Several days ago, I called up my cable and internet provider.\u00a0 I had previously received a cryptic warning about changes that would take place on a certain date and the equipment I would receive to allow for these marvelous changes to occur.\u00a0 When the day of reckoning had almost arrived and no equipment arrived, I felt I had no choice but to do the unthinkable.\u00a0 I would call my service provider up on the telephone.<\/p>\n
This may sound like a normal activity.\u00a0 I simply dial a number and I talk to a human being for a few minutes and communication occurs.\u00a0 I remember when I still believed in such things.\u00a0 Ah, those were the days.\u00a0 Back when the cable guy would be sent to your house and install stuff and adjust things and telephone calls were answered by human beings or at least what sounded like human beings.\u00a0 Wasn\u2019t that an amazing time?<\/p>\n
But now is not that time.\u00a0 After dialing the number, I was greeted by the robo-voice giving me options in Spanish and English and so began my odyssey.\u00a0 First in line was the repair\/technical journey.\u00a0 And this was the most straightforward part of the adventure.\u00a0 They had contacted me.\u00a0 They had told me what they were going to do.\u00a0 They were upgrading the speed of my connection and so they had to send me higher speed equipment to take advantage of this upgrade.\u00a0 And since my present equipment wouldn\u2019t function after the change date, they had promised to send me the magical new equipment.\u00a0 But where was this new equipment?\u00a0 What had intervened to prevent my reaching the promised land of higher speed data transfer?<\/p>\n
So, I selected Technical<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 And then the dreaded canned music began.\u00a0 It was as stultifyingly boring as anything I have ever heard.\u00a0 After a mere ten minutes my skin was crawling and I could feel my resolve slipping away.\u00a0 I was tempted to hang up and call back later.\u00a0 But I knew the foolishness of such a cowardly act.\u00a0 After all this was just the first round in what I knew must be an epic struggle to retain consciousness.\u00a0 I persevered and after a reasonable twenty-minute wait I was speaking to a real live person.\u00a0 And it was someone who sounded normal.\u00a0 A woman who spoke English and was polite and understood what I was asking her.\u00a0 It was too good to be true.\u00a0 She understood exactly what was supposed to have happened and she only put me on hold for ten minutes while she reviewed the facts of my case.\u00a0 I was ecstatic.\u00a0 But what a fool I was.\u00a0 When she got back, she was noticeably saddened.\u00a0 She informed me that because my contract was very old the changes proposed could not be performed without transferring me to Billing<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n My heart sank.\u00a0 I had never been transferred to billing without suffering exasperation or even rage.\u00a0 I have mocked and shouted at billing operators on numerous occasions.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s part of their training.\u00a0 Here I was thirty-five minutes into the journey and I was being thrown off the parapet and into the dungeon.\u00a0 I could hear in her voice just how guilty Technical felt.\u00a0 It was as if she had given me a death sentence.\u00a0 I said resignedly, \u201cOkay transfer me.\u201d\u00a0 And the music began again.<\/p>\n I waited about five minutes.\u00a0 It\u2019s much easier to get through to Billing than Technical.\u00a0 Then again nobody really wants to speak to Billing.\u00a0 The people there are petulant, easily flustered, impolite and not very helpful.\u00a0 Several times while I attempted to explain what I needed I was cut off by the rep.\u00a0 And each time it was clear she misunderstood the situation.\u00a0 Finally, after several system queries, she believed my side of what needed to be done.\u00a0 She must update my contract to allow the normal equipment shipping order to go through.\u00a0 The only thing that needed to be done to accomplish the update was to add five cable channels to my selections.\u00a0 I told her to select them at random.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t care because I wouldn\u2019t be watching them anyway.\u00a0 But in an almost gleeful announcement, she told me that only a Specialist<\/em><\/strong> could approve the additional channels.\u00a0 I would have to be transferred yet again.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think I cried out.