customer service means servicing the customer

can you hear me now? good. can you hear me now? good.
yes i know that verizon can have some annoying commercials-my favorite being the 2 little ghosts boys in the hallway- but i am a big fan of verizon for so many reasons.

in my job of a/p gypsy and now a/r gypsy as a result of a mass lay off, i am in charge of dealing with all the cell phones for the company. luckily by the time i inherited the cell phone albatros we were down to 2 cell phone companies. verizon and sprint, which was nextel which was...oh who the hell knows. anyhoo, i have to occasionally call these companies for different issues. adding a phone, cancelling a phone, suspending a phone. with verizon i have a rep that can handle some of the questions like “i need a global blackberry and a global sim card by tomorrow” my rep says no problem.

if i have to call verizion, which is more than i call sprint “thank goddess”, after a few prompts i am answered quickly by a customer service person who is able to handle every issue i have. they are always nice and courteous and always act happy that i called. they act like your friend. go figure. a customer service person who actually wants to do their job and offer you service.

when i call sprint, after a few prompts, i always have to wait and wait and wait for a human to pick up the phone. all the while listening to ear piercing on hold music. and after the “i don’t want to be here” customer service person picks up they always talk way to fast and can’t ever seem to do the job that i need done. so back into call pergatory i go to wait and wait and wait for someone else to pick up to complete the issue. and they are just as unfriendly as the last person.

i am pulling this story from my experience today. i had to call sprint (which i had been dreading) to disconnect 3 numbers that would no longer be needed. so the first "i'm so happy to be here" guy picked up the call and of course couldn’t help me. even though i had all the pin#s correct and my blood sample matched. no #1 i'm so happy to be here boy couldn’t disconnect the phones so he sent me to #2 i'm so happy to be here girl. #2 girl really just didn’t want to be there. she acted like she would rather be sand papering her eyeballs than answer the freaking phone.
after saying no a thousand times to “would you like to consider only suspended this phone or instead changing this phone over to a broadband card” or whatever people call those things that hook into a laptop so it can get internet. i said “NO NO NO i don’t want to prolong the service in any kind of way on those #’s...please. i also wanted them disconnected on friday.”
#2 girl, “i can’t do that, your cycle ending 2 days ago and it wont be prorated”
“i don’t care. they need to not have service after friday”
“well i will be able to stop all incoming and outgoing calls, is that what you want?” #2 girl said with disdain
“no i just wanted to call you and be on hold for 10 minutes and have you talk to me like i was the hired help” no not really. i really said “yes that’s what i would like to happen but not until friday night”.
“ok i have that set to stop all incoming call and outgoing calls as of tonight” dumbass chirped
“NNNOOOOO, it needs to happen on friday night” sweet little me
so after i finally felt that me and “happy to be here in hell” girl were on the same page she of course has to do the ending dialogue of her speech.
“have i answered all you questions and met what you needed?”
“yes” i said in my nicest voice
and then the best question of all that i love to answer. it’s that last question, that if you have in someway not catered to me being that your job is customer service, that i will be truthful about.
“and one last question-on a scale of 1 to 10 please rate your experience with us today”
she was shocked when i said “6 and most of that is for being on hold for too long” cause i thought 6 was being generous but i refrained from being completely blunt. i need those numbers to stay connected until friday.

cable internet part deux

well i've been having connection problem since i switched over to internet cable. my computer was dropping the signal and the address's (or what ever you call them) were disappearing. so thursday night i called comcast again. got another woman. which rocks and from her side she was thinking that it was the connection and not the modem. if it was the modem that would suck considering that i bought my modem and am in the process of getting the money back from the rebate. anyhoo, after setting me up with someone coming to my house on saturday, which is today, we hung up. and as soon as i hung up the connection came back. the woman called me back and said "hey, it's connecting again", "i know" i said, "well i think it's the connection" she said, "let's hope", i said. and ended the call.

on friday i came home from work and sat down to see what might be up with the connection. nope not there. however, i had the insight early on to write down all the numbers to all the lines (ips, subnet, dns server blah blah blah) when it was working properly and entered them manually. and i was up and going

now for anyone out there who has ever dwelt with comcast you really never know if they will show up on time or what kind of person you will get. will they be nice or just pissed off to be there, so i decided to let go of the stress and let what happens happen. i was scheduled to have someone out between 10 and 12. but at 9.45 dwayne called up and said he was on his way. he showed up at 10 and checked the connection at the poll. dwayne said that the connection was loose at the poll and that could have been some of the problem. then when he looked in the house he said right away that another reason for broken connection could be that i had been using the wrong size cable. apparently cable users should be using RG 6 cable and i was using RG 9. i also asked if that was going to effect some of my digital channels especially the national geographic channel. "sure". so i turned on the tv and luckily the channel was acting up. cause you know the problem NEVER happens when the technician is around. but it was. so he went to his truck and got out the right sized cable, hooked it up and boom the channel came on. yeah yeah yeah.
i went out after he left and bought the right cable. i haven't changed it over yet because it would mean a lot of moving shit. but my internet is working right now. lets see if after i change all the cables over if i have anymore problems.

