Londonward

I pay for pretty much everything in plastic. It’s very easy to overspend with cash, and thanks to direct debiting from my bank account, I never go below what I have. I wanted to pay for my new MP3 Player in the way I usually do, by whipping out my card, signing my name, showing some ID and leaving a happy man.

Not this time. Apparently my new card, issued by my bank just two weeks ago, is part of a line of faulty cards, and that I couldn’t pay with it. This coming from the guy holding my new player, the last in the store. I told him I’d go just get the cash from an ATM downstairs, and to hold onto it, except I couldn’t since I have a daily withdrawal limit of 200 euros. So off to the bank I go.

I was fuming by then, because I had planned on spending my morning enjoying my new player and doing useful stuff instead of running around Helsinki to get cash because of an issue beyond my control. I’m usually not the type of guy that explodes at customer service people because of my experiences, but I did make my feelings about their lousy cards clear to the bank teller.

“There is nothing wrong with the card. We have heard of nothing wrong with the cards.”
“But this is not the first store to decline the card based on a fault!”
“We have heard of no complaints. Those businesses probably need to update their card databases.”
“Then please tell them to do so, I don’t want to carry cash because a card is a whole lot safer.”
“That is not our business.”

That’s it. No apology, nothing. No expression of hope for successful transactions in the future. Nothing but a sour face.

Well well, Nordea, it seems your lousy customer service is just another facet of the piss-poor service you offer. First, cards that are incompatible with Internet transactions though they should (and appear to) be. Then the elimination of accumulating interest from normal bank accounts. Then the introduction of service fees for doing business at the counter! I was almost expecting them to demand I pay them for my withdrawal, but luckily they didn’t. At that point I would have demanded the manager, closed my accounts and moved to the bank next door. No joke.

Based on a few test listens, the player seems pretty cool, though. Probably more on that later.

Helping out at the Conference, I’ve been pushing myself to the limit. For the entire week, I’ve gone to the University to help out early in the morning, and worked diligently and patiently to make sure the conference is running smoothly. I have stumbled back home after midnight only to sleep six or seven hours to get up and do it again. I’ve loved it.

Of course, I haven’t done it alone. There is a whole team of volunteers who signed up as conference assistants. For those participating, the reward is a few university credits and a lot of new contacts, exposure to academia and the knowledge that they’ve helped a keep a tradition going. In our orientation sessions, we were encouraged to attend as many sessions as our work shifts permit, and to mingle with the guests at every social event. We were told to be courteous, sociable and eager to help. I took heed of that advice, evidenced by the bags under my eyes.

What bothers me is that a lot of the assistants didn’t, and are in my eyes simply antisocial. They take no initiative to help out guests and find things to do, they do not attend the evening receptions, they do not ask questions. They are simply there for the one measly credit they can get. I wasn’t there to hear this in person, but one of us students apparently prides himself on being “the most antisocial person at the University,” his only interpersonal communication during his studies “in the form of questions in the classroom”. Now, I understand that as a people the Finns are withdrawn and sullen, but that is simply not right. Sure, it’s his choice and all but I bet he hates every minute of his shifts, doing them only for the credits.

I, on the other hand, have met interesting people, talked to some of the most famous American historians alive, and have gotten experiences that I will never forget. For that, I feel privileged and enriched, and even proud.

I listened to presentations by N. Scott Momaday and Drew Hayden Taylor yesterday. Both were inspirational talks. Scott Momaday’s meandering, eloquent and literate speech highlighted the importance of oral tradition in literature and the need to preserve the strengths of that tradition even today. He also read us one of the short plays from his upcoming book, a discussion between the characters of Yahweh and Ursett the bear on writing.

Drew Hayden Taylor’s speech was on native humor, and it highlighted some aspects of native American culture that I simply had not considered before. In the humorous, almost irreverent way of his delivery the audience learned about things usually ignored. He stressed the need for analysis of native humor as a way of healing and expressing their feelings about 500 years of colonization and oppression. In making humor out of distinctly non-humorous circumstances, the native Americans are empowering themselves and taking back their history. Inspirational stuff, and definitely something to think about.

After the formal part of the occasion was over, I had the chance to down a few beers with Mr. Taylor in a Helsinki pub. We talked about nothing in particular, but what struck me was how down to earth a relatively famous author/playwright/columnist and a museum curator of the Canadian Agriculture Museum (who was also with us) can be. I look forward to the rest of the Maple Leaf and Eagle conference of 2006.

Oh yeah. “One fullblood.”

They’ve shown around half of the first season of Lost here in Finland now. During the commercial breaks, the channel ran ads for the Hanso Foundation. At first I didn’t think much about it, because the pseudopositive corporate language used in the ad is very comparable to, say, the ads for the Kuwait Fund that run on BBC World. My back was turned during the first time it ran, so I didn’t notice the lack of subtitles at first. I got clued in by the fact that not that many ads in Finland are entirely in English, and this one just didn’t fit into the general category of “ads shown during Lost”.

I think these kinds of fictional adverts and extensions of fiction into realms they don’t traditionally enter is a positive thing. I see them as a kind of alternative reality game. In addition to providing more information about a frustratingly enigmatic show, they are a source for entertainment in themselves, and require a bit of media literacy from the audience. Beside providing entertainment, the producers choose to require a bit more from the audience than the traditional one-way communication of television.

Of course, not everyone is media literate enough to understand what is going on with the Hanso Foundation advert. The medium of television advertising is so full of similar messages, however, that to an uninterested or untrained viewer it simply doesn’t register. This is another way the Lost creators succeed in this multi-level marketing: The extra material is not required for enjoyment of the show, nor is it strictly intrusive.

Why would they show an advert that was created to run with a second-season episode when Finnish viewers are barely halfway through the first, though? Have there been hints dropped in earlier episodes that could connect in an astute viewer’s mind? Do they want viewers to see the website and possibly get to know things they haven’t seen yet in the show? Or, did Nelonen choose to run the ad because a lot of people have been watching the show at a faster pace, getting episodes from the Internet? The name of the Hanso Foundation no doubt rings a bell to someone who’s watching TV-ripped episodes from the United States.

I don’t know.