Of Firetrucks and Stocking Stuffers

I left home for work today at eight thirty in the morning. I had six hours of class at the high school, three in the morning and three after lunch. When I finished I went and picked up my daughter from school and then took her home. I had supper at home with my family. And then I had to leave for work again.

A package arrived from Canada today. It was a box of Christmas presents, one each for my wife and me but mostly for our children. My son and my daughter each opened one; my daughter got a baseball glove, my son a Lego fire truck set. My boy being the way he is opened it up right away and started working on it. He wanted me to help him, he asked me to help him. I told him I couldn't; I had to leave for work. He asked why I had to go to work. I didn't -- I don't -- have a good answer.

During class this morning somebody mentioned something about receiving gifts from Santa Claus. At that time I suddenly realised that my wife and I had forgotten to get stocking stuffers for the kids. So tonight after I finished class I went to the store to get some gifts for the kids from Santa.

I shouldn't be going to the store, I shouldn't be doing the Christmas shopping. That's not because I think my wife should be doing all the shopping, it's because I'm terrible at shopping. I never know what to buy anybody. But somebody has to do it and it has to be done tonight. My wife doesn't have a chance to do it, so it has to be me. And so, because I had to go shopping when I finshed work, it was almost ten thirty when I got home.

I leave home for work at eight thirty in the morning. I'm home for a quick supper in the evening and then I don't get home again until almost ten thirty at night. That's fine; I can accept that. I might not like it, but I can accept it. That's my responsibility. That's my job, that's my work, and my family depends on me to make money. That's life.

But what I don't understand is why I can't be at home to be with my family at night. What I really don't like is why I can't be there with my boy to help with something. Why?

I feel so bad. I feel like I’m letting them down. I just want to be there with my children; I just want to be there to help them. I’ve gone to work all day, why can't I stay home with my family at night?

Can anybody tell me why?

Children or Cycling

This morning over breakfast I asked my wife about what was going on this Sunday. I knew she had something to do, and I wanted to see when she would be leaving how long she would be gone, and whether or not the kids were going with her.

"Are you going biking this Sunday?" she asks me; "I don't know," I answer, "if they're going with you, then I will but if they're staying here with me, then I can't."

That's one of the adorable things about my wife. Even though it's been almost seven years since we became parents, she still doesn't quite understand one simple thing.

Yes, I do want to ride my bike as much as I can. Yes, I do wonder about when I can next get on my bike. Yes, I do spend a lot of my down time — such as when I'm going somewhere on the scooter or driving the car and can't really do anything else other than think about something — contemplating whether or not I can get out on the weekend or on this or that day and if I can, how much time do I have and where I can go. But I am also thinking that I can only go out if it's okay with her and I don't have to look after children.

The way I look at it is this way. If she is okay with looking after them by herself or if she is taking them somewhere, then I can go for a bike ride. I do not think Well, I want to go for a bike ride, so she will have to take care of the kids. Looking after and being with my children comes first.

Last Saturday I came home from work shortly after five in the evening. My wife wasn't feeling well; when I got home there was a message on my phone from her asking if I could take the kids out for supper. She was already asleep in bed and she stayed that way all night. There was a nice group ride the next morning that I had been planning on doing and been anticipating for a long time. So Sunday morning I woke up early hoping to go on that ride. I had my cycling kit all ready to go. When I got up my wife was already awake. I guess she slept enough the day before. Knowing she hadn't been feeling well the day before, I asked her if I could go or if I should stay home. She told me I should stay home. So I did, even though I really wanted to go on that ride.

And still my wife doesn't understand that no matter how much I want to ride my bike, my family always comes first.

Is it Christmas?

Christmas is less than a week away. But I have to keep reminding myself of that.

There is no snow. It’s cool, but not cold. There is no holiday coming up. (In fact, I have to work Christmas Even and Christmas Day and the only reason I don’t have to work Boxing Day is that I don’t have any classes on Fridays.) In short there is no Christmas spirit.

