When your day starts with nearly two hours of waiting on the phone on hold and then being passed to service reps and more service reps and in the interim more holds and callbacks and not getting your issues resolved… you can’t help but picture a slew of old-fashioned phones all across the country dangling in dismal disarray and all the (pissed!) people on hold, losing their cool and caught in their crazy.
Uh-huh. You can almost imagine wrapping those cords around some automated android non-existent neck. But since that isn’t an option, instead there’s this: It’s a challenge to change your deteriorating mood, especially on Monday morning, so you pace, you pout, you cuss (in the privacy of your home office), and you wish you could just shelve the entire time-wasting task, but resolving these issues is pressing – clearly the result of some sort of system screw-up – so you soldier on (pacing, pouting, and cussing).
And you see your schedule squeezed (and squandered) and you just don’t get why this stuff happens over and over again.
Welcome to 21st-century customer service.
OK, maybe you really do get it. You know it is the consequence of fewer and fewer “human” service and support resources, and no doubt the less well paid and well trained among them. At the very least, this is a reasonable assumption and this has been the story of customer service now for many years.
Even as you tell yourself this, you steal yourself for however long it takes and whatever the consequences will be of this stubborn, sticky, stupid scenario.
It is all so T-I-R-I-N-G.
After the delays in multiple phone calls and callbacks and retelling your little tale umpteen times, when you finally get passed yet again to the wrong department and tell your story yet again with the irritation rising in your voice – let’s be real, after a while it’s impossible to keep calm and carry on – you fall upon an individual who takes it upon himself to just figure out what went wrong, track it and test it and make sure that the transaction finally goes through without any penalty to you and all is reset to normal.
This is not his job. But he gets it all the same. He gets the aggravation and angst and absurdity of a customer trying to pay a bill as usual and foiled by a foolish and frustrating system snafu. So he takes care of it and apologizes with sincerity and wishes you a happy holiday.
At last, you cease scowling.
When your day starts with nearly two hours of waiting on hold on the phone and then being passed to service reps and more service reps and more holds and callbacks and not getting your issues resolved… BUT eventually, you stumble into a real-life (thinking-breathing-articulating) person who makes customer service his job even if it isn’t his job… AND after he addresses the problem with genuine good humor (and that sincere apology), you can’t help but take a deep breath, let go of your annoyance and gaze at the Christmas tree in the corner of the room with its twinkling lights and sparkling red berries and little pewter pumps and satin shoes – yes, it is a shoe tree this year – and feel like maybe the world is back in sync. At least for now.
You don’t like raising your voice to a series of underpaid so-called service reps. You don’t like finding yourself pushed (again) to the edge of rudeness in an increasingly impersonal world. You especially don’t like it this time of year.
Indeed, your schedule has been thrown wildly off-course. Irretrievably so. The ripple effects of those two hours take their course.
“Well,” you tell yourself, moderating your mood in another deep breath and with a nod to Scarlett O’Hara, “there’s always tomorrow, and insomnia has its usefulness.”
So you gaze again at the lights, smile at the silvery stilettos, and take your Monday motivation wherever you can get it, whatever the hour, and however late in the day.
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D.A., You were pretty darn close to my mid-day as I only got through 3 bills using my cell phone! Lots of French out loud going in circles following the automatic pay by phone systems. No on other humans, just one. ME!
Your phone photo was perfect. But no hilarious shoe tree here. But both your words and your photos help me to feel a tiny bit less alone in my holiday loneliness.
Glad that you feel less alone. This can be a magical time of year; this can be the toughest time of year. I get it. (Hugs)
I’ll appreciate those hugs! The new apartment sounds good for you. Enjoy your space and new scenery. If you can send that “magical” this way too!!
I did put up the two holiday stockings for the dogs. The older dog 13 yo definitely remembers. He sniffs it… just checkin’. The 5 year old hasn’t even noticed! Happy holidays…
I just went through similar, but in some ways worse. I changed mobile phone carriers to some off-brand of the main one. (It actually was an upgrade from a €2/month unlimited calling plan of which I used 2 minutes, but had no data.) I couldn’t pay the bill. I call the customer service because for the fixed line I have a professional plan and get top-notch service. But though the mobile is via the same web site, the pro service doesn’t extend to it. And, I was informed, everything happens online. Except there is no email, no chatbot, no FAQs. There’s a “forum” where you can post a question and hope other people will answer it.
TO PAY THE BILL!!!! Do they not want my money?
I eventually, after six hours of trying over two days, found a workaround.
Six hours!?! Sheesh. That’s nuts.
Love your shoe tree, DA. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, have a festive-y festive season. xo