Friday's Rant or It's been a long week

[rant] Have ya ever called a company to discuss your bill and you were sadly unprepared when the poor schmuck in customer service asked you for your account number?  Have you noticed the moment of silence after you say you don’t have the account number?  Some of you even say “hello?” thinking that we have been disconnected.  That moment of silence is not because we have lost the call, no matter how much we wish we could, nor are we trying to find your account.  It’s because we find it positively mind-boggling, in the most negative way, that you would call us to discuss, pay or complain about your bill without having the information we need to find your stupid account.  We use that moment of silence to wonder what it is that you want us to help you with.  Sometimes we mute the line and bang our heads on our desks, muttering to ourselves and our co-workers, who are also banging their heads on their desks.   That fleeting moment of dead air is usually used to bite our tongues to keep from asking you if you need our assistance with your organizational skills, perhaps, so that you may learn how to be prepared when you call us to deal with YOUR account.  It is not the Psychic Customer Service Network, people.   How hard is it to have your account number in your hand?  If you know you’re going to call us from work – take the account number with you.  Don’t complain to us about how long it’s taking to find YOUR account when YOU did not have YOUR account number.  My services are not suspended.  I paid my bill – and I had my account number handy when I called to discuss whatever it was I needed to discuss.  Don’t yell at us because we have to offer you every product under the sun when you call to pay your bill.  If you don’t want to be offered other products (which is our JOB), pay your bill online or mail a check.  If you don’t want to have to give us a passcode in order to access your account, DON’T CALL.  We have to have that .. it’s the law.  If you are in a hurry because you’re on a break or because you’re on your way somewhere, let me give you a little clue.  Shut up.  If you quit whining and complaining and yelling long enough for us to answer your questions or explain what’s happened the call will go a bit faster.  If you carry a past due balance every single month for years and your service is disconnected for nonpayment, that’s your fault, not mine.  Again, I paid my bill.  My service is on.   Don’t spend 30 minutes telling us how horrible our company is, what a bunch or corporate thieves we work for or how disgusted you are with the service.   We work here – you’re preaching to the choir.   The more abusive you are the less we care about your problems.  Be kind and we will bend over backwards to help you.  Be a jerk and we will bless your little heart … but who knows when your problem might be fixed or how many more people you’ll have to speak to in order to get it resolved, if it ever gets resolved at all.  Thank you for calling, have a lovely day.  [/rant]

A Lesson in Preparedness

I hate being unprepared for things.  I'm not sure why some people are totally okay with their unpreparedness, it is kinda annoying.  I work in customer service for a company that shall not be named, mostly just because I don't want to be the cause (or target) of a pitchfork carrying, torch wielding, angry mob.  This is a little bit of my day: 

Me:  Thank you for calling ___, My name is Divi, how can I help manage your account today? 

Customer:   I just got my *(&%#( bill and it's too *($&# much.  You charged me for blah blah blah and You better fix it RIGHT NOW. 

Me:  I'll be happy to help you wi...

Customer:  I don't know what's wrong with you people, my bill is always wrong.  You shut my stuff off and I want it back on right now. And I'm not paying this $100 charge either.  You people need to get your heads out of your )$*%@# and stop cheating me. 

Me:  Sir, I'll be more than ha... 

Customer:  Why can't you people ever get my bill right?  Can't you do simple math? I want to talk to a supervisor. 

Me: .....

Customer:  HELLO? 

Me:  I'm still here, I was just waiting for you to finish talking. 

Customer:  Get me a supervisor!

Me:  Sir, I'll be happy to do that for you, but in order to get a supervisor, I do have to have your account pulled up and know what exactly is going on so I can let her know before she will take the call.  What is your account number. 

Customer:  I don't know. 

Me:  (of course you don't)   Well that's ok, what is the phone number associated with your account? 

Customer:   I'm not sure. 

Me: (Really?)  How about the name on the account and your zip code?

Customer:  Don't you have all that information in front of you?  

Me:  (Of course I do, I just like messing with you?   This is not the Psychic Friends Network buddy)  Um, no.  You will need to provide me with some way to find your account. 

Customer:  *SIGH*  Fine, *mumble* Joe *mumble*tan*mumble*stivsky 

Me:  Sir?  Can you spell that last name for me please? 

--- Now, anyone that know me would know that right about now I am ready to reach through the phone and slap "Joe" around and suggest ever so sweetly that he hang up and call back when he is prepared with the information we need to talk about this account.  Who in the world calls somewhere screaming their head off about some wrong that's been done them without at least having an account number????

