hello. how my i be of assistance?
Yesterday morning I discovered that our Verizon internet connection had gone, in the military vernacular, tits up. I didn’t have time to rassle with it in the morning so I waited until the afternoon to take it by the scruff of the neck and shake the life from it.
(As a side story about scruffs and necks: a big, black, tomcat has decided over the last few nights that it likes our house. We’ve discovered him on and under the table the last two mornings and we’re not quite sure how to keep the little freeloader out of the house. The cats have a cat door and he apparently considers it an open invitation to join our little family.)
We’ve had internet issues before but they were initiated by running and stomping children screaming through the wood-floored den where the connection and cables reside. Since the wall jack is behind some bookshelves there was a tendency for the slamming toes and heels to shimmy the connection loose. So, I pulled out the bookshelves after first staring moronically at the lights on the thingamajig and gave everything the old on/off/in/out/powercyle/reset once over; this analytical thinking and action amounted to a total of zero internet. Right, I’ll give Verizon a call. Funny you should ask about that. We have no phone books and I have no bills because my entire Verizon life is online. I realized I’d have to go old school and call information on the phone in order to get a number that’d get me started on the road back to the World Wide Web. On my second call to information I finally get an 800 number that must bode well for my mission. As I stumble through the first automated menu (which is hell bent on me entering the Verizon phone number I’m calling about, even though I don’t have Verizon phone service) I finally arrive at Blockhead #1’s headset. I explain to her that I only have Verizon Internet – no phone, no 200 channels of hypnotic cable, nothing – and it’s stopped working and I just need to figure out what’s happened. She sends me to the Tech Support line where I come across the only person who knows anything. He’s able to find my account via some tech support alchemy and tells me that there was a disconnection notice that morning for my account and that’s why I have no Internet. He lets me know that I need to talk to billing to sort it out. Right-o. He transfers me to billing but instead I end up at sales. To best summarize the next two hours of my life I’ll tell you this: something happened with my auto-payment/billing and my Internet has been disconnected. What I want to do is find out what happened, how I can give them money, check the billing details, and turn my Internet back on. The offices I end up speaking with amongst the two hours of being on hold are these: wireless, landline, wireless, tech support, sales, billing, landline, collections, billing, wireless, and collections. I’m not kidding. I finally snap at the collections lady who tells me I need to make a payment via the computerized payment line – it’s $40! – and then call her back with the confirmation number. FINE!!! I make the payment and call her number back only to be spit into the same automated menu/queue for the 15th time. Shit. When I finally get to Blockhead #16 she’s the worse of the lot. I relay what I’ve done and she decides it would be best to transfer me to the number I just dialed that brought me to her. She tells me I need sales since I need to open a new account. The next sentences out of my mouth aren’t fit for my docile readers and you know I’m not much for holding back the profanity. I slam down my phone – or close the cell as we do these days – and look about for anyone to slay. Fortunately, no one is nearby. As a corollary to what’s happening, I’ve had three calls come in from the WonderTwins and their mother. Now, they’ve nothing to do with any of this, I’m not mad at any of them, but I couldn’t answer because I wasn’t going to lose my place in the phone hold-line of hell. After slamming the phone closed I start to call around to see of the World has collapsed and everyone’s decided to call me as a first option. The World didn’t collapse I find out but my lovely is waiting for me to pick her up at the Metro; her sister and mother were merely calling during this same time in order to leave voice mails and whatnot. I get in the car and drive the mile to West Falls to fetch my lawyer gal. Bear in mind, I am probably more angry at that moment than at any time in my life. We're talking…angry. The word doesn’t do me justice. On our way back I give X a rundown of my Verizon drama – it also included every possible profanity known to man – and she took it quite well…for one sitting next to a very angry and agitated bear. I told her we’d have Internet back when I damn well said we’d have Internet back. I think I apologized for all the ranting in her general area, but if I didn’t then I might need to buy her a new dress.
That’s that. Yet, there’s more.
After getting back to the house and unseething, I called back and decided to just be as calm and patient as possible. I explained to the first person, in dulcet, story-reading tones, the story of my day. She takes my confirmation number and enters the payment to my account. She reiterates that I’ll need to open a new contract since it was deactivated and that she’s sending me to someone who can do that for me. Thanks, I say. For the next 45 minutes I go through the entire process as if I were a new customer even though the lovely lady understands what’s led me to this point. As she’s trying to enter a new “connection” date into my new account it keeps telling her the 27th – no sooner. Of course, she recognizes that the central location merely needs to click on my account with a mouse tap and I’ll be back up but she can’t override the system. (There is actually a technician scheduled to come to the Hilltop…for lord knows what.) As she finishing up my account she gets a tech on another line who says he can probably sort it out sometime this evening. We finish our account configurations, say good evening, and go our separate ways. Less then five minutes later my green Internet light illuminates and we’re back in the connected World. How hard could it have been?
Two lessons to pass along and then I’ll let you go:
First, people who work customer service at any company larger than 20 people are going to be clueless, mindless, confused, and uninterested in service about 98% of the time. It’s the nature of the beast.
Second, and I’m generally applying this lesson as a side-light to Barack Obama’s behavior, it’s so hard to not just cut loose on people when they demonstrate incompetence, hatred, stupidity, or any other behavioral defect which hangs so heavily upon them. I was merely trying to get my Internet working and I ended up stark-raving mad at the process. The ability to not lose your marbles is something that graces the very few. To be out there every day for two years while being called a terrorist, a Muslim (!), a socialist, an elitist, unpatriotic, and any other bigoted comment – and to not just breakdown and smack people – is something I’ll never be able to comprehend. It’s truly amazing to watch.
