Why you still need cash and how the system tracks you

For those who don't believe we're under constant surveillance by our phones, check this out.

Near the end of work today, around 4:15-4:20ish, a friend and I are discussing taxes. He was asking if I did my own or paid a pro. He was debating about what to do this year because it was the first time he sold a lot of his company stock. I told him about a CPA I've been using the last few years. From 4:27 through 4:51, I received 11, yes 11, robo calls. 6 were from tax relief services that left voice mails(which get converted to text) so it's probably safe to assume the other 5 were also.
4:27
4:28
4:30
4:35
4:42
4:43
4:44
4:46
4:48
4:49
4:51

The phone was ringing for some while the previous was still leaving a message. All showing a NY location and all 11 unique phone numbers. Absolutely ridiculous.

 

that's crazy! never happened to me

 

The real kick in the pants is YOU pay for the device and the connection plan - so who's do we really blame????

 

Was this discussion by regular phone voice? Text? Email? Or some other electronic mode?

 

I thought you could block unknown callers....

I have two phones on two networks but get almost no unsolicited calls - and I answer ZERO calls from unknown callers.
You can leave me a message

Anyone who has been through a natural disaster knows (or SHOULD know) why...'cash is king.'

 

Nope, I don't pay for any of it. Company issued iphone, free upgrade every two years. Unlimited everything including international.
Never had a problem this bad until recently. Has always just been normal robo stuff, but has recently gone crazy.

 

This was a face to face discussion. Phone in pocket.

 

Unfortunately, I have a lot of contractors that have my number, so I can't just completely ignore unknown numbers, which is why voice mails are automatically converted to text to make it quick for me to glance at it and see if it's something I need to respond to.

 

Well if it's a company phone, it's also a company leash. I had one of those and it goes into Do Not Disturb mode when I'm off the clock. They tried for years to get my personnel cell number and asked them why they needed it when they have my home number? We even went to HR over that. My defense was; management wanted to place me on 24x7 call without compensating me. Management's explanation was for emergency purposes and only a handful of us in the department refused and they wouldn't give us a stipend for use of our personnel phones.
After HR agreed with me; the following year, everyone in the department got a "business cell phone". The first thing I did was setup the do not disturb outside of paid business hours. Management is still piss at me for showing the people the department leans on heavily for technical support after hours how to block those after-hours calls. There's always someone on-call in my facility; If they can't do their job - that's management's problem. Otherwise; pay us for backup call status - it's management's fault for promoting incompetent people - That's usually when the "team work" lecture comes out.Those of us that has EARNED our positions, get tired of repeating ourselves to management spiddle-lickers...... Only the people I trust and the people that have my back; has my personnel number. I know I could trust them; because none of them leaked my personnel cell phone number to management over that two year fight. They only gave them my home phone number, which management already had. I even switched that to a cell phone, for the enhanced blocking features. Be careful what you wish for......

 

Sounds like a great reason for not having a cell phone at all.

 

I don’t even get junk mail anymore

 

I enjoyed the challenges that came after hours. The finding the transistor that was giving the compiler bad information so all the small business loans couldn't get processed. Finding the reason a night time run kept loosing billions of dollars in government assets. The joy on the clients face when they came in the next day and everything was normal. I felt I was part of the team and ultimately the company benefited from satisfied clients. But then I came from the military where you were on duty 24x7 and I never considered myself an hourly worker even though at the beginning I was. Ran around with company data in the trunk of my sports car so I could respond to a call. It wasn't every day I got called. But lots of people knew my number.

But when I wanted to go on a vacation with my wife for a month...sure thing. And when I retired did they pay me for all my accrued leave even though their was a lower limit.

You give a little to get a little.

 

That's the reason I NEVER gave them my personnal cell phone number; It's personnel...

I understand that; but what I found out was the "spittle-lickers" was allowed to charge back phone fixes - when someone called them. The rules were, if your not on-call, you don't get to charge back - but that rule only applied to some of us. When I found out about that; mister nice guy went out the window. After that, management's golden boys only solution to everything was to reboot the system. On-Call pay was a fraction of your base pay, which reverted to 1.5x or 2x after 12 hours. It was funny that us old timers would only take an hour or two to fix a problem w/o taking down the entire system - while the golden-boy would routinely take 12+ hours and several system IPL's, while dragging in the OEM software vendor. In most cases, they would wait until Monday for one of us experts to nail it down for them.
That's what happens when management plays favorites.....

 

If you think our civil liberties are in danger now just WAIT until they combine the power of AI with it! (I'm not talking about government, I'm talking about corporations.)

This will push a LOT of folks to ditch the "smart" phones for the old-school "dumb" phone that is just used for texts and calls.

Someone mentioned what would happen if we had a massive hit on our telecommunications and most generations would be just fine....Gen Z'ers would want to kill themselves but wouldn't be able to Google it so they'd, also, be fine!!

 

Yep; most of the guys at work; I trusted served. We ensured a recovery process if an EMP hit. That went out the window a decade or two ago; when management started hiring incompetent buddies and started making excuses and deluding the required minimum up-time parameters. It's a real hoot that contract services must still abide by those old outdated up-time parameters, while the department no longer had to abide by those same parameters..

 

I have a company phone and a personal phone.
I get PAID union wages to monitor and occasionally answer ONE of them, and even then if I do not know who is calling on THAT one?
You go to voice mail, while I assess our relationship.

I've thought about going dual SIM and just carrying one of them but...two phones = two phone batteries, two networks, etc.

Communications are pretty important.
I'm not just saying that because I'm shilling for my beloved company, but rather because I'm something of a history dork and I remember some of the books that I read.
Ask any US Marine if they'd rather lose their rifle or their comms, and the smart ones will tell you that they'd rather keep talking.....and contrary to popular myth some of them ARE smart.
Besides......they also carry sidearms.

I'll keep my smart phones, thanks.
Yeah....I can get by rocking a Jitterbug or a 1990's folding model, but even MY modest goals go beyond just 'getting by.'

Books are heavy, relatively fragile things.

 

So are electronics and the electronic devices you need to access that data. I used to print up paper copies of our e-mauals; so I have something tangible to mark-up in the margins and correct misinformation. It happens a lot more often than you think between the drawing board and manufacturing. E-copies and a few functioning laptops was suppose to get locked-up in the lead lined safe. Our emergency recovery for critical system and critical parts stash. Unfortunately; none of the kids now-a-days would have a clue, since they are assembly swappers. We played; what if one time - Their answer was "call the OEM vendor for repair" Good luck with that. It currently takes FEMA a few days or weeks to show up for simple natural disasters. I'm talking about FEMA; not who currently runs it.

 

A significant difference may be that I'm part of the management team and get paid enough that I don't care if I get called. I haven't had an hourly job since high school. I get paid enough that I really couldn't give you an accurate answer if you asked me what my salary is, but I do know last year's bonus was about 25% so I guess I could figure it out if I cared. It just goes in the bank and I rarely look at it. I just spend what I want, when I want and pay my bills. Every now and then the bank calls me to ask if I'm interested in having my money moved into higher yielding accounts or managed accounts. Nope, not really, that's what the 401k is for. I just do what I want, when I want and don't ever worry about it. Not interested in stressing over every minute of a call or being at work. I just do what needs to be done to keep the ball rolling.

 

It is tax time, you'll get reminded then.