Get a Goddamn Bluetooth

OK, people, we’re going to keep this simple.  When you have a phone in your hand, you drive like a fucking moron.  I know you think you’re a master multitask-er in the car, but you aren’t.  If you weren’t a good driver in the first place, you are now 100 times worse.  This is in no way debatable.

A bluetooth is not super advanced technology anymore.  I’ll tell you what is high technology – the medical equipment required to repair your internal organs from the multiple stab wounds you’ll receive after cutting me off while driving 20 miles an hour below the clearly posted speed limit while carrying on a conversation about your cat.  The added bonus?  $30 to $100 for an earpiece is far less than the copay on that ER visit.

 

This is a beautiful device, and will save your life either from an accident, or my wrath.

Are you one of those 50+ year old individuals that feels like you can’t keep up with technology, so you feel like you can cherry-pick what technology you want to use (cell phones) and not bother with the technology that seems like too much work (using a hands free device) while driving?  Tough shit.  On a touchscreen phone you can sync a bluetooth for the first time in fewer screen taps than it takes to dial a number you don’t have programmed into your phone.  Get a fucking bluetooth or don’t talk while you drive!  That’s not asking a lot!

Are you 65+?  Well, then I have a whole separate question for you.  Why do you insist on driving during rush hour?  You’re retired!  You can drive below the speed limit erratically whenever the hell you want!  There are only TWO times a day when you shouldn’t be doing that, and it’ll make for a nicer drive for you, anyway!  Why are you even awake during morning rush hour!?

Old lady, let’s not pretend you need that gun in the car to make you dangerous behind the wheel.

Anyway, back on track, you need a bluetooth.  Gone are the days where you’ll look like your meds just ran out when you’re talking in a direction that no people exist, but you still get all the benefits of being able to screw with people and make them think you’re talking to them when you really aren’t.  It’s all up to you and the direction you face!  Hell, multitask conversations instead of driving and conversing.  I can think of plenty of times I’ve wanted to tell two people at the same time that they’re retarded, all with the extra benefit of looking like some big shot that can’t be bothered to hold a phone up to my head.

 This man either just got finished closing an important deal, or just got news that he received a Wall Street bailout.  Industry sustaining go getter or giant flaming douche-bag, at least he’s definitely a big deal.

These days they’re more comfortable, have better sound quality, are easier to pair to your phone, and have extra features.  You can still talk on them and transfer your contacts and stolen MP3s to other people through them, but now they have voice to text abilities, noise cancellation, extended battery life, etc….  Plus, they’ll stop you from getting a ticket in one of those awful states with all the laws.  

For the record, the fact that WI has a law that you have to ride in a car seat until you’re 25 and 200lbs and no hands free law is kind of stupid.  I guess we have more car seat manufacturing plants than bluetooth factories in this state.

Smart Phones, Dumb Folks

As a person who has done troubleshooting for customers in only one type of technical field (cell phones) I really have to wonder if customers are more retarded about cell phones than other electronics because smartphones are relatively new to a lot of people.

This is especially true when it comes to the warrantee replacement issue. If I received a device, it had a problem with let’s say… freezing, and then I got it replaced a half dozen times and it did the same goddamn thing every time I would wonder if it was something I was doing, as opposed to a fatal flaw with every device I have ever used before calling my company to throw a tantrum about how the device is giant dud and claiming I’ve been scammed into buying a device that never works. Like a company with millions of customers would be ok releasing a device and continuing to sell them if every single device of that model had a known issue that caused it to stop working within a month of you having that device.

If you were to get a computer at Best Buy, that computer were to stop working, and Best Buy’s policy was to just give you a replacement computer so they didn’t have to deal with your whining, wouldn’t you assume that after getting a handful of different computers that all had the same issue after a certain amount of time that maybe you should try doing something different? Maybe you would stop loading the same programs immediately onto your computer. Maybe you would check to see if you have enough memory to comfortably run all those programs. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve heard a customer loudly complain that their phone won’t do something basic like recieve picture messages, and then halfway through the process of trying to fix their phone casually mention “oh yeah, and my phone keeps telling me I have low memory”.

