A Tale of Two Phone Books

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[BSAlert *exclusive*]
[Beating Dead Horses]
The new New Orleans phone books showed up from Bellsouth/AT&T today. I couldn't help but notice the difference between these and the last ones that came out, so I took a picture...



As you can see, both phone books are from the same company. Although the new 2007 edition covers more areas than the previous versions, which were labeled "Greater New Orleans" instead of the more inclusive "Greater New Orleans/Kenner/Harahan," the new books are significantly smaller.

The new New Orleans yellow pages are 1146 pages. The old ones were 1147 pages... wait, what? Why is there more than an inch thickness in difference?

A cursory examination of the difference between the yellow pages shows that Bellsouth was pretty slick with the new version. For one thing, the new book contains a considerably expanded Spanish-language section, to help the members of illegal immigrant work crews brought into the city for reconstruction to order pizza more easily.

Then there's the new numbering scheme. Previous version only began numbering pages in the classified ad section of the yellow pages, so the page numbering started in the middle of the book. The new version begins numbering pages at the beginning. Even the table of contents has a page number in the new version! So while one might say the yellow pages has a similar number of "pages" this year, that's only some of that new post-Katrina math.


 

Posted by teo macero on 2007-03-01 16:47:20
ha ha funny. the phone book is the issue at hand. why did you have to show your ignorance with the comments about latino workers?

i'll bet you need help ordering pizza yourself.
comments
Posted by wizeGurl on 2007-03-02 08:36:40
What's ignorant about acknowledging that the number of undocumented aliens, mostly Spanish-speaking, in New Orleans has skyrocketed since Katrina? He didn't say it was a bad thing, or that there shouldn't be a Spanish section in the phone book for them. It's the way things are now. As a matter of fact, I do think it's sad when you have large numbers of unemployed locals, but the sub-sub-sub-sub-contractors have to find people willing to work 18-hour days for sub-minimum wages and sleep 12 to a room in order to skim a profit off the misfortune of others. But that's not the workers' fault. Perhaps if you'd read more carefully, you'd see that there was no slam on the illegal immigrants at all--that's just who they are. And it's their illegal status that lets the employers take advantage of them. They probably can't actually afford pizza on what they make.
Posted by Pile on 2007-03-02 15:23:13
Well, most of them don't have a phone, and many live about 18 to an apartment out here, so if anybody's ordering pizza, I doubt it's for delivery unless they're taking up a collection.

I have nothing against minorities. But it is sad there is a huge new, migrant worker population in this city, many of whom are apparently illegal aliens. It doesn't matter much to me.
King
Posted by James on 2007-03-05 05:30:38
"Well, most of them don't have a phone . . ."

They all have phones. You don't notice all the pre-paid phone cards written in Spanish lying on the ground?!

I make no apologies for thinking the illegals don't belong here.
Posted by Pile on 2007-03-05 16:29:45
That's all fine and dandy but someone's got to do the work, and the immigrants are down here to do it. I don't see the white guys lining up to work on roofs for $40/day.
Posted by Mike on 2007-08-01 11:16:43
"I don't see the white guys lining up to work on roofs for $40/day."

that would be because $40 a day is actually illegal the minimum wage was established for a reason and if contractor want to break the law to under pay their workers then maybe you shouldn't trust them... and normal construction wage per-k was around $15/hour anyway (and plenty of legal residents were more than willing to line up for it)
 

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