A gust of Wind, but stuck with Rogers

After yet another frustrating and irritating battle with Rogers, I walked into a Wind store with all intent of jumping ship. The sales lady was very helpful, and we were off to a good start:
- device selection - yup - Wind has made some inroads here, and offers a decent selection of (Android) devices. There's also a light smattering of BB10 and mention of Windows OS (no devices). Apparently iPhone users need not apply (unless they have their own unlocked devices).   Since Android is my favourite OS, the lack of IOS / Windows phone devices was not a showstopper for me though.
- Price - hands down, Wind has the best pricing for a global texting, data consuming fiend like myself. Ergo my trip to the Wind store.  $40 for all that texting and data! Awesome!
- Rogers cancellation fee: $300. Steep, but no problem, Wind has great pricing on their phones, I'll just sign up and away we go.
But no, fast forward a year later, and I'm still stuck with Rogers. Why?
Well here's the thing. Like most Canadians, I have a love / hate relationship with the major telcos.  Pricing is not competitive with the smaller players. Customer service is often poor, with some reps giving out false info which the company will not pull past calls to validate, and plans are often complex beasts that result in the average Canadian being nickel and dimed.
But in spite of this, there are a couple of things that Rogers has going for it over the small players.  An LTE network, and good service coverage. As a data hog with a grandfathered 6Gb plan, I'm very reluctant to give up these benefits for less coverage. 
That said - Wind, I'm keeping my eye on you, and I'm hoping that transition point is not too far in the future. 

Living the dream

The modern social rule of thumb is that we're supposed to be passionate about what we do for a living. Gone are the good old days when Charles and Caroline Ingalls tended their farm on the prairies to feed their family and help em become positive, contributing members of society. In the modern world, having a career is good, but the modern ideal is to have a career that you're passionate about. Now I can't argue with that - it's as good a rule as any for a motivated person to live by. The problem that arises is - what if you are motivated, but not passionate about anything?

Now, by "not passionate about anything" - I don't mean the unmentionables. Most of us are not that interested in converting our late night horizontal exertions into a career. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'm not talking about you.

I'm also excluding spouses and kids. Hopefully you're passionate about your spouse, but pimping out your better half is a poor career choice. And you SHOULD be passionate about your kids - but regrettably, unless you're the parents of the Gary Coleman types, you can't really make a career out of that either. Not that they were exactly stellar examples of parental love, considering how that all turned out. Note: if you don't know who Gary Coleman is, 1. You've just made me feel really old, and 2. Watch some episodes of "Different Strokes" - it's an interesting view of the 80s.

No, gentle reader, by passion I'm referring to a career choice that stays within the guidelines of socially acceptable norms. Take myself, for example. I've worked in financial services for over 15 years. I've had some fun roles, but I'd hardly say I'm passionate about the industry. I hardly think I'm alone in this - in fact, show me someone who says they are passionate about banking and 99% of the time I'll show you a good spin doctor.

So what's the point of this spiel? Well, it's just this; I believe everyone should have a passion. Something to live for. In a perfect world, we are able to live our passion through our career. But the reality is that most of us are not fortunate enough to make our passion our career. In these cases, its enough that work is fun and rewarding.  And when the work day ends, you have your passion to look forward to.