So we finally get through finding the account ... we're a good 5-7 minutes into this call now because it has taken that long to find the information.  I can see this customer calls in about once a week about something, so you'd think they would know the process, wouldn't you?  But no. 

Me:  Can you verify the 4 digit passcode for me?

Customer:  The what? 

Me:  THE FOUR DIGIT PASSCODE. 

Customer:  What's that?  I don't know any 4 digit passcode. 

Me:  How about the secret question.  What's your favorite restaurant? 

---- at this point my cell mates .. er I mean co-workers are shouting out helpful hints in the background:  McDonalds ...  Hooters ..... Mom's Kitchen ...

Customer:  What are you talking about?  I don't know about any favorite restaurant. 

Me:  (slightly saracastic, a lot incredulous ... and trying to ignore the cell mates)  You don't know what your favorite restaurant is?

Customer:  (Getting angrier by the second) No

Me:  I'm so sorry, without one of those things to verify your identity I cannot talk to you about this account. 

--- My favorite part!

Customer:   Well I'm me.  I just want to know about this *#(&)# bill.  Are you telling me that you are not going to talk to me about my own *(%&@#$ bill?  I am who I say I am!

Me:  Yes, without being able to verify your information,  by law, I cannot talk to you about this account.  I cannot see you and I do not know you, so I cannot verify that you are the owner of this account or authorized to talk about this account without that information. 


Customer:  ()*@#%((*@#))$(& *Click*

---- 


So, the moral of my story is this:   IF you are going to angrily call and abuse some innocent bystander such as myself, who, by the way, has nothing to do with the charges on your bill, be prepared with the information needed to find your account or you're just going to be angrier when you hang up.  Not to mention that you will also have to call back and go through it all again.  

Also, I'll give you a couple little freebies: 

1.  If you call in because your bill is $300 and it should only be $150 AND your services are not working, perhaps you did not pay last month's bill.   This is not my fault, nor is it my problem.  My services are working because my bill is paid.  If my services are not working because I failed to pay the payment that is my fault -- not yours.  I don't call you and scream about my services being off, now do I?  Oh, and my cellmates and I will make fun of you when you hang up. 

2.  If you are charged for a repair fee, an installation fee or an activation fee and you don't want to pay it, calling me and saying "I'm not paying this )*@*%& bill." is not going to get you very far.  I honestly don't care if you pay it or not.  I'm perfectly fine with you NOT paying it.  I will, however, very nicely inform you that your services will be interrupted if you don't pay it.  IF you are nice, I might try to help you out and adjust it off the bill.  IF you are a jerk, it's staying on there along with a note that it is not to be adjusted off by anyone else either ...and my cellmates and I will make fun of you when you hang up. 

3.   Threatening to cancel service because you have an activation fee of $49 when you're getting every promotion known to man on your bill doesn't make me shudder or tremble in fear at all.  I'll happily send you to cancellations.  And make fun of you. 

4.  If you start the conversation screaming and you are murdering the English language while calling me everything you can think of to call me, I WILL either hang up or send you to the Spanish line without so much as flinching, and I won't feel bad about it at all.  And guess what my coworkers and I will do afterwards. 

5.  There are certain unspoken rules about dealing with people in the service industry.  Don't be rude or antagonize the people who handle your food, the officer that has you pulled over or the person who has control over your bills at any given moment.   Be nice to us and we will  be nice to you.  Be nasty to us ... and heaven help you.  

Turn the Page ...

I’ll soon be starting a new chapter of my life.  After nearly 2 decades of going broke working in medical transcription, I’m finally getting out!   In 13 short days I start a new job, a real job with people and an hourly wage and benefits and paid vacation and everything.  I cannot even begin to describe how amazingly ecstatic I am to be turning my back on being a hermit and rejoining the part of the world where the people are.  I have spent the last 14 years working at home and I tell you what, my animals are really tired of me talking to them – almost as tired as I am of talking to them.  I won’t know what to do with myself with people that actually talk back with their own thoughts and voices instead of the little voices in my head that my animals have.  I’ve spent all these years at home to be with my daughter and while I do not begrudge her one second of  that time, I have to say I’m thrilled to be rejoining the world.  No more dealing with transcription companies that claim they have tons of work only to find out that “tons of work” is loosely translated as “We have 70 transcriptionists here to cover the work of 15 transcriptionists, so you’ll be fighting tooth and nail for work and you will have to scrape pennies together to buy the luxuries, like toothpaste and toilet paper.”   No more dealing with a stress level through the roof because one mistake could kill a patient and cause me to be sued for everything I don’t have.  No more listening to doctors burp, chew, slurp, yawn and slur through dictations. If you've never had to do this, you cannot imagine how rattling it can be to listen to the sounds of beeping machines and various bodily functions for 6 minutes.  It sounds like a short time, but when you're listening to it, it seems like a lifetime.  No more trying to decipher what the heck some half asleep dictator is mumbling for 20 minutes only to find out that they were carrying on a conversation with someone else while recording.  No more getting paid half a normal rate to retype an entire report because the voice recognition software has gone half crazy trying to decipher a thick foreign accent. No more!  No more working every stinking holiday.  I may even actually get to take a vacation sometime, since I haven’t had one in 11 years.   Yep, I’m moving on, transcription companies, it’s finally time to turn the page.  

