for the time being

How does a book that starts as follows sound to you:

<snip> Hi! My name is Nao, and I am a time being. Do you know what a time being is? Well, if you give me a moment, I will tell you. A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be. </snip>

The second sentence sort of reminded me of mahabharat: “main samay hun…” starting. But this isn’t like mahabharat at all.

This is a booker shortlist from an author called Ruth Ozeki: “A tale for the time being”

And for the time being I know that I will have a miserable Monday in the office – what with no sleep over the weekend reading some tale of a time being.

chroma

I just bought ACs for my whole house and am now paying the price. Just finished sending the following mail to chroma customer care...waiting to see what they do.

---- message starts -----

I have recently purchased 4 chroma air conditioners - 2 split and 2 window from the South Ex chroma and had them installed at my house this Sunday. I have had an awful experience getting the air conditioners installed in my house so far and the installation is far from complete.
I have listed below the problems I have faced so far:
1. Completely untrained and extremely rude staff. The Chroma staff who came to install the equipment (All 4 people claimed they were Chroma employees) were extremely rude, one person "Ashfaq Ali" and his assistant constantly used loud abusive language while talking to each other. The staff totally failed to answer any questions I put to them about what they were going to do while installing, how much of the wall they will need to break and why and were extremely curt and rude. I had a shouting match with one of them to finally get him to shut up.

2. Very poor quality of installation to the extent that the installation has created a fire and electrical hazard in the form of the 2 split air-conditioners. The staff did not have insulating electrical tape and were using regular duct tape to patch up heavy duty air-conditioner wiring until I pointed it out to them - at which point they tried to convince me that regular duct tape was now-a-days even better than insulating electrical tape. It turned out that they had run out of insulated tape and were trying to get away with it somehow.

3. The current installation done by the chroma staff is an electrical hazard as mentioned above. The 2 split air-conditioners are missing any earthing of the electrical connections. When I pointed this out to the staff installing the AC, they first tried to convince me that earthing was present, then that earthing was not necessary, and finally that they were not responsible because at the point where the split AC vents were installed, the existing electrical cable (from my previous installation) did not have an earth wire in it. All of this was pure nonsense because the contract with Chroma when I purchased the ACs was about a brand new full installation without any assumptions about any existing old installation. The electrical point that provides electricity for the ACs does have the earth wire available and taking a wire from the electrical point to the vent of the AC is a part of the install procedure. The Chroma staff tried to short cut this process by trying to re-use an existing electrical cable lying in the duct. The least they absolutely must have done is to inform me that the existing electrical cable, which they were incorrectly trying to re-use, did not have proper earthing.

4. The Chroma staff did not have adequate equipment for the installation. Some examples include the fact that they did not have a basic wire connector for putting joints in the cabling that they were doing and were simply winding heavy duty wiring to join 2 wires. They did not have insulating electrical tape as mentioned above to wrap this poorly done connection. And finally, they did not have enough clips to clamp this wire to the wall. The result is that a poorly patched heavy duty electrical wire without adequate insulation is dangling behind the curtains in my drawing room. I don't think I need to explain why this is a fire hazard.

5. The 2 outdoor units of the split air-conditioners are not aligned properly to each other and at least one of them has been installed tilted (not parallel to the ground). Aside from the impact of the tilted installation on the life and performance on the outdoor unit, the front of my house seems to have developed an ugly scar with the 2 "Chroma" ACs hanging askew. This was despite the fact that there were clear demarcations on the wall, which if properly used by the Chroma staff, the two units would have been properly aligned and straight.

6. Neither the window AC installation team nor the split AC installation team from Chroma had steppers that will allow them to perform their work. Isn't installing ACs on tops of doors and windows what these people do all day? Both the teams literally shouted at me that it was my responsibility to provide them safe sturdy and high enough ladders for the installation and that they will leave the installation half way if I did not provide them the required ladders immediately and that I should go figure with Chroma how the installation is supposed to proceed.

7. The stabilizers that were included in the purchase of the 4 ACs have still not arrived at my place. Why did Chroma send their staff for installation before they have delivered all the equipment? The result is that there are now dangling open wires in all the rooms of my house that are waiting for the stabilizers where they will be eventually plugged in.

