"Ghost Tree"
Copyright © 2020, Silver Parnell
All rights reserved.
Throughout my life, I have instinctively avoided interactions with large corporate structures, both at work and at home. Nearly all of my jobs, except for when I wrote for television, were in small businesses. Whenever I rented an apartment I tried to rent only from individuals who had a few properties. I did not want to become enmeshed in systems that I sensed weren't healthy.
The Hindus would say that my attraction to light and health was a natural orientation to the sattvic realms. Even though the salary and the benefits weren't quite as good as what the large businesses offered, I had a sense of dread when I contemplated working for big business.
In my youth, I could not have told you exactly why I was inclined in this direction, because it was an intuitive thing, but now that I've got a lot of years (and experiences) under my belt, I've realized just why.
The entire operating principles behind big business are calculated to maximize the most profits for the fewest people. These organizations rely upon being able to capitalize on the work of a large number of people in order to shove all the profit to the top handful of decision makers. Meanwhile, most of the wage earners barely make enough to put a roof over their heads and food on the table.
American corporations took their inspiration from a plantation mindset. It IS "the American way" to take advantage of people who lack resources by enslaving them in a system that capitalizes on their value and misappropriates it to the benefit of the tiny ruling class.
Even the customers or clients that these big organizations are supposed to be served are NOT served by them at all. Let me explain:
Because a corporation is an anonymous, faceless thing, it has no ethical restraints and no conscience. Employing tricks, such as 'bait and switch' and making clients 'buy a pig in a poke' because the business hasn't informed them of crucial facts surrounding their purchase of goods or services, is quite common. Because the dictum from on high is always to squeeze the most profits possible from the enterprise,the lengths to which these companies will go in meeting that guiding standard has no limits.
In small business, however, even if the paradigm is similar, the human being in charge of the place is usually visible, knowable, reachable, and can be reasoned with (theoretically.)
Unfortunately, corporation mind think has become so prevalent that it has become nearly impossible to operate in this culture without involving oneself in it. This week, I have had a number of run-ins with toxic corporate culture, and there is little to nothing that I can do about it.
I am an expert genealogist and have a family tree of more than 70,000 people in it. I have been working on it since 1978, and there are thousands of hard hours invested. There was no internet in 1978. In order to gather documents and photos, I had to pound the pavement, go to libraries, watch hours and hours of microfilm and microfiche, and physically get down into the work of digging out the facts behind ancestors lives.
Mistakenly, I believed that when the Mormon site "Family Search" said that by using their site, my tree would be "public," it meant the same thing that typically comes to mind, and the same thing that Ancestry.com means by the term. "Public," to me, meant that my tree would be viewed by the public. INSTEAD, this group of wackos has decided that "public" means that my tree belongs to them, that I can never remove it from their site, and that anyone and everyone who registers with them can make changes to the tree I spent YEARS creating.
"You AGREED that your tree was public," the woman intoned, in a smarmy, smug sort of monotone. I had clearly bought a pig in a poke. They had deliberately hidden the reality of the situation in a dense bit of legalese that even I, a person with years of experience in legal contracts, did not perceive. I tried to reason with the woman, but reason has no place in corporate mind control. The woman just kept repeating the same excuse. This is the way it is because we decided that this is the way it is.
I went to report them to the Better Business Bureau and discovered that the Mormon site "Family Search" ALREADY has an "F" rating because there have been at least three prior complaints about them, and the organization didn't even bother to ANSWER the complaints.
Corporations do not care about reputation. Corporations have no shame - even when that corporation is manned by people who claim to have an ethical life.
The Mormons used to have my respect. While I thought their theology was nutty, I appreciated that most of the Mormons I had met were very ethical and kind people. But even customarily good people are stripped of their ethical souls when they cooperate in the corporate mind.
I went ahead and filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, but I don't expect to prevail because the Mormons will likely just ignore my complaint, as they have ignored all the others. This type of business isn't regulated, and if you have a dispute about a contract, you basically have to sue the company. Who has the money for that?
The only thing I can do is something that will help other people, which is to warn everyone away from using that site. Doing something that will inhibit their ability to con other people is the only thing that might have any effect on the corporate mind. In other words, only a threat to the underlying principle of maximizing profits might work to get them from sitting on me and impinging on my copyright.
I had an experience with Amazon that wasn't as personally devastating, but was still annoying, to say the least. I purchased an item on which they offered payments "once a month," but it wasn't until AFTER they had already shipped the item that they sent me an email outlining a payment schedule that was once every 30 days, so that the payment date shifted every month, from the 3rd, to the 2nd, to the 1st! Obviously, most months have 31 days - not 30. I get paid on the 3rd, so there is at least one month where my one and only check has to take a "hit" for two payments, rather than one.
The Amazon people were no more helpful than the Mormons. "This is the way it is because this is the way it is," is what one is ALWAYS told, in essence. The arbitrariness of the corporate mind can't be argued with - because it is NOT HUMAN. After I discontinued the "chat" with the Amazon agent, she went in and cancelled one of my OTHER orders, then sent me an email about that other order. I don't know if she did it in retaliation for my having been upset or what. I had to RE-order that item, then call the company AGAIN and speak to yet another agent. He wasn't able to change the payment program, but he did promise to report the previous agent, which doesn't actually help me at all.
