Friday, September 05, 2003
The Day Draws Nearer
Today is the day that all my stuff goes into storage. All I will have left is my computer, some books, some CDs and some clothes. Oh yes, and those four legged free-loaders.
The computer will get set up on the bar and I will be sleeping on the floor for the next few nights. Hmm...feels like I’m in college again.
For all of you worry warts concerned readers, it will please you to know that I broke down, gave in, sighed heavily and bought a cell phone.
My old neanderthal phone wasn’t working, the battery was actually corroding and I couldn’t find a car charger to fit it. So--fine. Get a pre-paid phone. This should be easy enough.
HA!
It was like I spoke an alien tongue when I said, “I don’t care about a calling plan, a phone card or a phone #. I only want the phone.”
The first store I stopped in to was rather snotty. I told them I just wanted the phone, not a plan and one salesman acted as if he had never heard of such a thing and then told me, “We can’t do that...no, you have to buy a plan.”
No, I don’t have to do anything.
Then his prick of a co-worker came over and belched out angrily, “You can buy the phone, but it’s $200! without a plan!”
I said, “You don’t sell pre-paid phones?”
Sneering he replied, “Those are $100 to start!” You could practically see the ulcer building inside him.
I got this answer almost everywhere I went although everyone else was a little nicer about it.
Finally, I found a pre-paid phone for a damn good price. Yet, once again, the death of customer service reared its ugly head. The lady behind the counter tried to help and when she didn’t know the answer, she called her manager. Ok....I’m cool with that. But the manager was the moron who tried to convince me that I would not be able to use the phone outside the state of WA. Wrong. I only need it for 911 pal....it will work. Actually, first he said that it would cost me a lot of money to make a call in another state and then he said it wouldn’t be possible. Just yanking those answers straight out of your ass aren’t you buddy? I know it will work for 911 but I wanted him to check anyway. He actually told me he had no way to check. My friend said, “Don’t vendors have a number to call if they have questions?”
Sweaty, pasty manager: “They are not vendor friendly, they are only customer friendly.”
Oh for G-d’s sake. You lazy ass piece of shit! SIGH! Because AT&T had an official store right around the block, we walked in there, asked the questions of the AT&T cellphone staff ourselves and walked back to the drug store to purchase the phone. (Normally, I wouldn’t have returned but this was one occasion I had to just deal with it because, as I said, the phone was an excellent price and I could not get that price at the official AT&T store...which doesn’t make any sense to me....and I could go off for another 10 minutes about that...but let me get back to my story.)
First though, may I ask....WHY IS GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE SO HARD TO FIND THESE DAYS?
Is it not one of the first rules in business that if a customer is trying to give you money, you figure out a way to take it?
Is it not important to find the answer to the customer’s questions not only for the customer but for yourself?
Are people really that happy being that rude and lazy? Don’t answer that. I get really ticked at piss poor customer service. It’s your damn job people...if you don’t like people, get the hell out of that job. Idiots.
So, anyway, I got the phone, went back to the AT&T store, (who’s employees, by the way, were very good at customer service), got the car charger and it is now charging up.
Of course, you know what this means don’t you?
Now that I spent that $30 on the phone and $30 on the charger, it means I won’t have to use it. Perfectly fine with me.
Anyway, after that, we went to my friend’s house, I did laundry and we got toasted. Needless to say, I really need to crawl back into bed now and watch as much t.v. as possible. My t.v. goes into storage today and my brother does not have a t.v. I wonder how long before I start going through withdrawals.
Well, I always have this site and my friend bought me a book yesterday. She wanted to go into the book store and I had to literally put blinders on so as not to buy anything. She relieved me of my pain and said I could pick out one book; that she would buy it for me. She’s so cool.
So, since I’ve never read this classic, (and I’m not being forced to for school...which always makes reading easier and more enjoyable), I picked up, War and Peace.
I have a few other books to keep me busy but I’m going to save that information for a later post. Right now, I’m off to suck up as much out of that black box as possible.
