This topic seems out of date now that, as of this writing, we're seeing the third day of a stock market rally (thank you, President-elect Obama). However I've had it in mind since last Friday, so here goes.

They say American industry is in financial trouble. I'm not sure that's a bad thing. In my experience American companies have gone soft, like rotten melons. The CEO's fiddle around choosing upholstery for the corporate jets while the business burns. Maybe this is the smack in the face we need, and if our economic theories are true, we'll be better for it.

Here's an example. At Fitzsimmons Wireless I work in the call center. If someone is moving from New Mexico to Maine, we take their existing account and set it up in the new locale with a new number. The purpose of this is so that the customer's contract, plan and features follow them to the new market. This should mean their upgrade eligibility date also stays intact.

Except it doesn't. I started having customers calling in saying they were trying to upgrade through our Web site, or in a affiliate store, or a Best Buy or Radio Shack, and they were getting the message that they weren't eligible. In all these cases the customers should have been able to, and in some cases they were out of contract entirely!

The only option we had was for them to go into a corporate store so a manager could do an override. But this didn't help if the customer wanted a phone that was only available on our site, or if they liked an affiliate's price better. I finally had some guy ranting at Best Buy about it and asking why nothing was being done. I told him I had brought it up and never got any reaction, but I decided to type a succinct e-mail and forward it to my manager.

So the next time I talked to my manager she said, "Well, aren't you supposed to be setting the expectation that this could happen?" I said no, I still had every handout we got in training and there was no mention of this phenomenon. She says the lady who sends out our instructional e-mails pointed out that the rule book says they can go in a corporate store. I said yes, but this is also happening when they go on our own Web site, and what if they're at Best Buy or Radio Shack?

But of course nothing happened, she just tried to act like I was the idiot. I went back to my desk and put on my headset and prepared to face the next 50 people with the same issue. When they would say I should notify someone of the inconvenience we were causing I would give my standard smart reply, "I'll bring it up at the next board meeting."

So there's just one good example of how American industry really doesn't give a fuck about you, the customer. What are you going to do, take out a $10,000 loan and start your own cell phone company in your garage? George Carlin said we don't get real choices, we get choices in things like donut flavors to fool us into thinking we have real choices.

Some guy in the Service department at Ford probably said, "Hey, guys, I'm getting a lot of customers saying that they don't like it that the sideview mirrors fall off their Festiva when they close the doors. Maybe we should make them so they don't do that?" But his boss just looked at him sideways and asked him if he really liked his job, or would he be happier somewhere else? The boss wasn't going to relay the info, because he would've been seen as a boat rocker and troublemaker. So instead Ford is now facing obsolescence, in the bread line with the other two auto companies. Meanwhile Toyota and Honda, bred in Japan where they don't have this culture of half-assedness, are flourishing. I hope they get in the cell phone business; I'll die laughing!

So maybe we're finally getting a taste of what happens when everyone just keeps their head down and doesn't strive for quality. We may all lose our jobs over it, but at least our cars, electronics and cell phones will be better.