You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Customer Service in this country.
“Dad, the DirecTV is off,” my eldest son reports.
“What?”
“Yeah, there’s a black screen that says service not available. Call extension 203.”
I scratch my head.
“Off? Did you check the connection?”
“It’s not the connection, dad.?
I paid the bill. What the F….
“OK, thanks.”
I feel anger swell in my brain.
I hate being late on bills. I hate notices of cancellation. I hate interrupted service.
For this reason, I pay on time, sometimes early.
I think to myself. “What’s going on?”
I’ve never been late on a DirecTV bill. That’s because they use to take the money directly out of my account.
Well they use to.
That’s when I remember that DirecTV has merged with ATT.
Two massive corporations have come together and I am the tiny customer lost between the two like a cork floating through the flood gate of the Hoover dam.
Didn’t I just send 400 dollars to this massive leviathan of communication, I think to myself.
I’m almost sure I did, since I had to postpone paying my mortgage, so I could continue to enjoy HBO and tireless internet surfing.
How did this happen?
And then it strikes me. I recently changed to UVERSE internet.
I was calling about poor DSL service an I let the sales lady up sell me.
“Oh the connection speed is 5 times DSL,” she says. “And for the same price. I couldn’t hang up letting you have such slow connection speeds.”
OK. I’m sold.
“One question. do I just keep paying to my old DSL account?”
“Yes. The only thing that changes is the service, FASTER SERVICE.”
And with that, I usher in the era of faster internet speeds and continued satellite television.
Suddenly I have the slowest internet speed because I have same BPM as the caveman.
So I call ATT.
The computerized voice is frustrating. It asks me to briefly explain why I am calling.
“Because you guys suck,” I scream.
“Sorry. I don’t understand that,” the lavender-scented computer voice dripping with time responds.
“Please say something like, I want to pay my bill, or I want to upgrade my connection.”
My blood is boiling. This computer must die.
“CUSTOMER SERVICE!,” I shout.
“It sounds like you said you want to speak to a representative. Ok, but first I’ll need to ask a few more questions to get you to the right department.”
Hearing this makes me crazy. I am the mad hatters wild ride of angry. I am a dryer fire with a cat inside meowing for a fire department that is all bubba volunteers.
“RIGHT DEPARTMENT?”
They up sell me. They take my 400 dollars. And then they shut off my service. And now they have the HAL 2000 soft peddling me with melodic mechanical gobbledygook.
Homey Don’t Play.
CUSTOMER SERVICE. CUSTOMER SERVICE. CUSTOMER SERVICE.
I am the rudest man on Earth, interrupting this computerized jerk bag every time he utters a perfect grammatical sentence as if I was being wooed by Harry Belafonte.
“Customer service. Customer Service. Customer Service,” I shout into the phone over and over again.
“I want to help you,” the ATT computer crooner says politely. “But 1st…”
“customer service,” I scream like ISIS beheading a kidnapping victim on You Tube.
There is a pause while the ATT data base works to find a polite resolution for angry dyspeptic customer.
I am stewing.
“One moment while I connect you to a representative,” The Harry Belafonte ATT 2000 says.
I take a deep breath, trying to regain my composure.
Sure they offer to give me the best customer service in the history of the world.
If they could, they would up-sell me to service that doesn’t even exist yet.
“It’s the George Jetson 4000. Internet connection attached directly to your brain.”
Just then, the music fades and I hear a click.
“Hello, my name is Octavius,” a man with a pronounced accent says politely.
“How can we make your day the most pleasant ATT day ever,” the says, reading from his prepared script.
I am not in a prepared script kind of mood.
I just got robbed by a corporate villain who stuck its huge hand into my wallet and spanked me.
Homey Don’t Play.
I want to hear his foreign accent reading perfectly formulated English sentences today like I want to peel steamy dog doo off the bottom of my shoe.
“With whom do I have the pleasure of talking to today?”
“I am a bad mamma jamma who wants to switch to Sprint and get Dish Network,” I respond quickly checking my own pulse for signs of cerebral hemorrhaging.
“Sir, can I have your account number you are calling about?”
“That’s the problem, Octavius. Apparently the one I’m using goes to your ATT Swiss bank account and not my new Uverse account.”
There is a pause.
“I just paid $397,” I exclaim. “Where the hell is it?”
“I don’t have access to your bank records sir,” he says, his voice beginning to waiver from Indian to some other foreign dialect of unknown origins.
“I am looking at my bank account. You took 397 dollars. It went to pay Uverse and DirecTV, supposedly,” I say.
“What’s the account number?”
I roll my eyes.
“I give him a number.
“That’s your DSL account sir.”
“DSL? I don’t ave DSL. I have Uverse.”
I am pissed. The sales lady said nothing needed to be changed.
She lied or she was stupid or both.
Corporate Terrorism!
“Can you transfer the money to the UVerse account?”
“I can’t,” he says dryly.
He doesn’t care. He’s in India. I imagine him watching a cow saunter down the street, stop to urinate forcefully and then move on.
“Ill need to transfer you.”
“But….”
MOOOOO!
Suddenly I am engaged with another precorded voice.
It’s the Hal 2000 computer once again.
“Welcome to ATT. Let’s get started….”
AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!
