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My wallet and phone were stolen from the YWCA gym right out of my locker. The thief must have used bolt cutters when nobody was around. It was a real disappointment but the staff where helpful and after hours on various automated systems I had a police case number, my credit cards canceled and my phone locked so nobody could make long distance calls.

The bank was helpful and sympathetic. The credit card companies took it upon themselves to call me and the police to follow up about fraudulent charge attempts.

However, Rogers Wireless left me feeling like shit.

I called Rogers Wireless that night and they assured me the phone was locked so no calls could be made and to just go to a store the next day and they would help me get a new phone and SIM card. When I arrived at the store they told me I had to purchase the new phone and renew (thus extend) my contact. ‘This was not the impression the agent on the phone gave me.’, I said and they responded, ‘Those guys are retards. We only their sell phones. We’re like a car dealership.’. I’m not kidding you. That is what a retailer, with the Rogers sign and exclusively Rogers products told me. Those guys are retards? They had the good nature to call customer service on my behalf and things degraded to, ‘Its your own fault your phone was stolen SIR, not ours’. I felt like I was being scolded for even thinking they were going to help. I bought a new SIM card deciding I’d find a phone on my own and the agent hesitantly informed me, ‘uuuhhh, your phone was never locked’. I called customer service again and the agent sneered ‘those retailer people don’t know what they’re talking about.’ No long distance calls on my phone, at least.

I walked out tired, angry and disappointed. Negative and poisonous.

This incident represents an epic failure of a brand experience. The people in the store and on the phone represented a confidence destroying lack of professionalism and complete disregard for my misfortune. As a customer I, perhaps naively, expected to be treated better than that.

With complex pyramid scheme like plans, disparate messaging, disregard for the customer and belligerent employee hubris I doubt Rogers Wireless can continue to be a success as more companies enter into the wireless space. As a human being first and a consumer second I am now actively seeking better options.

At the Shebeen Room. Be there!

I resisted the urge to comment on this but so many opinions are floating around and most of them are fucking stupid so I had to comment.

Zed’s rant means nothing to the technology of Ruby or Rails. His rant was about people he had taken issue with. Thats it. I’m reading absolutely retarded ’sky is falling’ responses about failure of the technology. There was no failure of technology. This rant was the product of failed communication. I don’t agree with the opinions or the approach but I sure found it funny. Zed is an excellent flame writer and should probably awarded a medal for best troll ever written in the history of the internets.

I’m reading posts all over the place that are using Zed’s rant as a rally against the technology of Ruby and that is bullshit. Zed predicted that technology will change. Here, read that again: Zed predicted that technology will change.. No shit it will. Of course better solutions are going to emerge and evolve. It doesn’t mean the technology isn’t valid today.

I agree with Tim Bray and Dion Almaer. Rails is a solid technology appropriate for some scenarios but not all. Use it or don’t. Thats it. Calm down. Take a breath. Read the rant for the humor it is intended to be.

Lastly, if you are a programmer, take this rant as opportunity to teach yourself some Python or Scala or Erlang or even Ruby. Then you can draw your own, intelligent, rational and possibly objective arguments for or against a technology.