8. The person installing the split AC did not apply any water proofing/MSeal on the drain pipe connection inside the wall near the AC vent. I noticed this and had to argue with him for some time before he reluctantly applied some M-seal on the joints. The chroma person didn't seem to think the potential of leaking water near the non-insulated taping on poorly done electrical connections and the potential of ruining the expensive emulsion paint on my drawing room walls was any problem at all.

9. Last but not the least, both teams did zero cleaning up after their work. My house was in a total mess after the Chroma staff left with packing materials strewn all over the house, broken pieces of the wall from the split AC installation, pieces of wiring, nails, dirty rags all over the place. I guess any time I buy anything from Chroma ever again, I should make sure that the installation contract has a cleaning clause in it because the Chroma staff is not expected to have basic civic sense.


All of the above constitute very serious problems with my purchase, delivery and installation of the ACs and I need immediate redressal of all of these from your end. I have made innumerable phone calls during and after the installation and hope I won't need to follow up on this again.

Murthy's law

I recently presented at the tech ed India conference along with a team mate.
We have the last session before the closing keynote on the last day of the conference - not a very good idea if this is the first time you are presenting in such a big event because you have this in the back of your head in everything you do till the very last day.... and for several other reasons.
But that is not what this post is about.
This is about what happened when the session actually happened.
The conference is happening in Lalit Ashok - a hotel in Bangalore. They have several convention halls spread across different buildings and you have to do some amount of walking to get from one session to another if the session you want to attend was in a track that is running in a different hall.
About 30 minutes before our session is to begin, we set up my laptop with all the relevant documents/presentations/Web page that we are going to use during the presentation in the correct order and put the machine to sleep. With about 15 minutes to go, we walk over to the hall where we are going to present from the hotel lobby - and it is just as well because as soon as we reach the Kalinga hall, it starts raining heavily. You don't want to show up on stage completely drenched.
The session before us is related to new features in bing maps and a good sized crowd is attending it. This crowd becomes captive audience for us in the next session because by the time the bing maps session is over, the rain has turned into a furious downpour.
All good so far. The previous speaker thanks the audience and wraps up her stuff about 10 minutes later than she should have - eating into the 15 minute break during which we are supposed to come up to stage and set our equipment up.
We walk up to the stage and put my laptop on the desk there. Before I know, someone plugs in the cable for the projector into the video out port. I open the laptop lid and try waking it up.
Nothing happens ....
...a few seconds and tries later, nothing continues to happen. The laptop does not wake up or respond -- I am guessing because it is confused with the addition of the new video during its sleep or whatever.
I take what will be the first of my many deep breaths on the stage then, turn over the machine and fiddle with the battery to somehow try and pull it out. This is a brand new machine and I don't really know the exact battery locking mechanism. It is simple enough though and I pull the battery out and put it back in hoping that would have hard booted the machine.
The machine does switch on then. We re-open all of the documents and windows we need for the session.
The rain is sounding like a heavy road roller on the roof of the hall and I can hear nothing of my screen reader from the laptop's tiny speakers. For some reason, we have anticipated bad acoustics and I have borrowed my team mate's really nice earphones just before walking in here. I plug that in and put one of the earpieces into my right ear. The left ear has some kind of a mike that we are made to wear for the session.