\u00a0 I think I staggered back a step or two.\u00a0 I choked out the words, \u201cThen transfer me.\u201d\u00a0 And the elevator music started up again.\u00a0 I was a solid hour into the call and I knew that the wait for a specialist would be something between twenty-five and thirty-five minutes.\u00a0 I put the phone down on a table and set it to speaker.\u00a0 I stared out the window on a sunny fall morning turning quickly to afternoon.\u00a0 Camera Girl walked by and heard the music and understood what was going on.\u00a0 I could see she felt for me as a true and loyal wife should.<\/p>\n After the requisite half hour, the Specialist made her presence felt.\u00a0 And she really was special.\u00a0 She needed no information from me.\u00a0 She methodically laid out the actions that she would take and the results that would follow.\u00a0 She apologized for the problem and assured me that the upgrade would improve my service by a speed increase of 50%.\u00a0 I was off the call in about two minutes.<\/p>\n An hour and a half.\u00a0 This is the nature of our relationship to the companies that supposedly connect us to the world.\u00a0 They erect barriers that punish their customers to avoid communication at all costs.\u00a0 Remarkable.<\/p>\n And now I am faced with another equally maddening customer service nightmare.\u00a0 My oil company also provides service on my heating system.\u00a0 Or in theory they do.\u00a0 A few days ago, we noticed that there wasn\u2019t any hot water.\u00a0 Because it\u2019s been so warm for the last few days, we hadn\u2019t noticed that the heating system wasn\u2019t working.\u00a0 I went into the basement and watched what was going on with the furnace.\u00a0 When it called for heat the system went through its cycle but when it reached the point where the oil pump turned on it made an awful grinding noise and failed.\u00a0 I called up the service number and told them what was happening.\u00a0 They said they\u2019d send a technician within from four to nine hours.\u00a0 None hours later one showed up and after a couple of hours he had the system running again.\u00a0 Apparently, a set screw had come loose in the coupling between the motor and the pump.<\/p>\n Hurrah, the system works.\u00a0 Slowly, maybe, but it worked.\u00a0 Then this morning, no hot water.\u00a0 Wonderful.\u00a0 Well, no shower but the promised four to nine hours later (well let\u2019s just call it ten hours) the same tech is back.\u00a0 But the news is bad.\u00a0 Now it\u2019s a part that they don\u2019t stock.\u00a0 And it\u2019s the weekend.\u00a0 And now I\u2019m annoyed.\u00a0 An hour ago, I hear the circulation loop running in the living room.\u00a0 I run to the basement and see that somehow the heating system is running.\u00a0 I run upstairs and manage a hot shower.\u00a0 I\u2019ve beaten the system, at least for tonight.\u00a0 The weekend is sure to bring more tales of woe from the oil company.\u00a0 Like the cable company they are there to make my life awful.\u00a0 But this is the nature of the dysfunctional world we live in.\u00a0 Customer service is a euphemism for customer abuse.\u00a0 For them customers are supposed to be kept at arm\u2019s length and prevented from costing anything more than the absolute minimum.\u00a0 The idea that customer satisfaction is something that these corporations should strive for is laughable.<\/p>\n In both cases my providers are literally the only game in town.\u00a0 Monopoly compels me to make the best of a bad situation.\u00a0 Tomorrow I\u2019ll install the new internet and cable devices.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure there will be numerous snafus.\u00a0 And tomorrow I\u2019ll begin negotiations with the oil company\u2019s tech manager.\u00a0 One way or another we\u2019ll get something going.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the reality of life in Joe Biden\u2019s America.\u00a0 Satisfied customers are a thing of the past.\u00a0 Now it\u2019s stand in line and stop complaining if you know what\u2019s good for you.\u00a0 Welcome comrades.\u00a0 Enjoy the hold music.\u00a0 Next!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Several days ago, I called up my cable and internet provider.\u00a0 I had previously received a cryptic warning about changes that would take place on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4268,3885,2022,2374],"class_list":["post-25865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","tag-customer-service","tag-decline-of-western-civilization","tag-dysfunctional-society","tag-monopoly"],"yoast_head":"\n