One thing that makes cellular users crazy is the inability of their providers to turn off text messaging. While younger folks are texting at a rate that baffles most folks over 30, many older folks don’t want it, don’t need it and get upset to the point of stroke when they’re told that their service provider cannot and will not remove the ability to accept text messaging from their cellular service. To add insult to annoyance, the cellular companies charge you for these unwanted messages after they’ve told you that the can’t remove the feature.
Very simply, you’re mad at the wrong people. It’s not the cellular companies that make it impossible to remove the text messaging feature, it’s your federal government.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 to be exact.
Now…you may say, “But Timmer, that Act was never ratified.” and you’d be right.
However, the FCC in its infinite wisdom still took the part of The TCA of 1996 which said that telecommunications companies could not restrict telemessaging services and ran with it anyway. The idea being that if those messages were restricted, that would be an infringement on the senders’ First Amendment rights.
There isn’t a customer service rep working for a cellular company today who doesn’t WANT to turn off your text messaging. Believe me when I say that as much as it annoys our customers, it annoys us just as much. We don’t like being told what low-lifes we are or that we’re in cahoots with the texting spammers or what a scam it is. We don’t.
It is nice to be able to tell everyone that you’re mad at the wrong people though, and that word is getting out. Apparently the FCC is getting tired of cellular customers calling THEM to complain about it and there’s hope that by the end of the summer, we’ll be able to turn off those annoying messages for those folks who have no use for little messages on their phones.
UPDATE: The more I read about this issue, the less the above explanation holds water. I’m on my weekend, but I’m going to be speaking with the person who offered this explanation to me come Monday. I’m not going to take it down though. I’m going to leave this up as a reminder to do more research BEFORE I put up a post. Thanks to those of you who chimed in and made me look closer at this.




The reason we’re the best is that we have people who want to be the best.
I stopped in at the Marine Recruiting office in ‘84 and the recruiter looked up from his paperwork.
Marine: You want to be a Marine?
Timmer: I’m not sure, I thought we could talk about it.
Marine looking back at his paperwork: Come back when you’re sure, you gotta want it.
It’s THAT attitude that makes our fighting force the best in the world.
But it’s not 1984. Back then, the Marines and the Army had lower academic requirements and the Air Force and the Navy had lower physical requirements.
All the branches in this decade require a higher level of brain power than ever before simply because of the technology involved with fighting. All of the branches in this decade require a higher level of physical ability because of the deployment requirements and the fact that each and every member of the armed forces could be a combatant.
One thing that still holds true, is you HAVE to want to live that life. You HAVE to want to be the best to make it.
One of the reasons I retired was that I recognized the simple reality that I was getting older and that I was at the point where I was going to get in the way instead of leading the way. The draft would simply ensure that you have people who don’t want to lead, don’t want to follow, but would simply be in the way. It’s a recipe for failure.