We do have a tree and gifts. Except my wife thought our old tree was too much of a hassle — to hard to get out and put away and too difficult to put together — and so she went and bought two small trees instead.

But still, there’s no real feeling of Christmas. I have to keep reminding myself that Christmas is coming. It’s hard to get in a Christmas spirit when there’s no Christmas decorations everywhere like there is in Canada. It’s hard to think about Christmas when Christmas Day is just another work day.

But this is Taiwan. There is no Christmas here. (People in Canada may be shocked to hear that, but it’s true. Christmas is not a universal event.) So I’m not really complaining. I’ve gotten used to it.

No, my point with this is not to lament the lack of Christmas spirit or the loss of a holiday. No, my point with this is to explain something to my family and friends in Canada.

Maybe you have wondered why in the past — or this year — that I didn’t express any wishes or gifts or anything for Christmas. Were you expecting me to send a card or an e-mail; were you expecting me to call or wish you “merry Christmas” on Facebook? If or when I didn’t, were you disappointed? Were you wondering if I had forgotten about you? Were you upset with me?

Well, the simple truth is that I didn’t really forget about you. It’s just that with the lack of Christmas spirit and all the other stuff that goes along with Christmas in Canada, the idea of Christmas just slips my mind. Honestly. As I said, I have to keep reminding myself that Christmas is coming. By the time I realise that Christmas is coming it’s too late. By the time I think about possibly sending cards to people in Canada it’s too late to send them. Unless I wanted them to arrive sometime in January.

Consider this: We will likely start opening our gifts this weekend, the weekend before Christmas, and continue opening one or two on selected days going, quite possibly to the weekend after Christmas. A total break from tradition, I know, but what else can we do? On both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day I have to work all day and my children have to go to school. After we wake up, eat breakfast, and get ready for school I won’t see them again late at night and when I do I’ll only have time to say “hi” to them before they have to go to bed. It’s a school night, after all. There’s no time on those days to open presents. So we do what we can and open them when we have the chance.

So even though we have a tree and we have presents (except for my wife because I never know what to get her — any ideas?) there is no real feeling of Christmas here. So it’s not that I’ve forgotten you over the Christmas season, it’s that I’ve forgotten Christmas.

But I can, right now at least, wish you a merry Christmas. (At least I think I can. From what I’ve been hearing, I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say that anymore or not.)

Rude Service

Usually when I go into a store to buy something I like to look for it myself. I don't like to ask someone where it is because I feel that looking around is much easier. Maybe I'm strange, but that's just the way I feel.

The other night I went into a drug store to buy something and as I was looking around for it the clerk asked me -- in English -- if she could help me. (Since I live in Taiwan, it's unusual to have someone speak English; most people would speak Mandarin -- or nothing at all -- to me.) Her pronunciation wasn't great, but there was nothing really wrong with her English. Still, I find it much easier to deal with other people in Mandarin rather than English. One of the reasons for that is that I don't like the assumption that just because I am white -- and therefore not Taiwanese -- that I am unable to speak Mandarin. Another reason is that my Mandarin is usually much better than other people's English. Not always, but chances are that if you are working as a clerk in a store -- and not at a professional job like something in a hospital, large office, or English school -- then my Mandarin in better than your English. So I told her what I wanted in Mandarin.

Now here's where we get interesting.

The clerk calls out to the pharmacist what I want and he goes to get it. I tell him I want two and he brings back two bottles. As he does do he says what it is, which isn't unusual, but how he said it was. The way he said was in Mandarin but with an inflection void of intonation. (Chinese is a tonal language, but many people misunderstand what they means. They think there are tones in Chinese, but it isn't tones, it's intonation. The same sound can have an entirely different meaning depending on whether the voice rises or falls while saying it.) The clerk then started doing the same thing.

They were, essentially, making fun of me and my Chinese. And I told them just as much.

