Hasslemania

I took the day off today to do some last-minute painting and other work on the house before we move in on Saturday. The duct cleaners were supposed to come this morning, but cancelled with less than a day's notice. Typical, I guess. They want to reschedule for Tuesday. Of course, they don't work on weekends or after 5pm, so I'll need to take more time off.

Is it me or has life in the last few years been more full of hassle than previously? It seems that nothing I buy works exactly like it's supposed to out of the box, without six calls to "customer service" (which, these days, is a massive oxymoron if ever there were one). And it's rare to find a company that follows through on its committments. I put a lot of the blame for this on the rise of the corporate machine in America. Companies merge, merge, merge until they are so big that the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing anymore and the customer gets caught up in the comflicting policies and practices of different company divisions, which are many times remnants of the pre-merger firms that have been gobbled up.