but in the long run, dwayne was courteous, explained what i needed to fix the problem and gets kudo's for being a nice guy. at my job i'm not always the nicest person to deal with. i have a job to do and i don't tolerate stupid gracefully. however, if you are nice to me i'm nice to you and i always, ALWAYS try to get along with the IT people. i find that if you are nice to the people who keep your system running then they will keep you that way. the same attitude applies to the people who come to my house to repair or install something. they are there to do a job and if you treat them with respect more than likely you'll get it back.

it was easy as 1,2...

by 6:30 last night i was up and running with my new HIGH SPEED internet. and it was easy to a point and that point was running the comcast install wizard. which is really the very first step after connecting all the cables.
everything was good but the connectivity, but my modem showed activity and my computer showed connection with the ethernet, so why wasn't it working? ah shit. i was going to have to call comcast. i was hoping to avoid that. so i called. problem with the system "our representatives are busy at the moment and will take your call in the order it arrived" blah blah. it was only a few minutes, the first time anyway. so some dude named james answered. i explained what the deal was and was on the phone for less that 5 minutes and i had already found out that he was from cincinnati and he was living in nashville and was trying hard to become a country music writer and at the moment beside working at comcast he was working as a staff writer on music row. in less than five minutes. but that happens all the time. i learn way to much about people i've never met. anyhoo, the bastard put me on hold an never came back. well i could have let myself get very pissed off about this but i chose to remain semi calm and call again. this time i got a girl, thank goddess because the guy sure as hell didn't help me. so i explained to "nesha" what the deal was and we come to find out that the reason that the wizard wont work is because i'm not set up in their system as having internet. since i had ordered my modem and kit from a comcast offers website the actually comcast had no idea, so that's why the wizard wouldn't work. but nesha rocked, she got me set up and i was able to get the same username that i had with bellsouth. and that made me excited. it's a simple name and i've had it for around 15 years and no one had chosen it yet from comcast. yeah me.
nesha even helped me set up my email account. and have i mentioned yet that brad really didn't do much of anything? nope not really much other than giving me moral support.
so it's all good now.

fly like an eagle

oh people-todays the day
last week i sent for my self install kit from comcast for HIGH SPEED internet. i have decided to pay the extra money for HIGH SPEED internet and get rid of my land line. and today it has arrived.

i have been on dial up for about forever now and even though i am semi-ok with the slloooowwwwneessss of it i was still not ready to make the jump because of the price. however, it seems now that the only people calling me are telemarketers ( and yes i did sign up to be on the no call list but the roaches still seem to get through) and if i got rid of my phone and the internet through them i will be saving money.
it was getting rid of the land line that has been the biggest obstacle on my road to HIGH SPEED browsing. for some reason i connected the land line to being grounded. it’s the way it has always been. for me and people my age we didn’t have computers when i was in high school much less the ability to fly like an eagle around the world and back from the comfort of my living room. and everyone had a land line. i’m ok with change after the fact it’s the decision to change from what i have always known that makes me stop. it’s in our genetic makeup to fear change it’s also in our genetic makeup to explore. yes i know that i am comparing getting HIGH SPEED internet to exploring but that’s the way i process so back off. this morning i was all set to bitch about the disabled peoples boycott of “tropic thunder” which i think i crazy. if you want to be treated as an equal to the NON-special people you need to get used to people making fun of you. this little rant is much more positive.
so today when i go home brad is going to help me set this hi-tech stuff up. the problem may be is that i have a MAC and that is something my brainiac boyfriend is not familiar with. but as he has said many times in the end it’s all the same. so we shall see.

brad is also the one who found the site that would allow me to get internet for 19.99a month for 6 months and also a (free) modem. and if i’m not on crack i think they will also give me $100. the (free) modem and $100 are after rebate of course. but i’m good with rebates. so far that is.

there is a scene from “the chronicles of riddick” that has been running through my mind lately. the scene takes place after riddick has been caught and is taken to the planet Crematoria. for those of you who haven’t seen the movie. crematoria is a dead world were the day time surface temperatures (like a 1000 degrees) scorch the face of the planet, while the night time temps are survivable. it’s also a prison miles underneath the surface. anyway, when the sun isn’t blaring and darkness is over the land, it’s possible to exist on the surface but when the sun comes it destroy anything living with it’s blast furnace heat. this is how it’s been feeling lately here in the ‘boro. night time is bearable but the the daytime is freaking hot. not to mention that the humidity is around 70%. so everyday when i walk out side and i immediately feel sticky and hot that scene runs through my mind. it doesn’t help that i’ve seen this movie more than several times and that’s the only scene that i remember vividly.

it’s also the dog days of summer. it’s a time from around the middle of july to the middle of august. wikipedia calls it a phenomenon. don’t know why it’s a phenomenon. but it’s considered a “time period or event that is very hot or stagnant, or marked by a dull lack of progress”. also ‘popularly believed to be an evil time “when the seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies” -brady’s clavis calendarium”. yep that about covers it.

however, my banana plants are digging it. especially since i put them in pots this year instead of planting them. i find i am more likely to water a plant in a pot then in the ground.
here are some pics. the bigger tree is suppose to bear fruit in it's 3rd year which is next year.


the leaves are huge. you can see my arm holding up the leaf. they are about a yard long

and here are the babies.