There is a reason why in-store tech support will require you to do a factory reset on your phone before replacing it.  That reason is because after we get your crap off the phone, it usually works after that.  When you complain that it stops working a couple weeks after that, the new issue is whatever the reason is that causes the phone to have an owner that puts all the exact same crap on the phone that wasn’t working before.

And please, the next time you talk to your phone company with your undies all in a bunch over your smart phone not working well, let’s not get an attitude, because odds are better than not that the problem with your phone is either your fault because of what you have on your phone, or your fault because you’re trying to do too much with a smartphone you weren’t willing to pay more than $50 for. When you come to me yelling that your phone doesn’t work and I see that it’s giving you low memory errors, I view your blowing up on me similar to how the person who sold you your car would look at you if you came back to them screaming about how your car now has a flat tire; it’s not my fault and it’s an easy fix if you can take a deep breath and act like a grown up.

Stealing Someone’s Identity In Very Simple Steps

Interested in stealing someone’s identity in very simple steps?  Here’s how.

First of all, have a bill from a while ago that you haven’t paid.  In my instance, one of the billion hospital bills I got on my trip the the ER for a breathing problem I had.  Spent 30 minutes in the hospital, ran some tests, couldn’t figure out what was happening, got charged a couple grand even through my very high end insurance.  Very brutal, and apparently one of those bills did not get paid.  Perfect.

The next step is to wait for someone to call you from a collection department.  The new system they have for this is very annoying, as they actually put you on hold after they call you until someone is around to take the call.

The final step seems to be very, very easy.   After they asked me if I was me, I asked them to verify who I was by giving me my social security number, DOB, and address.  Sadly, this actually worked, as without doing anything besides confirming my name that they read off for me, the representative I was speaking with was more than happy to give me my full nine digit social security number, my date of birth, and my full billing address to “confirm they were speaking with the right person”.

Is this crazy?  I don’t even mind that I actually got a call pertaining to me, since I’m used to getting them for other people.  I get calls for three or four other peoples’ debts, though, and I never knew all I had to do was agree that I was the person in question in order to get all that personal’s private information.  If you see me at the library amassing a great wealth of products you’ll know that I’ve just hit the information lottery.  Please do not call State Collection Services Inc. in Madison trying to get my personal information, though.  My credit isn’t worth stealing.

My Daughter’s Future Career Path

Now, as parents, most of us want their kids to work hard and get a job that will provide for them and their kids in the future.  I feel the same way, but I’ve learned in my time that careers of the past just aren’t feasible or realistic, and a lot of those jobs that seemed so great really aren’t good at all.  There really aren’t astronauts flying to the moon anymore.  Presidents age at warp speed during their time in office, and we all want our kids to outlive us.  Firemen have dangerous jobs, and most of them aren’t full-time jobs, anymore.  So what job am I going to suggest for my daughter?

This woman earned three hundred dollars. Why is holding up a fraction of an average American's paycheck supposed to be impressive? Is she paying the bill at Glamour Shots?

Landlord hired move-out cleaning person.

I’ll admit, I don’t know the finer points of this position, the benefits, or the hours.  What I do know, is that apparently this is the highest paid cleaning job in the universe.  I’m soon to be moving into a new apartment, and these are the charges I will face if my apartment that I’ve lived in for three years isn’t spotless when I’m gone.

Kitchen counter tops – $50 – Please note, our current kitchen has about 10 square feet of counter top space.  It’s half the reason we’re moving.  This can’t possibly take longer than 10 minutes to make it look better than when we moved in.

Clean the stove – $50 – This one is almost worth sucking up, because those goddamn burners are annoying to clean.  Still, can’t imagine it taking longer than half an hour, so it seems well within my pay grade.

Clean the refrigerator – $100 – ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS to clean the fridge!?  I swear to you with NO exaggeration, I could buy two of this fridge for under a hundred bucks.  If I were to take this fridge outside and explode it in the street I would be upset if they charged me $100 to replace it.  Ridiculous!

Wash the dishwasher – $20 – This should be a testimate to what a pile of crap our dishwasher is.  They have to remind us to manually clean it, since it makes the things inside it dirtier than they started.  I know Waukesha water is brutal when you have no water softener, but this thing is the world’s most useless appliance ever.  As long as we’re making up insane fees, I would like to charge them $1000 for misleading us into thinking we would have a working washing machine over half the time we lived here, despite numerous calls to complain.

