Life On Lot 12

The KISS principle was often invoked where I used to work. Don’t make the routine or the policy or the plan too complicated, keep it simple. It seems to me that the same should apply to receiving bills electronically.

Here’s my story. I receive 3 bills electronically every month, from my ISP, the folks I buy my long distance telephone service from and good old Bell Canada (our land line and our satellite TV service).  Two of them send me my invoice as a PDF file attached to the email every month. Its not a huge file usually between 35 and 60 kilobytes. Its quick to download and easy to open and print (if I want). It tells me how much I owe them, the web address of the company in case I need to do a little business with them and that’s about it. It takes less than 30 seconds to open the bill and print a copy for our files. Fits the KISS principal very nicely.

Then there is good old Bell Canada, no I take that back, there is no good in good old Bell Canada. it is simply the only choice where we live. This has to be one of the most inept, uncaring, slow to change monopolies the modern world has ever known. Even now when they are not a monopoly anymore they are still backward and inept and they drive my BP right through the roof. I get an email from them every month that says that my ebill is ready and I owe $xxx.xx and to see my ebill login in on www.bell.ca. Thus starts a 5+minute process of tooing and froing and opening and closing and do I want to buy this and will I be subscribing to that. All this to get to my bill and then if I want to print it I have to go somewhere else. What in hell are these folks thinking, that if they piss me off enough I will buy more services from them? What a complete load of horseshit! Trying to get this friggin monolith to change would be like trying to turn a cruise ship by blowing through a straw against the stern of the ship. See I’m am almost incoherent. I keep thinking I should cancel my ebilling and go back to a paper bill but the thought of wasting all that paper every month stops me. It just pisses me off that they can’t send me a simple 1 or 2 page statement as a pdf file every month.hey ma bell do you think that you could try simple just once? Oh and while you are at it ditch that electronic helper will you PLEASE.