It's a shame what's happened to my local HVAC contractor. It used to be a great local operation where a real person picked up when you called. But lately, after a private equity group took over, it's all automated calls and foreign call centers. The personal touch is gone and, sadly, their service quality has taken a noticeable hit. It's just not the same anymore.
I knew some local guys that basically made a living doing that - start an HVAC company, get it working good, sell it to a equity group, they destroy it pretty quickly, everyone quits, then one of the other original guys starts a new HVAC company, gets it working good, sells it ...
A few years back I had to run door dash orders to pay the bills. I noticed then that distribution of labor removes a lot of the spirit and purpose behind the work.
No one at the call center is enjoying the satisfaction of a job well done, it is complete detached. I'm sure the laborers are pushed hard to high quotas and have zero time to follow up with customers.
I think we need to back to owning the entire system if we are going to have better services, better profits and satisfied employees.
Easy there comrade, you need to watch that talk about alienation of labor and ownership of the means of production. But it is interesting how a brief trip through the gig economy will start someone talking like Marx even if they (presumably) haven't read him.
The worst "foreign call center" experience I've had lately...
Hotel check-in. Walked in, lady at desk is read a novel, I ask "can I check in?", she directs me to a video-conference kiosk across the room, which is actively in-use by a high-maintenance customer who, in addition to changing her reservation details, can't understand a fairly light Indian accent. 15 minutes of waiting later, this other customer is still going around-and-around with the call center guy (who's being nothing but patient and trying his best with the system provided), the lady at the desk, rolls her eyes, harrumphs, and asks if I want to check-in with her instead.
If you're in the US. Starting next year, the Inflation Reduction Act added a $1900 tax credit for purchasing heat pump water heaters so it might pay off earlier than you think.
This is an essential skill for everyone to learn. The article lightly touches on how to learn to be more assertive. If you want a more thorough guide I highly recommend the book, When I Say No I Feel Guilty.
What’s hilarious with your position is that your “side”, the liberals, is perceived to be immune the conspiracy theories. For example, like how QAnon is widely believed throughout the conservative community. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/03/30/qanons-cons...
Actually that study just shows that people have not heard about the term Qanon. I actually believe that left leaning voters are more familiar with the term. I suspect it hardly gets mentioned on fox news for example. The more interesting thing would have been to ask about some of the theories from Qanon and to scale them likely to unlikely similar to the other questions.
The second difference between Qanon and some of the previous conspiracy theories (on both sides) is that we have several republicans quite openly supporting some of those theories, and even the president retweeting qanon theories. That's why people are saying it seems to becoming mainstream.
That executive order shows the full-on insanity and dysfunction of our political system in the US:
1. Other countries achieve lower drug prices because their governments regulate those prices.
2. The US (especially a particular political party) is anti-government regulation, especially when it comes to price controls, so drug prices are MUCH higher in the US.
3. Thus, the US president has issued an executive order to allow reimportation of drugs so that the US can take advantage of other countries' lower drug prices.
In other words, we won't pass our own regulations, so we are explicitly delegating our regulatory authority to other nations so that we can take advantage of the effects of their regulations.
Honestly, whether or not you are pro or anti regulation, this current state is just f'ing insane. You certainly can't consistently state that you are anti-regulation and be for this policy.
It's regulation that is stopping me from buying the cheapest price. I don't want the US to force a particular price in the US. And even if they did, I would still want to be able to buy from anywhere in the world, regardless of where the lowest price is.
I'm not sure why people don't see the problem with "I don't want any price regulation in the US, but I want to personally benefit from price regulation done in other countries". It's a whole different level of selfishness.
Can you describe how selfishness comes into play? I want everyone to be able to purchase at the lowest price and don't want them to be limited to buying only from the US.
Because they are voting for no regulation and no M4A in their own country, while eating off the plate of countries that do negotiate drug prices and have socialized healthcare.
You mean the regulations that limit competition in the US and restrict manufactures and grant monopoly rights? These are the regulations that are good right?
What are you talking about when it comes to manufacturing insulin? I mean, yes, I definitely do want regulations around the safety of drug manufacturing, but beyond that what regulations specifically are you referring to that restrict the manufacturing of insulin?
>The second reason, the authors noted, is that there isn't significant competition in the U.S. insulin market. Price competition typically comes from the introduction of a generic drug that directly competes with a branded product.
>But the authors said that current insulin makers have blocked the entry to such products by getting new patents based on things such as a new delivery device.
That's a great way to put it. I couldn't quite put my finger on it but that's totally what is happening on IG. A lot of DTC brands have basically saturated my feed. I'm not sure how much longer this can continue without losing engagement. Anecdotally my own interest in IG has been waning the past year almost to the point of deletion.
This happens and has been happening all over the Internet. IG won't be the last victim. As soon as corporate America figures out how to sell their Ranch dressing over a platform, the brands start invading and the whole platform turns vanilla and boring.
