To read this, press '1' BERNARD EPPS
Technology is a tyrant. Consider when my book club made a mistake on the bill. A simple matter, easily fixed. So I called their new customer service number. I should have known better.
Tom Joad once told of having to take the family cow over to a neighbor's bull to be "serviced." "Now," said he, "Whenever I hear the word 'service,' I wonder who's getting screwed. "
Turned out my "customer service" number was in the middle of Pennsylvania and was so hedged about with voice mail that it took all morning to penetrate to the center of the labyrinth where a computer-generated voice said, "All our customer service representatives are currently busy serving other members, please call back later."
I don't believe there was anybody there at all and if they were even slightly interested in "customer service" they'd have somebody answer the damn phone!
But that's nothing compared to the nightmare thicket Bell Canada has erected to prevent one human being speaking with another. I blithely entered that maze shortly after 8 a.m. one recent morning and emerged at 4:30 p.m., a thoroughly frightened man.
Only once all day did I ever encounter another human being and was so startled that I cried, "Are you a real person?" She laughed prettily and said she was. I sobbed out my problem to her.
"One moment , sir," she said. "I'll just switch you to the right sector."
"Oh thank God!" I cried and there were two clicks and they started playing music at me again.
I don't know how long I listened to their music that day, but I think we went through the Ring Circle more than once. And they've refined the torture by playing extended commercials over and over and over. You can't escape.
I'd file a complaint, only I spent two years at Bell Northern Research in the 1980s, helping to design telephone switching equipment. It works. Bernard Epps writes in Lennoxville, Quebec.
© 1998 Bernard Epps/Log Cabin Chronicles/9.98 |