Consumer Complaining

Sometime back in the lame days of high school, I believed that if you were a large organization, you knew what you were doing. After all, if the people who built the organization had/have the intelligence, foresight, and wisdom to create a company that people pay to have in their lives, something right is happening.

Then I went to the State Department, and realized that nobody really knows what they're doing and that many, many people can take eight hours to fill out an expense report and puncture that time period with trips to the conference room for donuts and/or bagels as well as refills of coffee, all in the name of, presumably, an idealism that things are better because of their actions.

Finally, after leaving the bubble of college, I determined that not only do most people have no idea what they're doing...they also don't like what they're doing. And they don't care about you at all. Renting apartments, buying a car, going to the dentist; all of these things seem enoromously more complicated than they need to be (except in Washington; thank you Linda for your fabulous work getting Wentworth Place), and they all seem to come with a perch you must stand on that is mere feet above a pit of disaster that will lead to an endless spiral of lame fees, bad pizza, and dreams about being attacked by large fish.

I ramble about this not because the dentist office plans on charging me money if I don't show up for my appointment, but because I am entangled in a relatively harmless and relatively stress-free but nonetheless pointless drama with the greatness of Verizon Wireless, which would qualify as an organization mentioned above.

Holly upgraded her phone at Radio Shack some months ago, but the douchebag who sold it to her decided, for whatever reason, not to include Unlimited Nights and Weekends, which, according to VW's marketing, is pretty much a staple of any contract. I don't blame the phone company in this case; I blame the useless vermin at RS (which, curiously, since college, has failed in nearly every respect to sell me a product that has worked. They also do not sell a key adapter used in the video setup at Five County Stadium, so a loss of points for that as well...). Nonetheless, the lack of the UNaW caused a $1000+ surcharge on a bill, and while Verizon has confirmed that the RS guy is indeed a douchebag and that those charges need to be removed, they have yet to remove the absurd error, about 2.5 months after it happened. And I don't mind getting the bill, and everyone I've dealt with there seems to be very gracious and understanding, but it's like, okay, your company is the backbone for businesses worth billions of dollars, and you can't get some guy sitting in a dank corner cubicle in a basement to take four moments and remove these surcharges? I realize I'm a long way from the front of the line, but seriously, let's move this process along so my little world can be balanced.

While we're at it, let's tackle AVAlive and Western Digital. AVAlive is a medium-sized business that makes computers for small businesses to do video work. Props to them for taking me as a customer even though I'm just one guy and presumably, a client that is not really going to build a relationship with them. I appreciated that, just as I appreciated some rep meeting me in a Walgreens parking lot to give me a new FireWire card because I thought mine was faulty. That was in November '04.

Sadly, in the last few months, the computer I purchased has been lame. It has three hard drives inside it; all three have gone faulty. Two I've had to replace, and thanks to the cool warranty programs at Western Digital, I've been able to do so for free, minus the shipping costs, hassle, and total loss of data associated with these crahses. (The last hard drive, C:, a Seagate, came back to life when I unplugged it and plugged it back in. This amazed me.) That said, I'm not sure if AVA is at fault, if WD is at fault, or if the fan is just lame and not cooling these drives enough. AVAlive didn't call me back when I left a message, and WesternDigital, after I sent an email saying, look, this crashing, it's bad for both of us, I've sent back two drives, so let's make it stop, sent a reply saying, well, have you tried running diagnostics on the drives? No, you idiot, I sent them back to you...I do not have them anymore...I cannot run diagnostics on them...

...and it just amazes me that all of this sort of behavior passes for customer service. I don't know if there was ever any sort of golden age of customer service in the small towns and small shops, but I don't think I've run across a company since college that treats people (including me) as 1. at all intelligent; 2. a law-abiding citizen (hello employer); and 3. capable of giving useful feedback. Even the bus driver at Disney I was talking to made the fact that the company owns ABC, ESPN, and radio stations sound like some sort of revelation, like, ooh, look at the knowledge I am imparting on you, stupid ignorant wastrel.

(While I'm here, I would like to thank Ralph for calling the room at 7.45am and waking up me and Holly. That's the way to treat your customer.)

Perhaps (in a grand sweeping closing) I'm just horribly tired of being nothing but someone to sell something to...someone to give coupons to at the Winn-Dixie checkout, someone to give 30% certificates to at Borders, someone to get an email address from for promotional offers from Verizon, someone to sell a worthless snack pack to on a Northwest flight. These organizations should be thanking me, asking me for input, in attempts to make their businesses better.

Maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about, which is, of course, often the case.