CUSTOMER SERVICE CUSTOMER SERVICE CUSTOMER SERVICE
I scream into the phone.
Did I mention that I am at work. I am now screaming and co-workers are walking by my cubicle staring at me with concern, checking for automatic weapons.
Click, transfer.
“Hello my name is Lucretia. How may I assist you with the best service possible?”
She’s human. And she sounds American.
I decide to calm down and give Lucretia a chance.
Lucretia has no idea why I’m calling. The 1st rep has done nothing but pawn me off so he can make love to a cow with a full bladder.
Obviously I must tell my story from the beginning.
“How can I help you today, Mr. Andy.”
She will call me Mr. Andy in a sweet voice over and over and over.
How can I get mad at a Southern woman who calls me Mr. Andy.
It’d be like punching Ms. Daisy in the face.
Can’t do that.
At least not yet.
I try to be calm. It’s not her fault. She wants to help. I need her to help.
I explain to her that I have errantly been paying into a defunct DSL account. Now I simply want to transfer the funds in the defunct DSL account to the Uverse account that I didn’t realize I had that is now in arrears.
She tells me that she will need to bring other ATT departments in.
Other ATT departments? We’re not donating a kidney?
Just put the money in the right place, I want to scream.
She talks about her screen moving slowly and other reps typing to her. She asks me how my day is trying to keep things cheery like this is a 1st date.
I check my phone. I have been on with ATT for 3o minutes.
I look at my watch. it’s 11 am. I have an interview in Dickson Tennessee 40 minutes outside Nashville.
I am determined to watch HBO tonight.
Screw it.
I get in the car and begin driving west on highway 40.
“Lucretia, I’m on the move,” I say. I’m on the highway. This is important. I need you to work fast.”
“yes, Mr. Andy. My computer is going slow today.”
I watch as cell towers fly by.
How much ATT coverage do I have? My mind is racing. Will we get right to the point of the money transfer and my signal will be dropped and I’ll have to start again?
I try to remain calm.
“Lucretia, it’s been an hour. I’m 30 minutes outside Nashville. This is crazy, you know that right?”
“they’re typing something to me now, Mr. Andy.”
“How long will this take?”
“I don’t know Mr. Andy.”
“If I lose the signal, can you finish the task,” I ask.
“No Mr. Andy. You need to be on the line with me.”
I stare at my photographer.
Yes. I have a photographer in the car next to me. Normally we talk about the story we are going to cover. Normally we dice and splice and try to figure out the best way to tell the story and how to attack it. 40 minutes is a huge amount of time strategize.
My guy is sitting 2 feet away from me listening to this B.S. He knows all about my DSL inactivity. He has not a single clue why we are driving to Dickson, Tennessee.
“Can you believe this?” I whisper.
He smiles and keeps driving. What the hell he must be thinking.
Amazingly, the call is transferred from one tower to the next.
We have exited the interstate and we are now pulling into the Dickson police department, in the heart of the sleepy little city.
We get out.
“you still there Lucretia?”
“yes, Mr. Andy. I’m still here. They’re typing something to me now….”
“Ok well I’m putting you on hold now, Lucretia. I have to do my job.”
I walk into the police department.
I shake the detectives hand.
I point to my phone and tell him that Lucretia from ATT is on hold.
“You still there Lucretia?
“I’m still here.”
It’s a crazy moment. My camera man, a police detective, and an ATT customer service rep all in the room. I’m about to talk to the detective about stolen ATT cables that would have enhanced traffic light coordination, but theft has delayed the entire downtown redevelopment project.
“Two nights after Thanksgiving, the thieves cut through the fence of the maintenance yard,” the Detective says, holding up the thick one foot example of the cable cut. “The cables were worth at least 50,000 dollars and were suppose to go in the street and enhance traffic signal coordination. But it’s been stolen,” he says.
The detective tells me about the crime, holding up the 4 pound chunk of cable with 1200 wires inside.
It’s amazing in its technological sophistication. The degree of intelligence to commit this crime is high, the detective will tell me. The thieves had to know where the cables were, what they were, how to cut them off the massive spools, and then transport them away from the scene of the crime.
I finish the interview.
“How’d you like that Lucretia?” I say into my phone which has been silent for 5 minutes.
I look at the timer. Almost 90 minutes has elapsed since I 1st initiated this call in Nashville.
“That was so interesting,” she laughs. “Someone stole ATT cables?”
Suddenly she wants to know all about my job, when really, I just want her to do hers.
I look at my phone 93 minutes have elapsed. I quickly replay the customer service insanity I’ve experienced. I began the call in my newsroom, talked to the Hal 2000 computer, was transferred in Nashville to a cow loving guy in India, who transferred me back to the Hal 2000, who I insulted long enough to get Lucretia. I got on the interstate, drove to another city and interviewed a police detective about a crime.
And the end result.
“I can’t help you Mr. Andy. You need to send another 400 dollars to the new Uverse account then call the DSL department and cancel your service.”
93 minutes and 5 different zip codes at 80 mph to hear this?
I want to fire my cell phone against the wall.
“Is there anything else I can do for you today, Mr. Andy?”
I think for a moment.
“Yeah, Lucretia, tell that guy in India to go F himself.”
Click.
Life’s Crazy™