HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Rural Voice, 2002-11, Page 10PRICE, SERVICE
& SATISFACTION
1998 DODGE RAM REG. CAB SLT
2WD, V8 auto, mint condition
with cap, all set up, with trailer
tow equipment, sold by us new,
66,000 km.
Make an offer. 9 6,900
1998 Dodge Ram Club Cab
V8 auto, air, fibreglass
tonneau and boards, chrome
wheels, 80,000 kms.
9 7,900
1999 JEEP CHEROKEE SPORT
4 door, loaded, includes CD
and Select Trac. Sold by us
new. 86,000 kms.
97,900
2001 Dakota Quad Cab 4X4
Loaded, sold by us new, 52,000
kms. Factory warranty
529,900
HANOVER CHRYSLER
DODGE JEEP
664 -10th St.,
CHRYSLER Hanover
Dodge
Jeep 1-866-788-8886
Phone: (519) 364-3570
6 THE RURAL VOICE
Keith Roulston
Feeling isolated in a global world
Keith
Roulston is
editor and
publisher of
The Rural
Voice. He
lives near
Myth, ON.
When 1 was a kid growing up, the
thrill of the week was the Saturday
night shopping trip to town. For kids
this was pure pleasure. For adults
there was work involved but there
also seemed to be enjoyment as
people stopped and chatted with
neighbours and acquaintances.
We seemed to need personal
contact after a week of living mostly
isolated from the world. Perhaps
that's at least partly why church was
so popular then, too, as people
needed to connect with other people.
Part of the breakdown of our rural
communities comes, I think. because
we don't have that thirst for contact
with our neighbours anymore. Often
one or both spouses work off the farm
in a job in constant association with
others throughout the day. By the
weekend we're more likely to need
some distance from others than we
are to join gatherings of neighbours.
We also have, not just the radio
and telephone of my youth, but faxes,
the internet and satellite television to
give us the sense we're involved in
the world.
And yet despite these marvels of
modern communications, indeed
because of some of them, in some
ways we're as isolated as the first
pioneers in bush clearings. Where
once we could turn for help to people
we knew, now we're all alone in a
big, faceless world.
I recently experienced the flip-
side of the marvel of global commun-
ications. A company in the southern
U.S. somehow acquired domain name
registration for one of our company's
websites and changed the hosting
from a small local company to their
own hosting business, wiping out my
website. I found a telephone number
and called to complain but there was
only a message saying to contact
them by fax or email. They didn't
reply to faxes at all and took two days
to return emails.
Eventually, several pages into
their website, I found a telephone
number for a call centre. The
operators were pleasant but couldn't
really care if my problem got solved
or not and were in no situation to
accept any responsibility for the
havoc their company had wreaked on
my life. You never got the same,
anonymous person twice: I know that
well because it took a week of calls to
get back to where I had been 10 days
earlier before they messed things up.
We all know variations of this
problem. Call a large company or
government agency these days and
you'll inevitably get somebody's
voice mail. If dealing with you would
be unpleasant, the recipient of your
message may never return your call.
Last year I wrote a column about
the frustrating process of trying to
make someone at a Bell Canada call
centre somewhere in the universe,
understand where I lived so I could
have a line located. If I could have
dealt directly with the repairman in
my own community, we could have
saved an hour.
Earlier this summer a lightning
strike knocked out the power for only
our home. In the old days I'd have
been able to reach the local Ontario
Hydro office and talked to someone
who knew where I lived. That night I
had to call a centralized call centre
and wait for a half hour to talk to
some impersonal operator.
When I was young you didn't
even have to know how to make a
long-distance ctIl. You rang up the
operator in your local exchange,
someone you probably knew, and she
helped solve your problem.
We have far more money than we
had back then, but to me we're
poorer. In our pursuit to get even
more money by cutting a few salaries
here and there, we're left in an imper-
sonal world where we as individuals
don't matter. It seems to me we're a
like those misers in old books and
movies who had lots of money but no
friends. Me, I think I'd rather deal
with real people, thank you.0