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In my brief life of 22 years, I've learned only in the last few years what others probably learned long ago. Paying bills really sucks. I haven't had a very wide assortment of bills, but so far I hate phone bills most of all. Here's why.
Phone companies are awful. When I got myself a phone number, or line or whatever, they charged me about $40 to hook it up. The previous lessee disconnected her number to the same apartment, and they charged her another $40. If someone wanted to disconnect one line and connect another when she moves, she'll be paying almost $80. If she wants to keep the same number, they'll charge her for that as well. A cellular phone might solve that problem, but that's way more trouble and cost than I can grasp. How can people afford to go talking down the sidewalk?
The phone bill breaks the local service fees down into little chunks that don't look like much by themselves, but put all together, the most basic service is almost $18 a month. That's so that the phone can ring, without even ever talking to anyone. If I wanted anything remotely convenient like call-waiting or caller-ID, there would be an extra charge for each. And forget anything fancy.
Long distance plans are an exercise in scheduling control. At first I let the phone company give me the default long distance plan because I thought it would be a basic, no-nonsense way of doing it. They charged me so much per minute at different times that I had to sit down in shock when I received the first phone bill's total. You have to plan ahead when you are going to call Aunt Hilda May because you know she talks a long time and you need the best rate possible to survive the damage. Even a simple little call at lunchtime, for example, can turn out to be the cost of a better meal than most college students can ever afford for actual food, much less for long distance conversation. It really takes the pleasure out of calling anyone if you're worried that you must get off the phone quickly. It turns the game of phone tag into something malicious if you leave messages for people when you are secretly glad that now THEY have to call you back and pay the bill for the conversation.
Gimmicks and advertising for long distance plans give me a headache. There are so many commercials on TV for certain phone plans that will save you copious amounts of money. If they could give you phone calls for that price anyway, why don't they make that the default price and keep it simple? But gimmicks for all merchandise are annoying that way. The more hoops they can make customers jump through to get a simple discount must show benefits somehow. Maybe some people get addicted to playing street gambling games so they come back and try to sort out the harder levels of gimmickry in an effort to be victorious over $5 when the devious company that took their first $150 walks away smiling.
I also get a headache from those people who call me up and mispronounce my name when they ask why I changed my phone service from their company to a competitor. They sound bewildered, like they can't imagine what would possess a person to do such a thing and there must be some mistake. If you do decide to switch long distance service, be prepared to withstand at least 3 weeks of callers wanting to know if you wouldn't much rather have the XYZ plan from the ABC company. And of course the phone company has a fee to switch long distance carriers, too.
If you are a couple days late with your payment, BAM, your service is cut off. Then you're really screwed because you didn't have a chance to tell people that they can't reach you by phone so they are mad at you for never answering the phone, and you are mad because depending on your location and normal transportation mode, you're pretty isolated. And if it's your roommate's fault, declare war.
Having a phone is pretty essential. I wish I could just get along without one. That would be nice.