At this point a really professional sounding lady walks up to me and says: "just in case your laptop develops a problem again, let us take a backup of all your presentation materials so that our session is not interrupted"... click...
The click sound is that of her pen drive sliding professionally into the USB port on the right of my laptop without warning and without telling me first. her thought is noble but her pen drive is not so - it is loaded with several viruses/worms/whatever that the anti virus on my machine doesn't really like. There is an explosion of anti virus warning windows on the screen. My trust worthy protector fights away the worms and delays the start of my session still more with everything being projected on the various large screens in the hall.
At this point, let me explain the layout of the hall a bit. This is the main keynote hall and has a really large screen right behind us on the stage. in addition, there are 3 large screens in about the middle of the hall. 2 of those screens would mirror what is being displayed behind me and the 3rd one in the middle has the close up of the speaker being projected on it for the benefit of those towards the rear of the hall.
On this middle large screen, my usually normal looking face is being projected with a large red scar above my right lip. I have somehow managed to get a sun burn in Bangalore just the previous day and it has turned into crimson red and swollen by this time and now is peing projected in extra large on the middle screen.
Coming back to the presentation, I somehow basify my anti virus, throw out the pen drive and start the session introducing the 2 of us. I get to the agenda slide and after some talking on the first slide, start to bring up my first demo for the session.
My friend puts a hand on my elbow and whispers to stop at that point. I am in the flow of the presentation and don't really grasp what she is whispering. I give her a confused look and am about to continue when she repeats what she just did. At this point it is clear to me that something is wrong but I am still clueless as to what could be wrong. I stop speaking assuming she will say something and clarify to the audience what the matter is.
At this point another professional sounding lady walks up to us and says: "i haven't switched off the screens, it is raining so heavily that water has gone into the circuits. There is nothing I can do. You should probably do Q&A while we figure out what is wrong."
It now dawns on me that all the large screens I just described above have gone blank and dark. It is raining cats and dogs outside and the make shift electrical wiring set up for the event has given way somewhere.
My team mate and I look at each other and then at the professional sounding lady. So far in the presentation, the only thing we've done is introduced the 2 of us and the topic. What exactly does she mean by "Do Q&A" now?
Another deep breath - i turn around towards the audience and start describing the problem. My mind races ahead thinking of a reasonable filler for this point - and brilliantly comes up with nothing.
Fortunately, there are a couple of people in the audience who have some incling of the topic and ask a couple of interesting and intelligent questions. Some time is killed answering - and the rest is killed with silence.
Someone in the crowd realizes that the 3 large screens in the middle of the hall have come back to life. Excellent...
...I announce that fact and someone else with a mike announces that people may want to move to the back of the hall for the rest of the proceedings. A few people reluctantly get up. And suddenly, the screen behind me also comes back.
Everyone settles down and I start again. I am demoing something in Visual studio when my friend touches me on the elbow again...."not again" I say to myself. Apparently the screen behind me is switched on but is displaying the contents from some other hall and not what I am typing.
The professional sounding lady comes back again and says definitively this time: "I think you should wrap it up with a Q&A."
My friend is prepared this time and tells her clearly there is nothing to Q&A here. if it is not going to work, we are wrapping it up. Harish Ranganathan walks up to us, picks up the mike and is about to announce that we'll have to curtail the session.
The screen behind me corrects itself somehow and Harish changes his statement at run time and announces that everything is alright now and we'll go on with the session.
In the mean time, with the video out from the laptop on and off, my screen reader, (which is already pretty jittery being used with Windows 7 and VS 2010 RC for the first time) starts having second thoughts about talking.
I get only intermittent audio feedback from what I am typing. a few letters and then silence. I have practiced what I need to demo and type away into ether hoping I am typing in the right location and without making any mistakes in my code while also talking about the salient points of the supposedly smart code I am writing.
I do make a typing error though and my program doesn't compile. There is no speech from my screen reader. If the program doesn't run, the whole point of the demo won't be made. My friend clicks on the error message with the mouse and the screen reader kicks back in magically. I am able to get to the small mis-typing and the program runs.
I am supposed to talk through the next slide as well and do a small demo with excel as well. But I've almost lost it by now. I sort of introduce the slide and prematurely hand it over to my friend - who through it all still has a cool head on her shoulders. She doesn't miss a beat and does the excel demo as well.
It is now time to present the crux of the session. The silverlight application we've been developing for this session for the last month or so. We have set that up as the default page in the browser. My friend launches the browser. The anti virus page comes up instead.
Apparently, when there is a virus attack successfully repelled by the anti virus, the anti virus also changes the browser default page to a page showing more help about that virus etc. Under our breath, we curse the developer of the anti virus company who created this feature and my friend manually types in the URL of our demo app.
The demo app comes up and my friend does an amazing job with the rest of the demo. There is even an applause from the audience at some cool features of our app.
We finally wrap it up with very little time for the "Q&A" that the professional sounding lady so badly wanted us to do. We answer a couple of more questions and hand it over to Harish Ranganathan who announces the session closed.

