The company I used to work for you could say “agent” or press 0, but you had to do it many times because it would keep trying to make you play along. At the start of Covid in 2020, the call centers were totally overwhelmed, so someone decided to change that path to say “sorry, I don’t know what you want, goodbye” and hang up.

Surprisingly, that change caused a marginal reduction in call volume, which was the goal. So, when the call centers stabilized later in the year, Finance balked at any suggestion that the decision be reversed unless someone came up with an idea to offset the cost of the increase in volume it would cause. It stayed like that for 2-3 years and was still very controversial when it was finally put back to the way it was before Covid.

My answers below, but for your current issue, put in a complaint with the FCC or email the CEO of the company directly. Most major companies have a process to resolve issues that normal agents can’t access if you can get to the right level. Emailing the CEO works with many companies, but telecom companies are sensitive to FCC oversight and would rather fix your issue than deal with the FCC.

https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/115002206106-Internet-Form-Descriptions-of-Complaint-Issues

Yes, the agent agreed with me that the company owed me money, but told me they couldn’t do anything about it. I told them I understood, but please put in a ticket to someone that could do something about it. They just kept telling me they couldn’t help until I got mad. They eventually relented and put in a ticket, which was then denied without reason a month later. I resolved the issue by circumventing the call center entirely and getting directly to an escalation team similar to what I recommended above.

That would be a lucky outcome for Intel, they can’t compete with AMD’s current fab (TSMC).

I’ve been applying similar thinking to my job search. When I see AI listed in a job description, I immediately put the company into one of 3 categories:

1. It is an AI company that may go out of business suddenly within the next few years leaving me unemployed and possibly without any severance.
2. Management has drank the Kool-Aid and is hoping AI will drive their profit growth, which makes me question management competence. This also has a high likelihood of future job loss, but at least they might pay severance.
3. The buzzword was tossed in to make the company look good to investors, but it is not highly relevant to their business. These companies get a partial pass for me.

A company in the first two categories would need to pay a lot to entice me and I would not value their equity offering. The third category is understandable, especially if the success of AI would threaten their business.

Imagine that the flag is attached to a flagpole and the person is carrying it while walking forward, the flag would be flowing out behind them with the blue part at the front no matter which side of the person you were viewing from. In this case, the person is the flagpole.

I might be a workaholic. I said I could quit any time, but now that I’ve done it I keep looking for another job! I’ve clearly become dependent on paychecks…

Any fitness physique you see on Instagram (male or female) took a ton of effort to achieve (and possibly some pharmaceutical or surgical assistance). You can pick any routine in the world and you are not at risk of looking like that unless you are really dedicated to it.

In the US, many states have a law specifying a minimum passing distance when passing a bike and it is normally 3 ft (about 1M). I have seen some cyclists cut a very bright piece of foam (usually a pool noodle) and attach it to the back of their bike sticking out into traffic. This creates a visual barrier to encourage people to give more room when passing. I don’t know how the laws or culture are in Malaysia, but maybe something like that would help.

Here’s an example (from Canada): https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/cyclists-in-toronto-riding-with-pool-noodles-to-protect-themselves-from-drivers-1.4082620

Research your professional value and have the courage to go after it if you are not being paid what you are worth.

I worked 17 years for the same company. I was promoted 4 times during those years and received a few extra pay increases along the way, but I was underpaid as soon as I took the first promotion and the gap increased with each additional promotion. I probably walked away from more than $100k in lifetime earnings, plus interest, by sticking with the company.

I should have changed companies at least once and probably twice. You don’t have to be on a promotion path to run into this. It could be you were underpaid on day 1, but you needed the job or you didn’t have experience. That’s fine, but once you have the experience and have proven yourself, find out what the market rate is for your role and ask for it, be ready to show your research. If you don’t get it, start applying for other jobs.

Don’t be afraid to talk to your peers about salary. If you are making less, you know there is a gap you can go after (just don’t name your coworker when you ask for more, do market research and make it impersonal/just business). If you are making more, pass this advice on to your coworker.

If you are being paid fairly for the work you are doing, but know you can do more, start looking into what it takes to make a move. For example, you might be the best fast food or retail worker the world has ever had, but the job only pays so much. What else might you be good at? You could look for training in a trade or try to find an entry level role in a company that has a wider set of tasks available that offers a growth path.

I agree with a lot of the comments here about saving and investing and keeping expenses down, but growing your earnings is typically easier than shrinking your rent. It still isn’t easy though, especially if you need to relocate to earn more.

You got me thinking a bit on this one. One possibility is if you want to make a bet on it failing to deliver value in the near future, look at the companies whose stock prices have fallen on the fear of AI putting them out of business. For example, Concentrix does call center outsourcing and their stock is down significantly from their 2022 peak, partially on the expectation that AI is going to take business from them. Now, their profit margin is tiny and they don’t seem to be growing much, so I don’t know that they are a great investment, but there could be upside if the negative cloud of AI is removed. There are probably better examples out there, this one just came to mind.

Note: I have not done any research on this idea or on Concentrix and don’t know if this is a good idea, but at least less risky than shorting the AI hype.

I have the Wahl MC3 color-coded set. Apparently they still make the same model and for just a little bit more than I paid for it (on Amazon).

Hair clippers. I bought a set at Target for about $30 about 16-17 years ago after several bad haircuts in a row from the various chain barbers. I just have a simple men’s cut and figured I probably wouldn’t do worse than them and could always shave it off and call it a learning experience if I messed things up too badly.

It definitely took time to get decent at trimming the back and I had to have my wife help me sometimes while I got the hang of it, but at $20+ per haircut every 4-5 weeks, I figure I’ve saved almost $4k so far and it still works. I saved even more if my alternative was to pay up for a better salon to do the work.

I don’t have a Linux PC, but I have Skyrim heavily modded on my Steam Deck. It has been quite a while since I set it up and I know very little about Linux, but if you search for tutorials for Steam Deck instead of Linux, you might find what you need.

I’m definitely using SKSE and this may or may not be the guide I used to add it: https://retroresolve.com/guides/install-skse-on-steam-deck/ (I don’t remember the details, but I spent several evenings getting all my mods set up when I first got my deck).

The only use case I can see for Access is when you absolutely must have a database and your company will not provide you a real database solution. I have experience with both, but haven’t touched Access in years (and hope to never do so again). To be fair, I also regularly use Excel for things that I should probably be using Word for because it is easier to get formatting right in Excel.