For those just joining us from around the globe, by day I work in a call center for a company called Fitzsimmons Wireless. Fitzsimmons is making news in the United States because it has joined with the very popular Orange computer company to release the latest version of the Orange ePhone. Haven't heard of it? Well you must be backwards-assed.

The latest version of the Orange ePhone is much sought-after by tech trendies because it connects to Fitzsimmons' special 4H network, which is not only faster than the old 3H network, but is also popular with elementary school farming clubs.

Friday was the big release of the new Orange ePhone. When I sat down at work at 10 a.m. there were already 21 calls holding. It turns out catastrophe had struck: Orange's servers had been overloaded by the cell phone trendies trying to activate their new Orange ePhones. Whether the servers had crashed or not was a point of debate: the first e-mail we got said the servers were "down." Four or five e-mails said this, until we got one that said the servers were "delayed." We were officially instructed to say they were "delayed," not "down," after that. Whichever it was, people were pissed they had just dropped two or three hundred dollars apiece on these things and they weren't working.

One lady said to me, "You're saying I just left my Verizon service that I was perfectly happy with to go with Fitzsimmons, and I had to wait in line three hours to buy this ePhone, and now I have to wait another three hours to activate it?" I said yes, that sounded very much like what I was saying. "That's unacceptable. I want to speak to a manager."

Folks, get this out of your head already. Asking to speak to a manager doesn't mean shit. In fact managers usually know far less about what's going on than the peon you're already talking to. In this particular instance the managers had absolutely no access to the servers, which were maintained by Orange and not Fitzsimmons, and no one was putting on a tool belt and getting some electrical tape and fixing a server just because she, out of millions of people, asked for a manager. In fact she wound up speaking with my friend Grossman, a manager trainee, who told her the same thing I had. But she was happy because she thought he was an "authority."

The corner of the ePhone spectacle I got to see from my cubicle was quite funny, though. The news is full of stories of recession, high gas prices, and unprecedented personal credit card debt, yet a corner of the public still can't wait to run out and toss $300 on the latest version of a product they already bought for $500 only 11 months ago. These same consumers will also say, "Oh, I love Orange's products. They're so reliable and user-friendly," as USA Today splashes the news of the server crash on the front page (and I know the previous eTunes activation process was bug-filled right to the end, too). If a product promises to light up and beep and is well-advertised, a lot of people can hardly keep their credit cards in their wallets.

Despite the lack of foresight illustrated by Orange not having enough server capacity on hand, these same consumers will also insist that private enterprise handles things much better than government, and will vote to give away more of their civil liberties to these corporations the next time an election rolls around.

But maybe I'm just a killjoy. Have fun with your light-up-and-beep things. Start saving now for when one with twice as much storage comes out in six months or less, and be ready to pillage your 401k when one twice as fast comes out this time next year. I need the laughs.