2b or not 2b

In just 7 short weeks I'll be finished with school for the year.  I've been trying to decide what classes I should take next semester.  It is a choice between many evils, algebra being the largest, most diabolical evil and political science running a close second.  Algebra.  Who ever thought up such a horrible subject.  It's just ... well it's unnatural.  Letters and numbers do not add up to anything -- it's like a dog and a killer whale trying to breed.  It just ain't happenin'.  I suppose I should just get it out of the way before the stress of knowing I have to take the class builds up to mammoth proportions, but I really, really don't want to.  I've never been particularly science literate.  I am astronomically challenged in the field (hey that was pretty good, huh?  astronomically ... astronomy .. science ..haha, I kill me).  For the past year and a half I've been pulling out my Scarlet O'Hara persona when it comes to registering for the class -- why, fiddle dee dee, I can't think about that right now, I'll think about it tomorrow.  I probably won't register for it in the fall either.  I have a Spanish class to take and I can only handle one difficult one at a time.  So, Spanish and 3 cushy English classes .. that'll do ;)

I wonder if the college would accept this reasoning for not taking algebra...

A math atheist ... I like it. 

My advisor will love it

*grin*

Sit, Tiny, Sit.

This is Tiny

Tiny is 5 months old, very playful and strong as an ox. 

Tiny needs to have outside time every day so he can play and run off the

outrageous amount of energy that a 5 month old puppy has. 

We have a huge yard for Tiny to play in, but since I mowed through

the underground fence last summer and won't be able to re-run

new wire until spring has sprung, he has to be on a tie-out for a 

few hours a day to get in his play time.  His tie-out cable is 30 feet long, which 

gives him a 60 foot radius to play in.

Apparently, he was done being outside after a couple hours today and 

decided that it was time to come in.

He was nice enough to pull the whole stake up for me, instead of 

breaking the cable.  He came to the window where I go to check on him

and was also nice enough to tie himself back up (all around the sawhorse). 

So, of course I had to take a picture before I untangled him. 

I went back inside to grab his leash so I could bring him in, came right back

out and there he was .... sawhorse and all, doing his best to keep me from having to

come back out after him.

What a good boy he is ;) 

A Favor...

I know I've been gone forever and a day and only gave y'all a quickie, but if anyone happens to see this I need a favor!  My super cute, super sweet cousin is Jimmy Fallon's biggest fan and has been petitioning to get on his show so she can be in one of the sketches. She was interviewed by one of Chicago's radio stations just a couple nights ago about this even!  She has a Facebook page dedicated to this and is trying to get to 300 members.  She is only 3 shy of this number right now.  I would like to see her get even higher than that!  If anyone has Facebook and would like to help her out (and really, why wouldn't you? She's adorable.) go to Help Stephanie Get On The Jimmy Fallon Show and join her page! That's it! You can even hide the feed afterwards if you like, all she needs is warm bodies to push the count up. Tell her Sheli sent you, yanno, if you want to -- or just join and don't post at all.  =)  Tell your friends, bully your neighbors, do whatever it takes, but lets get my girl some members.  She's shooting for 300 right now, but I think 500 is a good number, don't you?

Hey, I might even make a real post later!  My class load is not nearly as difficult as the last semester so I have some brain power left at the end of the day.  It's kinda awesome ;)  So, y'all click on Stephie's page, tell your friends, bully your neighbors, grab people off the street .. let's see if we can get her up to 500 :)

Loves & stuff!

Quickie

Favorite movie line of the week:  "I've been trained to dismantle a bomb in the pitch black with nothing but a safety pin and a Junior Mint, I think I can get you in and out of some clothes without... looking ---  I'm not saying that's what I did..."