Is it just me?
I realize that for a good part of the year 2007 I've felt quite "down" about a number of things--the economic outlook, the fact that I seem to be pedaling harder only to have the carrot keep getting further out, and the extent to which values and decency seem to have disappeared from social relations. It's the latter that has me in a particular funk today.
This week, in addition to a crushing workload, I've spent time (1) obtaining my credit reports and attempting to freeze my credit due to an "unauthorized intrusion" into computerized records, (2) dealing with a computer crash brought about by a "trojan horse" that attempted to extort me into buying its anti-virus product, (3) attempting to update my operating system only to find that Bill Gates believes he should have unfettered access to my personal information, (4) dealing with a subscription that cannot be cancelled except by jumping through flaming hoops, (5) writing to my bank to "opt out" of its information-sharing policy as it pertains to a recently-obtained line of credit (too late, I'm already gettting at least one solicitation a day), and (6) buying a couple of frozen lasagnas "on sale" only to find that special price (as indicated in the virtually unreadable fine print) applied only to those holding "frequent shopper" cards. (I returned the damned lasagna.)
Every time I turn around, it seems that I'm being tracked, solicited, duped, and downright defrauded for somebody's commercial gain. It seems as though there's scarcely a transaction that I enter into any more that is not somehow imbued with an element of deception. This is really starting to get to me. Do I need to just chill out, or are things getting as out of control as it feels?
I realize that for a good part of the year 2007 I've felt quite "down" about a number of things--the economic outlook, the fact that I seem to be pedaling harder only to have the carrot keep getting further out, and the extent to which values and decency seem to have disappeared from social relations. It's the latter that has me in a particular funk today.
This week, in addition to a crushing workload, I've spent time (1) obtaining my credit reports and attempting to freeze my credit due to an "unauthorized intrusion" into computerized records, (2) dealing with a computer crash brought about by a "trojan horse" that attempted to extort me into buying its anti-virus product, (3) attempting to update my operating system only to find that Bill Gates believes he should have unfettered access to my personal information, (4) dealing with a subscription that cannot be cancelled except by jumping through flaming hoops, (5) writing to my bank to "opt out" of its information-sharing policy as it pertains to a recently-obtained line of credit (too late, I'm already gettting at least one solicitation a day), and (6) buying a couple of frozen lasagnas "on sale" only to find that special price (as indicated in the virtually unreadable fine print) applied only to those holding "frequent shopper" cards. (I returned the damned lasagna.)
Every time I turn around, it seems that I'm being tracked, solicited, duped, and downright defrauded for somebody's commercial gain. It seems as though there's scarcely a transaction that I enter into any more that is not somehow imbued with an element of deception. This is really starting to get to me. Do I need to just chill out, or are things getting as out of control as it feels?