The Bug List of an Aspiring Impact Sociologist

The Bug List Countdown

Drum roll please...

20. Permanently saving a program from DVR (Digital Video Recorder)

This is something that possibly can be done but it is not simple.  For example, my kids and I got caught on camera when we attended a sports parade.  The segment was recorded and we saved it for a long time but lost it when we had to move and change cable providers.  We should have been able to save this special moment and 3 second of celebrity for our family but it was not meant to be.

This bug exists because television providers don't want to make it easy to save DVR content.  There should be a simple interface in a DVR to connect a USB drive to save content.

19. Tampa area traffic lights clogging streets

Having moved down from the northeast, the traffic lights in the Tampa area take too long to change creating unnecessary traffic patterns.  This is even during non traffic times and even at intersections where two major roads meet.

This is probably because no one paid attention and just put a random number on traffic light changing times.  With technology at our fingertips, there is should be a way to monitor traffic on individual streets and adjust traffic light times for optimal efficiency.

18. Different prices for cash and credit cards at gas stations

The difference is typically 5 to 10 cents but really, what is the point?  Are gas stations taking some moral stand against our credit culture by encouraging cash transactions.

This is most likely done to attract customers with lower prices - false advertising.   Most people pay by credit now so why not have one price for both or a discount for paying with cash.

17. Most traffic lights function the same during the day and at night

There is limited traffic at night and late night, there is pretty much no one on the roads yet traffic lights function as if the roads are full of cars.

This is most likely because no one paid attention and just simple rules or with older traffic lights, the technology may have just allowed one set time.  The easy fix is to make the major intersections have flashing yellow lights (yield) and smaller intersections flashing red lights (stop) during the night.

16. ATM machines only dispense $20 bills

Most lives do not revolve around multiples of $20.  If $45 is needed, why should someone have to withdraw $60.

This one is perplexing.  Is it really that difficult to store $5, $10, and $20 bills in ATM machines?  Some banks have solved this but others need to catch up and have a way for people to withdraw $45 or even $21 if necessary.

15. Expensive (4 to 5 star) hotels have nit picky fees

Consumers are paying hundreds of dollars to stay at these establishments so why should they have to pay to park a car, browse the Internet, a fee just because the hotel has the word resort in it's name, and $4 for the convenience of having a bottle of water in the room.  Apparently, even more is on the way.

It's all about the profit motive and Capitalism's tendency to push the envelope.  Let's keep it simple and do some match including a small surcharge for such fees in the price.

14. Air travel used to be special but now we have seat fees and more

Excess baggage makes sense but now airlines are charging for all sorts of baggage and even more to bring a carry on bag.  Now picking a seat even has a price and once on board, they are hawking even snacks and drinks.  When will it stop?  How about some fees that people might actually want to pay?

This started after post 9/11 travel insecurity and was exacerbated by escalating gas prices but now that people are traveling all the time and gas prices are pretty much back to the way they used to be, why are we still paying for all this stuff.  It's bad enough airline pricing is anything but transparent but that is to their advantage because they can easily absorb these costs with a little planning.  With more airline mergers, it seems that competition driving prices down is becoming a thing of the past.  One price for complete service is a policy hotels and airlines must adopt.

13. Price gouging in movie theaters and amusement parks

The cost of movie and amusement park tickets are out of control but if this is something we are putting up with, why do we also have to pay extremely inflated prices for concessions?

It's all about the profit motive and Capitalism's tendency to push the envelope.  The public needs to wise up and demand normal pricing for concessions.  Movie theater water isn't healthier nor is an amusement park ice cream come with less calories to justify the hefty price.

12. Shopping malls and stores are now open on Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was always our own very uniquely American day for food, family and football in preparation for the fourth F of Thanksgiving, Friday or more precisely Black Friday.  But now with malls opening on Thanksgiving, it's more like Gray Friday.

Common theme I know but such is life in 21st century America.  It's all about the profit motive and Capitalism's tendency to push the envelope.  We can fix this by demanding that we prefer to camp out all night in front of our favorite stores like the good old days instead of leaving our Football games and going shopping on Thanksgiving.