My friend at this point says to me: "usually it is Murphy's law. In Bangalore, it seems it is called Murthy's law"

The namesake

I just finished reading "the namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri and thought of writing about it here.
However, I want to be able to do justice to write about such a lovely book, I just wish a ton of reading good books would somehow magically give me a way of writing good stuff as well. I have come to believe that I am one of those pristinely ungifted from the "bandekaran" empire from Terry goodkind's fantasy land. There is absolutely no trace of the gift of magic called "art" of any sort whatsoever that I can imagine in myself...
...which reminds me that I also finished a marathon run of reading Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series -- all of those -- in a matter of just over 3 weeks.
The namesake, a simply and beautifully told story of the 32 years of this guy "gogol", is very realistic in every sense - the characters, their lives and thoughts. This is unlike most other stories with similar context of Indian immigrants to the US. Most such stories would exaggerate the indianness and the americanness of the characters to bring out the contrast or to add a touch of humor or sarcasm.
"The namesake" doesn't seem to do that and still presents the cultural differences so well that it registers immediately.
I recently stayed in Cambridge, right outside MIT for close to a year and so, the setting of the story in MIT with places and shops in central square and Harvard square seemed all the more real to me.
The whole "reality" of the namesake was in a sense diametrically opposite to the flights of fantasy in Terry goodkind's lands of wizards and saurceresses and the mother confessor.
After those marathon sessions of fantasy, this was exactly what I needed to read

grok

I came across the term "grok" while reading the book "stranger in a strange land" by Robert Heinlein -- one of the best books I've read from one of my favorite authors by far.
I don't recall coming across this term being used at all anywhere earlier. Throughout the book, different people finally "grok" the meaning of "grok" in their own aha moments. Interestingly, since having completed that book, I am coming across the usage of "grok" all over the place in geek blogs I read -- and that too in very recent posts.
Now either all these people also read this (about 40 year old) book at the same time as I did or maybe I read the term earlier but never grok'ed what I was reading and never remembered...
Either way, it is interesting to find that a fiction writer can just add a whole concept and a whole new word to the english language just through a simple story. Here is what grok-wikipedia has to say about it:

Keynote Address

In Ahmedabad, we attended these two conferences, one organized by CSI and the other one by the members of AccessIndia. AccessIndia is an online group of people interested in the field of accessibility for the disabled.

The focus of both conferences was accessibility. I presented a paper on accessibility with Web 2.0 in CSI. The paper was OK. Overall, there were some interesting sessions in CSI -- like the one from the National Institute of Design (NID) about accessible design concepts developed by NID students as part of their project work.
The AI conference was organized at the Blind People's Association (BPA) and the BpA director Ms. Nandini Rawal gave the keynote address. This was definitely "the best" keynote address I have ever heard in any of the conferences I have ever attended. The lady spoke from her heart and had a lot of substance in what she was saying -- I'm totally impressed.
Interestingly enough, Kanchan -- the stage manager -- had the brain wave in the middle of this awesome keynote address that she didn't have anyone to do a "vote of thanks" or whatever it is that you should do in such conferences after the keynote address. Here I am sitting in a corner in the second row listening intently when I get a tap on my shoulder and a voice hangs over my shoulder and tells me in my ear: "sir, Kanchan madam aapko stage pe bula rahi hain. Aapko in madam ke liye vote of thanks karna hai."
I turn around flustered... She couldn't be serious, I thought to myself. "main nahin kar sakta" I reply. The guy goes: "Sir mujhe kya pata. Main toh siraf Kanchan madam ka message le ke aaya hun. Aap chal ke unse baat kar lo."
I see his logic and decide to move to the stage with him where kanchan is sitting right behind the speaker. In hushed voices:
I: Kanchan, what is this?"
kanchan: "Please do this. Will you do it?"
I: "But what is a vote of thanks? What am I supposed to say?"
Kanchan: "Just shut up and listen carefully to what she is saying and you need to summarize what she has said in your vote of thanks. Will you do it?"
I: (An extremely tentative) "ok"
At the end of it, I did manage to put together a couple of witty remarks that at least to me did summarize the address -- but really, I wish I could prepare such a seriously impressive presentation some day.
Update: Harish just posted the text of the presentation on the list. Pasting it below:
KEYNOTE ADDRESS OF NANDINI RAWAL
AT ACCESS INDIA CONFERENCE AT BLIND PEOPLE’S ASSOCIATION
21 September, 2008


My Dear Bright, Brilliant and Successful Friends,

I am so privileged to stand in front of you today. My heart is bursting with pride when I look at this gathering of young, savvy, qualified persons who are so confident, assured and charming. Blind people have come a long way from what I’d seen them 27 years ago when I joined the BPA.

I salute all of you achievers for your success but always remember “success is never final, failure is never fatal, it is courage that counts”.

