richsanfilippo’s blog

This is one of those “well, duh” issues, I guess, but the dichotomy between what companies say and what they do is simply astounding to me. Much like what the dichotomy between what politicians say and do.  And we all hate politicians, but we can vote against companies (and their practices) with our dollars and yet, apparently, we don’t.

If you look at virtually any company’s website or annual report, you can find their mission statement and after you get done with the crap about “empowered employees saving the earth” you will find out that they really, really respect and cherish and love their customers. Turns out what they really, really respect and cherish and love is their customer’s money. And they will lie and cheat and deceive to get it.

Now you’d think that all this lying, cheating and deceiving would be kind of a turn off for customers, not to mention kind of illegal. But no.

For instance, how are rebates not a “bait and switch”? Did we say that was $49.95? Well yeah, you pay us $150 today and if you complete these seven steps in the exact order we tell you and slice and dice the box it came in just so and send the whole mess in before midnight tonite to Young America, MN, we might send you a check for $100.05 in 4 to 6 weeks. So obviously the $49.95 is a lie. If the real cost, across the board was $49.95, that’s what you’d pay at the store and be done with it.

People don’t complain about this because they’re all sure that they’re gonna do the seven steps, etc. But we all know that the only reason companies do this is that some good portion of the populace won’t do the seven steps before midnight tonite, so the company gets to keep the $100 and 50 cents. If you really loved and cherished those folks would you be trying to hose them out of $100.50? You would not. Clearly your money is more important than you are.

My last point on rebates is this: it’s not like just one or two companies are doing them, there’s hundreds. And they ALL think you’re a schmuck. How does that make you feel? Cherished?

OK, rebates are an easy target, but there’s tons more proof that companies, in general, hate you and will do virtually anything to screw you out of a few bucks, while at the same time proclaiming their love for you.

OK, time to name names (but just for illustrative purposes):
Macy’s – my wife is a fine and long-term Macy’s customer and constantly gets 15% or $10 off coupons. Can she use them? Of course not, because the things she’d actually like to buy are excluded from the coupon’s discount. Would it kill Macy’s to give out a 15% off coupon with no limitations to its good customers? It would not. But why do that when you can screw them out of a few more dollars?

Wireless Companies – I was gonna say AT&T, but they’re all the same. Is there a real problem with offering a plan with 1500 minutes for, say, $99,95 month, all in? Of course not. They advertise $99.95, but is the actual bill ever $99.95? It is not. If you respected your customers, you’d actually give them what you advertise. And make sure that you let them know before they ran up a bazillion dollars of overage charges. I’ve gotten text messages from AT&T advertising stuff but never to alert me that I’ve gone over my monthly allowance. Technologically impossible? I think not.

Credit card companies. You probably think I’m going to rail against 20% interest rates or the fact that years of loyal card-ownership go out the window if you’re three days late one month. Well there are those things, but frankly we all know those things going in so they don’t really fall into the “screwing your customers with malice aforethought” category. But this does: You know those checks you get, monthly, offering low, low interest rates if you use them to pay off other high-rate cards? Turns out that this is not the great deal you’d think – it’s a ploy to insulate, and increase, the debt you owe (at 20%) from ever getting paid off. How’s that work? Here’s the fine print - the debt you roll over at 2.99% gets paid off first, so that $500 you send in every month doesn’t reduce your high-interest debt at all. The highest rate debt gets paid off dead last. Nice.

Now believe me, I get the profit motive (business major!) and I also know that these companies have probably done cost-benefit analyses that support, on paper, screwing over your customer base to make a few bucks.

What I just really just don’t see is why companies feel they’ve got to lie to be profitable. And here’s my real problem – there are people (not companies) making these decisions. Do the people making these decisions know the people who write the mission statement? My fear is that they’re the same people.

It just goes to prove that Mencken’s phrase “no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public” is, sadly, still true and that, sadly, there are still people willing to exploit that fact.

I go on bursts of getting and listening to new music and then nothing ...

So after many months here's some new (to me) stuff to listen to.

I'm not a huge electronica fan but this track by The Knife recently caught my attention.