Wash the widows – $50 PER ROOM – That’s $50 bucks a window.  Awesome.

Clean the floors in the dining room and kitchen – $50 – Now, I’m glad they separated floor cleaning by couples of rooms, because if they would’ve told me $50 for all the rooms together it might be acceptable, but the next one is my favorite.

Vacuum all carpeting – $50 – You are going to charge me $50 to run a vacuum over what can’t be more than 600 square feet of carpet.  Are you insane?  What kind of tools are your cleaning people using for these jobs?

Dusting mini-blinds – $50 – What… the.. hell…?  This is only for the mini-blinds.  There are over $170 worth of potential dust related charges!

Clean the sink – $25 – The one sink in the apartment.  Thankfully there aren’t more, because these things are brutal to clean, apparently.

Return the parking pass – $10 – Why do you want this three year old parking pass back!?  Do you think we’re going to come back and use this place as a parking lot later in life?

There are many, many more, but that gives you a general idea.  $1270 is what I’d estimate they’d charge me if I did no cleaning.  On the letter it says “Experience has proven these are the areas that generate unexpected deductions from security deposits”.  Yeah, no kidding those are unexpected!  This doesn’t include any actual damages.  I could hire a group of hot chicks in french maid outfits to do this for me for half as much, and at least I’d get something out of it.

So I figure the management of my apartment complex must pay the cleaning people at least $300/hr, based on how much they charge for how little they actually do.  Over $1200 for general cleaning on an apartment around 950 square feet is robbery, so I’m going to have to view it as a lucrative opportunity for my daughter when she’s old enough.  She won’t have to waste her time on education (unless the Spanish speaking ladies I see cleaning the other units in the complex have Bachelor’s degrees in cleanology), she’ll make a fortune, and she’ll be able to start at a very young age.

What I never realized is that those are Gucci yellow rubber gloves, the latest Prada bucket, and a Versace checkered apron dress. I know nothing about fashion.

Keep this in mind, parents.  College is expensive, and kids straight out of college are having a hell of a time finding jobs that pay better than what non-educated people are making.  Apartment cleaning is the way of the future!

I Will Kill The Inventor of Customer Satisfaction Surveys

You ever get those little surveys from retail stores or fast food restaurants that offer you a dollar off your next purchase, or a chance to win money by taking them? Why on Earth do companies rely on these things to make decisions?

Think about the people that are willing to take a 10 minute survey to explain how they feel about their trip to WalMart.  Would you want to cater everyone’s experience around the opinions of someone who has so much extra time that they can spend twenty minutes online taking a survey for a one in a billion chance to win $1000 worth of WalMart merchandise?  If you have that much extra time and so little money that the miniscule chance of winning a mediocre prize paid in cheap products has an influence on how you live your life, you shouldn’t be taking a survey from them, you should be applying for a job working for them.  It almost makes me want to spend time filling out those stupid things, since it makes me upset to think that these companies are now going to be basing business decisions around catering to these morons.

$1000 chance of winning with only a million other people surveyed! That's like .1 cents for 20 minutes of time!

Hey Taco Bell, we already know that your customer service is terrible without the help of some strongly disagree ratings on a survey.  No one goes there and orders more than two things without expecting you to screw something up.  That will never change until you start paying people more than minimum wage.  I don’t even expect it to change, and I certainly don’t want you to take any measures to fix it.  I’ll order one extra taco every time I drive through to make sure you include enough food to fill me up, but you have to hold up to your part of the bargain and not increase operating costs by replacing those creatures that work inside your restaurants, causing operating expenses to go up.  I want to pay 99 cents, and only 99 cents, for each spongey tortilla shell filled with what you call cheese and beef-like product. If you want to make me happy you can stop wasting money by doing these ridiculous surveys and put 10% more imitation meat product in your dollar menu items.  My cancerous tumors and morbid obesity aren’t going to develop themselves.

I don't know what this crap actually is, but give me three! Actually, make it four, because you'll forget one and probably screw another one up.

