Shouldn't the automatic payment be AUTOMATIC?

Okay. Two things that made me angry TODAY and AT THE SAME TIME!

Here in the US they also have the automatic debt payment. You can put your utilities, internet and cable TV provider, telephone (including mobiles), credit cards bills and even your rental to be paid automatically via checking account (or even via credit card sometimes).

• AT&T Wireless Prepaid Cell Phone Automatic-refill

When I was in Brazil, I had a prepaid cell phone and sometimes I forgot to put credits on it and my wife always complained about that because she was unable to reach me. Fair enough.

Here in the US I have a prepaid cell phone and AT&T provides the Automatic-Refill service. You can choose some options at the Automatic-Refill service like "once in a week", "twice in a week", "once in a month", "twice in a month" and "when you run out of minutes". And then you can choose how much credit you want varying from US$15.00 to US$100.00 (note: US$15.00 expires in 30 days and US$20.00 expires in 90 days).

As I am scarcely using the cell phone (less than US$75.00 in 6 months, i.e. less than US$13.00/month!!!), I thought that it would be nice to have added US$20.00 whenever I run out of minutes and so I subscribed to it.

Then today my credits ran down to US$0.14 and with such credit I can't place nor receive any call. Fair enough. However the US$0.14 can be used DURING a conversation, so for AT&T I still have minutes to talk and because of that they didn't refilled my credits automatically! This is a CATCH 22 because I am not able to place or receive ANY call with US$0.14!!

After realizing that, I just canceled my subscription to that service and refilled the credits by myself.

• RCN (Internet and Cable TV provider) Automatic Bill Payment

Because of this issue, I went online to check the NSTAR utility and RCN bills. NSTAR was fine, being debted accordingly. When I was checking RCN, I have realized that they were billing me more than twice the usual. And it comes that the automatic payment didn't happen last month!!! You see, there was one previous automatic payment for April and it was done correctly. But the automatic payment for May just didn't happen!!!

Now I have sent an e-mail to the Customer Services in order to check what happened and probably I shall make the payment manually every month in order to be sure that such thing doesn't happen again.

For goodness sake, this is not a Third-World country!!! Things should be easier here in the US...

Those things really make me angry...

They forward your credit card data to a scammer

Scammers really makes me angry. OK, maybe scams are not a 'little thing', but they deserve to be mentioned once they really make me angry.

When I checked my credit card transactions history some days ago I noticed a strange US$12.00 (twelve dollars) debt related to some "Complete Savings" company.

While researching through the Web, I discovered that such amount was charged by this "Complete Savings" website. I remember to have subscribed myself to that site after having acquired something via Internet at some web store. At the end of the transaction you were ALLOWED to subscribe to such website in order to receive some small discount coupons. Since the "Customer Savings" stuff was linked directly to the 'reliable' web store so I thought it was OK to register my e-mail to receive some information about discounts and also to collect points somewhere to exchange for some discount coupons.

Until then, the site didn't mention any fees once it was related to some purchase at 'reliable' store. That is the catch. It IS NOT FREE!!! All the charge information is written in the almost-infinite-with-small-letters TOS (Term of Service).

The problem is that I DIDN'T PROVIDE my credit card number to "Complete Savings" website! This means that someone DID FORWARD those info to them.

There are many complaints regarding this issue at this site, and it seems that this scam cannot be controlled by the 'reliable' web sites once the page is generated automatically.

This really makes me angry...

The switching lanes issue

There is always something about changing lanes.

My small experience here in the Greater Boston Area shows me that changing lanes are quite rare. In this region they only change lanes when extremely necessary and in most of the cases they do the appropriate signaling. And when they do not make the signaling, they try to ensure that they are making a safe move. Maybe this behavior is imposed by the winter times, i.e., the snow and roads slippery condition. And driving here really makes me feel comfortable.

Back in Brazil, mainly in highways you always witness some car sliding all of a sudden from one lane to another, barely avoiding the other cars that surround it. The driver simply decide to put his car in front of yours and push it against your car. This is one of the switching lanes issue that makes me angry: not signaling appropriately and creating hazardous conditions for other people.

Another issue regarding changing lanes occurs when I want to make the move and some 'motoboy' (it is the modern version of the old office boy or delivery boy who now uses a motorcycle as transportation) begins to desperately push the button of his motorcycle buzzer.

Those 'motoboys' are like an horde of barbarians riding between lanes in São Paulo city. Yes, you read it right: I said they ride BETWEEN LANES right on the lane strips, zigzaging between the cars mirrors. They don't respect anything and they always think that they are always right. And if you try to change lanes, no matter how far ahead you are from them, they will begin to buzz just trying to avoid you to change lanes.

Are You Trying to Fool Me?

Okay, there's been a long, long time since my last post. I am sorry, I have been a little bit lazy lately. But now I am a couple of days out of the office and thought it would be a good idea to drop a few lines to LTTMMA.

This time, I remembered how much people trying to make me a fool annoys me. Unfortunately, seems to me that this happens everywhere and from all kinds of people and corporations. They whether think we are all stupid or they are stupid themselves to imagine that no one would be able to identify that they are trying to fool everybody.

"Man, what are you talking about?" you would ask. Okay, I can think of some examples, as I always do, to explain what lies inside my sick brain. They are all examples from recent experiences and are all related to large corporations. But I am sure you readers will be able to connect them to your own experiences and to some individuals' actions as well.

Toothpaste - The first situation I can remember is the famous toothpaste tube case. I was told this story a couple of years ago and tried to find some references on the Interweb but wasn't able to find many. I am sorry. Well, to make a long story short, this major toothpaste manufacturer was experiencing a severe drop on toothpaste sales figures on the post-war period [citation needed]. Their ingenuous solution was to increase the diameter of the toothpaste tube outlet, hoping that their customers would still cover the length of the toothbrush with paste, therefore consuming more, unaware of the less-than-orthodox strategies of the manufacturer. Unfortunately or not, it seems to have worked.

