 |
|
|
Write Like You Talk
Technical Support
“Hey, how are you? I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch. Internet has been down at the house. Verizon drove me crazy. Just try and get through to them. I called and the stupid phone tree, that automated voice never understands what I’m saying. Before you know it I’m screaming ‘Yes!’ at a dumb machine as if getting louder will work. Once I get past the sentry then the voice tells me I had a problem before and it’s fixed kicking me back to the main menu.
‘It’s not fixed!’ I shout as if a machine is gonna understand what I’m saying. Anyway with a little ingenuity I find my way past the sentry and get put on hold for a live person. The wait wasn’t too long. I don’t really mind too much
because I just put on the speaker phone and clean my desk. If I was never put on hold I would never get my desk cleaned. Any how I finally got this woman from the Philippines. I might as well as gotten a machine. She is clearly reading from a script. Doesn’t want to listen me. Doesn’t want to know what I have already tried and what didn’t work because we are going to do it again. Why? Because somehow we’re gonna get a different result. She insists I just answer the questions. I’m not very patient and I hate being boxed in like that. So any way it didn’t go so well. I keep trying to skip ahead. I don’t want to spend my evening on the phone. We weren’t getting very far. The lady asks me if I have any electronic devices in the house. Electronic devices?
‘Like what,’ I asked.
‘Television,’ she said.
I laugh. I’m American ain’t I? Of course I do. She then tells me I should place the modem three feet away from other electronic devices. I look around the room. Not happening. Impossible. We go on to the next question. I am not having any fun. I’m tired. I got things to do. This poor lady – I wouldn’t want her job – then asks me how many cables I have coming into the house. I pause. How many cables? You got to be kidding.
‘Hundreds,’ I tell her. How do the hell I know. ‘What do you mean,’ I ask. ‘Telephone lines? I have two.’
She responds, ‘How many cables do you have in the house?’
‘I don’t understand what
you are asking,’ I tell her.
She responds with, ‘How many cables do you have coming into the house?’
I tell her asking me the same question over and over isn’t going to help me understand what she wants. I stare at the modem while I’m talking. ‘Are you asking me about the phone wire?’
‘How many cables do you have in the house?’ she asked again.
‘Is the phone cable suppose to run from the modem to the computer then the jack,’ I asked.
She moves on to the next question without answering my question. Did I get it wrong or right? ‘I’m not playing this game,’ I tell her and hang up. I’m stressed and walk around the house for a few minutes.
Needed a time out. But that wasn’t going to get us back up so I went back and called again. This time I know how to get the robots they call agents. Got a man who spoke better English. But he wants me to take the modem, cables etc. and plug it into another jack. No way. The jack is fine. We lock horns.
‘Look,’ I say, ‘I was just on that line 15 minutes ago talking to you people.’
He moves to the next question. We get no where. Finally, thank God, he decides to send out a technician. But I feel like a moron who needs special help. I’m pissed, too. I think the whole thing is disrespectful. The guy then asks if I have any pets. Pets? I started to say no but then smile. “Fish. We have fish.” Dead silence on the line. Maybe I should tell him they are man eating fish
the size of – But I resist the temptation. I got to get this guy to cooperate with me. Finally I get an appointment with the technician.
Verizon’s business model is something else. First you get the customer so mad that when the repair guy comes they will want to kill him. Some tech support. It sure isn’t about customer service. It’s about saving their time and money. To hell with my time. That’s not important to them. Oh, no I have all the time in the world to talk to them. I don’t have anything important to do. I just spend my days idly surfing the internet. Nothing important.”
Margaret Jones, Ph.D.
www.pluckpress.com |
|
Fear of Falling
Maddie Hickman is sixteen, and fresh
off the worst year of her life.
My Summer Vacation
A year of broken hearts, torn friendships,
and family secrets revealed.
My Sister's Wedding
True-to-life tale of growing up and letting go.
|
|