This world already caters to the 1% of the population that comprise the “squeakiest wheel” demographic.  Please stop giving these people things, and stop making an experience around what these people want.  The customers that have the time to fill out stupid surveys and call and give feedback on the customer service they received by a disinterested clerk at a cheap retail store are the customers that are ruining things for everyone else!  If someone told you that there was a tiny base of customers that would tie up the majority of your customer service department, return enough items to cause half of your refurbished or open-box inventory, and constantly demand credits and free things from your company, you shouldn’t be saying “how can I give these people everything they want?”.  You should be saying “how can I get those dumbasses to go ruin my competitor?”.  Maybe end every one of these surveys with “thanks for wasting your time taking this survey, you goddamn idiot”.

The next time you go to buy a phone and you see three sales people trying placate some irrational stupid’s tirade about how his phone is too confusing because it has too many options that he can’t simply ignore (because he paid for those features!) and how he was tricked into getting a flip phone that was too difficult to use, remember that if you have service with that company you are indirectly paying for the customer service it takes to handle that idiot.  80% of the calls at that phone company’s call center come from the same 5% of people.  You know why so many companies outsource customer service?  It’s because those morons waste so much money worth of peoples’ time that companies can no longer afford to hire Americans to talk to you while keeping service rates competitive.  Those high maintenence jackasses are ruining things for the people that have legitamate problems and just want to speak to someone that can understand the finer intricacies of their own language.

You know why it’s so hard to get a warranty issue taken care of?  It’s because those special people are trying to scam a return due to something they did wrong, or because they don’t take the time to actually try to figure out and resolve the problem on their own. All technical support people assume you’re retarded, because 80% of the time they’re getting calls from that 5% of people that don’t take the time to see if their electronics are plugged in, or have batteries in them, or just need a basic thirty second fix.  This is all not assuming the person the person is a downright bastard and just complaining about imaginary problems with their phone to get the upgraded model he wants.

SPOILER ALERT: 90% of all electronic issues can be resolved by turning the device off and back on, but do you think these people try that?  I swear to you, if I had a recording that played before I took each customer’s call that said “please turn your phone off and back on” I would take half as many troubleshooting calls.  I am not exaggerating.

Next time you go shopping, think about the fact that if you could get rid of the 5% of people that ruin it for everyone else with their incompetence, illogical complaints, ridiculous lawsuits, and abusive attitudes your expensives would be considerably less, the company you worked for would be much more profitable, and you could be paid more.  Now this is not the case if you’re a lawyer, since they feed off the stupid lawsuits and the threat of those lawsuits, but if you are, I feel fairly comfortable tossing you into that 5%.

Hey Stupid, No One Taps Your Calls

I cannot stress this enough.  You are my least favorite tinfoil friends.  I understand that you are paranoid.  I understand that you have very little common sense and have no one besides me to talk to all day.  Please, do not call me about your phone calls being monitored, though.

Let’s just go ahead and ignore the equipment requirements, cost, and difficulty of listening into your phone conversations.  That’s a whole different area that isn’t important to the real message I’m trying to get across to you.  That message being one of NO ONE CARING ABOUT YOU.

You always fit into the exact same demographic: 45-60 years old, lower income, and not from a major city.  Your bills are never paid on time, you always call me when regular people are working, you are old enough to not have a firm grasp on new technology, and you always have other problems which would lead me to believe you have no common sense at best, no grasp of reality at worst.  Don’t worry though, I’m going to put your mind at ease using these clues so that you can go back to planning your defenses against the upcoming global apocalypse or alien invasion.

So how do I know that your phone isn’t being tapped?

Clue #1  You are not important.

I really can’t stress this one enough.  If some unknown entity is trying to listen in on your calls, there has to be a reason why they would do something like that.  You aren’t a government official or you wouldn’t also ask me what that five cent state USF charge on your bill goes towards.  You aren’t a drug kingpin or you would have a prepaid cellphone without your name attached to it.  Your ex-spouse definitely does not have the means to do something that requires more thought than using a microwave or you never would’ve been able to trick that person into marrying you in the first place.

Clue #2  You have no money to steal

I know you’re very concerned with all your fabulous wealth being stripped from you by some evil mastermind, but why on Earth would they waste time with you?  It really isn’t that hard to get personal information about people that have good paying jobs, and from my records I can see that you call us about once a weekday during normal business hours.  This indicates to me that you do not have stable work, and there is no reason for anyone to believe otherwise.  It also doesn’t help that I can see that your 29.99 phone bill is paid weeks late every month, and you nitpick every last penny on all your bills (including the late fee from not paying your bills on time, ever).

