a speed dial system, or make a call. We are old. And we figured the problem was ours, so we took it to our local phone store in Bella Vista, AR,  where one of the aforementioned best customer service reps, Robb Hall, works.  Since we had ordered online Robb couldn't do much but took the time to educate us in how some of it worked. 

Robb patiently explained we were not educationally challenged and showed us where to go to download the manual, which we did.

We could make calls! Even receive them! Great.

But, in about two weeks it became apparent that a Motorola Atrix 4G was much too much phone for us. We don't text. We don't need to go online and tweet or twit or facebook or SOCIALLY NETWORK WITH ANYONE! We are apparently both Luddites and challenged in the social department. It is a major effort to text with arthritis of the thumbs, not to mention other decaying body parts. We need a phone to make calls!  Despite the fact that our children no longer communicate by any means other than text we keep attempting to call them.  Perhaps you could explain what "B4 C:md ph I" means.

Now the fun began. I called your online customer service center on Jun 23rd to say the phones were too much for us and we would like to exchange them. 

Endless wait for the disembodied voice to get me to a human...no option for that.  I could buy a new phone, check my bill online or amend my service plan but I could NOT, under any circumstance, talk to a human. I persevered.  Three redials,  a broken fingernail a few verbal mortal sins and several missed options later I got my human.  Whose response was "No problem!  Simply return the old phones to us using the USPS return sticker we provided and go to the AT&T store, decide which replacement phones you would like, then call us back, give us the model and we will send you the new one's". Oh Joy, Oh Rapture! Sounded fair to me! So we sent the old one's back and kept the tracking number.

I picked my wife up at work over lunch, and we drove the twenty miles to the store. We found a basic phone a Pantech Breeze II which my wife liked,  but the salesperson said we would have to wait until the old phones were received by AT&T to get the new one's......Otherwise $119.00 per phone.

"What?",  I asked, somewhat bemused. "We have to go without phones for two weeks or so while the mail system handles the return?", I asked rather stupidly. "Yes" was the reply. "Why then did your customer service people  tell me to return the phones which I did this morning and they are now in the hands of the USPS, an organization I would rather not mess with".

"I am sorry sir, whomever told you that online (someone named Gloria at God knows what location) exceeded her authority." 

"What do we do now", I asked, descending into a state of existential angst to rival Kafka on his best day.  "I have no phone."

"Perhaps if you go back online they can fix the problem", was the response. I was entirely too addled to see the irony in the statement. I drove wife back to work, drove home and proceeded to go online, and then recalled the Customer Service Center, a process similar to Dante's descent into the fifth circle of hell.

I began the process at 8:47AM, lunch and the visit to the AT&T corporate store was about noon and I was finished about 5:35PM. In that interim I talked to 7 people, three of whom attempted to help me.  Bonnie Capman in Huntsville, Alabama gave it a good shot. "I've corrected the records and you should have no problem now.  I have noted the file that you are to get the new phones at the upgrade rate."

So I returned to the Corporate store 20 miles away and spoke to Doreen Smithers who showed me the phones and said, "no, the records have not yet been altered and you must wait until AT&T receives the old phones....COMPANY POLICY!"  There it was, that dreaded word that strikes fear in the heart of every customer....Company Policy"...the decree from the great beyond. So I went home.

Back online, this time to two men, one who transferred me to a "supervisor",  who in the final analysis after more than thirty minutes online, told me there was nothing he could do....COMPANY POLICY...

I pointed out I had already paid for the old phones which were in the mail. Couldn't they just give me new ones at the upgrade price and if it turned out I was mistaken about returning the old ones, simply bill me for the new ones at the NON-UPGRADE price. 

Apparently not, "Because, (according to your Customer Service Supervisor) how do I know if you are telling the truth that you returned them." A rather interesting twist.  Imply the customer is lying and probably cheating you. Great customer service!

I said:

1) Here is the USPS tracking number. They have had it since 10:57:48 AM and it is now 3:20.

2) What difference does it make if I am lying you will simply bill me later.

3) Why must you receive the old phone, I have the SIM card, the old phone is useless.

4) Where did you hone your customer service skills..... Dachau?

I am sorry for that last comment, it was most ungracious and unreasonable.

He replied, I am sorry sir...COMPANY POLICY.

I hung up and fixed myself a beer and a plate of chocolate not knowing whether inebriation or a sugar high would be preferable.  So I did both.

After I simmered awhile and took a short catnap, I called again to the now achingly familiar Customer Service Center to say I felt it unreasonable I should go without phones for two weeks since we have no land line.

