Friday, May 16, 2008

Service With a Smile

I have come to the conclusion that people in the service industry fall into either one of two basic categories: surly, embittered miscreants who make Oscar the Grouch look like Mother Theresa, or bubbly, over-enthusiastic do-gooders who are a cross between Mr. Rogers and Cheerleader Barbie.

After dealing extensively with both, I have decided that I definitely prefer Type One.

They make no pretense of trying to help or even understand the problem. I know that when I am done talking to them, I will need to crack open a fresh bottle of Advil and eat lots of ice cream to lower my blood pressure (Really. It is a scientific fact. Although, they probably don't mean you should eat the whole half gallon in one sitting.).

I feel justified in hopping on my broom and borrowing liberally from Don Rickles stand-up act. And when it is all over, I know that the person I am dealing with is just as aggravated and ticked off as I am.

I feel vindicated and somewhat satisfied.

And then there are the type twos.

They want to be my friend and share with me. They explain, in excruciatingly painful detail, everything. They pretend to be my advocate, my mentor and my therapist all rolled into one. Insults bounce off their cotton candy wall of niceness like a rubber ball off concrete. They are always calm and reasonable.

Which makes me just itch to slap them.

Like the Verizon guy.

After talking to six, count 'em six type ones,who kept transferring me because they couldn't be bothered to actually help me, I got Mr. Verizon.

"Of course, I'll be able to help you," he enthused. "But first, let me give you my direct dial so if you ever need anything, you can just pick up the phone and I'll be there for you."

Great. And can you do it without sounding like a really bad commercial from 1955?

"Oh, I see the problem. Your credit card expires next month and you haven't entered the new info yet," he gently chided me.

"Yes, I know," I gritted out, "but I haven't received the new card yet and that doesn't explain why my automatic payment scheduled for tomorrow won't go through."

"Weeeell. By golly, you're right," he responded, unfazed by my less than friendly tone. "Let me see..."

I could hear him humming a happy little tune as he clicked merrily away on his computer.

Grrrr.

"You know, it can take a full month after you register for the automatic payments to start," he explained as though I were a particularly slow two year old. "It says that right on the site when you sign up."

"Yes, I know," I snapped. "I signed up two months ago, and everything was working fine until now."

"Uh oh. I see the problem now," he crooned. So do I, and I'm talking to it. "It looks like you switched the last two digits on your credit card when you entered it." He actually make a tsk-tsk sound!

"Oh really?" That was it. The gloves were coming off. "Then maybe you can explain to me how the payments went through for the last two months without a problem? Did you perhaps give me two months free, or did someone there pay it out of the goodness of their heart, just to be a nice guy? And, by the way, I have more than one phone on that card and amazingly those charges went through just fine too. How do you explain that?"

As I paused for a quick breath before I finished eviscerating him, he jumped in.

"Well now," he said using the tone of voice one uses when confronting a rabid dog, "I don't know how you're mistake got through like that, but don't you worry. I've fixed it so you won't have this problem again."

My mistake? My mistake? My mistake???!!!

I think I may have actually blacked out for a moment there, because when I came to, he was thanking me for calling and telling me to make sure to call him when I got my new card so that he could change the expiration date for me.

Yeah. I don't think so. That is one mistake I won't be repeating.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Size Does Matter

Perception is a funny thing.

Years ago, I worked at Sears in the women's department. Christmas there brought with it a parade of confused, desperate men who needed gifts for their wives/girlfriends/mothers.

"What size is she?" I would ask.

"Um. I don't know. About your size," they would invariably mutter, looking like they would rather be getting a root canal without Novocain than purchasing a twin set.

The day after Christmas there would then be a line out the door of women "my size" ranging from 4'11" and eighty pounds to 5' 8" and two hundred fifty pounds exchanging those twin sets.

I comforted myself with the fact that they were guys in love...or at least in panic mode.

It is worse when it is another woman. Like last week. And not once, but twice.

The first time, I had found a cute little summer shirt (on sale--yeah me!) and was wandering around looking for a top to match.

Another customer approached me and asked where I had found the skirt. After directing her to the correct rack, I found a shirt and headed for the fitting rooms. Turns out, she ended up behind me in line.

"What size is your skirt?" she asked, guessing a number a full four sizes larger.

As I turned around in shock (how big did my jeans make my butt look?) she saw the ticket displaying the size.

"Oh. I thought we were the same size," she explained, giving me a look that clearly said I was insane if I thought I could squeeze myself into that skirt.

Slipping into the skirt a few minutes later (which fit perfectly, thank you very much), I was tempted to go knock on her door and model it for her, but my ego couldn't handle her enquiring about the shirt.

The honor of insulting my chest size went, instead, to the sales clerk a few stores down.

"That's a great dress," she gushed, as I browsed through the racks. "And it's thirty percent off!"

"It looks a little small," I eyed the garment dubiously. "Do you have a larger size?"

