It is almost impossible to believe that 90 per cent of Canadians use a smart phone. That figure must come from Bell, Rogers, Telus and Vidéotron. Those companies have been ripping off Canadians for years—cheerfully aided by the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). We have been paying too much, too long and to greedy, profiteering companies.
This assumption that we all have access to an App such as the Canadian government’s ArriveCan is not only fallacious but insulting. I used to laugh at my oldest brother who, in his nineties, would sometimes have his nose buried in his smart phone. It amused him. He could afford it. He used it as though it was a toy. When it came to keeping in touch, we chatted on his landline.
When Ontario mandated that we all have proof of vaccination to enter restaurants and other venues, we were allowed to use paper copies of the QR codes as well as the smart phone app. I still have an envelope in the car with the paper copies.
I do not have a smart phone. I spent more than an hour on the telephone recently trying to convince a bureaucratic call centre person that he could not send me a text on my cell phone. The company had not only changed my password to my account but had added an extra layer of what they called security. It seems somebody had told this person that all cell phones can receive texts. Not mine. I told my grandsons years ago that my cell phone was a no-text zone. It is for out-going voice-calls only. If you want to leave me a message, you have to call my landline. And that is voice mail only. E-mails go to my computer and I will look at them, at my leisure.
The only way I found to handle the bureaucratic call-centre person was after an hour of trying to restrain myself, I told him there seemed to be no app for stupid. I added that since the call was being recorded, to have his manager listen to it. I told him any other solution might involve lawyers.
I was not too surprised by a flurry of e-mails from the company that the problem had been solved.
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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry
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