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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MSI who wrote (258764)	5/27/2002 12:42:37 AM
From: Mr. Whist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Re: "The attitude is "if you can get away with it, do it!": Excellent observations. Here are a couple of real-life examples of "screw the public": Example No. 1: My wife signed us up for HBO last November so we could see "Band of Brothers." The cable company rep said, "We've got a special offer. For the same price as adding HBO, you can get HBO and Cinemax." Wife said fine. What the cable rep did NOT say is that after two months, the Cinemax package no longer is free, but costs an extra $5 the third month, then an extra $10 the fourth month. When my wife called to disconnect Cinemax after I compared bills and figured out the scheme, she complained that the "no-tell" tactic was most deceptive. Hell, they don't care. Example No. 2: I usually change the oil on my '89 Plymouth, but I couldn't get the oil pan nut off. So I had to take it in to one of those 10-minute oil change franchise places. Some 22-year-old kid manager asked me whether I wanted "low-grade, medium-grade or high-grade" motor oil. I said, hell, I don't know ... I guess give me medium grade. (In retrospect, my fault for not asking for an explanation.) The $19.95 oil change became a $34.95 oil change. What the little shithead manager didn't tell me was that "low grade" = regular 10W-30 Quaker State motor oil, the kind I always use; "medium grade" = Quaker State synthetic motor oil; "high grade" = Quaker State high-end ($4 a quart) synthetic motor oil. So, for the first time in my life, I was driving a car with synthetic motor oil. And, when I got the car home, I also discovered they only put in 3.5 quarts of oil instead of 4 quarts. These types of things happen every day. All we can do, really, is learn from our experiences and ask more questions. In these two cases, it only cost me 30 bucks total to pick up some real-life lessons, so no serious damage done. The term "business ethics" is an oxymoron.