"Well, no," she admitted reluctantly, then hastened to add, "but this should fit you. The designer made this with someone like you in mind."

I shouldn't have done it. I knew it was a mistake, and I would regret it, but I couldn't help myself.

"Someone like me?" I asked, bracing myself for the answer.

"Well, yes. You're small on top," she explained, making not so flattering gestures with her hands. "You know, like the European models."

No, actually, I was not aware that European models were flat-chested girls with large bottoms. Perhaps if the designer runs short of models, he can just use giant pears to display his clothing line. Maybe he should start marketing his line using the Queen song, "Fat-bottomed Girls". That ought to bring the customers pouring in.

But, she wasn't quite done.

"I can't wear these clothes myself, because I'm a triple D, but you are built like her," she indicated the other saleswoman, who looked as confused as I did.

Ah, yes, perception is everything.

Friday, May 9, 2008

Sign Here

Later today, we are heading off to NYC for the weekend, where, tomorrow we will be seeing a show... and maybe getting an autograph?

When I was fourteen, my mom took me to see my first Broadway show, A Chorus Line. Afterwards, I stood outside the stage door and waited for someone, anyone, to come out and sign my program.

Finally, the door opened and the young man holding the costume had barely put one toe out before he was mobbed like he was the last chocolate bar in the Halloween bag. To this day, I'm not sure whether he was a member of the cast or the wardrobe assistant, but I got his autograph. (I also lost it about week later...oh well, it probably wouldn't have gotten much on E-Bay anyway.)

A few years later, Tim and I drove to Binghamton, NY with my mom and two of her friends to see the ice capades (Hey, we were young, crazy and living on the edge). Peggy Flemming was the big star that year and one of the friends (also named Peggy) couldn't wait to see her. All the way there, it was Peggy, Peggy, Peggy. (It was enough to make you swear off the Capades forever!)

Disappointingly, Peggy did not perform that night after all (really? a cold?), so when my mom, Tim and I mistakenly found ourselves backstage after the performance (note: never, never, follow my mother when she says she knows a shortcut) we couldn't pass up the opportunity to forge Peggy's autograph and give it to our Peggy, along with a story so outlandish that Mother Goose would have been embarrassed to publish it. Hahaha.

Turns out the joke was on us. Peggy swallowed it hook, line and sinker, and made such a fuss over it that we were too ashamed to admit what we had done (wait till she tries to sell that one on E-bay!)

Knowing this story, it was no wonder that a few years later, when we were at another Broadway show, there were those among us who doubted the authenticity of a few autographs.

Standing in line waiting to get in, I thought I recognized the woman in front of us. After a fierce, whispered debate,(you to, no, you go) Tim approached her and found out that it was indeed Angie Dickinson. He got her autograph, a kiss and total disbelief from the rest of the group who were further back in the line. (Yeah, and who was she with...Raquel Welch and Bridgette Bardot?)

He endured the good-natured ribbing all during the fifteen mile hike up to our $10 seats on the roof, and then all the way down again to the lobby at intermission for a smoke(that tells you how old this story is!) where he was able to prove the authenticity of the signature, because, there she was...and with Harry Reasoner no less.

Naturally though, when the smokers all returned for act two, I didn't believe a word they said. Angie Dickenson sure, but Harry Reasoner's autograph? That was pushing it beyond the bounds of believability.

Enlisting the aid of the local Sherpa, we trudged all the way down again, only to find an empty lobby and not even a cigarette butt to prove Tim's claim. Ha!

I kept the autograph, of course, but to this day, I'm still not sure I buy the story. I was, after all, the one who forged Peggy Flemming's autograph.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Comcast: The Final (?) Chapter

Throughout the last six months of dealing with Comcast regarding my parents' TV and computer, my sister (anonymous in the comments), has not been able to understand my frustration---until now.

With my parents due home from Florida a few weeks ago, I called Comcast and set up a time for them to go over to the house and reinstate the cable. Pat agreed to give up her Saturday morning and wait for them. Hehehe. The joke was finally on her.

The guy arrived with the necessary boxes, but after one look at the cable running through the house, he refused to hook them up. Something about all of the lines, wires and cables having been installed by Edison. He wanted permission to run new cable.

Now, in his defense, he probably thought it was a reasonable request. After all, the new digital age is coming, and we must all be prepared or we will be left behind in the dust of analog with the dinosaurs and first generation ipods. However, he did not fully comprehend the situation here.

First of all, the cellar is a cellar. Not a basement, not a rec room. A cellar. My father is the only one brave enough to venture down there. The rest of us are sure that there are things living down there that don't suffer the light of day well and are just waiting for some poor, unsuspecting soul to wander down and then....lunchtime, and the milk companies have a new face to put on their cartons.

Secondly, the attic is...well, let's just say that Disneyland this isn't. Although, being near the woods, there have been occasions when mice, squirrels, bats and other assorted critters have been caught scampering around, but they are not animated and generally don't sing and pass out balloons and candy.

