This last week has been a difficult one to say the least. The good news is that I'm over my cold, and the subsequent sinus infection I got as a result. The bad news is that I've become what I hate the most. An activist.
Now I'm all for supporting a cause, but it's the lunatics that make once proud organizations like PETA and Greenpeace the butt of the jokes on late night talk shows. People who go too far in their quest to support the organization they love. Now I haven't rammed an oil tanker with my 25 foot speed boat, and I haven't poured red paint on a fashion model wearing a fur coat, but I did the one thing that I hate, the one thing that makes me want to walk up and slap the person doing it, I got angry and vented my frustration on a customer service representative.
Now, you may or may not have noticed the weird things happening on the website lately. Well I tried to upload Caity's new journal on Saturday night, and Shaw was experiencing trouble at the same time. My first attempt timed out after only 10 seconds, same with the next one and the next one. The last error message I received was that I was not allowed to upload any more because I had reached my storage limit. That makes perfect sense of course because I have so many different kinds of graphics and fancy content on this site, I must have reached my 70 Meg limit (despite the fact that my entire web backup file is only about 2 MEG). Anyway, I followed Caity's advice and slept on it, and in the morning I tried again. I got the same storage limit problem and decided to call Shaw (long distance from Canmore) to talk to a tech guy about my problem. The first guy I talked to basically told me that it was all my fault and that I should really learn how to set up a web page properly. I finally talked to a second guy who looked at my file and proclaimed that I had screwed things up by uploading 7-8 main pages. To make a long story short, every time the server timed me out it left a partial copy of my webpage on my server. When I spoke to the third tech guy, he actually listened to my story of the frequent time outs and declared with some amazement that I did indeed have 7-8 main pages along with duplicate copies of most of my other files. With his help I erased the entire thing and uploaded everything from scratch again.
Everything looked fine at first, but then pictures would disappear, my journal could not be found and my main page went missing despite a fourth tech guy stating in that slightly arrogant tone that my main page was in fact there, and there was no way that I was having the problems I was talking about. Anyway, it finally looks like whatever was wrong with the Shaw server is fixed now, but I'm still left with the memory of my behavior towards the Shaw tech support. Now, some of them were a bit snotty and rude, but for the most part they tried to help. Many of you don't know this but I sent a good chunk of my university life working as a customer service person for a grocery store in Guelph. I've had people try to return an Easter Turkey in June after they forgot it in the trunk of their car for two months. I had an elderly gentleman throw a can of baked beans at my head because they were 30 cents more expensive then he REMEMBERED them being priced on the shelf (he was wrong by the way). I've had people swear, spit, and call me names and I actually had one person promise to wait for me outside the store so he could kick the crap out of me. Just for the record, I was always polite, and did my best to help the customer. I actually won two customer service awards for my efforts, so I wasn't the typical "no service" customer service person you frequently meet in life today. Usually the customer service person gets stuck with all the frustrations and anger that have built up in the customer before the customer even gets within bean can throwing distance of the service desk. It was after I got promoted from that position that I promised to be nice to all the customer service people I encountered. Despite all of my frustrations as a customer, I promised myself that I would never take it out on someone who was there to help me.
Well, I stepped over that line and I feel like crap about it. I became an activist over the weekend, and I couldn't figure out why the Shaw people couldn't understand why my website was so important. After only six hours of the problem with my webpage started, I wrote an angry email stating that I would go to the president of the company if the problem wasn't fixed ASAP. I think that I forgotten somewhere along the line that not too many people care about Leukemia. Let's be honest, there are a lot of worthwhile causes that I simply don't give a second thought to because it doesn't affect my life. I can't turn down a cancer related charity despite my best efforts, but I routinely shoot down door-to-door canvassers for the CNIB and the Multiple Sclerosis society because I just don't have any passion for their causes. I don't think that's a bad thing because I would most certainly be broke if I gave a 20 to every person who knocked on my door or phoned me during dinnertime. People choose to support charities that have affected them in a personal way, and I, unfortunately got stuck with a cancer that few people care about. Admit it, when was the last time you did a 5k run for Leukemia. And that's ok to me because more than likely you know more people with breast cancer and that's why they can successfully get such an amazing turnout when they hold a charity run.
I was an activist over the weekend. I was one of those annoying people who can't talk or think or do anything that doesn't involve their charity. I was one of those fired up angry university kids you see on the evening news getting pepper sprayed by the police for getting carried away. The truth is that I've never been passionate about fighting anything in my life more than I want to fight Leukemia. I'm blown away how emotional I can get when the subject of cancer comes up, and I think I need to learn to control myself a bit more or else no body will ever take me seriously. There needs to be more in my life than a fight against cancer, if I'm going to be of any use to anyone.
So just to set the record straight, I sent another email to SHAW, apologizing for my behavior and asking for their forgiveness. I didn't treat them nearly as bad as some people I know treat customer service people (you know who you are!!!!!) but I crossed the line that I had set for myself so that's all that matters to me. I hope that the person I talk to at Shaw regarding donating web space isn't a tech support guy, because I'm shit out of luck if that's the case. Caity and I have a new code word that will let Caity tell me when I'm being an asshole about my fight against cancer, and some of you would really laugh if you knew what it was. If you knew however, it wouldn't really be a code word now would it?
On a side note, in my attempts to get information about support groups from the Canadian Cancer society, I stumbled across a program called CancerConnections which links up survivors with newly diagnosed patients in the same area. If I am accepted, my name will be given to newly diagnosed Leukemia patients in order for them to get one on one help and support from someone who knows what their going through. I can't start until November since you have to be one year post treatment in order to volunteer, but the person I've contacted is willing to do all the prep work and training so that as soon as November 10th comes along, I'll be ready to help.
One last note about my wife's journal. It's a good read for anyone who's watched or is watching a loved one go through what I have, and it has a perspective into the fight against cancer that I simply cannot provide. She's watched it all go down, and most likely remembers more of it than I do. She's only going to write once and a while, but I'll always make note of any new entries on her part at the top of the main page. I'm glad she's writing, because it's amazing how differently we see the last 2 years of our lives. I honestly was not aware of most of her feelings because she was protecting me, but she's had just as tough of a fight as I've had (maybe more) and I'm even less sure I could have done what she's done. She doesn't like to be called strong, but I'm lacking a better word for how I would describe her.
Anyway, that's about it for me today. Off to play some Texas holdem' on PartyPoker.com. I only use fake money, but it's still a lot of fun. Besides, Caity won't let me watch it on TV. She can't understand why a grown man would want to watch other poorly dressed grown men play poker on TV. I can't say I understand it either, but there's got to be a reason why it's the most watched "sport" on TV these days. There's something very exciting about watching a guy push all of his chips into the pot when you're sitting on the other side of the table with pocket kings. If my success at poker keeps up, I might consider entering a tourney here or there. Just for fun of course.
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