As I stand before you, I am trying to remember the Keynote Addresses I have heard in the past. I can’t remember many because, probably, they failed to strike a chord in my heart. I therefore, decided to make my Keynote address, one that would touch your heart and being and remain with you.

I decided that I would share my dreams and visions with you so that all our tomorrows are bright and beautiful.

Power of the Dream:

My first dream is that Bill Gates sponsors the Jaws Software and gives it free to each needy person who is visually impaired. I wish that technology acts as the great leveler and acts as bridge between the blind and people who can see we can name the software “whispering windows”!!

My second dream is that each school for the blind starts believing in technology and is able to afford a computer for every blind student. The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment should give computers to blind students as part of the Assistive Devices Scheme. This dream will thus be titled “Information Technology within reach of each.

Persons with visual impairment are all very different. They form a very diverse community. We have blind people who are physiotherapists, computer programmers, teachers, telephone operators, voice culturists, farmers etc. We, professionals who work with and for the blind should recognize this diversity and create programmes that nurture this diversity. I dream of agencies that create programmes for the individual abilities of the blind and not the other way around.

I see before me, a sea of young professionals like you who are successful and who have made it. But I see thousands of blind students who are unseen and unsung.

To quote Oliver God Smith:
‘Many a flower is born to blush unseen and
Waste its sweetness on the desert air”

I hope these unsung heroes find a chance or seize the opportunity to exhibit their talents.

While all of you are in tune with technology and have mastered it for increasing your own efficiency, I know a lot of successful blind people, many of them from my generation, who are afraid of embracing technology. They are successful Counselors, Professors, and Lawyers but are averse to technology. I remember the words of Alvin Toffler, Author of “Future Shock”, who wrote “The Illiterate of the 21st Century are not those, who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn”. I wish all these friends make friends with technology and realize that it will only help them and make their lives easier.

When I look at the successful people in this room like Harish, Kanchan, Ranchhod, Pranay, Dinesh, Vikram, I realize that this number is not enough for the India of our dreams. I wish we could photocopy people like you and distribute them all over the length and breadth of India.

The Silent Section – When I look around this audience, I see greys, white brown mainly males in their formal wear. I see only a handful of my sisters who cannot see.

- Why are they so silent?
- Why are they invisible?
- Why are they marginalized?

These questions should taunt and haunt us till we provide equal access and opportunities to these women. All of us must make conscious, concerted and concrete efforts in this direction.

The other issue which touches my heart is the lot of blind people in rural areas. Agencies like the Blind People’s Association and National Association for the Blind have tried to level the chasm between the urban and rural blind by initiating community based services. These efforts are few and far between and we must pledge to do something positively and immediately for making rural blind persons aware of their rights.

Pass on the Heritage….

All of you here have achieved success because of the combined mix of your own efforts, efforts of your loved ones and contribution of society.

What, then, have each of you done for the empowerment of other blind people? May be to repay a debt of gratitude or to celebrate your own success, don’t you think you should selflessly strive to reach others not as fortunate as you? It is in our power to give, so we should give all we can while we can….

I appeal to all of you to pass on the heritage to as many blind people as you can but atleast three persons per year.

Lastly my wish is that media relays positive and factual images of blind people. If we are to have an informed and responsible media, we owe it to ourselves to feed them the right information of people like Gagandeep, who has got admission into IIM, Bangalore this year, of Dr. Samir Mansuri who is a Counselor to many Bollywood starts, of Nitya who was a Radio Jockey on Radio Mirchi or Ashish Mankad, a Chartered Accountant. We have many stories to tell but we need the courage, the commitment to follow up and reach that unreached star.
I end with a poem...

The Impossible Dream

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
To be better far than you are
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest, to follow that star
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far
And to fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march
Into hell for a heavenly cause

And I know if only I be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star




The sky is yours for the beckoning …….. reach out for the unreached star



Nandini Rawal
Project Director
Blind People’s Association
Ahmedabad.