Lo and behold Brenda Britt of the Longview, TX service center agreed with me! (Don't you agree there is just something about those Texas women. )

She looked into the matter and discovered dear Bonnie Capman had simply failed to get supervisor approval for the exchange. Within about thirty minutes of holding, my upgrade had been cancelled and received supervisor approval and I could go into any store and upgrade my service to a Luddite phone at the "upgrade price" ! WOW! Thanks Brenda!

So I called the AT&T store in Rogers. Perhaps, under the circumstances,  a bit of whimsy on my part...or possibly a grim fascination with Dante. Seven redials later ("We are sorry we are very busy helping other customers"),  in frustration I called my wife in the Home Office of Wal-Mart to cry and moan a little. She said I'll call Doreen!

Four minutes later I received a call from Doreen. "Your wife called from the Wal-Mart Home office and asked me to call you."  The words "Wal-Mart Home Office" has apparently mystical properties rivaling the Minotaur or Sphinx in inscrutability.

"Doreen, my sweet, will you check to see if the records are cleared so I can get the new phones you showed me earlier today?"

Of course.......no not yet I have spoken with my supervisor and COMPANY POLICY......

I sank into a fit of despair rivaling Van Gogh before the ear cutting. "Why great God in heaven have you abandoned me to this cruel fate?"

Redial Brenda...unbelievable trouble to find the same person in the same call center.

"Yes it has been changed Mr. Middleton as I told you.  The store person didn't check closely enough. We have completely cancelled your upgrade and you are free to go in any store and upgrade to the phone of your choice at upgrade prices."

Once again Brenda, you have exceeded all expectations and marched directly into the halls of Valhalla trailing a scent of..........well, never mind.

Redial my AT&T corporate store....five, six, no seven times. "Hello Doreen my lurking little cherub would you mind checking the records one more time?"

"Of course Mr. Middleton. Oh, here it is! they've cancelled the upgrade! You are free to come in and pick out any phone at upgrade prices."

Terrific, Doreen, my dappled little pudding, how much is the upgrade price for a Pantech Breeze II"

"119.99"

"But that was the retail price without the upgrade,  right?"

"Right they are the same."

You mean I spent all day.........no, no. Surely you jest, mon petit!"

"No sir, there is no discount whether upgrade or not."

"So my Motorola Atrix 4G, which cost $99.95 new or $49.95 refurbished, and texts, goes online, has wifi, internet and bluetooth whatchamacallit, has 34 different ringtones and operates by voice command and has been blessed by the Pope and the internet gurus as "the best damn smart phone out there",with, if I am not mistaken an app that will raise the Confederate flag while whistling "Dixie", is cheaper than this little Pantech Breeze II which is just for making calls? It's $119.99?

"Less rebate which comes to you in the form of a credit card.  And the data plan and text plan...."

"I'm talking about the cost OF THE PHONE, Doreen." I checked with my Non-corporate store here and it is $99.95 less rebate according to Robb Hall who is rarely wrong

"Yes sir.  It is more.  I don't know why."

I don't know why either.  It is now 7:45 at night and I am finished with phones today.  I am going to pull out my SIM card, return my neighbor's phone and if I have a heart attack tonight and cannot raise the ambulance I will come back from the dead, move next door to you at 207 S. Akard St. in Dallas and appear throughout the AT&T corporate offices as a dreadful apparition, hovering over cubicles, rattling chains and moaning viscerally throughout the day.

Since I got what I wanted I have few complaints..........I guess. We will see what happens tomorrow.

I may call customer service again just to have a moment of humor.

Very truly yours,  

John P. Middleton, the phoneless

Who is Christ?

I have written and spoken many times about the vision of Christ that sees him as "Logos" of God. The Greek word "Logos" is literally translated as "word" , but means more in the Greek. It can mean, Avatar, speaker, prophet, teacher and other interpretations. The writer John sees Jesus as "Logos" when he says "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God."

Logos then can be interpreted as meaning the manifestation of god IN HUMAN FORM bringing God's words to all of humankind.  I will use it that way when I use the word "Logos".

Let me first state that to see Jesus as the ONLY bringer of God's word may be the way a conservative Christian might see Him, but I do not share that view.  Here's why. The Buddha brought many great truths in his search for universal compassion.  So does Krishna, or Lao Tze. To avow only Christians have the truth is to say God cannot manifest Himself to others in different ways.  Even if we deny the essential Christian arrogance of that position, simple geographics and demogaphics would tend to deny it. When God appears to a far away culture he would do so in response to that culture, not to some westernized version, don't you think? Otherwise he might be incomprehensible to the listener. Not exactly what "Logos" is all about.

Even Shakespeare, not a clergyman at all, speaks a universal truth when he attests, "this above all to thine own self be true and it must follow as the night the day, though canst not be false to any man."

