71 lines
3.6 KiB
Plaintext
71 lines
3.6 KiB
Plaintext
Calling Ma Bell:
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Bring Back Your Classic Service
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Garfinkel called me up. "I would like you to become a member of the Sons of
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Ma Bell Telephone User's Association."
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"What's your story?"
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"After all the hype about launching a new improved drink, Coca-Cola was
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willing to salvage the original Coke. We hope to persuade the telephone
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company to bring back the old Ma Bell system. After all, telephone consumers
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have taste too. The reason Coca-Cola folded to the public was that they
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couldn't take the flak from their customers about their 'new improved product.'
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If the Coke company can't take the pressure, we figure the telephone company is
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vulnerable as well."
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"Do you want everyone to go back to the old phone system?"
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"No, we're following the Coke marketing philosophy. We don't want them to
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drop the new way of providing phone service. All we're asking us that everone
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in the United States be given a choice between the old Ma Bell and what they
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have inflicted on all of us since. We're not ones to tell a user what to
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choose. If you like the present telephone system, with its fancy prices,
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high-tech recorded voices and unintelligible computer-coded itemized bills,
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then we say stick with the new service. If you prefer constant breakdowns and
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service technicians who deny jusidiction over your phone problem, you're
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probably satisfied with the improved product.
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"But if you long for the days when your bills were low, a friendly voice gave
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you information, and the repairman was at your house before you hung up, then
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you should have a right to opt for the old system. The Sons of Ma Bell believe
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in free choice."
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"I admire your goals, but it seems to me that it's easier to bring back a
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soft drink than it is to resurrect an entire communications system."
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"I don't agree with you," Garfinkle said. "The Coca-Cola Company is the most
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powerful institution in the world. If they can admit they've made a mistake,
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surely a piddling telephone system can do the same thing. It's no big deal for
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the people who run our telephone companies to go on television and say, "We've
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been listening to what you're saying. Maybe the breakup of Ma Bell wasn't such
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a good idea after all. So now we're giving you the choice of the new phone
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system or the "classic" one you were attached to in the past. Our only concern
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is satisfying our customers. Like Coca-Cola, we blew it, and want to make it
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up to you.'"
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"Telephone executives hate to admit they make mistakes," I said. "I doubt if
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you'll get them to go on the air."
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Garfinkle said, "If the old Coke lovers can bring Atlanta to its knees, the
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Sons of Ma Bell should be able to make the phone people cry uncle."
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"There is one thing wrong with your crusade," I told him.
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"Coca-Cola was able to bring back the old Coke because it still exists as a
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company. The telephone system has been broken up by the government, and even
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if the phone execs want to replicate the old system the Justice Department
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wouldn't let them do it. Washington doesn't give a hoot about the comsumers."
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"The Sons of Ma Bell intend to change all that. We're asking each member of
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our organization to send every congressman and senator 10 six-packs of empty
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Coca-Cola cans. Our message to Washington is the telephone is almost as
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important as a soft drink, and if Coke drinkers now have a choice between the
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old and the new, the telephone consumer has a right to the same thing."
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Art Buchwald
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The Washington Post, July 18 1985
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c1985, Los Angeles Times Syndicate
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