Ahmedabad

We're in Ahmedabad these days - Aman and I and a friend of mine - to attend a couple of conferences that I'll write about later. We came in on the Gujarat Sampark Kranti -- air tickets were too expensive and it didn't occur to me untill it was very late that I could ask my office to sponsor the trip because I am presenting a technical paper in the conference and have my employer's name all over the "about the author" write-up.
In any case, the 2nd AC journey was comfortable enough but for a really boring character we ended up having as an unwelcome companion for the enitre part of our waking travel time.
This guy had the fourth "birth" in our coupe -- the other three obviously being the three of us. This was an AC marketing guy working with an MNC and completely frustrated with his life, job, and everything. He had a firm beleif that IT people had very little work, no pressure, and unnecessarily bloated pay packets. A myth I did not even try to clear up him... and the entire duration, he kept trying to ask how much my salary was in different rounds of "involuntary interrogation" sessions he had with me.
He had a firm opinion that he should have an opinion about everything that everyone else was talking about around him and so, he will poke his fairly ugly and very fat "whatever" in any conversation that the three of us will try to make.
By the end of it Aman was so bugged up with this guy that she stopped recognizing that he even existed in that space -- complete ignorance of all actions and words -- but anyway by this time, it was time to get down.
We had someone pick us up from the station and delivered to the house of someone we hadn't ever met in our life earlier. These were a family friend of Aman's father. It is a nice and comfortable house and the people are really nice. Preeti, our hostess, has been taking care of us, having us dropped and picked up from the conference venue everyday and taking us out for shopping and dinner -- all this in the middle of her kids' terminal exams. I couldn't imagine doing this ever....
And "Baa" has been cooking really tasty guju breakfast for us.
Aman went and shopped for Lehanga Cholis yesterday and has plans for more today.
We're eating a lot of Guju food and yesterday, we had "Kathiavarhi" which is food from Saurashtra -- I didn't know the difference or even the fact that a "KathiaVarhi" quezeene existed untill yesterday.
We haven't done our usual tourist stuff so far on this trip -- visiting famous/historical/significant places of the city -- I guess that'll happen on another trip. We have our hands and "tummies" full this time round.

robbed on the Information Highway

It finally happened to me as well....
There is this company called "reservation rewards", which apparently made over $86 million last year. It made all this money not producing goods and/or services or anything at all for that matter but by cheating and ripping off people on the Internet.
I got a charge of $12 last month on my credit card statement and it said "purchase reservation rewards" - I didn't remember making any such purchase but thought this may be some charge that the credit card company applied or something. Busy doing other "more important" things at that time, I put it off for follow up on a later date.
This month again I saw the exact same charge of $12 and I was very sure there was nothing in my bank transactions or otherwise that should have triggered this charge.
I called up the credit card company and they said that this was from someone called "reservation rewards" and gave me a 1 800 number I could call up to talk to them.
When I told them that this was not a company I had ever done any business with or subscribed to, they said that off late they were getting a lot of those complaints but usually if a person called them up, they would promptly cancel the recurring subscription charge and probably return the money already charged.
Sure enough, I called up the 1800 number and an IVR picked up the phone and guess what it said:
"Welcome to reservation rewards. If you want to cancel your subscription, press 1."
Have you ever in your conscious memory come across a business who will put the option to cancel/return their goods as the number 1 item on the menu?
As soon as I pressed 1, it asked me to punch in my credit card number. There was no way, I was giving my credit card number to someone who I didn't know and had nothing to do with. After a few error messages, the IVR transfered me to a live person.
The same story again, the person started asking all sorts of personal information - my zip code, my phone number and so on.
By this time, I was completely frustrated. The coversation went like this:
I: "who the hell are you to ask me all this? I never did buy anything from you. Why are you charging this monthly fee for me?"
person on the phone: "I will cancel your subscription going forward."
I:"great. but what about the money you've already charged me?"
other person: "I am starting the process of returning your $12 charged for the month of August."
I: "But there was a similar charge in July as well."
other person: "I am starting the process of returning $24 charged to you for July and august. Is there anything else I can assist you with?"

After this, I googled around for what this company does and guess what, every search hit other than the one for the "reservation rewards" website was about this exact rip off. These guys have come up with some obscure mechanism of getting your credit card information from websites (for me it was "buy.com" -- a reasonably reputed website) -- when you make a purchase on that website and automatically enroll you into their monthly program. What that program is and what you get out of it is something that probably no one knows.
...and apparently this is all legal!!! They are robbing people in small amounts and making millions by stealing and it is all legal.
They have made the whole process of returning your money so straight forward to avoid people from going all out and escalating this with the authorities... after all it was just $12 and I did get it back after a phone call .... who has the time to call the police for this.
So, next time you are about to make your credit card payment, take a close look at some small charge that you don't seem to remember having spent.