The clerk then tried to engage me in conversation -- in English -- but I basically ignored her. I was quite insulted and upset. Finally I told her -- in Mandarin -- to just give me what I wanted.

This kind of behaviour is, quite honestly, very common. This happens to me quite often, but usually the people who do it are younger, people like children and teenagers. It most often happens in class when my students speak Chinese and I ask them to speak in English. They then repeat what they said but in a flat voice, as if they think that Mandarin spoken without intonation automatically makes it English.

That is quite annoying -- and I let my students know it isn't funny or appreciated -- but it is understandable when one considers the age and maturity of the people doing it. But to have adults do it is another thing entirely. And not just adults, but adults who work in the service industry. And not just that, but one of them -- the one who started it even -- is a pharmacist, a person who I would assume to be educated and at least semi-intelligent. Maybe I am wrong with that assumption, though.

If I can, I will be avoiding that particular drug store in the future. If they're going to treat me like that, I am not going to give them my business. I'll take my money somewhere else. I don't appreciate their attempts at humour.

Being Treated as Air

(A little background information, in case you weren’t aware of this: I am a Canadian living in Taiwan. My wife is Taiwanese and both of our children were born here. As well as my first language of English, I have also become quite fluent in Mandarin Chinese in the twelve-plus years I have been living here. I am quite capable of carrying on a conversation with anybody about anything here. The person mentioned below knows this -- or at least should know this because I have spoken with her before.)
As posted on my Facebook page: 如果我一天不想在台灣繼續住下去的話，原因就是我受不了別人認為我是空氣。
This afternoon my wife, my daughter, and I went to pick up my son from school. As we were standing there waiting for the children to be let out, one of the teachers came out to tell us – or I at least thought it was “us” – something good that my son had done that day. I was holding on to my daughter and my wife was standing right beside me. The teacher came out and started telling my wife – not me, apparently – what had happened. The interesting thing that I noted was that her eyes were focused on my wife and my wife only. They didn't register me at all. It was as if I wasn't there. To make matters worse, as they were talking, both the teacher and my wife turned their bodies to look at my son who was across the yard playing. In doing so they essentially turned their backs to me and left me standing behind them. I was effectively eliminated from the conversation.
That in itself isn't very nice, I think, and left me feeling quite strange. The big thing, however, is that the school my son goes to is a little special. They are taught the basic concepts of Buddhism and Confucianism. One of the things they are taught is that the family unit is very important. In particular, children there are taught that one's parents are very important and need to be respected. For example, all the students are expected to bow and say hello to every parent – including their own – that they see.
Should that doctrine not also extend to the teachers as well? If we as adults want children to behave a certain way, should we not act that way ourselves? As such, should the teachers not also respect the parents of the students there? One way, I would think, to show that respect is not to pretend or in any way give the impression that one parent is not even there. Because that's the way it felt to me as I was standing there. I got the feeling that that teacher didn't even know I was there, even though I was standing right beside the person she did know was there.

Love or Loathe?

I don't know whether this person really likes my post or hates it, but either way this person cant' spell.
> i read your article and loave it so much ,thank you so much.

Classroom Rules

1. Speak English. Do not speak Chinese, Taiwanese, or anything else.

2. Listen. Pay attention. Do not talk to your classmates.

3. Look at the teacher when he is talking and when you are talking to him. Maintain eye contact.

4. Answer all questions. Be active.

        A) If you don't know the answer to a question, you can say, "I don't know."

        B) If you don't understand the question, you can say, "I don't understand."

        C) If you didn't hear the question, you can say, "Say it again, please."

5. Bring your books to class. No book, no chair.

6. Have your book and a pencil case on your desk. Nothing else.

7. Do not do homework in class or any other writing or drawing.

8. Do not put your head on your desk. Do not sleep in class.

9. Keep notes.

        A) If the teacher writes something on the board, write it in you book.

        B) If you don't have a book, write things in a notebook or on paper.

1. 10. Be respectful and polite to everyone.

Did I forget anything? Please let me know.

