Sunday, May 20, 2012

Consume More!

There's a commercial that's currently playing on Hulu that epitomizes pretty much everything that is wrong with the world today. It's a cell phone ad that brags about how long the battery life is by showing two boys in a tent with their dad, watching videos on the phone. Isn't it great? They can sit inside the tent in the woods and watch a four inch screen all day and the battery will last that long!

It makes me want to throw things.

Ironically, I work for the company that funds that ad. Even worse, I am now getting that exact phone because they've come up with some idiotic rule that says everyone needs to have carry a company phone at all times and that company phone number needs to be listed in the email directory that every employee has access to.

That seems a little bit like... oh, say, being on-call 24-7. And we've already established that I'm not an on-call sort of person. I don't work in support. There is absolutely no reason for anyone to have my phone number aside from my boss and friends and family. I don't answer my phone unless I recognize the number, and I sure as heck don't carry my phone with me all the time. And guess what? The world doesn't end when I walk the dogs without my phone. I don't need to be able to look up things online when I'm not in front of a computer. I'd rather just be in the place where I am at the moment.

So basically some poor kid in China is being abused so that more of the earth's resources can be used to create a phone that I don't need, don't want, and don't intend to do anything with other than turn off and put it in a locked drawer somewhere so that it doesn't get stolen.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Idiots.

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