On Aug 30, 2012, at 11:43 , John Sessoms wrote:
> From: Joseph McAllister
>
>> On Aug 27, 2012, at 09:33 , John Sessoms wrote:
>>
>>> The part that mattered and y'all kind of missed was the "and don't
>>> touch anything else kid".
>>>
>>> I really was a kid, not yet old enough to drive. It was very
>>> unusual someone my age would even be allowed inside the computer
>>> room. Not only was I allowed in, I was allowed to do something, a
>>> very VERY minor something, with the computer.
>>>
>>> I wasn't even particularly interested in computers. If you can't
>>> take it apart to see how it works, what good is it? I already
>>> understood enough about the grown-up world to know "THEY" were
>>> never going to let me do that.
>>>
>>> It was just the least boring place for me to wait around until my
>>> dad decided to quit work and I could catch a ride home. I don't
>>> remember what they used the computer for, although I'm sure I was
>>> told at some time or another. It was an insurance company, so it
>>> must have had something to do with keeping track of the money.
>>
>> It's called Actuarials. How the companies crunch all the statistical
>> know data about peoples frailties, accident rates, death rates,
>> broken down by the block you live on, so they know what to charge
>> everyone and cover known and unknown claim rates, still making enough
>> profit to buy the largest buildings in all large cities so their name
>> is placed up in the air for all to see.
>>
>
> It was hospital insurance, what grew into today's health insurance nightmare.
> Back then you could afford insurance and if you had to go into the hospital
> the insurance would actually pay your hospital bills.
Yes, I remember that. Having a child did not put a family in the poorhouse.
>
> Would Actuarials be something that affected hospital bills?
Only in that if you have insurance these days, the hospitals et al can charge
much higher rates to cover the percentage of non-paying customers, which in
turn raised the rates everyone paid for their insurance.
>
>
>> Joseph who's Dad worked for Liberty Mutual in Boston and Hopkinton
>> Mass for 30 years. The very same company who cancelled me after one
>> $300.00 accident. Bastards. I've only been involved in 4 accidents in
>> my 55 years of driving. One that was my fault, I think. Not sure,
>> really, I nodded off on the way home from my second job at 2 AM on a
>> one way street in San Francisco in 1969. I was driving the timed
>> lights. Apparently I entered the intersection as the light turned
>> green. A taxi entered in a late yellow. Light was red when he T-boned
>> me in my '64 MGB. Seatbelt saved me. Repaired the 'B' and painted it
>> white. Never liked the baby blue the factory used.
>>
>>
>
> The company my dad worked for changed a lot from the time my dad worked
> there. It changed a lot while he was still working there. I think he couldn't
> live with some of the changes in the way they did business and that's part of
> what killed him. His job was his life.
>
> I'm currently paying an additional $300 a year for automobile insurance. My
> car inexplicably rolled backwards into a tree & damaged the rear bumper &
> hatch. Insurance company said my rates wouldn't go up as long as the damage
> was under $1800. The adjuster's estimate came in at $1756. I took the car to
> the shop recommended by the insurance company and he accepted the adjuster's
> estimate.
>
> Fast forward 4 months to when my insurance was due for renewal. I see a $150+
> jump in my premium. WTF?
>
> The answer is the shop who did the repairs didn't like rear hatch the
> adjuster had found and ordered another. The other hatch brought the total to
> $1802. No one from the shop or the insurance company consulted me at the time.
>
> They're telling me I'll have to pay the increased rates for another 5 years
> (7 years total).
>
> I've been with Allstate ever since I first got auto insurance (> 40 years),
> but every time I think about this shit I get angry all over again. It is
> probably going to make me change carriers.
>
> I had to take a week long defensive driving course before I could get my Army
> driver's license. They taught us to wait at least 3 seconds after a light
> turned green before starting into the intersection. I get idiots blowing the
> horn at me a lot because I don't just jack-rabbit out into intersections.
My father was dedicated to Liberty Mutual, because when he returned after WW
II, jobs were scarce because of the sudden cutback in production. His
depression jobs between 1931 and being inducted into the Army in 1943 were soda
jerk, stocking and undergarment sales, and finally a Pepsi Cola deliveryman,
promoted to regional sales director out of Omaha, driving a 38 Chevy painted
red white and blue whose horn played the whole Pepsi Jingle (you can probably
hum it, can't you? "Pepsi-Cola hits the spot, 12 full ounces that's a lot,
twice as much for a nickel too, Pepsi-Cola is the drink for you.**)
Liberty hired him as a Safety Engineer and so started the clean air revolution
as he climbed stack and sampled the smoke to ascertain that a factory was
meeting it's designed pollution standards.
Over the decades he became very well known in the industry, as he earned a
Physics degree in the 50s which placed him in the position of Radiation
Supervisor representing the insurance "pool" designed to allow it's worldwide
members to cover each others butts in case of a nuclear disaster. Russia did
not go along with this, much to their chagrin. The insurance industry dictated,
in cooperation with the users/manufacturers of such materials, what was safe,
what was not. Inspections were made during design, construction and operation
of devices from radium watches, dental X-ray machines up to nuclear reactors
and weapons manufacture (as consultants, the gov't is self insuring).
As such, during his last 20 years at Liberty, he was offered jobs with other
companies, and other countries, as much as three times what Liberty was paying
him, to jump ship and work for them (as Mother told it, he would not discuss
it). Mother leaned on him for years because of that. He came from farm stock,
she was from wealth, and felt if it could be achieved in our family, it should.
He retired from Liberty. And still heard about the "possibilities that could
have been" from Mom for the additional 11 years until his death in 1986.
** "Nickel, Nickel" aka "Pepsi-Cola Hits The Spot";
words and adaptation by
Austen Herbert Croom-Johnson and Alan Bradley Kent;
some versions may have been arranged by Eric Siday.
[Austen Croom-Johnson later used the pseudonym "Ginger Johnson."]
based upon the 18th-century English hunting song "John Peel".
"Nickel, Nickel" copyright under investigation
"Pepsi-Cola Hits The Spot" (c) 1939 by Johnson-Siday
[exact copyright filing dates still under investigation]
[The "Soda Museum LLC" Web Site says, "This little jingle
would go on to be recorded in 55 different languages..."]
Listen here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxTnEbOjVCg&feature=relmfu the
broadcast jingle starts at 1:27.
Joseph McAllister
[email protected]
“ The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.”
— Kevan Olesen
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