I Mean What I Say

I’m sorry people, but I can read Chinese, at least a little. While I may not be able to read something as difficult as a novel, things like advertisements, menus, and text messages are usually quite understandable. Therefore, when I say things like: “Hey, look at this!” I am not asking you to translate it, I am not asking you what it says. No, I am saying to you: “Hey, look at this!”

Sunrise over the Mountains

After her breakfast (150cc of tasty formula) and after she had burped, I decided to take my daughter outside for a little stroll. I was very glad I did, as I got to see the sun coming up over the mountains in the distance:

I just wish I had a better camera (this was taken with the 1.3 megapixel camera on my cell phone), that it was clearer (it was a little hazy in the distance), and that I had another hand to keep the phone steady (one arm was needed to hold on to my daughter). Nevertheless, the pictures turned out okay considering, it was a beautiful sight. This is one of the reasons I enjoy living here.

I don’t have access to the EXIF info for these pictures, so I can’t tell you the difference in time between the first picture and the last picture but it’s probably only a minute or two (two at the max). I think it’s interesting that you can stand there and look at the sun in the sky and it doesn’t seem to move at all, but when it’s rising up over the mountains, you can almost see it move. Notice that the sun is higher in the last picture than it is in the first. As I said, there was only about one minute or so between the two pictures.

My Giant Rincon

I used to always refer to this as my mountain bike. My wife -- who doesn’t really understand the difference between road and mountain bikes -- calls it “Little Yellow”. (My road bike is called “Little White”.) Well, I am going to have to stop calling it that and either call it what my wife calls it or refer to it by it’s brand and/or model.

Why? Well, partly because even though it is a mountain bike (a Giant Rincon), it has never been used as such. I have never gone on single-track or anywhere else off road. (I don’t think a section of road back in the boondocks that was under construction and not paved at the time counts as off road.) This bike has only ever been used on the road.

Some background information then. This was my first “real” bike, but back then I didn’t know what a real bike was. I got a mountain bike because bikes based on mountain bikes (but of low quality) were what I -- not knowing any better -- had always ridden. Once I learned more about bicycles and cycling and then got myself an actual road bike (at the time a Specialized Tarmac E5, later my current bike, a GT R Ultra), I rode this one less and less. It came to the point where I hardly rode it at all.

I knew I should be riding it and I tried to ride it. Quite often before rides I would decide that I was going to ride my mountain bike but when I got down to the garage and looked at my two bikes, I pulled out my road bike. It was hard to ride the Rincon because it was just too darn uncomfortable. I could do a seventy or eighty kilometre ride on the GT and not want to go home just quite yet. After thirty or forty on the mountain bike, however, and I just wanted to get home and finish.

I then discovered that my discomfort was coming from two places: my butt and my upper body. To rectify the first problem I changed saddles, going to a leather one. (I now have leather saddles on both bikes -- I put one on my road bike first. I don’t think I will ever go back to using a more modern-style -- that is, not leather -- saddle again.) The second problem was harder to diagnose and I had always assumed it was just the bike itself or just the style of the bike, in the sense that I had been riding a road bike for so long that I was just used to the positioning and geometry of a road bike.

If that was the case, what could I do about it? I then realized that my arms didn’t like the position they were in while riding. The decision was then made to switch from a flat handlebar to drop handlebars. And now the process (here, here, and here) has been completed. And looking at these pictures you will hopefully understand why I might have to stop calling this bike my mountain bike. It doesn’t much look like one anymore, does it?

Now, you may think I’m crazy, but to me it just makes sense. It’s always used on the road, isn’t it? So why shouldn’t it have drop handlebars? I was initially worried that putting drop bars on it would make it look funny, but, at least to me, it doesn’t look strange at all. I like the bar tape too. Yes, I could have picked a different colour, but I liked the apple green. I thought it would look very special on the bike. There was a silver that just about matched the silver detailing on the frame, but I thought the contrast of the green would look good. And, I think I was right. But, once again, you might think I’m crazy. (By the way, when the time comes to change the bar tape on my road bike, I’m thinking of going with purple.) (Update: As you can see from the picture above, this is no longer the case. I have since switched to Brooks leather bar tape in raspberry colour.)

