I have railed (recently, even) about how monopolies suck. No, that is not a massive revelation or anything new. We all know this, but it bears repeating. I’m irritated because I got an appointment with CenturyLink (phone company) for a technician to come today. The appointment window? 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. This is, of course, because I was not able to talk to an actual person.
This is on purpose, by the way. Not only is cheaper (obviosuly. You don’t have to pay humans to do this), but it discourages people from trying to contact the company unless they absolutely have to. This happened when I tried to contact ComCost/Xfinity and it’s the same with CenturyLink.
Bottom line: they do this because they can. Given the soft monopolies they have in their respective areas, they don’t have to care about customer satisfaction. We have no options. I can use Comcast/Xfinity or CenturyLink in my area for internet. There are a few other stray options, but they are very restrictive.
I’m tired, grumpy, and irritated. It doesn’t have to be this way. And it really wouldn’t take much to make it a much better experience. Give me the chance to talk to a human, and I’m infinitely more likely to view the interaction in a positive manner.
There is one exception to that. That’swhenI had a problem with my trash person simply not picking up my garbage. This was the week of Thanksgiving, and when I called the day before Thanksgiving to inquire about it, I got a recalcitrant customer service person in return. It was an actual person, which was a plus, but they were not helpful at all–which was a massive negative.
I want to stress that I am very pleasant and kind to the customer service people I talk to. I know it’s a shit job and that they get paid very little money. I just want someone who will answer my questions honestly. I even understand that it’s not always possible because they are given scripts that they have to follow.
In this case, I calmly told the person what happened (no pick-up). She immediately said that it was a holiday week so there was no way I could get my garbage picked up that week. Um, ok? I mean, not ok, really. It wasn’t my fault it wasn’t picked up. I put my container out the night before as usual, so it wasn’t as if I rolled it down late. The person simply did not pick up my trash.
I asked what I was supposed to do. i needde my trash picked up. She said it would have to wait until the regular day–the next week. She repeated again that it was a holiday week, which I already knew. It wasn’t as if I were ignorant of the holidays.
I asked, still keeping my voice even, what I was supposed to do with my current trash. It wasn’t as if it was going to magically disappear by the next week, and my trash container was for a single person. It was already more than half-full, so I needed to know that I would not be docked for having it stuffed to the gills or the lid not completely closed.
She said that I could just add another bag to the side of the can. She reminded me that it was a holiday week, which was really starting to irritate me. I said that i did not want to be charged for the extra bag, and she said she’d make a note of it. I was not happy, but what could I do? Had she given me any more lip or said ‘It’s a holday week/Thanksgiving’ one more time, I might have actually asked for a manager.
Here’s the thing. All of these things (internet, phone, garbage, car) are things that we use on a daily basis. Maybe not all of them for everybody, but most people use at least one of them every day. When they are all working, life is smooth sailing. If they don’t work, however, then life can be hell. In part because most of us cannot fix them ourselves.
These are things you have to rely on others to make them work again. Being at the mercy of others is not fun. Being at the mercy of others and not being able to set the schedule at all is even less fun. Dealing with my car is stressful, but it’s not as bad (yet) because I’ve been able to talk to people so far. Reasonable people who actually want to help.
Another reason it’s so irritating is because you have to take care of it as quickly as possible to keep things pushing. I can’t do without my internet for more than a day (ideally, not even than long). I don’t like not having my landline, though I don’t NEED it. My car? Obviously, I want to have a running car. It’s hard to exist in certain areas of America without one. Like, I need to make a grocery run, so I’ll probably have to InstaCart it. I would prefer not to, but that’s neither here nor there.
In addition, it’s the slow drip of it being one tihng after another. A good thing about my medical crisis was that it was a one (long one, but still one event. At least thats’ how I think of it) and done. I didn’t have to deal with new things emerging from it every week. I know I’m extremely lucky that I can say that, by the way.
I’m hoping that once my car and phone are dealt with,t that will be all for a month or so. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for, but apparently the world does. I know life is the little things and you shouldn’t sweat the small stuff, but I’m about done with the irritations of daily life. Ideally, my car will be taken care of in the next few days and the phone will be fixed today. We will see how that turns out.