After all, we took those long afternoon naps to stay up all night.  While we're at it, let's get the NFL in on it too.  After all, Thanksgiving shopping is taking away viewership from their broadcasts.

11. Automated answering systems

There is so much wrong here.  Audio commands are not intuitive, the system is not able to understand people with accents, verification information entered has to be repeated again to a live person, nestled menus are too expansive, and it just takes too long to speak to someone.

These automated systems exist for efficiency and cost savings but they end up generating customer frustration.  The way to fix this is to have standard button that someone can press anytime to get to a representative, the live representative should have all of the information given to the automated system at their disposal, and companies should speak to their customers getting their unique feedback and incorporating it into their systems.

Finally, the top ten and yes get ready for more of the common theme.

10. Multi million dollar guaranteed contracts for professional athletes

The minimum salary of each of the major American sports leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL) is more than $400,000 and the average salary is $3.3 million (disclaimer - Google stats).  Ironically, the most dangerous yet popular sport, NFL, has the lowest minimum and average salary.

More than anything, this about our celebrity culture and the elevation of sports figures to idol status.  Charles Barkley was right when he said I am not a role model, parents are.  We need to look in the mirror about what is really important for us and our future generations.  An honest reflection will show that a myriad of things are ahead of sports, entertainment, and the celebrity culture that we are so consumed by.

9. Medicaid, being state run, does not cover across state boundaries

If someone on Medicaid is visiting another state, he or she is not covered if taken ill or injured leaving families, especially of children, to pay out of pocket for exorbitant medical costs that, for most, leads to ruined credit and unnecessary financial hardship.

This appears to an issue of government bureaucracy and a way for states to control spending but it really harms families who live in border areas or those people that have to cross state borders to earn a living not to mention the many people that travel.  The fix is simple and makes common sense and maybe that's why it hasn't been done.  If you are on medicaid, you should be covered no matter where you happen to be in the country at the time of illness or injury.

8. Vague and nontransparent fine print and legalese language

Have we read insurance policies or look at the fine print on pretty much any consumer label?  Do we understand any of it?  I am in the insurance business and it takes me a few readings to decipher the code and even lawyers have a difficult time with it.

This may have started as a byproduct of our litigious society but has a way to confuse and hold the truth from consumers.  We can fix this with a simple rule, no language can have a smaller font than the advertising, sales, and marketing language.  Plus the government should, like with cigarettes, mandate harmful disclosure in big bold print.

7. The escalating cost of higher education

The average cost of in-state public schools is about $10,000, the out-of-state public school average is about $24,000 and the private school average is about $32,000 according to the College Board.  The poverty line in the US for a family of 4 is set at approximately $24,000 per year and 45 million people live in poverty.  Can an average family on the poverty line afford to send even one child to an in-state public school?  Sadly, no!

Back at it again.  Repeat after me.  It's all about the profit motive and Capitalism's tendency to push the envelope.  Like much of the developed world, we need to treat higher education as a right instead of a privilege or as a way of keeping the working class or poor in its place.  Our politicians must be mandated to develop plans so every child in America is able to achieve a Bachelor's degree just like a high school diploma.  The sad reality is that today's Bachelor's degree is what yesterday's high school diploma used to be.

6. The erosion of our privacy

Companies are constantly collecting and selling data on our online habits and the government is secretly spying on us.

This is more than just being about the profit motive and Capitalism's tendency to push the envelope.  It is also about big brother, the government seeking to maintain the status quo in the guise of protection and safety.  America has been a place where privacy was meant to be a right.  We need to draw a better line between real threats versus the perceived or manufactured threats to our security and the compromising of civil liberties to deal with them.  We need to also ask why is our security at stake?  Are we doing anything to jeopardize our security?  Tough questions but only through tough questions do real answers emerge.

5. Non profits raise money but how much actually goes to their cause

Non profits collect money for their causes and mandates but much of it goes towards administration versus the actual cause it was raised for.

