de-stressing : distressing!

I was a few days late in reading my RSS feeds, so I didn't Get The Memo that Geoff had been RIF'd after 20+ years with his employer. Ouch! After such a long stint, he may have difficulty adapting. Looking back on my own episode (May 2004) I understand why some people have heart attacks and die soon after retiring: the change in daily pattern ("de-stressing"?) is too severe. Me, I enjoyed my Extended Vacation, but I lacked many pressures that others face.

One of the things I'd forgotten was the excruciating joy involved in porting my phone number to a personal plan. This is all doc'd on blog entries from that era. This time (last week) it wasn't nearly as bad, although I was carrying two phones for several days (the old one for incoming calls, and the new one for outgoing). After about 3 days -- this time -- the port is complate and the world has returning to it's melodic state of euphoria.

I got two curious text messages that are worth mentioning; the first was from my old carrier:

5 cent txt messaging to send & receive starts on or after 6/18/06. Even cheaper text messaging buckets coming in June too! Current rates remain until then. Received: 4:56PM 03/07

Not being a believer in Conspiracy Theory, I'm sure it was just a coincidence that this arrived moments after they were informed that I was moving to another carrier.

The second TM was the one from my new carrier, advising that the LNP is complete:

Welcome to Verizon Wireless. You can now make and receive calls on America's Best, Most Reliable Wireless Network. See vzw.com for network details. Fri, Mar 10, 8:17pm

What's amusing to me is that both carriers "announced" the success of the number porting via Text Message and not Voicemail.

Also (curiously) I tried to Forward the Verizon TM to email, but it will only let me forward a TM to another cellphone: weird.