Sympathy for the devil?
What words come to mind when you hear “AT&T” these days? Incompetence? Ineptitude? Ham-fisted, ivory-towered, greed-driven mismanagement?
Suffice to say, AT&T has done its brand no favors during its tenure as the exclusive U.S. carrier of Apple’s iPhone. Hordes of the smart device’s users twitch and salivate at the merest hint of an imminent Verizon version, primed and ready as they are to jump ship to any other option. It’s an anticipation fueled by rage and frustration and indignation: how many dropped calls can a single human soul endure? How many broken promises? How many delays in services? How many outages and zero-bars and connections-lost?
But one also has to ask: is there a level of blundering so great that the tormented’s hatred for the tormentor can turn to pity? Can the villain shoot himself in the foot so many times that the victims turn their attention from their own wounds to the plight of the hapless bad guy? If so, AT&T might have just achieved that dubious distinction.
Only a few days ago, you see, it was reported that AT&T’s website was hacked and thousands of iPad 3G owners’ email addresses were collected. How many thousands? One hundred and fourteen thousand. Many of which belong to high-profile government and media types.
Ouch.
The timing, of course, only adds insult to injury. Because Apple’s newest iPhone, the iPhone 4, had been unveiled only days before the incident, bringing forth oohs and aahs for the Cupertino innovators, and a fresh round of scathing indictments for AT&T.
You have to admit, at this point, it’s actually kinda hard to be mad at AT&T. I mean, no one can get it wrong this often, even on purpose. The law of averages suggests they’d get something right once in a while, just out of sheer dumb luck. Clearly, these guys are simply cursed. Bless their pointy little heads.