So God appears to humans primarily through scriptures, through nature, and through the community of diverse believers in many different oral and written traditions. That diversity works in God's favor.  He can make himself known to the greatest number through diversity.

Where then does that place Jesus?  Are we saying Jesus is no different than Krishna? Not at all,  They are very different yet very similar. Even Islamics see Moses as the Law bringer, Jesus as the Love bringer and Muhammed as the Truth bringer. Three manifestations of God in their opinion.

I want to focus on the love aspect of Jesus.  As Love bringer, he brings, in my mind the highest order of awareness and instruction to us. There is no other prophet or Avatar who loves more. It was his single greatest commandment that regardless of what the "Law" said we are to LOVE God and one another and that "ON THESE TWO COMMANDMENTS HANGS ALL THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS. Clearly He is the Love bringer.

When someone brings us Laws or a set of tenets one claims to be true, one abandons love for dogma. That is the exact reason Jesus taught the greatest commandments listed above. Law and dogma can never replace what is in your heart.

I believe God is love.  And so the expression of love made known by Jesus is no doubt God's word in my mind, the "logos".  What other tenet would God propose?  Certainly not Law or a belief structure!

Am I saying one must be a Christian to be saved?  Absolutely not. Christianity is a religion, human made, human driven and human flawed with wars and hatred and dominance in full measure. I am saying one must be spiritual and manifest Love regardless of one's religion I am saying that Jesus TRANSCENDS religion, and is UNIVERSAL as is God.  The Islamic jihadist or the Hindu caste of the untouchable would be unacceptable to the love ethic of the Love Being, or God. But that does not mean one cannot find God through Hinduism or Buddhism, one certainly can, but only through the love ethic of those faiths, not through the war ethic that exists in all religions.

To suggest that Buddha or Gandhi or many others of those eastern faiths were not spiritual and in tune with the Love ethic would be patently wrong. They found spirituality and closeness through God by means of the Love ethic through other faiths.

I am a Christian because I am a westerner. But also because first Century Christianity was about Love, called "The Way" by those people. There is no higher aspiration to my mind than love.  Exactly what Christ taught, and Buddha, I might add.

So who is Christ? The most perfect provider of the Love ethic, the Love bringer, and, as such, a means of salvation. In fact, as Love bringer, the ONLY means of salvation.

What about Christ as something more than Love Bringer or teacher? Isn't He the savior and redeemer, didn't His blood, shed for us, provide us with the means of "salvation"?  I might argue that His incarnation and resurrection were supremely more important than His death, but I have no problem with his bloodshed on our behalf. 

Buddha was the only one who made it through life unscathed. Krishna, Christ and many others were sacrificed at some level. But, lest we begin to worship dogma, let us be careful what we mean when we say Christ "died for us". I believe it was to restore the path to God broken by the Jews continual turning away from God and disinterest in the message of the eighth century prophets. What He restored was the Love relationship with God. The turning of the heart regardless of what was written in the Law. That is what His baptism of the heart is all about, not whether you were dunked or sprinkled, but your personal Damascus road experience, that moment in time when you said, "I get it!  Thank you God!"

Does that mean we never sin again? Surely not!I can personally attest to many days spent "over the line". But spirituality is about relationships as Jesus told us.  Relationships with God and Humans.  We cannot be spiritual when we say "you cannot come to my church or receive communion because........"!

We cannot claim spirituality when we swoon in an aroma therapy class. It is too personal and has no relationship value.  It is all about ME!  How I feel. What's good for me...not spiritual.

Similarly when the Islamic jihadist says, "I feel spiritual when I kill Jews", we need no scripture to tell us that is wrong because it is not about positive loving relationships.

We cannot violate the love ethic and call ourselves spiritual people, the two must go together.

We Christians have bought into a Christian belief structure which clearly violates God's love command on any number of levels. We practice all sorts of unloving tactics. Some allegedly Christian churches say, No women in the pulpit, no gays allowed, or perhaps silently, no Blacks allowed. None of which would please Jesus I would surmise. What possible benefit is it to exclude someone from practicing worship?  What possible benefit to exclude a whole sex from preaching their faith to us?

So we need to think further about this love bringer, this savior who restored a broken relationship with God.  When we claim he is God's son or the second person of the Trinity but only applying to we Christians, we have set up a dichotomy between a single, universal God and a Christian limited Jesus. If God is universal so must be Jesus or he is not LOGOS.

I would argue he is universal through the love ethic. That is his teaching, purpose, prime reason for being, our means of salvation. How we then worship Him becomes a entirely different procedure perhaps than what we are familiar with.

We need to stop thinking of Christ the PERSON and start seeing Him as Christ the Logos.  Love bringer as the means of "saviorness".

