Too Nice To Be True

"If it's too good to be true, it probably is" - so goes the old adage, which can sometimes save you a world of grief, if applied in the right situation. The late comers to pyramid schemes, victims of lottery scams, and all the winners of free iPads curtesy of Mark Zuckerberg, can attest to this. But the cynical and distrustful attitude which the statement engenders may also result in missed opportunities.

For women in want of a good man, this may very well be the case. Most women will claim to be objective in their search for that perfect man, and they will quickly tell you that "bad boys" are no good, and they get very quickly ruled out. Now you may think that if you're not bad, you've got to be good, and therefore have a very clearcut chance. But things are never that simple. While "good" and "nice" may pass as synonyms for the lexically inclined, not so in the mind of a woman! And "nice" is not a label you want a woman to apply to you.

What! Why wouldn't I want to be considered nice? So asks the uninitiated in consternation. While doing nice things will score you points with the ladies, being labeled a "nice guy" is definitely not to be desired. In fact, you're probably better of being known as the bad boy, than the nice guy, for in this list (if you will forgive the cliché) they really do finish last. Bad boys might not win the girl in the long run, but most women will fall for them at some point, albeit short lived. Nice guys on the other hand are often left standing on the sidelines to put the pieces back together after his nemesis is done playing.

Well let's attempt the impossible, let's try to figure out what what goes on in the mind of a woman *gasp* as she ignores all the nice guys, and goes romping around in decidedly bad company.

Nice Guys Are Too Easy

First thing, get your mind out of the gutter, that's not the easy we are talking about. What we are talking about here is the propensity of women to want to improve their men. They love to dress, groom, and feed their men and the jury is out on whether to blame this on their Mom's or Mattel. And it doesn't stop there, as also to be improved is the personality and overall demeanor of their mate.

Put a bunch of men (preferably friends who go way back) all together at a house party with their mates, and very quickly you end up with a "Taming of the Crew" scenario - most attentive spouse wins! Women take great pleasure in pointing out how much Ken has changed since being with Barbara, and how much Vincent has mellowed in the five years he's been married to Marsha. And all credit goes to the woman who tamed this otherwise wild beast. 

And herein lies the problem - nice guys don't need to be tamed. While no one is perfect, there is nothing spectacular about taking a nice guy and making him nicer, who is going to notice that? Where is the challenge? Too easy, moving right along.


Too Nice

This brings us to our second scenario: perhaps nice guys are simply too nice.  This is where defense mechanisms kick in - he's too nice to be true, so he probably is a fake, best keep him at arms length.  Sadly, this is the case because the male species actively sabotages itself - at least one third of us!  While women may consciously, or subconsciously throw us into one of the three categories, we all reap the distrust which results from the bad experiences with the bad boys.

When a guy puts out his best foot, the girl assumes he's just trying to get through the door, from which point he'll simply get mud all over her abode.  The nicer he his, the more doubtful she becomes.  Like quick money for little or no work, this guy is just too nice to be true.


He's Just A Friend

While nice guys may not get their pick of girlfriends, they are often consistently nice and quickly overcome the prejudice all men face in the pursuit of the opposite sex.  Soon the nice guy who wasn't to be trusted becomes a nice friend to have around.  But alas, that's where it usually stops - just friends. The nice guy is the friend she can call when the bad boy has made her cry, again. The nice guy will always say the right words at that time of the month, when the boyfriend camps out at the bar, for his personal safety. And most importantly, the nice guys does not view her as a sex object and can simply enjoy her company.

We could go on and on about the benefits of having a nice guy as a friend. But I think that has been satisfactorily addressed elsewhere.  With all the benefits that come with having a nice guy as a friend, it is understandable that a woman will want to protect that friendship.  Unfortunately, that often means that she does not consider him for the role of a boyfriend.  Irrational fears may be at play here.  What if he changes?  What if it doesn't work out, she can't very well cry on his shoulder.  Best to keep him as a friend than risk losing him as a boyfriend.

Johnny Be Good

Be a bad boy, and you're guaranteed to have some fun.  Be a nice guy, and you'll make some great friends - everyone likes a nice guy.  But too often nice guys get stuck being just a friend.  We could play the blame game and place this right on the laps of the women who overlook the nice guys.  But perhaps these nice guys need some backbone too - and not the kind you get from steam fish, that comes later.

Is there a middle ground to be found?  ** cue drum roll ** Enter the good guy!  ** flourish and applause **  This guy has many of the characteristics of the nice guy, but he's got that edge that doesn't leave her feeling like she's missing out.  He'll buy her roses just because, but he also has some rough edges which she delights in trying to sand down.  For example, he is conscious of his appearance, but could use some help in that department.  And since he has a backbone, he can tell her what she doesn't want to hear (but needs to be told) when she's being stubborn.

So guys, go, be good!  For much like the protagonists of Hollywood, the good guy always gets the girl in the end.

Hey, That's MY Number!

This post will be short, like my temper when it comes to Digicel. Big Red has acquired Claro. The white flag has been raised, and Claro's denizens must evacuate. I cannot keep my current phone, I have to get a new one. This is annoying, and stay tuned it gets worse.