Yesterday, I received a generic email from Consumer Cellular, a terrible telephone company that drops nearly every call I get, sends me my voice mail messages a MONTH after someone leaves one and produces text messages DAYS after they are sent by friends. The email advised me that the 3G phone I JUST purchased from them will no longer be able to be used because they are changing their service. Only 4G and 5G will be accommodated. They obviously knew this for a long time before I bought that phone from them, but they didn't advise me. NO SHAME.
I was already planning to go to T-Mobile, as my research had indicated that theirs was the most reliable service at my location, as soon as I got paid, so I spent a good 40 minutes setting up a new phone service, including a credit check and all that entails. It wasn't until the END of that long experience that the woman told me she was charging me $20.00 to set up my account and another $10.00 to pay for the SIM card. I told her I wasn't going to be activating my account for a week or 10 days. She indicated that as along as I activated within 14 days, I would be fine.
What happened? I got an email this morning from T-Mobile telling me that my account has been activated! It included information on how to get the phone up and working. I don't even have the SIM card yet! I had to call the company AGAIN and complain.
The reason why they activate your phone service before you are even able to USE it is so they can charge you for time that you don't use. Again - NO ETHICS.
In this case, I was able to get them to DE-activate the account until I decide to activate it. The agent, as is the case with SO many agents in these corporations, barely spoke English. Likely, she was sitting at a phone bank in some other country where labor is even cheaper than America. Every time she asked me a question, I would try to answer and she would interrupt me and start talking, even when she was asking me for information to verify my identity. Then, of course, she didn't hear my answer because she was too busy talking. Even after I asked her to stop and just let me answer her, she continued to do it. I think it may have something to do with a cultural difference in the pace of conversation.
On the other hand, I've noticed that Americans often can''t be bothered to wait for me to finish a sentence before they're talking over me. This happened when I called JoAnn Fabrics a couple days ago. When I objected, she said that there were only two people in the shop, and of course I understand this. When the underlying dictum is to squeeze as much money out of the business as is possible, there are never enough workers. Corporate mind requires that there never be enough employees to actually do the job well. Quality is always sacrificed when the corporate decree is operational.
In addition, the corporate conglomerate has formed into an interconnected thing. It forces consumers to continue to "upgrade" their services and equipment because they make it mandatory in order for the customer to FUNCTION. For example, I purchased some Rit Dye from JoAnn Fabrics online web page for a clothing project a few months ago. The sale price was only good for a "pick up" order, so after I ordered and paid for the dye, I called the store to make sure it was ready for me before I trekked all the way out there [My disabilities make it extremely difficult for me to get out and about. Energy has to be conserved.]
In the course of the conversation, the JoAnn employee informed me that they would NOT release my purchases to me because, even though I have several forms of picture identification, including a current New Mexico Drivers License, as well as a PASSPORT, they would only let me have my purchases if I presented them with a copy of the email they sent me confirming my purchase. Since I had neither a cell phone nor a printer at that time, I could not show them the email on my phone, and I could not print it out either! Nor would they give me my money back! I had to wait 4 days until the temporary hold for the funds had dropped off my bank's radar, after which I could not find that color of dye ANYWHERE. Every once in a while, I check around to see if I can find it, with no luck.
Before the internet, I used to be able to call a store, find out if they had an item, have the proprietor hold the item for me, and go in and get it.
The corporate mind typically ignores what the client may want or need. Arbitrary changes to the Facebook platform and now Google Blogger have me tearing out my hair. BOTH of these companies have decided to fiddle with their platform, making changes that none of us really wants. It appears that they have changed it to be more like all the other sites that cater to people who bury their noses in their phones all day.
Before long, none but the most talented computer geek will be able to make sense out of the internet or use it for anything but the most basic search functions geared toward leading people to corporations that want to sell us stuff.
I would say that we should fight the corporate mind, but I don't know how one could do that, aside from maintaining mindfulness and taking proper care of our mental hygiene. I am just going to try not to use corporate services any more than I have to - but what can I do? I am disabled and mostly home bound. I need a phone. I need to order groceries and other necessaries to be delivered to me. Everywhere I turn, I am being forced into service to the corporate mind after a lifetime of avoiding it.
The changes to this platform - "Blogger" - will force me to use it less and less. The changes to Facebook will likewise repel me. While I have enjoyed making contact with a wider group of people throughout the world, I am afraid that it is becoming so klunky and difficult to navigate that it is no longer something I want to do, since I am not interested in being one of those people whose nose is always pressed against my telephone screen.
This reminds me of something that happened during my last surgery at University of New Mexico Hospital. I WOKE UP DURING SURGERY to find that the anesthesiologist was reading his email. I told him, "Hey! I'm awake! Get off your phone and put me back to sleep!" Without even looking at me or moving his face away from his phone, he extended his hand to a lever somewhere out of my sight, and I went under again.
Years from now, when history books recount about how the internet got broken, something about the corporate mind will be blamed.
I remember now how very happy I was when I joined the Vedanta Convent and only had 3 keys on my key ring. I didn't have to pay any bills. I didn't have to own a car. We had two of them in the garage. The downside of being independent is wrestling with the corporate mind and being enslaved to it, due to the necessities of disabilities. Every state of life has a price.
God bless us all.
Silver "Rose" Parnell
(Sannyasini Kaliprana)
Copyright © 2020, Silver Parnell
All rights reserved.
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