Today I had to call T-mobile customer care. I dread calling them but sometimes I just have to - for about a week or more now I have experienced difficulty with texts and checking my remote email on my phone. So I called the customer care lady. She was a customer service provider right here in America- I think out of Iowa. I know this because I had to ask after the conversation we had.
She asked me some troubleshooting questions and told me that T-zones was down and she would credit my account for the month. I was greatful but asked her about text messages and why they would not send. She said something about the entire network being down and that we could not send pages or picture messages either. She asked me where I was located. I told her Colorado. She responded, "yeah since the 19th we have had trouble because of the Inauguration and the east coast." I was thinking to myself - OKAY, whatever when she asked me the following question: "Colorado is on the east coast, right?" I was driving at the time but I remember precisely what I was doing at the exact moment she asked me that because I was so mortified by the question. I told her Colorado was in the west and borders New Mexico to the South, and Kansas to the east. I then had to ask her where she was mainly because I did not judge this woman in case she was working a call center in England, India or China or somewhere. Nope- good ole American gal.
This got me thinking- how is it that Americans do not know their own country? It is really appalling and confusing. I mean, you do not have to know the exact location of the State- after all, the U.S. is vast. But at least know that Colorado is NOT on the east "coast". My God! Granted, I do not know world geography very well, but I can name each state capital and give you locations of the States of my country. I then started wondering if I were talking with a call center operator in another country, would they know more about America than its own citizens? Needless to say, this was an eye opening call for me and I realized that future generations of Americans are geographically inept and clueless about the world around them and that we still had some work to do... til then, Where is Colorado again? I need to go home.
