Unrewarding surveys: Is my time worth their money?

By DAVID FAUCHEUX

The other night about 7:29 p.m. my telephone rang, and the caller ID box indicated (caller unknown). I had to decide whether to take the call. I did--ok, I was lonely--and ended up taking a 35 minute survey concerning cable and Internet service providers.

I am usually crippled by a stultifying politeness and hate to just hang up on the hapless surveyor who usually sounds like a college kid trying to put himself/herself through school. I do support higher education. I was asked if I used Cox or some other cable provider. Let's call him Jed. Jed wanted to know if I had my telephone service and Internet and television bundled together. I don't.

Jed went on to ask me if I had satellite television or DVR, like I'd understand how to operate that, if I'd consider changing my long distance telephone service provider if my bill were reduced by $2, and if I would consider one carrier for television, cable, and Internet. There were questions such as "On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being most satisfied and 1 being least satisfied, how would "you" rate the customer service of ATT, Cox, Dish Network, and Direct TV? and on and on. "You" did not know enough to rate all of them but did find some needed improvement.

End the survey, Jed asked for demographic information so I subtracted several unkind years off my age and considered adding several thousand much-needed dollars to my income--who wants to make only $10 grand or less, but I did not upgrade my MLIS to a CLIS or Ph.D.--I am not that creative.

Jed thanks me for my time; but, alas, I didn't see any gift card for that 35 minutes. And funnily enough, the night before, I had taken a 10-minute survey about the local Acadiana news broadcasters. Needless to say, if my gift card from the Acadiana survey is in the mail, perhaps, with the other one, I was not informed!

IMAGINE that!

Cooking without looking

By DAVID FAUCHEUX

I realize I have let my fourth-year anniversary slide past with no retrospective or clever posting about time and its winged flight. I had originally planned to do a piece on The National Spelling Bee but did not. Imagine knowing how to spell and define words such as bogatyr, ziarat, escabeche, chorion, nacarat, ecrase, numnah, thymele, oxylophytic, sinisize, hyphaereses, taleggio, introuvable, or guerdon.

Well, Samir from Indiana managed to and won thousands of dollars in prizes and may one day, as can happen, work for the spelling bee in some capacity. I think this and the geographic bee sponsored by National Geographic are neat ways to showcase nonathletic talent; and kudos to ABC for broadcasting in prime time the final orthographic rounds. I also had thought to mention Steve Lopez, award-winning columnist for the LA Times, and his book The Soloist but my email to Mr. Lopez, while read according to the receipt pending notice I attached, has not been answered, so check back later on this blog.

I do want to mention the cooking show developed for the blind. I found this a novel idea with lots of possibilities. I recently visited the Web site and found it interesting. It is my understanding the show is in its third season and may pick-up some big sponsors and also appear on a cable channel. There seem to be so few shows by or about blind people, as major or supporting characters, game shows rarely have us on, that when someone wanted to do a show like this, I thought wow! Renee---I spoke to her last week---is the producer and seemed optimistic and brings years of television experience to this project.

Imagine that!