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the Swamp

Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2017 6:16 pm
by PhuBai68
Let me lead into this with a story but first explain things a bit •••

Going back to the original Bell System/phone companies.
This is before cellphones.
Say your son or daughter is now a teenager, is doing well in school so as a reward you get him/her their own phone line, an auxiliary line (ALN) which the cost rate is one half the rate of the main number.
So now the teenager is off to college, that ALN you're paying for is no longer being used so you have it cancelled.
The cable pair that the ALN was assigned to just doesn't appear on the pole or pedestal in front of your house, it appears in multiple or many, sometimes very many locations.
Now the phone company can't let that copper wire sit out there not producing revenue so another ALN or new connect a few blocks away is ordered so the company reassigns that cable pair for the new number, the test deskman looks at cable pair - it's good, no phone, no faults.
Now that college kid comes home from college, just out of boredom plugs a phone into that old jack and le voilà! dial tone.
So now starts using that line - in one case dialing up "1-900-sex-talk" - get this, on a Lutheran minister's ALN!
When the people with that new line complain it's called "a billing investigation" and a repairman has to check all the multiples (every place) that cable pair appears.
Now "the Swamp" •••
I get a billing investigation.
One of the multiple locations is the Social Security Administration building in Hackensack.
I go in and the room is packed!
One person at the sliding window dealing with this packed room
Work my way through the crowd bang on door, show my ID and say that I have to check their telephone telephone terminal.
Get let in and WOWSIE!
Just WOWSIE!

About 4 or 5 people BSing at the coffee machine, another couple at water cooler and one guy feet up on desk Obama style reading the newspaper.
I say to the woman who let me in, "So this is what I can expect when I retire?"
She says, "Oh please, we get enough from them." and points towards the crowded room.
This is just ONE federal building, imagine WHAT it must be like with the senators and congress?
How hard and how much sweat must they put out for their salaries?

That's my Swamp story.

Re: the Swamp

Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2017 8:13 pm
by White Man 1
You're a braver man than I dealing with the public, PhuBai. As America get's browner, you'll see this more and more often. It's no small wonder our current system is as broken as it is, since the ones operating it at all levels are amoral filth.