Phone Addiction

flower4

I made a comment on Ask A Manager a while back.. Part of my comment said –

My thought is – pick up the phone and call to schedule interviews….If you suffer from call reluctance or lost your tongue to a cat, at the very least, TEXT these people.

I had ticked subscribe to comments when I posted so I knew I would receive any replies.. I certainly did not expect very many.. And I went to bed because it was bedtime.

The next morning, I was somewhat shocked to receive a large number of replies and the majority of people were saying they would never text someone to schedule an interview. As the conversation went on, I became aware of a large gap between how Australia does things and how America does things which was deeply surprising to me.

I think I have managed to identify some of the reasons for this gap thanks to the discussion.

Firstly, you can easily tell in Australia if someone gives you a mobile number. The prefix will always be 04XX. In the US, they cannot tell – mobile and cell numbers look identical.

Secondly, it appears that some US plans charge people to receive SMS – I get free unlimited text with my phone plan and I have never heard of anyone being charged to *receive* an SMS here, though I know people sometimes get charged higher SMS fees for sending them to competitions.

Thirdly, it seems from the replies I received that not everyone in the US has a smart phone and many people are still using older style phones. Here in Australia out of all the people I know, maybe two of them have older non smart-phones. It is easy to update your phone here without having to pay any up front fees, you just go on a contract for 12 or 24 months.

Fourthly, some employers in Australia are using SMS to communicate with their employees. There is a system called MessageNet which allows employers to easily set up rostering, sms groups and reminders.

This concept seems complicated so I will give you an actual example – let us say the local Mcdonalds wants to let all their employees know when a shift becomes available. In the old days, a staff member would have to call every staff member and let them know, and ask them if they wanted to work the shift. They would have to leave voicemails if someone did not answer. If you have 60+ casual staff members, calling all of them can be time consuming.

With MessageNet, you can easily and quickly send one SMS to all your staff, saying “Shift available 12/4/15 from 4pm to 10pm call X number to claim this shift” – and within minutes of sending that SMS, it is likely a staff member will call in and claim it. The other possible business uses for SMS are enormous and potentially save time, money, and hassle.

And finally, SMS confirmation has become a big thing in Australia. It started out mostly with banks and online transactions sending confirmation codes to your mobile, but it has not ended there.

I now get many appointment confirmations via SMS. My hairdresser, my doctor, my psychologist, my employment agency.. all of them will send me an SMS on the day before my appointment. I have to reply with Yes to confirm my appointment. This is actually brilliant and something I encourage greatly. I am certain this has cut down hugely on missed appointments and helps businesses to reschedule when someone has to cancel.

I track my prescription medications via a phone app that my pharmacy uses. I find most pharmacies now have one of these apps. Not only does it alert me when I have 7 days left of medicine, but within the app, you can set up a daily reminder to take it.

These days, I even order our pizza via a phone app. Our local wood fired place has an app of their very own, and it is brilliant. I can even order salad at a local healthy food place via an app.

I Am Not A Slave To My Phone –

But even with all these awesome apps and sms notifications, I am *determined* not to be constantly tied to my smart phone. How does one manage this? I try to keep some degrees of separation. Here’s how I roll –

– I don’t use my phone in the car when I am driving. EVER. It only takes a few seconds and you’re dead or you’ve killed someone else. If you do use your phone in the car, please, I am begging you, STOP doing that.

– I don’t have apps like Facebook or Twitter or Instagram installed. I did have Facebook once but I uninstalled it when they updated their messenger app so it would put peoples profile photos on my phone desktop, which was downright spooky and a bridge too far for me.

– I don’t have a lot of games installed on my Samsung Galaxy. I still have my iPhone and that contains my phone games – but that phone does not have a sim card. I find it useful to have degrees of separation between games and phone – this is very awesome for me.

– My phone does not go to my bedroom. It has a home and a charging station next to my recliner. This gives me sleep time free from buzzing and phone noise. It also means when I wake up, I get me time instead of phone time.

– I have a block on my phone between 10:30pm and 8am which turns all noise on my phone to silent without vibration, so there is no way I can hear any phone noises or buzzing from the bedroom.

– I have a camera ability on my phone, but I also have a cute little Panasonic Lumix which I use for photography, so I can keep photography and my phone separated when I want to.

– I deliberately do not have every email account I use hooked up to my phone. I select which email accounts I want to be able to reach me if I am out and about and I can turn them on and off easily.

