Let me start out by saying that I am a 41, soon to be 42 year old dentist. I am 15 years into a lifelong career. I have renctly built a new modern facility and taken on a partner, and am in the process of bring on another one. As a result, I have taken on quite a bit of new debt. I am, therefore, what you might call "pot committed".
So, when I saw a Fed Ex overnight package from the federal govt. in my inbox this a.m., I was a little curious.
This is what the first line of the cover sheet read, "Do you think you have what it take to be a Marine? Are you prepared for one of the most demanding challenges you will ever face?
WTF!!!!! Are you phucking kidding me? The Marine Corps spent the money for an overnight package from Fed Ex to ask me, a 42 y.o. dentist, if I'm interested in being a marine????
I realize that this is just a form letter sent out to thousand, maybe millions of people, but did it need to be overnighted? And don't you think that if they were going to go to that kind of expense, they could have done a more targeted form of mailing? How many millions of our tax dollars were pissed down the drain on this motherphucking cluster phuck of a letter? And how many of these kind of boondoggles go on everyday?
And this is who's going to save health care? OMFG!!!!!!
Dear lord... please allow this dangerous combination of hair spary, bat slobber, and D.O.T. four automatic transmission fluid to excite my mind, occupy my spirits, and enrage my body, provoking me to kick any man or woman in the back of the head regardless of what he or she has or has not done unto me. All my Best, Earlie Cuyler.
I used to have Comcast cable/internet when I lived in Alexandria. I moved to a different county though where Comcast is not even available. Yet at least 3 times a week I get a flyer/brochure from Comcast labeled 'Current Resident'...my neighbors all get the same mailing. Why the fuck are you sending out flyers/brochures to residents in a county where your product isn't even available?? How about this fuckwads...save the money on printing these things and on the postage required and lower your fucking monthly rates?
I used to have Comcast cable/internet when I lived in Alexandria. I moved to a different county though where Comcast is not even available. Yet at least 3 times a week I get a flyer/brochure from Comcast labeled 'Current Resident'...my neighbors all get the same mailing. Why the fuck are you sending out flyers/brochures to residents in a county where your product isn't even available?? How about this fuckwads...save the money on printing these things and on the postage required and lower your fucking monthly rates?
how that works is... Comcast almost certainly hires a direct mail firm to do the planning... because it's a prospect mailing - they don't run it through their database to see if they even service the area...
in addition - pimping their services to you can be a way to gin up support for expanding their services in to your area... but that seems less likely than the mailhouse they used was 1. lazy 2. skimming a little more profit by doing a bigger mailing (happens all the time) 3. comcast may service an area near you - in which case it was likely cheaper to do a "current resident" ECRWS or auto 5 digit sort and include a few people you don't intend to and get bulk rates (if this was a postcard 6x11 or smaller they mailed for about 15-18 cents each - as opposed to 24 cents each)
i knew working in direct mail would help someday...
North Dakota State University Bison 2011 and 2012 National Champions
I used to have Comcast cable/internet when I lived in Alexandria. I moved to a different county though where Comcast is not even available. Yet at least 3 times a week I get a flyer/brochure from Comcast labeled 'Current Resident'...my neighbors all get the same mailing. Why the fuck are you sending out flyers/brochures to residents in a county where your product isn't even available?? How about this fuckwads...save the money on printing these things and on the postage required and lower your fucking monthly rates?
how that works is... Comcast almost certainly hires a direct mail firm to do the planning... because it's a prospect mailing - they don't run it through their database to see if they even service the area...
in addition - pimping their services to you can be a way to gin up support for expanding their services in to your area... but that seems less likely than the mailhouse they used was 1. lazy 2. skimming a little more profit by doing a bigger mailing (happens all the time) 3. comcast may service an area near you - in which case it was likely cheaper to do a "current resident" ECRWS or auto 5 digit sort and include a few people you don't intend to and get bulk rates (if this was a postcard 6x11 or smaller they mailed for about 15-18 cents each - as opposed to 24 cents each)
i knew working in direct mail would help someday...
I know how direct mailing works (used to work a marketing position that did direct mailings).
Doesn't mean it makes any sense though
And these are NOT simple mailings...these are quite elaborate
I understand they want to gin up support here since the next county over is serviced by Comcast...but it's not happening
All that is great. But Comcast is a for profit corporation, who, if they keep pissing away money, will ultimately pay for that by having to answer to their stockholders. If I think Comcast is not a good business, I can sell my stock. But this is the federal govt. and my tax dollars that are being pissed down the drain!!! If I decide they are a bad investment (which I did a long time ago), I don't have the option of cutting them off. They will throw my ass in jail for tax evasion!! And, no, I can't vote them out of office!! The alternatives are just as wasteful as the current bunch of bozos!
The Federal Govt. is a morass within a blackhole within a pit of quicksand of beuracracy, and this is simply a small, yet I bet very expensive, example of the waste rampant in the system. One thing about this sort of crap is that it is too insignificant in itself to be worth anyone's attention, but add it to the hundreds, or more likely thousands, of other similarly wasteful little crap, and you are talking bookoos of cash. This mailer alone probably wasted more money than I make in a year, hell probably multiple years (and that's assuming that at least a few of the recipients actually fit the demographic that would even remotely be interested in what they are selling).
This kind of waste will NEVER be rooted out of the system and, if anything, is inherent to it. How then can we realistically expect any different from any form of federally administated healthcare? And, yes I know the current system isn't federally run healthcare, but it's the first step towards that, and you all know it. Deny it all you want, it is what it is, the next block to fall towards a single payer system.
Last edited by death dealer on Thu Sep 24, 2009 9:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
Dear lord... please allow this dangerous combination of hair spary, bat slobber, and D.O.T. four automatic transmission fluid to excite my mind, occupy my spirits, and enrage my body, provoking me to kick any man or woman in the back of the head regardless of what he or she has or has not done unto me. All my Best, Earlie Cuyler.
Dear lord... please allow this dangerous combination of hair spary, bat slobber, and D.O.T. four automatic transmission fluid to excite my mind, occupy my spirits, and enrage my body, provoking me to kick any man or woman in the back of the head regardless of what he or she has or has not done unto me. All my Best, Earlie Cuyler.
Are you phucking kidding me? The Marine Corps spent the money for an overnight package from Fed Ex to ask me, a 42 y.o. dentist, if I'm interested in being a marine???? 
You should go for it 
