Sunday, April 18, 2010
Yeah, I'm putting my money on THIS guy
Scruffy twentysomething go-getter arrives by taxi in front of office building for "the biggest meeting since you've opened your design firm." I don't know what a "design firm" is, nor do I care. I'd rather focus on the evidence of this guy's inevitable failure as a businessperson.
He arrived, but his presentation didn't- because this moron left it sitting on the seat in the taxi he just exited. Notice please that this guy isn't juggling five things at once- hell, he doesn't even have a briefcase, yet he managed to leave behind the one thing he was supposed to bring to the freaking presentation- THE PRESENTATION. My guess is that he was too distracted updating his twitter account to remember it.
"Now, which network will you trust to email it, get it printed, and have it waiting upstairs?" Why, Verizon's 3G Network, of course. Except-- this guy is demonstrating his savvy business sense and level of responsibility by sending his presentation via email to the prospective customer's printer, using their resources and basically announcing "I'm so obviously the right person to do work for your business, I couldn't even manage to bring my own fricking copy of this Very Important Presentation across town to the meeting." And what if the copier is down? What if the Very Important Presentation jams it during copying? What if the copier is in use- you know, maybe, by the people who actually work there?
Great first impression, buddy. Show up without the presentation. Inform your prospective clients that Said Presentation (in COLOR, yet) is waiting in THEIR copying machine- all ONE COPY of it. Sheepishly explain that you brought a copy, but left it in the taxi. Conclude by urging prospective clients to hire YOUR "design firm" to handle important work for their company- because hey, if you're playing the latest movie trailer on your Blackberry and you forget the work you've done for them on the bus, subway, park bench or taxi, no problem! You can get it right back!
And if he loses his phone? Don't be absurd- as if this guy would ever put down his phone!
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It's as if Verizon isn't even trying to disguise its contempt for humanity any longer. First off, they had the annoying dick and his flash mob asking us if we can hear him now and now they have dolts like this who need a text message telling them how to go to the bathroom.
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ReplyDeleteI have worked in IT for 8 years and I can say without a doubt that what Verizon is suggesting this guy do is not only absurd but impossible. The only way that he can even access a printer with his Blackberry is if the printer is networked. However when a printer is "networked" it has the pesky problem of being on a network which cannot be accessed by some douche rocket standing on the sidewalk outside the office. Also, he would need to have intimate knowledge of the network. When he searched for a wireless printer in the area it is not going to be called "prospective client's printer" and even if he had taken notes of what printers were in the clients office during a previous visit this is not his home office printer and he is not using a PC running Windows. He would need to know the printers IP address which would be a random combination of numbers separated by periods. Imagine if this could actually be done? Punk computer nerd teenagers sending pornographic pictures to office's printers sitting outside in their car. The only way it could be done is to try and email it to his contact in the clients office and pray that they allow huge email attachments from people outside of the company (which they most likely do not) and explain to the client he forgot the proposal and the top button to his shirt in the back seat of a taxi.
ReplyDeleteYou hit on two things which really annoyed me about this commercial. The first, about the logistics of emailing the proposal to a presumably unfamiliar printer, I did not feel competent enough to comment on. It didn't seem quite "right" to me that this guy could just email the proposal to the prospective client without even phoning first to tell them what he was planning to do- pretty damned arrogant, even if it WAS possible. The second was about this guy's appearance- I've come to accept that the unshaven face, unkempt hair look is "in," at least in the land of commercials. But I'm sorry- seems to me that if this meeting is truly important, you button your shirt and wear a damned tie, for Christ's sake.
ReplyDeleteShowing up without the proposal, looking like you just rolled out of bed and pulled something out of the hamper to wear- yeah, I'm sure that lands people big contracts all the time. Especially in THIS high-flying economy.
Technology companies and especially these telecommunications companies have the common man completely snowed over with a constant wave of bullshit that people just assume they can do anything. The beauty of this scam is that they first convinced everyone that technology is so complicated and quickly evolving that a regular person has no chance of keeping up. So they can say their "smart" phones can do just about anything and most people just figure that THEY aren't "smart" enough to pull something like that off and go back to making phone calls and texting and updating twitter. Which can be done on a phone that cost half the price of the Curve they are promoting ($450.00 at Bestbuy). I'm surprised that they haven't started pushing a defibrillator app for people with heart conditions or a bullet proof vest app because certainly your smart phone can deflect small arms fire. Something else most people do not know. "3G" is something completely made up. So is "4G". Might as well call it 3,000,000G makes no difference and everyone can do simple math. I mean, 4G has to be better than 3G. It is one number higher. 3G was a term invented by Verizon a couple of years ago. Verizon promoted it so heavily and so incessantly that ATT, Sprint, etc had to adopt the phrase just to try and compete. The network is called CDMA and was invented by a company called Quallcomm in 2006. Just one example of what controlling 70% of commercial time can do.
ReplyDeleteThey are also doing a good job convincing people that things that used to be done easily without cell phones can no longer be accomplished without them- finding movie theaters and restaurants, getting a map of the city you are visiting, etc. etc. And that one must be using their phones at all times, even when on dates or other social interactions with actual people. I'm curious to see what kind of long-term damage these companies are doing to people who talk less and less and stare and text more and more.
ReplyDeleteKind of like the little savant children that can read at an advanced level, do complex math or play piano when they are 5 but as they get older it is realized that this is all they can do and lack any social or life skills.
ReplyDeleteBut at least those kids have SOME skill. Today's kids will grow up to find that they can text and tweet really fast, but can't carry on a conversation (still kind of important in job interviews) and don't know how to interact with people without their electronic security blankets- kind of scary.
ReplyDeleteI spend a large part of my time teaching English in a Chinese college just policing the texting during class. God forbid you should be trying to learn...
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