– The Other Half and I use an app called Kakao Talk to communicate with each other for free. There are other apps you can use for this, too. The major benefit for me is this – messages from him have a very specific tone alert so I know when he is messaging me.

Toxic Relationships

It does worry me that some phone-using people – in particular younger generations of people – seem to be heading down a potentially not great path into a toxic relationship with their smartphone and in some cases their tablet. I’ve been to restaurants where people are sitting there doing stuff on their phones instead of being in the moment with each other. I’ve been to movies where people cannot resist the pull of the phone.

Nev Schulman from Catfish wrote an article on this subject – The Reasons Why Your Cell Phone Is Slowly Killing You. Of most concern to me is the new generation of hunchbacks we are creating.

I also saw this article –Trying to Live in the Moment (and Not on the Phone) – after reading it, I decided to install the app Checky. It turns out that I check my phone on average 15-20 times a day. At least 2-5 of those will be replying to messages from The Other Half. One of those will be turning off my medication alarm.

Live In The Moment

I was already thinking about living in the moment for a few different reasons –

– seeing so many photos of the 747-400 coming in to land at Illawarra Airport where almost everyone there has a phone they are holding up, taking either still images or video.

– seeing people at various events using their phones to capture moments which they would never bother to get an actual camera out for.

– seeing people using phones in social situations like restaurants and cinemas.

How do you handle your smart-phone usage?

Aussie Culture, internet, life lessons, things to remember, Worried Snoskred

Some Days..

birds

Every morning, the first email account I check is the one associated with my Contact page. And this morning, among the regular multitude of I am being scammed what do I do now emails, I was presented with a doozy of an email.. It went like this –

I was lured into this Rockstar money scam, they sent me two checks for $2,300 each and I cashed the checks, I did not deposit them, they then asked to send 1,900 through money gram and I did and now I don’t know what to do! I’m scared! My parents will kill me when they find out! I’m only 16!

I replied right away asking the person to contact Moneygram and see if the money has been collected yet – if it has not, they can cancel the transfer and then they could potentially get the money back.

However, anyone who has watched some Judge Judy in their lifetime knows that a minor cannot enter into a contract. So in order to be able to advise this person I really need more info, eg how did they cash the checks, and how did they send the money via moneygram?

In any case, this young person is going to have to tell their parents. As difficult as that might seem, the parents are actually the people best placed to assist – they will likely have knowledge of the local laws and will know who to speak to in order to try and sort all this out.

Their child has been scammed, and they will be likely to react as a lion does, roaring and on the attack – not towards the child but towards the people who have scammed their child, and also the people who have assisted the scammers in this instance – the check cashing place, and the Moneygram office which allowed a minor to send money.

I do not know how a check cashing place cashes a check when being shown the ID of a person under 18. When they cashed the check their details would have been noted and/or their ID was photocopied. The check cashing place will be the first to find out the check is fraudulent and will probably involve the police, which is something both the young person and the parents will want to avoid.

So my best advice to this young person is to talk to their parents ASAP. Then let the parents take over – the parents may wish to seek legal advice regarding the best way to handle this situation. If the parents make good the money to the check cashing place or come to some kind of settlement with them, it may be possible to avoid the police being involved.

The Rockstar scam is an example of the Car Wrap scam – where the scammers want people to wrap their vehicles in advertising. I’m presently involved in scam baiting one of these scammers who had the hide to post their scam on a local community group that I am a member of. I’m going to post the initial email here in case anyone else is being scammed by these people –

Hello,

Wrap advertising is the marketing practice of completely or partially covering (wrapping) a vehicle in an advertisement or livery, thus turning it into a mobile billboard. This can be achieved by simply painting the vehicle surface, but it is becoming more common today to use large vinyl sheets as decals. These can be removed with relative ease, making it much less expensive to change from one advertisement to another. Vehicles with large, flat surfaces, such as buses and light-rail carriages, are fairly easy to work with, though smaller cars with curved surfaces can also be wrapped in this manner. Wrap advertising is available to anybody irrespective of the vehicle you drive.

We are currently seeking to employ individuals in the United States of America. How would you like to make money by simply driving your car or banner wrapped for PepsiCo. Drink®

How it works?
Here’s the basic premise of the “paid to drive” concept: PepsiCo. Drink® seek residents in the United States who are professional drivers to go about their normal routine as they usually do, only with a big advert for “PepsiCo. Drink®” plastered on your car. The ads are typically vinyl decals, also known as “auto wraps,”that almost seem to be painted on the vehicle, and which will cover any portion of your car’s exterior surface.

