satire – The Waffle Group

Cell C vs Tracker. And you thought they weren’t in competition

I’m leaving the country and I have contracts to cancel. Contracts like those for cellular telephone and vehicle-tracking services.

The difference is that Tracker actually gives a shit about their customers (even those who are shortly to cease being their customers) while Cell C doesn’t.

For both Tracker and Cell C, I still have about 11 months remaining on my contract. Tracker magnanimously gave me a 50% discount on the settlement amount, while Cell C want to charge me a R1,000 penalty fee.

Tracker cares what I think about their brand, even if I’m not a customer of theirs. This could be because I might have cause to give a vehicle-tracking service a recommendation. “Hey, Jimmy. Tracker provided pretty good service. Why not use them?”

Even if I don’t give a recommendation, they certainly don’t want me to have anything bad to say about the company or the brand. I mean, pissed off customers typically put a lot more effort into complaining than happy customers put into complementing. Unhappy customers might bad-mouth the brand. Complain to friends. Blog about the poor service and unreasonable contract cancellation terms. Screw around with the logo. Perhaps they might tweet about it, or post it on Facebook. It could go viral. It could become the next internet meme. Tracker wouldn’t want to even risk such a thing, no matter how small the chances of it happening are, while Cell C have made it all the way to the “post it on Facebook” phase.

Microsoft — Now writing satire

It certainly seems that Microsoft are moving into the scathing humour industry when one looks at this press release entitled “Microsoft Brings Holiday Cheer on a Budget to Hispanic Families With Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft Office 2007 Language Pack in Spanish.”

Honestly, that really is the headline. Holiday Cheer on a Budget! With Microsoft Products! Now in Spanish!

It’s either satire, or Microsoft are using their system administrators to write press releases.

An excerpt if you can’t be bothered to click through and read the article yourself:

“With the current economic situation in the U.S., families are looking for ways to save money and still celebrate the holidays,” said Fred Studer, general manager of U.S. Information Worker Business Group at Microsoft. “This alliance with the Boyle Heights Technology Youth Center will give us the opportunity to interact with Hispanic families and show them how to prepare inexpensive and creative holiday solutions for their homes, using easy technology tools from Microsoft Office 2007.”

What the hell is a “holiday solution”? Microsoft, you are trying to market Office 2007 Home and Student editions to Hispanic families in the US. I understand Hispanics to be typically working class people. I’m not sure they want a “holiday solution.” I’m not sure anyone does. A term like that completely pollutes the concept of a holiday. I don’t want to be laying on a beach on a tropical island somewhere, thinking myself clever to have solved my holiday problem (or is that work problem) with such a cunning holiday solution.

Certainly, I’m taking liberty with the disconnect between what America thinks a holiday is, and what the rest of the English-speaking world thinks it is. Microsoft’s Fred Studer isn’t suggesting anyone develop a creative vacation solution. But let’s look at some of the things Office 2007 offers to simplify the holiday season:

The Microsoft Office 2007 system and the Office 2007 Language Pack — Spanish offer a great deal of tools to help simplify the holiday season, with special templates and features that allow families to create fun projects such as these:

Personally made holiday cards, family calendars, gift tags and decorations using Office Word 2007

Holiday budget management using Microsoft Office Excel 2007 templates

Dazzling presentations for a posada gathering using Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007

Holiday recipe organization using Office Word 2007 templates

Aside from everything that the Microsoft Office 2007 system and the Office 2007 Language Pack — Spanish offer this holiday season, the software also is the perfect gift for every student and parent.

Are those bullet points what Fred means by “holiday solutions”? Aren’t hand-made cards more beautiful? Isn’t Excel 2007 a little overpowered for a holiday budget? PowerPoint is a problem — not a solution to anything. I wasn’t aware holiday recipes needed to be organised. I’m rather glad that’s been cleared up for me.

Are you a Handytard?

Do you struggle to hammer nails into a wall without chipping out massive chunks of masonry and plaster?
Do all the picture frames you hang on walls stay there for less time than it took for you to put the picture up in the first place?
Does the grass you mow never grow back?
Do the plants in the garden attempt to prune you?
Does changing a light-bulb generally result in an electrical discharge?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you may be a Handytard.
But don’t worry. It’s more common than you think.

Thousands of men suffer from Handytardism, and don’t even know it. Most men who are handytards only discover this fact once they buy a house and try to start a family. Due to this, some handytards could go undiagnosed for their whole lives.

Many handytards are affected by the social stigma attached to handytardism. Handytardism is, in fact, a direct affront on their masculinity. Men who cannot fix the broken things in their homes, or successfully hang decorations on the walls for their women, may as well be impotent.

Handytards of the world, do not fret!
Fortunately there is an easy solution that even the most inept would-be handy-man can use to his benefit. This solution is guaranteed to please your woman, and has been widely utilised by men with erectile dysfunction.

Get a professional to do the job for you.