I write to you now as a survivor.
We were without internet in our home for almost 2 weeks.
I won't regale you with the how and why. Suffice to say, I calculated that I spent about 5 hours on the phone: ordering, cancelling, double checking and confirming dates, calling to find out why technicians never showed up to their doubled-checked and confirmed dates, etc.
When I call customer service lines, I do my best to adopt an attitude of friendliness and empathy with the person on the other end of the line, cause I think you get more flies with honey and If I can make the day of the person in the cubicle a little funnier they might go the extra mile to help me out and maybe we both benefit in the deal
But If I'm losing an hour of my life to muzak on the omniscient time table of a corporate help-line, I'm going to get some kind of payment in the deal, so I do two things while waiting on hold: I settle in to lose at least an hour of my life, and I start writing material.
To me, calling a support line is equal parts meditation, stand-up comedy routine, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Here's a couple of the more entertaining bits of dialogue I tried to ply favor with (and in full disclosure none of it helped, so maybe I ought to rethink my strategy....)
Do you hear that howling in the background? That is 2 teenage girls, my daughters. They're hungry Brian, and they subsist almost entirely on a diet of Instagram and reruns of Pretty Little Liars. We have a delicate emotional ecology at work here Brian, and if, in this internet-less vacuum, I have to sit around a dinner table and actually TALK to them, I'll hold you personally responsible for the bloodbath.
Listen, Grace in Reno, I'm sorry to be difficult. I know this isn't your fault. I know that when I call this number, I am going to speak to a randomly chosen appendage of the corporate person that is AT&T. I just can't understand why the appendage I always seem to get on the phone is a middle finger, or worse, without benefit of dinner and breakfast. So let's change that. Instead, I need you to be a giant foam finger, the kind that says on the front "The customer is #1". I need you to wave that foam finger Grace, and get me a U-Verse install date sometime before the end of Obama's presidency.