Claro customers who switch their service to Big Red will be issued new SIM cards, with the same phone number. Great if you decide to submit to the Digicel hegemony. But if you decide to enlist with LIME, you don't get to take your number with you. That's right, they are holding our phone numbers hostage! It's bad enough that I have to get a new phone, but they are rubbing salt in my wound by telling me that if I don't do business with Digicel, I must forfeit my phone number!

Now this is obviously not a technical challenge, for in either case you are migrating a number between networks. I want to be allowed to migrate my number to the network of my choice.

I will not be draughted by Digicel. Resistance is everything!

Digicel Launches 4G...again.

The marketing folks over by Digicel are at it again.  "Coming soon: 4G Mobile from Digicel".  The average man on the street will probably ask: "didn't they already launch 4G"?  And rightly so!  The marketing buffoons over at Big Red already mired the water in 2010 by relaunching the WiMAX product, which they had for years, branding it as 4G.  This led to debates and lawsuits over false advertising and the like.

Eventually the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) ruled that there was "no breach" on the part of Digicel.  But that was only because the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) changed the rules in December 2010.  I still maintain that the change shouldn't have saved Digicel, since their network was an old standard of WiMAX (802.16e) and not the mobile standard (802.16m) which has been deployed elsewhere in the world.

Putting aside personal and technical opinions on what constitues 4G, the fact is that Digicel did this to maintain an image of innovation while they sat on their laurels with an outdated network.  Both LIME and Claro had superior networks, and superior data services.  In an attempt to seem up to date, and even ahead of the game, Digicel took their failed WiMAX business product, dusted it off, applied some spit and shine, and put on a big marketing campaign to capitalize on the hullabaloo about 4G.

Move forward to 2012, and it appears that Digicel will be rolling out a network worthy of the 4G moniker.  They simply steal acquire Claro's 3G network, spend 30 million dollars to upgrade it, and voilà!, they will have 4G for real.

For years I've complained that Digicel has done nothing innovative since they entered the market, and squashed LIME (formerly Cable & Wireless).  It appears this is about to change.  My dislike for Big Red aside, I think this will ultimately be good for consumers.  Competition in the mobile data space is well needed.  LIME and Claro did a good job advancing the cause of the mobile warrior, with their superior data services.  Now that Claro has fallen, Digicel is finally making a foray into the arena, and the war begins anew.  I hope LIME beats them to a red pulp!

Claro - Clearly A Failure

I just had a very irksome conversation with Claro Customer Care. A friend of mine calls me to ask how to top-up her modem to activate her data plan. Well this must be easy, I erroneously thought. Probably just some short codes to type in. Boy was I wrong. Why do I even bother to expect this sorry excuse for a network to get anything right? The only thing they seemed to have gotten right was being acquired!

So the ordeal begins with a call to customer care to ask what the short codes for activation of a data plan were, only to find out that easy was not in the Claro lexicon. I was told that there are two options for activating a data plan on the modem: either place the SIM card into a Claro phone and do the activation, or call Customer Care and provide the voucher and modem numbers for them to do it for you. This is where it gets foolish. My friend doesn't have a Claro phone, so she can neither activate it herself, nor can she call customer care! Did no one at Claro think this through?

For years LIME has been the beating stick for the Jamaican public. Everyone laughed at them when they had a limited launch of their 3G network, after Claro had already covered the island. But guess what, LIME got it right even though the idiots at Claro had a head start. With LIME, topping up your modem is easy. When you purchase credit, it's sent directly to your account. And if you buy a voucher, you can simply use the computer to add the credit to your account. Wow, use the computer to add credit to your account? Amazing! Activating your data plan is just as easy. Again, from the computer (gasp) you send an activation code for your desired plan. It's so simple even a caveman could do it! But not Claro.

LIME has seen a growth in consumer favour in recent times, and their comeback in the mobile space is due in part to their data strategy. Roll that word around on your tongue Claro - S-T-R-A-T-E-G-Y. LIME has a package for everyone, from a $100 a day unlimited package, to competitive monthly postpaid plans. They are pushing Blackberries, iPhones and Android devices - phones and tablets. They even have the micro SIM cards needed for some newer devices such as the iPad im typing on. Data for everybody! Few people know that Claro has similar packages, and even micro SIMs. In fact, they had all of this at least a year before LIME. But being as incompetent as they are, they didn't communicate this effectively to staff and customers. Walk into a Claro store and ask for a micro SIM, and they might look at you as if you're a caveman talking gibberish! Oh wait, they don't cater to cavemen.

Claro came to Jamaica with a great network, and an excellent marketing team, but that's where it stopped. Their advanced network was poorly implemented, leading to endless dropped calls - even smack in the middle of the corporate area! Getting the simplest of tasks done takes efforts of epic proportions on the customer's part - like the gymnastics required to keep a call going. Can you hear me now? ** Jump over the sofa and run quickly to the kitchen ** Can you hear me now? ** click ** And so their story ends - they came, they saw, and they were conquered by their own incompetence.