Now I know you’re very protective of your private information, as it took me ten minutes to convince you to give me the last four digits of your social security number so I could access your account, but if someone wants to steal financial information, there are much, much easier ways to get it.  I know you’re doing your best to keep people from getting access to your information, but you most certainly are not.  You think paying by mailing a check in is safer than reading off that information to me?  Reading off a debit card number means one person has access to your money (me).  Mailing in a check means several postal workers and at least three people working at our company hold your check in their hands.  I don’t know if you understand how popular check by phone or check by internet is, but I’ll save you some trouble by telling you that anyone that gets an eyeful of your check now has the routing and account numbers they need to go on a spending spree.  You know why banks and companies allow people to do this?  It’s because no one cares enough about the tiny amount of money in your account to make it worth their time to proactively stop it from happening.

Clue #3:  There are easier ways to get your stuff

Anyone that knows you also knows there are a million easier ways to trick you out of your money.  Wallet inspector comes to mind – Anyone showing up claiming there is an outbreak of anthrax on dollar bills – Someone with glass beads to trade for your electronics – Alien repellant salesman – Attractive woman that pretends to like you.  The list goes on and on.

Now, anyone that really wants to be afraid should focus more on the information anyone in a corporate credit/collections department has on you.   When I worked in credit, I had a very user-friendly system I could use to find absolutely any information on anyone.   I could use your license plate number to find out your sister’s mother-in-law’s maiden name, home address, driver’s license number, and social security number.   I could see every place you’ve ever lived, every bank account you’ve ever had, and every person you’ve ever lived with.  Now if you were important, that’s what you would worry about, because that’s creepy.

Customers Be Crazy

I don’t know how many of you people work in customer service, but damn some people have a crazy idea about what’s fair.  I thought I’d shoot out some of the craziest complaints I’ve received during my time dealing with customers.

#1  Woman wants insane refund.

This is by far the craziest thing I have ever heard.  When I worked for a large retail store’s corporate headquarters, I received a letter from a woman who said she had bought a diamond ring from us, and she was quite dissatisfied with the quality of that ring.  Outraged at the low quality of that ring (which she had purchased at a store without realizing its lack of quality somehow), she decided to do the only thing that would make sense.   She threw it in the trash, and then immediately wrote us a letter demanding a refund for that trashed ring.   Needless to say, she assumed we would not require the return of that ring due to it’s extreme shoddiness.

#2  At that same corporate headquarters, we had a woman call in to tell us that she was cancelling her credit card through us and would no longer doing business with us for cat related reasons.

Why would she do such a thing?  Because that state in which its corporate headquarters was located passed a law making it legal to kill feral cats.  Well done, crazy cat lady.  I’m sure that accomplished something.  It’s that kind of crazy association that has you alone with only the company of some mangy cats that are just biding their time before consuming you alive.

#3  Customer upset over terrible phone they received that won’t charge.

Can you imagine the frustration you would feel if you just got a new $500 phone that won’t even hold a damn charge!?  You paid good money for that phone, and it won’t even TURN ON!  Just because it turns out you don’t have the charger plugged into an OUTLET!  What kind of excuse is that!?

#4  Customer demands a free phone because their phone was stolen.

This one is up here because I hear it frequently.  Customers, I know you say it isn’t you fault that someone stole your phone, but that sure as hell doesn’t make it our fault!  What on the planet makes you think that you are deserving of a new phone (for free, no less) because someone stole yours?  It certainly is more your fault for putting your phone in a thieve-able position than it is our fault for having a customer that can’t keep track of their phone.  We did offer you insurance when you got that phone.

Speaking of insurance, if you have a kid under 18 with a smartphone that costs $500 or more and they lose/steal/break their phone, I have zero sympathy for you if you don’t have that phone insured.  Less than zero, because not only do I not feel bad for you, but I actually feel that you may be retarded.  Your idiot kids being entrusted with devices that cost half your paycheck are the reason phone insurance is as expensive as it is.  They’re the equivalent of that 300lb beast at your office on the company insurance that develops diabetes and doesn’t get regular treatment.  You are ruining insurance for everyone else, so at least make use of it.

