Nothing’s simple any more. You hear it said. So do I. You might, in fact, have heard it from me. I’m usually saying it. People of the jury, I present as my evidence, well, just about every aspect of modern life.
It doesn’t matter what you go to buy, or to eat, or to watch in a theatre. Saturday, at one of these big movieplexes, a friend and I stood gawking for 15 minutes before the popcorn stand, weighing all the various options and packages priced for value. Bargain hunters from way back, we took our time and came up with what we think, but still aren’t sure, was the best buy.
Has anyone’s life improved as a result of having all this variety pumped into it? I don’t know. I do know that simplicity is as quaint a notion as table manners, modesty and diplomacy.
Witness my main piece of evidence. When I was a kid on the farm in the 1830s, our black and white TV got three channels. We picked up the broadcast signals from these local stations by way of a space-station-looking aerial on the roof of the house which we controlled by an electric “rotor” in our living room. Amazing science.
Today, in the city, of course, my TV-watching options are much more varied although my family and I have not signed up for all the channels money can buy. For 22 years, I have had a pretty good arrangement with my cable company. They’ve run a wire into my house, I’ve plugged it into my TV, they send me a bill for this luxury every month, and I pay it. Every year they send me a letter saying, sorry, but we have to charge you more for your service. I pay it. I don’t see any other cable companies banging on my door, so I have no choice.
Now, in my feeble mind, the simplicity of the relationship between me and my cable company goes like this: If I don’t pay, they take the wire away. Not hard to understand.
But this week, I received in the mail an “Important Notice of Changes” to my cable service. “As part of our ongoing effort to improve customer service, we have simplified the terms applicable to our various services.” I opened the document and it fell out before me like a scroll Julius Caesar might have read from. On that parchment are typed 5,493 words (I did a computer word count) defining the new relationship between my cable company and me.
Somewhere, a lawyer is basking in the south sea sun at a beautiful resort paid for with the money he or she charged my cable company to write to me with all these simplified terms.
There are 52 sections in the document and most of them seem to more or less define what awful things will happen to me if I don’t live up to the agreement.
Okay, here’s a little nugget: “We may assign or transfer the Service Agreement or any of our rights or obligations hereunder without your consent. The provisions of Sections 8, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 and any other provisions of these terms which by their meaning are intended to survive termination. These Terms have been drawn up in the English language at the express request of the parties.”
I am baffled as I believe I am a party and I don’t remember expressly requesting this, or anything else, with the possible exception of being left alone.
Here is the most I can put together from all I’ve read so far. If I don’t pay them, they’ll take the wire away.
If I was writing the Simplified Terms, I’d reduce the 5,493 words to about 12: If you don’t pay your bill, you will lose your cable signal.
Words a TV-addicted couch potato like me can understand.
Expressly.
©2007 Jim Hagarty