I took it for its first ride last night and other than having to adjust the tilt on the saddle, it felt and rode very good. Before I didn’t really want to ride this bike at all, but now I find myself wanting to ride it. Right now I’m itching to ride it up to Alishan to try it out whereas before that was a ride I would only dream of doing on a road bike.

Being Different

I’ve always felt that I was a little different from most people. By themselves those differences didn’t make me that unique, but when added together I do think they make me quite special. For example, I’m left handed, most people are right handed. I was goalie in hockey, most people choose not to play that position. I played soccer, most people in my home town played softball. I refereed minor hockey, most people choose not to subject themselves to such ridicule. I use a Mac (and Linux on my laptop), most people -- still -- use Windows. I left my home country to live and work, most people I know don’t move too far from their home town. And here’s the kicker: Most road cyclists use drop handlebars. In that, I am the same; there is no difference there. But some cyclists decide they don’t like or want drop handlebars for some reason and put flat bars on their road bikes. Me, I go the other way. I am attempting to put drop handlebars on my mountain bike. Let’s hope it works out. Stay tuned.

Stuck in My Head

Why, every time I hear the Counting Crows song “Mr. Jones”, does it get stuck in my head for days and days? I only have to hear that song once and I keep singing it to myself for at least a week after I have heard it.

Impromptu Birthday Party

The call came earlier than expected, but it was perfect timing as we had just finished lunch. A student of mine had called to say that she was coming to our house to give me a gift for my birthday (which is in two days). What was the gift? A very delicious cake.



And so, we were able to have a short and unscheduled birthday celebration. We had a candle (apparently she didn’t know how old I was as the candle was a question mark!) and my wife and son sang “Happy Birthday” to me. My son and I blew out the candle and then he helped me cut the cake.



The cake was very good. My son really enjoyed it, but then again he enjoys all cake that isn’t chocolate! Thank you, Meco! Thank you for the gift and thank you for remembering.

My Son's Amazing Ability

I don’t which surprises/upsets me more: Those here who seemed surprised that my son can speak Mandarin or those that question whether or not he can understand what I am saying.

First of all, why would he not understand -- or be able to speak -- Mandarin? He is living in Taiwan. Everywhere he goes he hears people speaking Mandarin. It’s all around him. Also, do they think he never speaks to the people on his mother’s side of the family? (I do realise that they might not know his mother is Taiwanese, but sometimes they see us all together.) Even if they wrongly assume that we only ever speak English at home, they must realise that he is going to hear Mandarin every time he steps out the door to go outside.

Now, about understanding what I am saying: Let us not forget that most people in this country believe that if you are white, you are too stupid to learn Mandarin or Chinese. They think that if they see a Westerner, they have to speak English, because that person is only capable of speaking English. It is inconceivable that someone from a Western country can actually speak Mandarin. Therefore, do they think I never talk to my son? Or that he hasn’t been listening to me the whole time he has been here?

I might - if I try hard enough -- be able to fathom the idea that some people are going to wonder about the language-capabilities of my son. But when I get some people who think one way or some people who think the other way, I really don’t know what to say. All I can say is that I get tired of people asking if my son can speak Mandarin, I get tired of people being surprised that he can do it, and tired of people exclaiming that he speaks Mandarin so clearly. I’m sorry, but there’s no reason why he wouldn’t be able to speak it any worse than they can. And there’s no reason why he wouldn’t be able to understand what I am saying to him when I speak to him in English all the time.

