Rearranging your living room: The pinnacle of excitement

A couple of months ago we rejiggered the furniture in our living room. It was the first time we had done this in a while, and it caused quite the stir.

Quite the stir, that is, not only among the people who live in our house, but among our regular visitors as well.

Everyone had their own opinions on the new configuration, which saw the TV switch places with the piano and the sectional couch pulled around at a new angle, along with a few other minor changes.

We were able to move the TV only because we switched from WOW cable to AT&T TV streaming service. Previously, the TV was placed right where the cable came up through the floor from the basement. But a streaming TV can go anywhere in the house where you have WiFi, so that opened up a lot of design possibilities.

The important thing is that my wife, the person who spends the most time in the living room, liked the change.

But seriously, you know your life has fallen into what might be described as a mundane routine when a living room rearrangement is the only thing you can talk about as a family for a week.

I am impressed by customer service professionals whose native language may not be English

In my experience, middle class Americans like to complain about things.

Actually, all Americans like to complain about things.

Well, really, all humans like to complain about things.

But for the moment, let's focus on good old, middle-of-the-socioeconomic-road Americans.

One of the things against which I often hear my fellow proletarians rail is when they call a company for customer service and have to deal with someone who is obviously not an American.

I don't mean to imply they're being racist. They just find it challenging to understand the person on the other end of the line, which I get.

In the past couple of days, I have made a total of seven combined customer service calls to our now-former cable provider but still Internet provider WOW, and our new streaming provider AT&T TV.

Every one of these calls resulted in me talking to a person who had what I would describe as either a Spanish or maybe Filipino accent.

I was blown away by two things: (a) I could understand all of them clearly. I've studied and practiced a lot of French in my life, but if I had to assist a French person over the phone in French, they simply wouldn't be able to understand me, no matter how hard I tried. (b) They could understand me.

That second point gets to something I've often mentioned over the years to those who, like me, have lived their whole lives in Northeast Ohio: We have an accent. Many vehemently deny it, but we do. Linguistics scholars have classified and described it in detail.

Maybe it's because they're exposed to so many American movies and so much American TV, but these customer service pros never seem to have trouble understanding me despite the mix of Midwestern flatness and curved Cleveland vowels with which I speak.

I know they have a lot of practice at it, but really, it's impressive.

I realize others have had far more negative experiences with customer service people they simply couldn't understand, but it seems both WOW and AT&T have done a great job hiring technicians who can be understood conversing in English.

(And by the way, make no mistake: These professionals often come from countries where prevailing wages are low. I'm not saying this is necessarily good or bad, but there's no doubt labor costs are lower when organizations go this route, which is why the person identifying themselves as "Jenny" on the other end of the line almost certainly wasn't born with that name.)

The best part: Our transition from a cable-dependent household to one that uses streaming TV (and that installs and outright owns its own equipment) has gone off with very few hitches. Thanks to these wonderful people who patiently answer my questions in their second language.

It isn't 1982 anymore: Cutting the cable cord and digitizing your music

Live long enough and you're going to see all sorts of advances in technology.

Actually, with the pace at which things advance these days, you don't even have to live all that long to see revolutionary changes.

The most noticeable shifts in my 51 years seem to have come in the way we consume various forms of entertainment.

Think back to the mid-70s when I started watching TV and listening to music. The TV was a big (and I mean BIG) old console model that sat in the living room and did not budge for a decade or more until one or more internal components blew out beyond repair.

Changing channels involved twisting a plastic dial. If the weather was bad, your reception could be iffy.

As for music, I began listening on record and 8-track players, and later graduated to a Sony Walkman, which my brother secured for me when he was in the Air Force and stationed in South Korea. Cassettes! Portable! Lightweight! In 1988 I moved up to CDs, which were mind blowing at the time.

Now consider the way these things work in 2021.

A couple of weeks ago, we finally cut the cable cord and signed up for a streaming service (AT&T TV). I can now access far more channels on far more devices that are far more portable than the heavy Zenith unit on which I grew up.

I can just as easily watch TV on my mobile phone or iPad as I can on an actual TV.

On the music front, it's all digitized and stored on that same mobile phone (or iPad). No actual material media to worry about.

And it sounds great. I know audiophiles prefer vinyl, but I'm just fine with the quality of the sound being pumped through my AirPods.

Those AirPods are wireless, by the way.

Maybe I'm just easily impressed, but it's all so amazing to this Gen Xer.