As we touched down in Mexico recently and powered-up our smart phones, a few of us got automatic text messages warning us that we were roaming and would be charged. It read: “Text this number now to order an international roaming package and avoid expensive charges!” The problem with that was I had already purchased a texting package and turned off my roaming. I had planned to only use wifi when it was available. International roaming charges can be ridiculously expensive. I’ve heard horror stories about people coming home from trips to hundreds and hundreds of extra dollars on their bills so I took action before we left. But there was my phone, and the phones of others with me, telling me I was still roaming and accumulating high charges. It caused each of us to lose confidence in the packages we bought.
I decided then and there, in the Mexican sun, that if I was charged for roaming I would go to jail rather than pay for it because of all of the effort I put into planning and avoiding such charges. So that allowed me to just get on with my vacation. But I could never be entirely settled about it until my bill arrived yesterday. Yes, I had purchased the right thing. No, I wasn’t charged for roaming. So why send the automatic warning to me and freak me out when I’m on vacation? Surely there’s a way to disable the auto-message when a person has purchased a certain package for international travel? It’s just another way the geeks are demonstrating their all-encompassing power over the rest of us.
In a world where a social misfit and unlikable guy like Mark Zuckerberg can become a multi-billionaire, the rest of us are at the mercy of the geeks. (If you don’t believe Zuckerberg was unlikable, watch The Social Network, about the founding of Facebook, which has his blessing.) The geeks can define the world of technology any way they want to and the rest of us just have to nod and follow along.
Case in point:
This week I stopped into a Rogers store to buy an iPhone wall charger. I scanned the wall of iPhone accessories including iPhone car chargers but couldn’t find what I was looking for. So I asked the apathetic guy behind the counter if he could help me find one. “Oh we don’t carry those. You’ll have to go to the mall.” Really. You sell iPhone skins and headsets and compatible Bluetooths and car chargers and cords and cases, right? He gave me a look that said, “duh” and responded in a voice that said I was a moron. “Yeah but we don’t sell the wall chargers.” I said, “Do you see why I might think that you do?” He shrugged. To him it made perfect sense. To me, it does not.
Someone messed up the translation in that often-repeated saying. It should have been, “The geek shall inherit the earth.”