Of course, I didn’t intend this to be an Obama closing but it really was the behavior that flashed before me before I got back on the phone and sorted out my anger and my Internet.
Feel free to leave.
t
(As a side story about scruffs and necks: a big, black, tomcat has decided over the last few nights that it likes our house. We’ve discovered him on and under the table the last two mornings and we’re not quite sure how to keep the little freeloader out of the house. The cats have a cat door and he apparently considers it an open invitation to join our little family.)
We’ve had internet issues before but they were initiated by running and stomping children screaming through the wood-floored den where the connection and cables reside. Since the wall jack is behind some bookshelves there was a tendency for the slamming toes and heels to shimmy the connection loose. So, I pulled out the bookshelves after first staring moronically at the lights on the thingamajig and gave everything the old on/off/in/out/powercyle/reset once over; this analytical thinking and action amounted to a total of zero internet. Right, I’ll give Verizon a call. Funny you should ask about that. We have no phone books and I have no bills because my entire Verizon life is online. I realized I’d have to go old school and call information on the phone in order to get a number that’d get me started on the road back to the World Wide Web. On my second call to information I finally get an 800 number that must bode well for my mission. As I stumble through the first automated menu (which is hell bent on me entering the Verizon phone number I’m calling about, even though I don’t have Verizon phone service) I finally arrive at Blockhead #1’s headset. I explain to her that I only have Verizon Internet – no phone, no 200 channels of hypnotic cable, nothing – and it’s stopped working and I just need to figure out what’s happened. She sends me to the Tech Support line where I come across the only person who knows anything. He’s able to find my account via some tech support alchemy and tells me that there was a disconnection notice that morning for my account and that’s why I have no Internet. He lets me know that I need to talk to billing to sort it out. Right-o. He transfers me to billing but instead I end up at sales. To best summarize the next two hours of my life I’ll tell you this: something happened with my auto-payment/billing and my Internet has been disconnected. What I want to do is find out what happened, how I can give them money, check the billing details, and turn my Internet back on. The offices I end up speaking with amongst the two hours of being on hold are these: wireless, landline, wireless, tech support, sales, billing, landline, collections, billing, wireless, and collections. I’m not kidding. I finally snap at the collections lady who tells me I need to make a payment via the computerized payment line – it’s $40! – and then call her back with the confirmation number. FINE!!! I make the payment and call her number back only to be spit into the same automated menu/queue for the 15th time. Shit. When I finally get to Blockhead #16 she’s the worse of the lot. I relay what I’ve done and she decides it would be best to transfer me to the number I just dialed that brought me to her. She tells me I need sales since I need to open a new account. The next sentences out of my mouth aren’t fit for my docile readers and you know I’m not much for holding back the profanity. I slam down my phone – or close the cell as we do these days – and look about for anyone to slay. Fortunately, no one is nearby. As a corollary to what’s happening, I’ve had three calls come in from the WonderTwins and their mother. Now, they’ve nothing to do with any of this, I’m not mad at any of them, but I couldn’t answer because I wasn’t going to lose my place in the phone hold-line of hell. After slamming the phone closed I start to call around to see of the World has collapsed and everyone’s decided to call me as a first option. The World didn’t collapse I find out but my lovely is waiting for me to pick her up at the Metro; her sister and mother were merely calling during this same time in order to leave voice mails and whatnot. I get in the car and drive the mile to West Falls to fetch my lawyer gal. Bear in mind, I am probably more angry at that moment than at any time in my life. We're talking…angry. The word doesn’t do me justice. On our way back I give X a rundown of my Verizon drama – it also included every possible profanity known to man – and she took it quite well…for one sitting next to a very angry and agitated bear. I told her we’d have Internet back when I damn well said we’d have Internet back. I think I apologized for all the ranting in her general area, but if I didn’t then I might need to buy her a new dress.
That’s that. Yet, there’s more.
After getting back to the house and unseething, I called back and decided to just be as calm and patient as possible. I explained to the first person, in dulcet, story-reading tones, the story of my day. She takes my confirmation number and enters the payment to my account. She reiterates that I’ll need to open a new contract since it was deactivated and that she’s sending me to someone who can do that for me. Thanks, I say. For the next 45 minutes I go through the entire process as if I were a new customer even though the lovely lady understands what’s led me to this point. As she’s trying to enter a new “connection” date into my new account it keeps telling her the 27th – no sooner. Of course, she recognizes that the central location merely needs to click on my account with a mouse tap and I’ll be back up but she can’t override the system. (There is actually a technician scheduled to come to the Hilltop…for lord knows what.) As she finishing up my account she gets a tech on another line who says he can probably sort it out sometime this evening. We finish our account configurations, say good evening, and go our separate ways. Less then five minutes later my green Internet light illuminates and we’re back in the connected World. How hard could it have been?
Two lessons to pass along and then I’ll let you go:
First, people who work customer service at any company larger than 20 people are going to be clueless, mindless, confused, and uninterested in service about 98% of the time. It’s the nature of the beast.
Second, and I’m generally applying this lesson as a side-light to Barack Obama’s behavior, it’s so hard to not just cut loose on people when they demonstrate incompetence, hatred, stupidity, or any other behavioral defect which hangs so heavily upon them. I was merely trying to get my Internet working and I ended up stark-raving mad at the process. The ability to not lose your marbles is something that graces the very few. To be out there every day for two years while being called a terrorist, a Muslim (!), a socialist, an elitist, unpatriotic, and any other bigoted comment – and to not just breakdown and smack people – is something I’ll never be able to comprehend. It’s truly amazing to watch.
Of course, I didn’t intend this to be an Obama closing but it really was the behavior that flashed before me before I got back on the phone and sorted out my anger and my Internet.
Feel free to leave.
t
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