Then there's the Sugarettes from Sweden. I like Ready Steady.

And last, but not least I've finally gotten into Swervedriver, about 10 years too late. The entire Mezcal Head album is really good. Very reminiscent of of Chavez.

Wait - there's this.

I’m sure it’s just my inherent distrust of American business but I think there’s something funny goin’ on at Costco.

About a month ago I bought two pairs of shorts there, two different brands, in the same size I always wear. Always as in all my pants are in that size, so it’s not like I’m unfamiliar with it.

Here’s the issue, both these pairs of shorts are at least an inch bigger in the waist than all my other pants. Remember - two different makers; one is Unionbay and the other is Calvin Klein.

So there are two possible explanations:
A) even though they’re two different brands, they’re both made in the same Chinese sweatshop – the one with the broken ruler, or
B) since Costco sells giant quantities of food, and wants to continue to do so, they have their clothing designers make stuff bigger than the size says so that people don’t feel as fat and will continue to consume.

Cynical, yes? I know, but it’s not like it would be out of the question for a company to do something like that.

You’re probably thinking that it’s my own fault for buying clothes at Costco in the first place and you’re right. But they were a good price and I was there buying a pallet of ribs anyway …

These are old but I just started listening to them again. Sereena Maneesh and (now for something completely different) the Mono Men:

Next is Bunny Rabbit's "Rio Grande" (can't find a legal copy, this is a link to her Myspace page). I've got no idea why I like it - imagine a child's sing along over a noise punk/rap soundtrack and you'll be close.  Yeah, I know - there's no accounting for taste.

Lastly, psychedelia is back - Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound (?) - Ekranoplan.

I'm really not sure about this song yet, but I kinda like the hook.

LCD Soundsystem - North American Scum

You can dance if you like.

I know I don't have a song for every week. Deal. This is a local SF band (yea!) that opened for Iggy Pop last nite. This video is kinda raw, since this is a new band they don't have much out on disk. Believe me when I tell you that this song was amazing live.

Dolorata, The Keys - Live

OK, I get most of the Web 2.0 stuff, but Twitter? Really? Maybe I'm missing the point, but is anybody interesting enough that I need to do what they're doing all day?
"I'm picking my nose"
"Going shopping for cereal"

I dunno maybe everybody else is doing fascinating stuff all day. OTOH, if you've got time to type it out, you can't be all that busy doing fascinating stuff.

I guess it would be OK to find out what a particular friend was doing occasionally (especially if I'm invited) but otherwise not so much. Maybe there'll be some uses that turn it into the next big thing ("Sale on hankies in aisle 12 - RIGHT NOW!!") but for now, I just don't see the point.

Now that I think of it, I don't really see the point in me having written this blog post either ...

What are the 10 most memorable music performances you've seen? (Remember, "memorable" may not be good.) 
Submitted by Bill. 

Hmm, it'll be really hard to rank them in any kind of order and a lot of them I've forgotten the specifics of, but here goes:

Buffalo Springfield, Beach Boys, Soul Survivors & Strawberry Alarm Clock - my 1st show
The Who at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, NYC
Sleater Kinney's second-to-last show in Portland
any one of the other dozen SK shows
Electrelane / the Boredoms at ATP 2006
Jefferson Airplane & Poco - Wall Township NJ mid -70's
CSNY - the night Nixon resigned
the Byrds & Commander Cody at Newark State
X at the Kabuki, SF
Tom Petty in KC, MO in 1979
Neko Case, Kelly Hogan, Carolyn Mark - NoisePop SF 2004
Humble Pie - Fillmore East 1971

What are the weirdest song titles in your playlist or music collection?
Submitted by Charline.

Call Girl vs. Call Centre - Burdocks
Drain Cosmetics - Serena Maneesh
I Need some fine wine and you, you need to be nicer - The Cardigans
A small package of value will come to you, shortly - Jefferson Airplane
Die Catholic Die Pt 2 - Fluff Girl
The Vietnamese Telephone Ministry - Fiery Furnaces
Outro with Bees - Neko Case