That’s less than you deserve, filthy iPhone.

#5  Customer flipping out because of our terrible service giving them an error when they try to call one specific person.

Please, people…  PLEASE!  When you get an error message when calling one person and only one person only, think to yourself.  You can call other people.  Other people are also having trouble calling that person.  What is the most likely explanation?  With how quick some people are to call in with phone issues I’m constantly surprised that we don’t get them asking our advice on TV brands or what to wear that day.  Sure, you have a wireless modem through us.  That doesn’t mean you can call us for help installing your antivirus program!  I AM NOT YOUR LIFE COACH!

#6 Customer shut off for not paying their bill for an eternity.

You would be shocked at what customers expect from companies they refuse to actually pay.  Oh, you’re mad that we shut you off after not paying a single bill for three months?  You shouldn’t be held responsible for the amount owed because you don’t remember ever receiving a bill from us in the mail?  You use your phone EVERY DAY!  How do you not get a daily reminder that maybe the thing you hold in your hand for hours a day might eventually be accruing charges you are responsible for!?  If you don’t get a letter from your bank/landlord informing you that your mortgage/rent is due do you not pay that, either? Next time you make a call, think to yourself “I don’t pay any money for this.  Why does it still work?  How long will it still work for if this trend continues?”

…And news flash, I know your phone is important to you.  You don’t have to tell me this.  Everyone’s phone is important to them, unless you’re a hermit, or possessing some type of telepathy.  If we don’t make your phone stop working at some point you will never pay us.

My all time favorite on this note is a customer that called in after buying a phone that was free after a hundred dollar mail in rebate, and never paid for a month of service.  Two months later he gets suspended and eventually cancelled for non-payment, and then calls in demanding his rebate!  First, you owe us a ton of money.  Secondly, you did not do us a favor by paying us a hundred dollars for a phone that was subsidized down to a hundred dollars (and then free after rebate).  We have just lost money not only on the phone subsidy, but on whatever service you wasted on our network and never paid for.  Now you want us to give you a hundred more dollars.  Right.

News – When you buy a phone from a carrier that puts you under contract, that phone company is selling that phone to you at a loss.  That’s why there’s a contract with a termination fee involved, so that people don’t make a business out of buying phones and leaving immediately afterwards, or reselling them without actually paying for service to help those companies recoup the losses from selling you that phone.

#7:  Customer with a double bill for service.

Now, I would say 80% of angry calls stem from a person who doesn’t do a very good job paying their bills, but a common one involves people who actually get their phones shut off.  Now, I’m pretty sure most people by now realize that with a cell phone, you get billed for the month going forward.  If your bill prints on the tenth of the month, and your service is shut off because you found it inconvenient to make your payment, we aren’t going to charge you for that month if you’re shut off on that bill print day.  You’d be even more furious is we kept billing you while we didn’t let you use your phone, wouldn’t you?  Now, if you get it restored two days later, you can damn well believe you don’t get that month for free.  Next month you’re getting a bill for that month AND your next one.  Why you think you shouldn’t have to pay for an entire month worth of service because you didn’t get to use your phone for a couple days is beyond me.  Use common sense.  If you get a bill for $0-$20 for a month when your bill is normally over a hundred, maybe you should call to find out why.  Spoiler: You never hit the free phone service for a month lottery.

Don’t even get me started on what they request to have their bill credited for.  I’ll save that one for its own entire post.

Don’t Screw With My Vending Machines

Damn you, work.  Bring back my vending machines.  These new high tech vending machines are crap, and it’s immoral to replace perfectly wonderful Hostess goods with your goddamn bags of chips.

If you buy one of those fun size bags of chips then you are the problem, people.  Don’t let Big Vending pressure you into spending a full dollar for six chips in a little foil bag that costs more than the actual chips.  You have the right to say “no”!

(it doesn’t count as more chips if you pre-smash them in the bag)

I know that it seems tempting to buy those chips, but don’t you see what’s happening?  You used to have the option for fruit pies and doughnuts, now they’re muscling you into buying quarter-a-piece Sun Chips because you have no other options.  Sure, your break is only 15 minutes and you can’t make it outside of the building, and if you had the planning and foresight to bring something better to work in the first place you probably would’ve had enough planning and foresight to plan your life in a way that wouldn’t have resulted in you working in a call center.  Still, you need to use your will power to show these snack tyrants that they can’t get away with this.

