Yesterday I called Home Depot to check on the status of a rebate for some new appliances that we had purchased at Christmas. I got the typical automated operator. After wading through about 7 levels of automated telephone hell I got to the rebate option, hit number 4, and got hung up on.
FYI: Home Depot. I don’t speak Spanish, French or Fijian. I speak English as I live in the USA. You might want to keep that in mind for future reference.
So I called back, what other option do I have after all? I went through the same 7 levels of automated telephone hell, hit number 4, and got a message to call a DIFFERENT phone number. Do you guys have anybody working for you who actually has a grade school education, or do you sit around in Atlanta in nothing but your tool belts trying to think of ways to piss off your customers like some giant fraternity gone bad?
Here’s a note to Quest from a customer ready to jump ship to Internet phone service.
Don’t ask me to input my telephone number when I call, only to have your rep ask me for my telephone number. Don’t you have caller ID? After all it is just YOUR telephone number I’m using on YOUR system run by YOUR computers.
Don’t your customer service reps have a computer screen in front of them telling them who is calling after I just put in the number? Oh, let me guess, your folks are all sitting around in a giant call center with only an abacus, notepad and number 2 pencil.
This is to all you weasel executives who run the big cell phone companies.
Here’s what I don’t want:
– I don’t want a cell phone that plays music, movies, games, or can be used to pay for stuff like parking and vending machine food.
– I don’t want a cell phone that triple folds, pop-opens, springs up, falls back, comes in 2999 different colors, or can be used as a razor.
– I don’t want a cell phone the vibrates to the tune of God Save the Queen, sends me automated updates as to when my dentist has a opening, or can be used to neuter my dog and/or works as an effective bug repellent.
– I don’t want a cell phone that works underwater, on the moon, in the sewers, or any other place that I don’t spent 99.9 percent of my time.
Here’s what I do want:
– A cell phone that actually works in my home or office. And by works I mean receives and sends audible voice calls.
– A cell phone that actually rings when someone calls me, instead of not ringing, waiting 5 minutes and telling me I missed a call.
– A cell phone that doesn’t cut out just as I’m getting the most important bits of information like the actually address of place I'm searching for when I’m lost, or the exact amount of money I owe on my taxes as I’m just about to mail the return.
– A cell phone that automatically calls back the 411 operator and tell her where to stick the phone number she just gave me that turned out to be to the local Chinese dry cleaner instead of my doctor’s office like I requested and paid for.
– A cell phone that won’t need almost constant recharging after just two months of use.
– A cell phone plan that comes with 1000 minutes of air time during the hours that I’m usually awake and actually might use the phone.
– A cell phone that, if left on, won’t take down a loaded 747, or disrupt the life-saving equipment in a hospital or dentist office.
To the fury vermin who run the local cable TV monopoly, here’s a note from a very unsatisfied customer.
You bill me for something like 5000 channels of crap. I don’t and can’t and won’t watch 5000 channels of crap. In fact I think that I really only watch about a dozen channels. So why can’t I just pay for the channels I watch?
I really don’t give a rat’s ass about what’s happening in the lives of spoiled college kids on spring break, or the intricacies of Japanese’s Sumo wresting. In fact really I don’t care about any major sports, and that especially includes stock car racing or March over-hyped madness. So why am I paying for all this?
Furthermore, why is my Tivo knock-off DVR Motorola remote control harder to operate than a “programmable” 1980’s VCR? I mean this thing has more buttons than the space shuttle. Is it really necessary to have three buttons for forward and three for back? Tell me Comcast and Motorola what “expensive” Chinese brain surgeon designed this monstrosity?
Did you farm this thing out to the Bulgarian School of autistic remote control designers and give them 2 days to come up with their best design.
Here’s a helpful hint to all you fury vermin executives. Why don’t you install these DVRs on all of your 700 inch flat screen plasmas in your 8000 foot Aspen “rustic cabins” and try to set it to record the next Japanese Sumo tournament. And to make it really fun you should wager your next multimillion-dollar pay bonus on the outcome. I’d bet you’d end up with some real March Madness.
Finally to all you chain smoking, martini guzzling, lobbyist paying, backroom deal making, fat cat energy executives billionaires.
Now I’m no energy expert, but it seems to me pretty obvious that we are running out of oil. Or to be more accurate demand is quickly exceeding supply. Let me explain it to you in a way that you may understand.
Do you remember when you were little kids growing up in the suburbs of Houston and you had a birthday party at school? If you recall your teacher made you bring in enough cup cakes for all the kids in the class. Well it is sort of the same way today except that the cup cakes are oil and the other kids in your class are 3 billion Chinese and 1 billion Indians.
There’s just not enough cup cakes in all the world for this many SUV driving classmates. So get off your fat wallets and figure out a substitute.
I know that now you are making money hand over fist as we pay more and more and more and more for the diminishing Oil supplies. I know that times are good, and you and your private G-5 jets are busy flying you around the world hunting and killing rare and endangered animals to decorate your climate-controlled mansions.
But gentlemen I suspect that even your wives have kids, and perhaps even you are starting to figure out that you have to breath the same air and drink the same bottled water as all of us. Perhaps you even miss that spare home you had on the Gulf Shores of Mississippi or perhaps that penthouse Florida condo that was washed away by the last monster Hurricane.
And sure we all know that the evidence is still “out” on global warming. The recent record global temperatures, droughts, the burning of 2 percent of Texas, and the fact that every glacier on earth is melting faster than your stock portfolio is rising is just the cost of doing business. And I know that its not really global warming but climate change…and change is good…at least for you.
But oil is such a useful thing. It really is a huge shame to waste it by burning it as fuel when you can use the sun, wind, or water.
I mean without oil there’s no way to make anything plastic. So I’m wondering how you and your Comcast and Motorola buddies will enjoy betting on the next March Madness tournament when you have to watch it on your 700 inch wooden big screen plasma block?