Don’t Have a Car?
If you don’t have a car, you can also participate if you have a bike.

What does the company get out of this type of ad strategy?
Lots of exposure and awareness. The auto wraps tend to be colorful, eye-catching and attract lots of attention. Plus, it’s a form of advertising with a captive audience,meaning people who are stuck in traffic can’t avoid seeing the wrapped car alongside them. This program will last for 3 months and the minimum you can participate is a month.

What is the Contract Duration?
Once the wrap has been installed, minimum term is 4 weeks and maximum is 12 weeks.

Would the wrap/decal damage the paint of my car?
The decal doesn’t damage the paint of car and will be removed by our representative once the contract expire. We will be responsible for installation and removal of the wrap.

You will be compensated with $300.00 per week which is essentially a “rental”payment for letting our company use the space and no fee is required from you. PepsiCo. Drink® shall provide experts that would handle the advert placing on your car. You will receive an upfront payment of $300.00 in form of a check via courier service for accepting to carry this advert on your car.

It is very easy and simple no application fees required. Get back with the following details if you are interested in this offer.

Applicant information:
Name :
Full Street Address(not PO BOX) :
APT #:
City,State,Zip Code:
Cell Phone Number:
Home Phone Number:
Age:

We shall be contacting you as soon as we receive this information.

Best Regards,
Roger Smith
Hiring Manager,
PepsiCo®
pepsi6973@gmail.com

A quick note of apology to my regular readers – my apologies for the recent postings in regards to scams. I know these may be somewhat boring to read.

These particular scams are huge at the moment and each and every day, hundreds of people find my website by searching for text contained in these emails or by searching for email addresses, names and contact numbers used by these scammers. For example, if you search on Google for one of the companies I posted about recently, this is what you get –

manheimy

This is super awesome because it means anyone searching for that company will know it is a scam once they click through and read my post about it.

Many people view just that one page which gave them the search result, and then vanish without commenting or contacting me. So if you got here searching for Pepsico, please do not leave without contacting me or commenting below. You are not alone in being scammed, so let the others arriving here know they are not alone, too.

Internet Safety, job scams, scam victims are not stupid, scams, Worried Snoskred

Believe Them.

sunrise

I have always been someone who says “three strikes and you’re out” – as in, if people cause a major issue or cross boundaries I have set, I have allowed them two more chances before I write them off forever – that means I “defriend” them and have nothing more to do with them..

Looking back across my 39 years, any time I have given someone a first chance, they have taken that second and third chance and if I have given them the opportunity, a fourth and fifth chance! Then I have had to remove them from my life, sometimes having to make difficult changes in my life in order to do this.

Sometimes the time between the first and third occasions can be a matter of years, which makes the “defriend” -ing difficult.

So, why on earth am I giving people a second and third chance? It has been my experience that the first chance tells me everything I need to know about what their future behaviour will be. Why put myself through the turmoil?

I now believe I have to rethink my three strikes policy, going forward. I think I have to change it to a “when people show you who they are, believe them” policy.

Does that mean in future I should stop at one chance?

I think what it really means is – one strike and I am very wary, two strikes, we’re done.

I’m just thinking about this in preparation for going back to school because I will meet new people there and I want to give them a decent opportunity to show me who they are. When they do, I intend to believe them the first time.

About Snoskred, Annoyed Snoskred, life lessons, Who Is Snoskred, Worried Snoskred

Testing Was A Fail

posterity

A screenshot, for posterity.. :)

To those who were having issues – some could not see the password box, and some could see that and get the post but then the comments did not appear.. Twas not you, twas the theme.

Cue, working on a new theme. The site will go into maintenance mode for a little bit. The other half and I will work like crazed.. well, I’m not sure what but I know it will involve THE CRAZY here.

I am quite terrified given how horrendous it was to create the first theme. Then again, we know so much more about html and themes etc than we did back then. Plus, I really am not difficult to please. I want to take some of my favourite elements here, ad put them into a new design.

I’ll give you a headsup once we’re back online and fingers crossed, with a spiffy looking new theme. :)

If nobody hears from us for 24 hours, send help. And donuts. :)

Annoyed Snoskred, blog design, blog housekeeping, moving forward, Worried Snoskred