They already made sodas from the machine so expensive that they had to install a credit card machine into the vending machine so people could buy them.  That is unacceptable!  No vending machine dispensing soda or snacks should be expensive enough to need a credit card swipe!  Work, you have sold out your employees to Big Vending, and this will not stand!

You have no idea what class of human being you are messing with.  With one simple food boycott the morbidly obese office could easily cripple vending profits.  I’m pretty sure they have to restock those vending machines multiple times a week.  Chubby call center folks must have snacks, but they still have SOME self respect, I’m kinda sure!

This is not the first scheme these vending people have pulled on us. Their last trick was designing the machines so they would hold onto bags of chips by the tiniest of threads and never let go.  No matter how many times you tried to buy just one more, thinking an avalanche of chips would fall if you continued to feed the machine money, they would proceed to continue to all get stuck, leaving you snack-less, and too ashamed of your attempt to scam and extra snack from the machine to request your money back.  Haven’t we learned our lesson yet?

Hello, This Peggy

Ah, my wonderful angry customers, you definitely have strange methods to try and get what you want. The next time you’re in the mood to call and talk to someone about something that isn’t going your way, might I advise you to think about what you’re doing to try and get what you want accomplished.  After living in an age where the vast amount of our customer experiences are done over the phone, you would think that experience and common sense would’ve helped us learn how to get what we want from the companies we believe have done us wrong.

Now, getting loud I can understand on several levels, but you need to take a closer look at how screaming over the phone is far different than in person.  I know it’s nice for some of you with anger management issues, or a lack of self control/social skills to be able to vent your anger on a person who in no way is responsible for your problem, but let’s take a moment to think of what we stand to gain from yelling at the representative you get on the phone.

First, that rep is no longer looking for a way to help you.  Every person you talk to wants to solve your problem when you initially call in.  It’s their job, it’s how they’re assessed on their reviews, and 99% of the time it’s actually far easier to help someone than to search for a way to get you off the phone without helping you. Unfortunately, now you’ve signalled yourself to be a very high risk of unhelpable, and that just leads them to try to find a way to skip you to the step of off their phone.  Sure, they’ll listen to your problems, because they’re analyzing every word you say to see if you’ll give them cause to hang up on you.  Maybe a couple profanities.  Maybe something they think/interpret as being offensive/racist/sexist.  Did you say I was being short with you?  I’m offended by your comment about my height!  *Click*

Secondly, when people get really angry, what they don’t usually notice is the people on the receiving end have two reactions, and neither of those are helpful to the person going bonkers over how unjust it is that is takes their smartphone ten seconds longer to boot up than their old Motorola Rockr.  Even worse, they aren’t going to be the reactions you’re aiming for, which I’m assuming is empathy, the one you SHOULD want.

Empathy is the only one that works with most reps, because the one you’re gravitating towards(Intimidation) doesn’t provide what you’re looking for on the phone.  No one is really afraid of you when you call in screaming like that blood vessel in your forehead banged your mom.  There’s a chance you might hurt their feelings if you’re nasty enough, but a rep that goes home sad because you were mean to them isn’t going to send you money over the phone to help you with your large bill, and their tears don’t make your equipment start working.  Hurt feelings don’t extend your warranty from one year to thirteen months.  Plus you’re a real bastard, and it’s kind of sick that this stuff happens to women thirty times more than to guys.  Bullies will be bullies, and it’s a great sign of their personality that they know and target who is most effected by verbal abuse and name calling.  The crazy thing is that it’s usually the women that are meanest and most foul mouthed.

Now, in the world of retail and service based industry, yelling and screaming do have their place in getting what you want at the expense of your dignity, but you are on the phone, my friend.  You aren’t causing a scene in front of other customers, you’re just wasting a rep’s time.  A lot of the times that rep doesn’t even care!  When you lose your mind, they can pretty much safely tune you out.  I have never heard a convincing argument conveyed to me in a volume level that would damage my eardrums over an extended period of time.  This means the person you’re speaking to is probably going to tune you out, and use the “my life is ruined because I missed my friend’s text message” time to amuse themselves without having to do any real work.

