I'm not known for reading fine print or pages of disclaimers and legalese because too much of it is put before our eyes in our world today. Service is denied us if we don't click an OK. I believe I have more agreeable ways to spend whatever is left of my life. (I don't do well with manuals, either, and wonder often how people can be paid for such undecipherable explanations).
I have had an American named electronic piano, owned by an Italian company, built in Japan...or the reverse of that, I've never been sure. The person who wrote the manual clearly did not have English as a first language. Thus my fourteen year old piano has seldom been touched as I could never master more than about 2% of its astronomical number of functions.
A few years ago, shortly after my husband died, I received a bill from the hospital he had been in briefly, for $28,000 dollars with a note as to where I could send the check. Not being in the top 1% of income earners, that was not an amount I retained in my checking account. Since insurance companies are known by their shortened version of initials, it took careful study (not my usual style in reading bills) to see that they had billed the wrong medical insurance company (same initials in different order). I checked dates carefully to see that he had been properly covered when in hospital and after much angst and time spent, (cursing the unknown clerk who had made the error) it was finally straightened out. My spiked cortisol level probably took as many years off my life as I would have had I been a smoker.
Thus, when I saw this article, my empathy level blew the top off its gauge. When the bill should have been $300, this unemployed man received a bill for $45,000,000. (Yes, the zeros number accurately.) He understandably later cautioned that bills of that size could cause someone to have a heart attack. Apologies and corrections can never undo what the body has experienced in those brief first moments. Fortunately, the stress undergone by those experiencing these 'human' errors usually blamed as computer glitches.cannot compare to military service in combat zones. Those of us who have used computers for years remember the old saying, GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). Computers don't yet think for themselves. It would be desirable to have data entry personnel who do.
I have had an American named electronic piano, owned by an Italian company, built in Japan...or the reverse of that, I've never been sure. The person who wrote the manual clearly did not have English as a first language. Thus my fourteen year old piano has seldom been touched as I could never master more than about 2% of its astronomical number of functions.
A few years ago, shortly after my husband died, I received a bill from the hospital he had been in briefly, for $28,000 dollars with a note as to where I could send the check. Not being in the top 1% of income earners, that was not an amount I retained in my checking account. Since insurance companies are known by their shortened version of initials, it took careful study (not my usual style in reading bills) to see that they had billed the wrong medical insurance company (same initials in different order). I checked dates carefully to see that he had been properly covered when in hospital and after much angst and time spent, (cursing the unknown clerk who had made the error) it was finally straightened out. My spiked cortisol level probably took as many years off my life as I would have had I been a smoker.Thus, when I saw this article, my empathy level blew the top off its gauge. When the bill should have been $300, this unemployed man received a bill for $45,000,000. (Yes, the zeros number accurately.) He understandably later cautioned that bills of that size could cause someone to have a heart attack. Apologies and corrections can never undo what the body has experienced in those brief first moments. Fortunately, the stress undergone by those experiencing these 'human' errors usually blamed as computer glitches.cannot compare to military service in combat zones. Those of us who have used computers for years remember the old saying, GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). Computers don't yet think for themselves. It would be desirable to have data entry personnel who do.
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