SONEJI'S DOMAIN.

You know, I never knew how much of a nightmare it could be to deal with a Cable or Internet provider company's customer service. When I used to work for Time Warner Cable I would always place blame on the customer's idiocy or lack of education. In some cases, I would blame it on the customer's arrogance and wealth, claiming they are rich bastards who believe the world should bend over every time they get a Viagra induced erection (well, to be honest, I still believe that). I would blame all the stress and the fact that the job sucked on the customers. Don't get me wrong, most of them are still fucking assholes. But I realized that it's not the customers. It's the fucking company that doesn't give a fuck. Your average CSR is not that bad. They try to help you, whether they do it nicely or because they have no other choice. You, being the sensitive prick that you are, will probably have an I'm the customer I'm always right fit if they don't have the right tone of voice when they can't help you. Of course, there's always the fucking asshole customer service rep. But, for the most part, they are being monitored and they suck it up.

Well, today, I spent well over 30 minutes on the phone with Earthlink because they suck. LOL...that was the I'm the customer, I'm always right part of me speaking. Earthlink, for some reason, does its broadband customer's billing through Time Warner Cable because TWC owns the whole fucking planet!. So, back in late July or so, I got an Earthlink account which TWC will bill me for. Bear in mind the thing has never worked properly, but that's a whole different tirade all unto itself. So, I noticed that I have never really been able to access my Earthlink e-mail account but I didn't really care cuz I already had my work and yahoo e-mail accounts and my internet worked (from time to time at least). So months go by and I still can't access the darn thing. I'm like screw this, an extra email account won't hurt and I'm paying for it anyway. So I contacted them via the online technical chat thing. Man, that thing is a freaking robot or something because her line of questioning was very scripted and she was confused when I posed two questions in the same line. Then when I asked her at the end of our pseudo conversation, cuz she couldn't help me if she was a person or an automated response she said "I'm and Earthlink representative"...I was like, FUCK YOU!

So, I get on the phone and call them. The first guy tells me I disconnected the account back in August 22 and he had to transfer me somewhere. The second girl is like, "I can't help you because you disconnected the account". I'm getting pissed cuz I never disconnected my account. It has been working all this time. So, she transfers me to another girl. The other girl is trying like hell to help me. But she's like, you disconnected your account. I told her I didn't again...so she gets on the phone with someone else and tells me they have to transfer me to someone else!!!! I'm like, fine...So, I get transferred to another girl and she again, is trying like hell to help me. This girl had me do everything to my computer except lick the screen. So, we go to some high tech guy and he said I had to wipe out all my info and do another installation. So, I get tranferred again to another guy who reinstalls my service and starts my account all over. I am not about to tell this guy I already have it installed and TWC is already sending me bills. So, I agreed and they put me on another special...or something..I'm just going to let it go and as long as my internet is working, I'm going to let them do whatever they want.

FINAL SCORE: CUSTOMER = 0 EVIL CALL CENTER = 1


Anyway, my point was that most of these people were nice and friendly. The one or two that I talked to that weren't were still trying to help me. Some of them sounded extremely rude on the phone but again, they still helped me. I don't know, maybe I'm looking at CSRs the wrong way. I mean, they are stuck in a meaningless job and most of them are not little kids in high school or college. They are older people that have no future or ambition or think this is the high life becuase they barely finished High School or have a GED. They know they're stuck there and are probably bitter about it. You and I, oh faithful reader, have (hopefully) more ambition and hence expect to be treated the same way we would treat somebody right? but the operating word here being expect. Just because we expect people to be nice, even if they are at work and getting paid for it, they don't have to be. Just imagene the amount of times the asshole, clueless, overpromoted and uneducated so called supervisors bust their balls due to the amount of calls taken, amount of calls dropped, amount of calls you took, amount of calls you hung up on, amount of calls this, amount of calls that....FUCK! It will drive anybody insane. Then they bust their balls about how long it took them to finish the call, how they sounded, which "key" words and pharses they used. Not to mention, the always loveable and huggable asshole customer who has no clue what common sense means and wants their shit solved immediately. I mean, if you think your job is stressful, try living in one of these poor bastard's shoes for one day. They're just trying to make a living without going insane, that field of work is extremely stressful and changes your demeanor in a matter of 2 or 3 years. I should know, I was becoming a horrible person near my 3rd year of working for TWC. I was so unhappy and it reflected vividly.

Anyway, I just had to get that off my chest.