TP (1) - Toilet paper is probably the heaven for unethical companies to try to fool their loyal customers, due to the many variables involved in the price model of this kind of good (texture, length, width, weight, etc.). First, there was the Scott versus Neve controversy here in Brazil. Both are Kimberly-Clark toilet paper brands here in Brazil and they seem [unverified] to have the same qualities. When Scott was first released, it was supposedly a less expensive option when compared to Neve. However, rolls of Neve always had 40m of TP and Scott was released with just a 20m roll option. As you may already figured out, it was not half of the price. There is a law here that will force the manufacturer to clearly state changes on the quantity on the packaging of an already-marketed product. That was not the case for new products and KC may have used that to release Scott.

TP (2) - On the other side of the spectrum, the Mirafiori toilet paper brand, made by Manikraft, had its length increased from 40m to 50m but the price didn't jump up 25%. Interesting, isn't it? Packaging costs? Tube costs? Don't think so. I actually weighted the old, 40m version and the new, 50m Mirafiori, just to find out that the new one weights almost the same as the old one (to be fair, it weights 5-10% more). Width was the same (it is regulated), but the weight of the paper was considerably reduced and you could literally feel it. Of course, they put a huge "NOW WITH 50 METERS" note on the packaging.

Voting Machine - As you may already know, I work for a large company here in Brazil. Our cafeteria is HUGE and they serve thousands of meals everyday. The cafeteria is outsourced and this French group, Sodexo is the responsible for the restaurant. Food isn't great, but this is not relevant for today's story. As part of their Service Level check, Sodexo installed an electronic voting booth on the way out of the cafeteria with the question: "How was the food today?". Great, isn't it? When I got this job, back in 2000, the voting machine was already there and it had three simple options:

BAD

FAIR

GOOD

Well, a few years later, they realized that the results were not that great and probably hired consultants to tell them how could they get better results from the voting machine, without spending much money making better food. As you could expect from good consultants, the solution was brilliant and highly effective. They added a fourth button to the voting machine, to make it look like this:

BAD

FAIR

GOOD

EXCELLENT

Why would they add the "AWFUL" button if they could add the "EXCELLENT" option and also increase their chances of getting better results? Well, that forced me to always vote on the "BAD" option, regardless of the food quality. I was still being honest I'd say 85% of the time though. And it stayed like that until the beginning of this year, when the machine was replaced by a fancy computer with a touch screen with the fifth option, "AWFUL", added. I could vote honestly again, at last! I don't really know why, but it lasted not more than a couple of months until the equipment was labeled "UNDER MAINTENANCE" and came back with the fifth "AWFUL" option removed. Now we have a fancy touch screen computer with just the "BAD", "FAIR", "GOOD" and "EXCELLENT" options again. You know what button I am pushing now.

Keep safe distance

This is a flag raised by KaDeuber in her comments and I think this subject can be explored in one post here in LTTMMA.

Keeping safe distance is applicable in two major circumstances as far as I can see:

1. Amongst vehicles;
2. Among people.

Amongst vehicles

The Brazilian and the American versions of the driver's manual both contain the advice for keeping safe distance from the vehicles that surround you.

I keep safe distance from the vehicle ahead, but somehow, as KaDeuber mentioned, there is always a specific kind of driver who thinks that I am too slow to catch up with the traffic flow and insists to use that "empty" space, forcing me to step on the brakes. This kind of driver does NOT realize what "safe distance" means.

I personally follow the simple count-to-three-mississipi rule. I look to the vehicle that is in front of mine, spot a fixed reference in the road (a pole, one particular lane strip, some guard-rail, whatever) and count: one-mississippi-two-mississippi-three-mississippi. When I stop counting I must be at most right at the previously spotted fixed reference. If I have already passed by the reference when I finished counting, this means that the distance between my car and the vehicle in front of mine is not safe.

The timing rule is good because it takes into account the velocity you are developing. The velocity is calculated by dividing the variation of distance and the time spent. So, keeping the time constant (three-mississippi), the faster you are going, the farther you will be from the vehicle ahead, then you will have more space to maneuver your car if something happens.

E.g.: if you are driving at 20 mph (about 32 km/h), using the two-mississippi rule you will be about 59 ft (~18 m) of distance away from the other car; using the three-mississippi rule you will be 88 ft (~27 m) from the other car. Check the Table I below:

Velocity	two-mississippi	three-mississippi
20 mph (~32 km/h)	59 ft (~18 m)	88 ft (~27 m)
50 mph (~80 km/h)	147 ft (~45 m)	220 ft (~67 m)
80 mph (~128 km/h)	235 ft (~72 m)	350 ft (~107 m)

Table I: Distances between vehicles according to velocity, assuming that both vehicles are at the same speed.

So, for the drivers who think that there is an "empty" space between my car and the vehicle ahead, please be aware that there is no such thing as an "empty" space. That is a virtually occupied space for REAL safety reasons.

Among people

There are some annoying people that do not know that there is an invisible social delimited boundary between two individuals that are talking to each other. This kind of person can be called a close-talker according to The Seinfeld Dictionary. This site mentions an episode of Seinfeld where Jerry says: “Conversational distance, don’t you hate these people that talk to you, they talk into your mouth like you’re a clown at a drive-through”. Simply hilarious and truthfully, this Little Thing Makes Me Angry.

Here in the US, I have received some Webinar instruction regarding Business Etiquette that was included in the relocation package. The "close talker" problem must be so serious that the Webinar instructs you that you shall be at least 2-feet away from the other person in order to have a conversation.

So, for the "close talker" kind of people please, keep safe distance!