As for the rest of the house, it is about two hundred years old, and who knows what (or who) he would have found lurking in the walls. Anything is possible. (Jimmy Hoffa?!? ) The only thing we are certain about is an intricate tangle of wires, cables and coils from my father's attempts to modernize the place over the years. He, and he alone understands this complex system that would have NASA engineers admitting defeat and heading for the nearest bar.

Taking all of this into consideration, my sister refused to take responsibility for the fallout that would occur if she said yes.

She tried instead to reason with the man. She worked with computers for a living, she said. She was used to running cable, she said. All he had to do was leave the boxes, she said. She would take care of the rest, she said.

He said no, and left.

With her dander up, she hightailed it down to the cable company to see if she could sweet talk them out of the boxes with the promise of letting someone swing by at some future date if necessary. She couldn't.

Apparently, the phone lines work faster than her car, and the guy had already called in and told them the whole story. Oh, and the next appointment available was almost a week away. She was not happy.

But, (and here is the part that makes me happy), in order to deal with all of this, she had given her name and number as the contact person, thereby making her the account holder(good to know that regardless of who pays the bills, anyone wandering in off the street can just appropriate an account by giving their name and number, but that's another blog). And now she was stuck dealing with them and I was out of it!

Pat spent pretty much the rest of the day, if not the weekend dealing with the situation, racking up the hours online and on hold. After feeling my pain for only a fraction of the time, we consulted my parents and here was the outcome(I wasn't completely out of it, unfortunately):
they switched to Direct TV and Verizon for the computer and....Pat got the calls from Comcast wanting to know why she had discontinued the service (and you can be sure that that question elicited a really charming response).

She will also get all future solicitations via mail and phone from Comcast begging her to return. Oh, and I've decided to give her name and number to both Direct TV and Verizon too, just for good measure. Hehehe.

Friday, May 2, 2008

Nav Systems: Not Just For Dummies

Tim has always been good with directions. North, south, east, west, side streets, main roads, highways. He knows them all.

Giving directions to someone else though is a different story. He tends to use car dealerships and gas stations as landmarks, and has, on more than one occasion, directed, "Go straight," when referring to a fork in the road.

Since all of this makes perfect sense in "Timmyland", it is unfathomable to him how someone cannot know where the Honda dealership is or which side of the split at the Toyota dealership is "straight".

So two weeks ago when we met Tom, Beth and the kids a the oldest's lacrosse game, Tim knew exactly where to go, never mind the directions Tom read to him from the school. Street names? He didn't need no stinkin' street names. He simply headed toward the Honda dealership, but made a right between the Subaru and the Shell station. Easy.

Turns out, both methods worked and we all met up there just fine. Unfortunately, it was raining by the time we got there, and familial support only goes so far (Yeah team!).

It was decided that, rather than all of us getting soaked, Tim, Rose and I would take the three other kids for a few hours and meet Tom, Beth and Reilly for dinner after the game. (It's good to be the aunt.)

Two hours later, we arranged to meet at a Chinese place about ten minutes away from each of us. Fifteen minutes later, Tom still hadn't arrived. Apparently, he had taken a right at the Audi instead of a left and was headed west instead of east.

"How long have you lived here?" Tim demanded querulously. "Don't you know that passing the Honda dealership means you are headed the wrong way?"

Tom assured him that he had turned around and was headed back.

"Don't come back the same way. It will take too long," Tim barked (someone's blood sugar was running a bit low!) "Get on the highway and we'll meet at the diner instead."

A series of directions involving gas stations and a grocery store followed.

So, off we both went, and although I was not in their car, I'm willing to bet that Beth heard as many colorful terms of endearment for Tim as I heard for Tom (It's a twin thing, and you don't ever want to get in the middle of it.)

Five minutes later, as we approached the diner, the phone calls started again.


"You're on what road?" Tim asked incredulously, the veins in his neck resembling a 3-D road map of their own. "How did you get there? Never mind, it will take you too long to get to the diner. We'll meet you at the Irish place instead."

Tom's response had the veins pulsing rather alarmingly.

Tim began spouting out new landmarks that involved car washes and restaurants. He concluded with, "How dumb can you be? See that thing in the car? It's called a nav system."

Using the main roads that he knew (he wasn't lost, merely taking the long way), Tom got to the restaurant just fine, and the two of them continued their "debate" good-naturedly(as soon as they got some food).

After dinner, we all headed back to Rose's for some cake to celebrate the youngest's birthday from three days earlier.

"Follow me," Tim ordered Tom. Adding, "Otherwise you'll get on the wrong road again."

Several charming hand gestures were given in response.

Pulling out, Tim got on one of the main roadways and...got off the wrong exit, heading east instead of west.

Two seconds later, the phone rang. It was Tom. "See that thing in the car?" he chortled gleefully. "It's called a nav system!"