Do you ever get in the middle of screaming at someone on the phone and it seems like their end just got really quiet?  Well, it’s not that you just exploded the receiver end of the phone with your righteous outburst over how bluetooth instruction manuals are too complex; it’s the rep on the other side putting you on mute so he can tell his coworker about the dumbass he’s talking to.  You may think you’re really beating some sense into that other person, but you’re really just giving him a good story to share with his friends about the guy that flipped out over something that was most likley his own fault.

Not only are you not affecting other customers experiences with your crazy yelling, but you have to remember that making a scene in retail is also with a person who is somewhat directly affected by your actual business.  You’ll take your business elsewhere?  Oh drat, there goes all the $0 worth of sales commission they could’ve possibly made off you.  That person doesn’t give a rat’s ass if you’re a customer or not.  You aren’t in any way affecting their paycheck.  Hell, you just greenlighted them to ship you over to the cancellation department, and right out of their hair.  You’ve just lost one link in the chain of people that could possibly help you with your real problem.

Which brings me to the world’s #1 dead end in the customer experience –

Why do some people immediately want to speak with a supervisor?  This is just wrong on so many levels.  First, who do you trust more to solve your problems, a person who helps customers just like you fifty times a day, with problems just like yours, or some knuckleheaded supervisor who talks to customers a handful of times a week?  Let me assure you, that person will be FAR less helpful to you, and each rung you move up the ladder is a step in the wrong direction.  Think about the supervisor at your job.  Who would you trust to actually do your job if your life depended on it?  How about that person’s manager?  Do you think he really has any clue how to help a customer out, or do you think he’s more of an expert at sitting in his cubicle and thinking about how great his next vacation is going to be after he gets done holding his next “managers pat themselves on the back for a job well done doing next to nothing” meeting?

Please, do yourself and the people you talk to a favor, and take it down a notch.  Not only will it help you, but when you think about the fact that not treating these people like dogcrap will make them want to work at their job for longer than a year, resulting in smaller operating costs from lower turnover and training, maybe you can even save yourself some money in the long run.  Every time you talk to some heavily accented “Peggy” in a foreign country that doesn’t appear on an inexpensive map, just know that it was you people that made it too hard to staff people in this country to do that job.

Mash This Link, Please

What the hell is the deal with the word “mash”?  Mashed potatoes I get, apparently my great-great-great grandpa watched the show M.A.S.H., but when you click on a button on your phone, that is not the time to inform us of any “mashing”.

Sometimes when I’m sitting around at work on the phone, I’ll get a customer from a particularly entertaining part of the country, and some interesting words will come into play that I enjoy.  I love when customers tell me they’re “fixin'” to go to the store.  I laugh a little to myself with every “you best be” when they’re expressing the urgency with which I need to replace their device.  “Reckon” and “yonder” are a fond memory of those old westerns everyone has watched time to time, and our human period pieces are a friendly reminder of “simpler times”.

I don’t so much care for the fact that “iPhone” has become the new “Coke”.  Not every smartphone is an iPhone, you hillbilly knuckleheads.  It wasn’t even the first smartphone!  I know you people are old enough to even remember what a Blackberry is (not that I think anyone knows they still exist today).  Windows phones preceded them, even if they did do a sloppy, half-assed job.  And sure, I’ll give everyone a pass on the lesser known Nokias and Palms, especially when the sound of your grasp on technology leads me to believe you just recently migrated from a pair of tin cans and a string.

But most importantly, please stop using the word “mash”.  Oh, you just mashed the button I told you to touch so we could check your phone’s settings?  Well, guess what.  I just voided your warranty in the system.  No way could tapping on a capacitive touch screen take any amount of physical effort conveyed by the word “mash”.  I’m just going to assume you have now destroyed the device and move on with my day.

Now, while I can laugh at this in good fun, I sometimes wonder if these people ever become skilled professionals.  I just can’t imagine taking someone seriously as an engineer or technician while using “ain’t” or “y’all” in a sentence, let alone think of any medical professional getting within a good ol’ country mile of me if she wants to “mash” a needle in my arm, or if she “reckons” I need a strong prescription drug.  I will, however, let you know when a need a dead animal, or instructions on how to most effectively enjoy “goin’ muddin'”.