An Undiscovered Racket

Let me say it now, just to be perfectly clear:

DO NOT DRINK AND DRIVE.

Never mind the stuff about the greater societal good (which should be obvious). It's the collateral damage that'll get you. I imagine there are similar non-judicial consequences awaiting those who do even worse things, but what happened to me in this regard was nothing short of amazing. There was a whole laundry list of organizations with their talons firmly planted in my ass and their hands in my wallet. So far I've paid up and rid myself of almost every one, but it took a Herculean effort and the patience of a saint.

Take the last week or so as an example. As I described in the introduction to this story, I now have my own personal livestock tag (the HomeGuard® 200) and interventionist (the Sobrietor®).

Let me go off on a tangent here first, though. The people who make these things (BI Incorporated) have come up with some great copy for showcasing their products. Here's some text from the the livestock tag PDF:

"The transmitter can be quickly and easily installed on the client's ankle"

I wonder if anybody actually reads that crap or bases a purchasing decision on it? From everything I've seen, it's much more likely that instead of the courts/agencies making that decision on the merits, BI negotiated a back-room agreement to receive some portion of the fees I'm paying to wear this thing in exchange for leasing the equipment to them for less. In my case, which admittedly seems to be a little unusual, the money goes from my bank account to my credit card to the agency here in __________, who tell me they only keep $60 of the $1,000 I paid them, to the agency that works with the court that mandated my participation in this program __________. I've been told second-hand that the latter agency keeps most of the money and kicks some back to the city where this offense took place.

Now that we're on this track, the question becomes this: how many entities are making money off my thousand-dollar contribution to this program? More to the point, how many of those entities should not be doing so, ethically speaking? I don't have any complaints about paying a reasonably large amount of money to the "community" as a result of my actions that endangered it and/or its members, but do I really need to be taken advantage of at every possible point along the way? It's worse than getting nickel-and-dimed on the New Jersey Turnpike. I don't know about you, but where I come from it isn't considered polite - or even necessary - to kick someone when he's down. That's why I have a hard time taking BI's vision statement at face value. Sounds like a bunch of sanctimonious bullshit to me. I only wish that they were a public company so I could present the details of their revenue stream.

But I digress; I was complaining about the end-user installation experience. That was the only time I've ever paid that much money for something (product, service, double-ended dildo show, etc.) and been given the shaft that badly. Let's not forget that I am the client here - the firm that manufactures this device says so itself. Not only did I have to get the appropriate people at these two agencies talking to each other - which was clearly not my responsibility - but the people answering the phones at each place did absolutely nothing at all for me. No messages were left, calls which were supposed to be transferred suddenly ended up in a dial tone, I got the runaround, and several times there was no answer at all. This was all after wading through the computerized telephone menus in order to speak with a human being.

After setting an appointment for last week, I found out right before I was supposed to go in to get this thing put on that the person in the local office was out sick. Another delay - and the later this period of time starts, the later it will end. When I finally do get into the right office, I wait in the reception area with the rest of the criminologically diverse crowd for about 45 minutes while the people that work there are all clearly stuffing their faces full of pizza in the back. Whatever happened to customer service?

Aside: At one place I worked, which coincidentally was in this same town, the name of the game was "Positively Outstanding Service." If one wasn't providing one's clients with POS, then one wasn't doing things the right way. It took a little while for me to see the wisdom of that philosophy because I tend to regard all corporate slogans as bullshit feel-good panaceas in general and until proven otherwise, but I came around and saw how it added value in the end. The only thing is, now I expect the same from others - especially when I'm paying for it!

Anyway, finally these people stopped shoveling greasy dough and tomato sauce into their gullets long enough to wander into the reception area and ask why we were there. I thought of several wise-ass retorts, but decided that a little friendly repartée would probably miss the point, or at least prolong the time I was forced to have these people in my presence. I was surprised that it only took them a few minutes to locate my file, although I had called to remind them that I was coming not long before.

After 10 minutes of filling out mind-numbing paperwork - no, I'm not giving you my SSN (try it yourself, it works) - I was led into the back. The person who tagged me and showed me how to use the interventionist was pretty friendly, but since the idiots in the agency that liases directly with the court never called her to explain anything about what the requirements for my case were, she could only tell me how to hook it up when I got back home. It took me about 24 more hours until I could get the right person on the phone before verifying that everything was set up correctly. Guess what I heard from him then: "__________, the person who hooked you up, didn't [insert excuse here; I heard 3 different ones in the space of 5 minutes], so you have to give me everything over the phone again. By this point I wasn't surprised. The only part of that that wasn't fun was trying to read the numbers off the inside of the livestock tag - did I mention that this thing is tight as hell? After spending a few minutes in what must be yoga-master positions trying to find the number, my new friend on the phone tells me he can look it up on his computer. How nice of him to let me twist my knee inside out just to save him a few keystrokes. Again, one of his questions was, "what's your social security number?" Once again, I told him he's not getting it from me. He says he needs it "for the file." I tell him he can go get it from the court case paperwork if it's that important.

Another aside: My SSN is not anywhere in the court case paperwork, the police report, or anything else related to this particular matter. I told the cops, the judge, and anyone else who asked that I wasn't giving it to them. It must not be that important after all - I did end up getting arrested, charged, and convicted, didn't I? I'm no expert, but after all the recent computer hacking and laptop theft, one would think people would learn. If the morons running the databases behind all these agencies can't come up with a unique identifier for each person aside from a SSN (which is probably pretty easy to forge), then I'll be damned if I help them keep track of me. Here's a hint, fellas... try a UUID.

Back to the narrative. He tells me he can't connect to the device through the new phone line I paid to have installed (yet another company making money off this - I had to order an additional analog telephone line from __________ at about $35/month plus taxes). Once again I read him the appropriate numbers, which haven't changed, and somehow the second time through everything works. I am as surprised as I have been by anything yet in this whole process.

My new schedule allows me to leave the house for 2 hours, one day per week. All other days I have to be here ready to answer bells from 0800 to 2200. If I was doing regular work, I would have to disclose this entire situation to the HR department and have them sign something verifying my work hours so I could leave. That may work for those that have McJobs (believe me, there are a lot of people in that category around here), but for people in my profession and/or tax bracket, taking that form to the boss would have about the same impact on one's career as a lethal dose of Polonium-210. For those that don't get it, I'm trying to say that you'd be dead job-wise, it just may take a while. Good thing I can do independent consulting while I'm here.

"You know what capitalism is? Gettin' fucked!"
-Tony Montana, Scarface

I am an American, but I'm also a Capitalist. The events I've described above don't make me bitter or frustrated, but rather they have planted the seed of an idea: getting into the offender management business. If these jagoffs at BI can do it, so can I. Think about it - a captive customer base (pardon the pun) that can be treated like garbage. If important court-imposed dates or milestones are missed, who do you really think the judge is going to believe, the agency whose executives are out on the fairway with him every week, or the latest personification of a criminal dipshit standing tall before the Man?