My Road Bike

                                        2008 GT R Ultra

Current incarnation:

Details:

Frame:

        2008 GT R Ultra, white with yellow and grey detailing

Wheels:

        Front:

                Mavic Ksyrium Equip

        Rear:

                Hand-built (built around DT Swiss RR415 rim, 28 spokes)

Groupset:

        *SRAM Rival (Force rear gear shift lever)

        *53/39T, 11-26T (11-12-13-14-15-17-19-21-23-26)

Saddle:

        Brooks Team Pro (Team Professional Copper)

                (MacJournal Entry)

Handlebars:

        Ritchey Logic II Comp (white)

Handlebar Tape:

        Brooks leather bar tape (honey)

Pedals:

        Speedplay Zero Cro-Moly (red)

Computer:

        Garmin Edge 500

Previous Incarnations:

My Mountain Bike

Well, I have a post in here for my road bike, so I thought I should put one up here of my mountain bike as well. Here it is:

The date of this post and the actual date are not the same. I am posting this on August 6, 2011, three days after I got the leather saddle you see on the bike. I’m setting this post to a date before the post of my road bike so that this post doesn’t show up first. See my road bike first, then see this one.

I bought this seven years ago before I knew anything about cycling or bikes. I didn’t really know what a road bike was and didn’t know that mountain bikes are not for riding on the road. My life as a cyclist, therefore, started on this bike. I rode this exclusively from when I really started cycling in the fall of 2005 until the end of 2006 when I got my first road bike. Since then this has been regulated to being a second bike, something that gets ridden once in a blue moon. For example, in 2009 I did 56 rides, and 52 of them were on my road bike. In 2010 those numbers were 57 and 56 respectively. (September 22, 2011 update: due to my road bike being mothballed, I have now ridden this bike more this year than I have my road bike. Overall, however, I still only ride this bike 14% of the time.)

In case you are wondering, yes, I did change the tires. I run thinner slick tires on this, not the fat, knobbly things that come standard on mountain bikes.

Update: September 2, 2011

Thanks to the donation from a cycling buddy of a steel rigid fork, I swapped out the heavy and pointless (for riding on the road, at least) suspension fork that came with this bike. Notice the difference in colour between the fork and the frame. As I write this, I’m also looking at getting better -- and better-looking -- bar ends. It’s time to give this bike a little bit of love, as I really, really should ride this more often.

Update: October 22, 2011

I’ve put drop handlebars on this bike meaning that I don’t think I should call this a mountain bike anymore. The details of this change can be found here, here, and here. An updated version -- complete with more pictures -- of this bike can be found here.

This is how this bike has looked through the years and the changes, even though most of the changes are very recent.

Boy or Girl

Back when we expecting Wen BB, I would often have a conversation with someone else that went exactly like this:

Me: “We’re going to have a baby!”

Other Person (OP): “Wow, boy or girl?”

Me: “Boy.”

OP: “Congratulations!”

That always struck me as being a little strange. Shouldn’t things be the other way around? Shouldn’t people say “Congratulations” and then ask if it’s a boy or a girl?

I haven’t had a similar conversation yet during this pregnancy, so I can’t tell you what has happened, but I have often wondered: What would have happened if I had answered “girl” instead of “boy”? Would the OP have said something like, “Ohh, I’m terribly sorry. Better luck next time!”

Me, I am very happy to have a girl. There’s nothing wrong with a boy, but I have always wanted to have a daughter. And, Wen BB is a boy, so I have already have a son. This way, I will have both a son and a daughter. Perfect. And, she will be my parents’ first granddaughter.

Cold Weather

A lot of people in Canada might be thinking that the weather in Taiwan isn’t cold. Come on, it’s only ten degrees. That’s nothing like the sub-zero temperatures we’re getting here. Yes, that is true, but the problem is that people in Canada are prepared for the cold. People here are not.

In Canada, houses, stores, schools, office buildings, buses, et al are all heated, heated so much that it is only slightly uncomfortable walking around in a T-shirt. If there’s a roast in the oven, it’s darn hot in the house. Well, my grandfather thought the house was always cold, but he was special. In Taiwan, other than department stores and big supermarkets, the only heating we have is closing the window to stop the wind and drafts from coming in. These cement walls don’t help either as they don’t retain any heat. I often find it’s colder inside our house than it is outside.

