I have a friend called Steve who got called something horrible by an older, meaner, guy in school. It was something that had happened time and time again and Steve was reaching the end of his tether.
So one day, milliseconds after being called the horrible name, Steve grabbed Ian, the bad guy, by the neck and shoved him up against the wall and said something like “DON’T EVER CALL ME A FSCKING @#$@! AGAIN!”
When I heard this story I was like “Wow, dude, that’s awesome! What happened?”.
Steve’s reply was priceless “Oh, he totally fscked me up at break time”.
But the message was clear. It didn’t matter how many times he got knocked down… He had stood up for himself and he was going to do it again.
From what I understand, short of a beating at break, Ian never messed with Steve again.
The parallels here are interesting, albeit a bit far fetched, but I love telling that story.
Telkom has been walking around calling everybody names for ages. They rip us off, hurt us, drive us to levels of emotional stress that should really only ever be reserved for ex-girlfriends and they just don’t seem to care. (I broke up with Telkom a while ago and don’t let that bitch into my life anymore)
Well, the industry is starting to stand up in the hallways.
Sure, individuals in the industry are probably going to get beaten up a few times on the field at break, but maybe only once or twice… When a bully realizes that every time they cause a fight they will walk away a little ingured too, that’s when they start thinking twice.
ath.
j.
ps. The adsl line that Joe’s story refers to has actually not been set up yet. Even though they had telkom in the building. I wonder if they just sent some techies there as a delaying tactic in hope that they would call off their toyi toyi.
arbitraryuser 