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.