I had one of the rare dreams that I remember, last night. Even more unusual, I know what it means. I can't remember all of the dream, but part of it was that a delivery man was facing multiple problems, including in his personal life, because his phone kept going off with garbled messages that also upset the other electronics that he carried. I finally heard enough of his garbled message coming through on his phone, to, in a "Guess That Tune" kind of way, figure out that it was the first few bars of Sergio Leone/Ennio Morricone's "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" theme. I also figured out that it was coming through as a mixed media message from the MMS system. The MMS system is infamously incompatible between different phones, and different phone systems. Worse yet, some phones will take something that you think you are sending one way, and, instead, send it via the MMS system. This means that something you think you are sending in a compatible way, maybe being converted to something that will be completely misunderstood, if it's even received, on the other end. MMS should never be used. It just doesn't work. At least not reliably. Ceterum censeo MMS delendum esse. Once I realized what the problem was, I explained it to the driver, and he was able to contact his girlfriend, who was trying to send him messages, and at that point I woke up so I don't know whether the situation resolved. But it's a dream anyways, so who cares?
The thing is, MMS is playing a part in this whole Telus debacle. I am receiving MMS messages from Telus. Except, of course, that I am not receiving the messages. I am just receiving notifications that Telus is trying to send me something through the MMS system. I, of course, never receive the content of these attempts at MMS messages. All I receive is the notification. Nothing ever comes through. So I have absolutely no idea what Telus thinks it is trying to communicate with me, or even who, within Telus, is trying to do it. All I know is that Telus has, once again, a "failyah to commun'cate."
I mean, Telus is a telecommunications company. It sells mobile service. Everybody who has studied cell phone systems knows that MMS simply is not reliable, and doesn't work in all too many cases. A lot of my friends and relatives, who are not telecommunications experts, do not understand why I am receiving MMS messages from them, because they are not, as far as they're aware, trying to send me messages via MMS. Sometimes they can identify that they are trying to send me something, through some other system, and it's being converted to MMS. But most of the time they're just completely in the dark. But, as I say, they are not telecommunications experts.
Telus is a telecommunications company. It should understand the problems with MMS. It should be taking text steps to ensure that nothing that they do ever generates MMS messages, since, as they should well know, MMS messages are not a reliable way to get any information to your customers, particularly when your customers are already frustrated with problems in your lack of service.
Even worse, these MMS messages are coming at a time when I am dealing with Telus' escalation management team. The escalation management team is already dealing with problems that their frontline service and support people have not been able to handle. Therefore, they are dealing with harder, and less tractable, problems. So, is it possible that the escalation management team is doing something that is generating MMS messages? To me? That I am not getting? I don't know. But it's yet another indication that Telus simply does not understand its own business, which is telecommunications.
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