For any Rogers consumers out there who feel that it's impossible to get someone at the corporation to listen to them, I wonder whether you shouldn't be submitting your complaints here. Rogers appears to have it eyeballs glued to this site:
Rogers has gone so far as to swear by oath that it reads this web site scrupulously, apparently with the loving care and fine-grained attention that published writers usually only find (if they are lucky) in their life partners and copy editors.
In facts, Rogers has even taken to copy-editing this site for me!
And it's not just any old Rogers employee who's copy-editing the site for me. I am fortunate enough to have someone who has a well-trained eye for how to manage the optics of presentation of self: none other than Rogers' VP Corporate Communications.
Recollect that Rogers complained to the court in its August 2006 pleadings that I had shacked up this web site for the purpose of soliciting attention.
Jan Innes, Rogers' spin meister, swore an affidavit on October 18, 2006 which affirms that she's been devoting quite a bit of time to scrutinizing every nuance of this site. At paragraph 5 of the affidavit she swore for Rogers' motion for summary judgment, Jan Innes even picked up a typo on my web site that she thought worthy of the judge's attention:
I have been advised by the TD Bank (Rogers' Wireless's banker), and verily believe that the $5,309.60 cheque was certified and that the funds were withdrawn from the account of Rogers Wirless. Further, a page on Ms. Drummond's website (www.rogersandme.ca) entitled "Settlement Agreements" indicates the Ms. Drummond certified a cheque from Mr. Rogers in the amount of $5,306.00. It appears that the discrepancy between these two figures results from a typographical error on Ms. Drummond's web site.
I've corrected the typo, and my thanks go out to Jan for her copy-editing assistance.
Spin this:
Beyond typos on this web site, Rogers has a new, substantive complaint about something I posted at Rogers and Me that the corporation wants the judge (and you) to know about. I have to admit that I'm not so sure, if I were Rogers' PR rep, that this is a feature of this web site's presentation of self that I'd be flagging for the judge or for the public at large.
In the October 19, 2006 factum that Rogers' legal team submitted to the court, Rogers thinks it's important for the judge to know that I intend to donate the net proceeds from this action to charity:
paragraph 4: The plaintiff's website indicates that her net proceeds from the Action would be donated to charity.
Beyond swearing to the typo on my web site, Jan Innes also swears, in her affidavit, that she's seen it written, with her very own eyes, that I'm going to donate the proceeds of my Small Claims Court action to charity:
paragraph 7: A page on Ms. Drummond's website (www.rogersandme.ca) entitled "Sounding in Law" indicates that her net proceeds from the Action would be donated to charity.
I find it a little bit difficult to decipher the argument that Rogers is making out here about my charitable impulses.
In the first place, I'm not sure, if I were the Defendant, that I'd be drawing attention to the fact that although the paramount driving force behind Rogers, the legal person, is the maximization of profit, the Plaintiff, a physical person, appears to be driven by an altruistic sense of the good.
I'm not sure how Rogers' figured that that would go down well with a judge. Is Rogers really on the ball with its reading of the mood of the court and the broader Canadian public?
Of course it's completely irrelevant in law how I would spend any damages that the court awards. So what's the legal argument Rogers is making out?
The closest Rogers comes to making out a legal argument that relates to my charitable impulse is at paragraph 16 of Joe D'Angelo's factum:
paragraph 16: It is further submitted that it would be an abuse of the court's process if a plaintiff, having chosen to commence a claim in the Small Claims Court for $10,000, were to refuse payment of the amount claimed and proceed with the action for unrelated purposes.
Charity is, presumably, the unrelated purpose.
Of course, I flat out deny that Rogers is paying the amount of the claim ($10,000) by paying me $5,000. I submitted my own factum to respond to Rogers' factum in which I argued strenuously, and successfully, that Rogers was not in a position to argue for summary judgment while leaving half of the claim open to legal dispute as a genuine issue for trial.
But beyond the spurious assertion that I was refusing payment of the amount claimed, Rogers' legal argument relating to my prospective donation to a non-profit organization appears to be that Small Claims Court should not be turned into the kind of venue where unrelated changes in the overall social equilibrium between corporations and consumers are effected in concert (albeit incidentally through a donation) with questions of fact and questions of law.
The argument appears to be that I should not be entitled to simultaneously get a damage award from a court of law and thereafter dedicate those damages to a non-profit organization such as the Public Interest Advocacy Centre which is committed to protecting consumer rights. The court should regard those two agendas (an action in a court of law and the promotion of consumer interests) as contradictory. Rogers appears to be arguing that my desire to effectuate the latter should diminish my claim in law.
Noblesse oblige is apparently a jealously guarded entitlement, not merely a graciously borne burden.
Are You Being a Don't Bee?
Now, before we go: I'm going to peer into my magic wand and what do I see? I see Jan, and I see Joe,and I see Graeme, and I see Angus and I see Ted, and all of you boys and girls out there.
(My apologies to those who are not old enough to remember the kids' TV show Romper Room.)