His death on the cross is symbolic of the death of the old Law and the birth of the new Love. That is the thing for which He should be worshipped.

Faith and Reason

 "Faith" is not  a substitute for thought.

 All universal truths and all of the universe cannot be understood by the human intellect alone. If we did have understanding  of all conditions it must come somewhere in the future since we clearly do not totally understand truths, or truth, now.  We must assume the human intellect can be expanded beyond what we have available now.

 While I can't attest to that last assumption, I can say, unequivocally,  we do not now have the tools to understand these infinite things.  We must, therefore, have had to ASSUME that, the moon was not made of green cheese before 1969, since we had no direct, or little direct evidence. In other words we accepted on faith that the astronauts wouldn't sink into it.  We may have suspected they wouldn't and we may have observed the moon, but we did not have, or had little, direct empirical evidence until 1969.

 We accept a number of things "on Faith", that the car coming toward us will stay in its lane, that others will stop for a red signal, etc. We simply do not have the power to predict the future. It is unlikely we ever will have. The human genome project is fairly far along, and while new discoveries are being made every day, some things, like the future, teleportation, invisibility seem simply beyond our genetic proclivities.

 There is an element of doubt in the word "Faith".  No one knows about God because no one can know. Attempting to understand the infinite is currently impossible with a finite mind and always will be.

 Science believes there are 11 dimensions at last count. But we only perceive four, even though we can deduce the rest from scientific experiments. We don't KNOW for sure. Electricity, as of this moment, is still a "theory".  We can't yet "prove" how it works.

 I believe in a God not because it explains the unexplainable as the ancients may have believed. Rather I believe in God because it offers us a benign rather than chaotic vision of the universe; a meaningful design and purpose, rather than random events. While science can get us close to the "Big Bang", it cannot explain where those elements that caused the bang came from.  I don't believe there is any conflict between science and God. Conflict with Religion, certainly! That man-made construct is full of human excess, pain and hatred. That is not God. It is a human response to God, badly done. In keeping with my benign vision, something purposeful must exist to start the process. Nothing happens in a vacuum.

 So when I say we must accept the existence of God on "faith" I am simply saying we call this infinite causing form "God".  Does He or It interact with us daily?  Debatable! Does He or It control us physically or mentally, NO!  Does He or it have a purpose for each and every person? Unlikely but debatable. But I think that a world with less randomness is a better explanation than having chaos rule.

Although sometimes I see nothing but chaos. As a colleague said, " I think that apparent “random events” are important to the design of the universe.

 There are various physical constants of the universe that have been measured, the speed of light is just one.  Others include the charge of electrons and protons, the strong nuclear force that hold atoms together, Planck’s constant, and others.  We have empirically measured these constant forces, but there is no explanation for why they are that value, they just are.  If some of these constants were slightly different values then life as we know it would not be possible, even the very nature of the universe would be different.  Certain constant values would have led to a universe that would be much more “chaotic” in nature.  I believe that a higher power “God” had a role in setting up these “random” parameters that make it possible for life to occur in the universe we inhabit.  Empirical proof exists for the values of universal physical constants, but it is a matter of faith as to why they exist (is it totally random or purposeful).

 There is a counter argument of sorts.  It takes life and a certain level of intelligence to even have this conversation we are having.  Therefore the physical constants of the universe would have to fall within certain ranges, before you and I could even contemplate the idea of faith and God. There are scientific theories that indicate that an almost infinite number of universes may exist (random).  Perhaps only a very small fraction of infinity allows for universes where God can be contemplated as a moving force of the universe (ordered existence).  A small fraction of infinity is still infinite, but be careful if you find a way to jump from one universe to the next.  You would probably cease to exist upon arrival."

 There is the possibility of Spinoza's God whom Einstein believed in. A Non-Theistic God, who had no "person" but was the forces of the universe somewhat like Luke Skywalker's  "force" but less specific. It can be said of Spinoza's God that "the universe IS God.  Heaven is not in the equation, but rather a sort of Buddhist spirit merging with said universe upon death. This claim can be said to be an extension of science's claim that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only altered.

As a friend once said,  "Can matter be destroyed? Yes. If you want proof, come round to my house and try my wife's cooking."

Finally, although Einstein spent a lifetime and failed to find a "unified field theory", or purpose, we can't prove it doesn't exist anymore than we can prove it does. If the universe is random, how do I explain what makes me feel good about myself when I do a good deed that society, the humanists, know nothing about? It can't be social because I did it alone, but I feel good! How about the sense that  goodness has attributes beyond empirical measure? The similar near death experience of the dying, so similar despite differences in age, ethnicity, background.  No I can't prove God exists any more than you can prove he does not, but we a better with Him than without.

Prof. John P. Middleton