This is more about greed, corruption, and corporate excess.  Should non-profit CEOs be getting rich from donations?  Shouldn't non-profits still operate based on the tenets of efficiency and cost effectiveness?  There should be caps on administrative costs for non profits so they don't end up making their executives super rich and instead focus on fulfilling their mandates efficiently and cost effectively.

4. Insurance loopholes

At the time of filing a claim, people find out that they are not covered, left to deal with heavy costs on their own.  A great example, from my professional experience, is after Hurricane Sandy when so many people, including many first-responders, found out that they had to pay, out of pocket, to elevate their homes close to the shore.  The insurance policy would rebuild the home but the cost of elevating it to meet modern zoning codes was not covered.  FEMA was not much help.  This meant thousands of dollars out of pocket for hard working and proud families that they could not afford risking the loss of the home completely.

Yet again, it's all about the profit motive and Capitalism's tendency to push the envelope.  Insurance companies look to make money by reducing costs - not paying claims being a key cost reduction strategy - so policies are routinely written, with confusing and vague language, to exclude coverage and loopholes are actively sought.  Lack of transparency is a key problem here.  We can begin to address through regulation demanding that all loop holes are clearly explained and policy language is certain not ambiguous.  Along with insurance companies, insurance agents, and brokers should also be held accountable for communicating and disclosing to their customers.

3. The lifespan of technology

Bigger, better, faster, and stronger smart phones, computers, tablets, and other gadgets routinely stop functioning optimally after a couple of years.  We might not see it but this is causing an environmental disaster because these gadgets, mainly consumed in the developed world, are ending up as toxic e-waste in digital wastelands across the developing world (i.e. Africa, Asia, China).

Hmmm... Yep it's all about the profit motive and Capitalism's tendency to push the envelope. As Americans, we need to wake up to the ugly reality of our consumer culture by learning to consume less, demanding electronic products with much longer lives and recycling standards that do not expose the world's poor to harmful environmental conditions.

2. Scare politics

We are seeing it in the 2016 presidential election cycle as never before but it has been going on since the war on crime and the war on drugs that keeps the attention away from mass incarceration and a growing epidemic of income inequality.

This runs deeper than just being about the profit motive and Capitalism's tendency to push the envelope.  It is also about the system and the people who control it by seeking to maintain the status quo and diverting attention from the real issues plaguing our society.   See number 1 below for what should be done.

1. The American Dream Matrix

Many many Americans still believe that working hard, playing fair, and paying your dues will eventually make the cream rise to the top (i.e. meritocracy) and thereby giving everyone a fair chance at success but the reality is more like The Matrix of the famous movie.

And yes, you guessed it, it's all about the profit motive and Capitalism's tendency to push the envelope.  Most of us, so absorbed in our lives and fully immersed in trying to keep ourselves entertained instead of being informed and reflective, have become blind to the reality that the rich or even the ultra rich have rigged the game, the system to their benefit at the expense of everyone else not in their most exclusive of clubs.  Here is how Morpheus explains it to Neo in the Matrix.

The most nefarious oppression is hidden and those being oppressed are completely oblivious to it.  As an example, here is how Americans misperceive income inequality.

What is to be done?  If we have reached a tipping point and I don't believe that we have, we must begin to live up to what a citizen in the democracy envisioned by our forefathers was meant to be, informed and responsible with the capacity to hold politicians and public officials accountable with our votes and our solidarity.

The Bug List Reflection

I have to admit that when I started thinking about this, it seemed quite daunting to come up with 20 bugs but when I started reflecting on what it means to be an entrepreneur that it is not just about business, I realized that my list will become more the bug list of an impact sociologist, which is what I am striving to become.  In the end, it proved to be much less difficult than I originally imagined.

I don't know if the intent of this exercise was to produce a list of this nature but it is comprised of the things that bug me and I believe bug a lot of other people.  In attempting to provide some levity to the proceedings, I did make a concerted effort for some entertainment and sarcasm of a meaningful nature.  There is much work that needs to be done but a realization of the problem is always the first step.