Also I don’t see people in Canada riding motorcycles or scooters when it gets even remotely cool. If the temperature gets below, what, twenty degrees, people are putting their bikes away for the winter. Here we have to ride scooters all year round, and that includes times like now when it is ten, eleven degrees and raining. That, I tell you, is cold.

I almost prefer the winters in Canada. Yes, it’s much colder, but only outside. I can put on a heavy coat, gloves, cover my head and my ears, and I’m fine. I go inside and can take all that off and sit in comfort with the central heating we have. But here I can’t do that. I have to ride my scooter in the cold and wet and then go inside where it’s not any warmer and try to eat or type or wash dishes or clean up, all with very cold hands. Thank god it only lasts for a couple months. By the end of February or so it will only be slightly cool and by the end of March I can get my shorts out again.

Re-organising Blogs

I hope I'm not confusing anyone, but I re-arranged and re-organised my blogs. (It probably doesn't make a difference, I don't think anyone is reading these anyways.)

This blog (http://chuckclark.blogspot.com) is mostly for stuff relating to me and only me. In the future this site will probably contain stuff I have written or thoughts that I have.

If you're looking for posts about biking (or cycling), life in Taiwan, or things we have done or things about my family, then look at Bikes, Kids, and Temples (http://bikesnkidsntemples.blogspot.com/).

For stuff about my children, look at Fruits from the Nanatree (http://nanatree.com/fruits/). Anything relating to Wen BB or Wen CC will be located there.


And don't forget about my collection of Chuck's Cold Jokes (http://chuckscoldjokes.blogspot.com/) and Letters to Leland (http://letterstoleland.blogspot.com/)


Also, make sure to check out Nanatree (http://www.nanatree.com/) if you did not come here via there.

I now have MacJournal set up on my Mac to be able to post to my blogs, so hopefully I will be able to blog more often. One of the hindrances before was the tediousness of having to go to the blog, log in, type the post out, format it, and then publish it. With MacJournal set up, the only thing I have to do now is type out the post. It's always hard to find the time to do that, but at least the tediousness of it is gone.

Open Letter to an Unspecified Company

I'm sorry, but you're going to have to accept alternate methods. Cancelling by phone would be fine if I were living in the Pacific time zone, but unfortunately, I am not. I am living halfway around the world from you.

Your practice of only being available during regular business -- and only in your own time zone, by the way -- is quite short-sighted, inconvenient, and impolite. Not every one is able to call during regular business hours in the Pacific time zone. As the majority of people in the world don't live in the Pacific time zone, I would think the number of people who can call during regular business hours is very, very small. Most people in North America don't even live in the Pacific time zone, so you can't even claim you are catering to most people in North America.

When you are available, it is night time here. Why should I lose my sleep so you can do your job? It should be the other way around, should it not? The company should cater to the customer's needs, no?

Moreover, the one time I did call to try to cancel, I was put on hold for a very long time until in the end I gave up. I didn't give up out of frustration or because I figured that if I were going to be on hold for so long, I might as well just continue; no, I gave up because a long-distance phone call halfway around the world where I have been on hold for so long is just too expensive. The least you could do is provide a toll-free number for people not living in your area code.

The thought occurred to me as I was on hold that maybe you like to put people on hold on purpose. I can't see your phone lines being that busy. If so, you need more phone lines. I'm willing to bet you put people on hold on purpose for a long time because you figure that if unsatisfied customers are on hold for long enough, they will eventually give up and won't bother to cancel. Am I too far off with that observation?

>>If you want to cancel, please call us at (1) 760-602-3000 M-F 8-5

Pacific Time and select the appropriate menu option. Be sure to

listen to the entire list of choices in order to ensure your call

is directed properly. Alternate methods of cancellation will not

be accepted.