Orange combines the energy of red and the happiness of yellow. It is associated with joy, sunshine, and the tropics. Orange represents enthusiasm, fascination, happiness, creativity, determination, attraction, success, encouragement, and stimulation.
Who the hell wrote that? I mean, I copied it from some design site on the internet, but who the hell made up those stupid words? Whoever it was has never been to Orange, the cell phone communications provider.
I know that I am not in the best position to judge cell phone providers of the world, but after my experience yesterday I am pretty sure that they can't get a lot worse than they are in Israel.
First, it is important to know that Israel has one of the highest cell phone user rates in the world. I think it has something to do with living under the constant threat from Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, Al-Quaida and Ahmadinejad to name but a few of our regular, yet lethal, enemies. Even young children carry cell phones so that their parents can always find them -- in case of, you know, a terrorist attack or nuclear war.
Second, and somewhat contradictorily, Israeli kids have a degree of freedom of movement that no normal, responsible parent in the US, Canada or the UK would ever give their child.
In other words, for all sorts of non-related reasons, Israelis are cell phone obsessed down to their technology competent four-year-olds. And considering that, cell phone companies play an unduly important role in our lives, which means that they have you by the ding-a-lings.
This brings me to my early morning trip to our cell phone provider Orange yesterday morning. First of all, just to demonstrate how little they actually care about their customers, they don't open until 10:00 a.m. even though Israelis are out the door most weekday mornings by 7:30 OR 8:00 a.m. second, it may have been the build-up from a month of holidays, but there were about 20 people scrumming at the door of their store waiting for it to open. Let me just add here that Israelis are not known for their instinctive need to line-up like Canadians or Brits. No, even an anticipated door opening is cause to fight to the death for your place in line. And if someone can out-manouever you even though you arrived first, then bully for them.
When we finally got inside (no, they did not open on time because that would have been too predictable a move), got our number and finally had our number called, I was already in a bad mood.
The irony is that I was only there keeping my husband company. Why? I don't know. And it is too late to think about it now, a day later.
As soon as they hear that you are interested in one of their high-end phones, they bring out their heavy-hitters. Originally we were sitting with a nice young woman trying to convince her to give us the same offer as another cell phone provider was apparently offering. She must have sensed that her adversaries (us) we going to take a bit of work so all of a sudden, out of nowhere, comes this tall, muscular, shaved head guy to take over. We still have no idea who he was or why he surfaced.
From that point on it was a battle of wills. Let me again quote the design website here: To the human eye, orange is a very hot color, so it gives the sensation of heat.
Nevertheless, orange is not as aggressive as red. Well, thank heavens for that!
And one last line: In heraldry, orange is symbolic of strength and endurance.
Never have truer words been written because that is exactly what happened.
My husband wouldn't budge from what he wanted and this mystery heavy hitter kept offering us things saying: "Okay, this is the last offer." And when each last offer didn't move my husband, then he started with the subtle insults and cajoling. "What's the difference: we don't offer an 18 month contract so just take the 36 months." Or: "0.49 nis that the other guys offer for each extra minute is pretty much the same as the 0.69 nis we offer, so just sign already." Or: "Even though you already have GPS separate from your phone, the GPS on the phone is free so it's a good deal."
Well, the one thing Orange did not anticipate is that my husband could best be defined in such situations as RED. And RED is stronger than Orange. After 90 minutes we left without the phone but we felt so good that I think you could fairly call us light blue or green.
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