A hard way to do business. (Or, the cosmic plan to make me miserable.)

Click to enlarge:  Gargantua's meal (by Gustave Doré)

(Testing ScribeFire; forgive formatting errors.)

Either a lot more people are really frustrated in their jobs, or I've recently become an obnoxious moron that invites rudeness from telephone reps.

During my recent move, I encountered one exasperated person after another, from utilities to national retailers, and had a chance to compare promises, online account info, and conversations with real live people. (Yeah, there are some out there.)

Summary: I've had bills for an old address display the new address (silly me, I thought I was being billed for the new address), a near electrical shutoff (silly me, I didn't pay the previous owner's bill), dead cable TV and Internet (silly me, I didn't know the previous owners turned off their cable years ago and it needed a technician), and on the delivery day of my new washer and dryer, Sears calls at 7am and says "Oh, guess what, we don't have that washer anymore, would you like to pick a different one? We'll give you $50 for waiting another week and smelling like a hamper and living with a mismatched washer and dryer for the rest of your miserable life" (silly me, I expected someone to deliver something I paid for).

(Not to mention all the folks at Lowes that scurried like cockroaches with the lights turned on when I walked in 10 minutes before closing. They weren't rude, they were just uninterested. So this is half a rant. Hence the parentheses. So I'm sorta whispering.)

 

c0

Sometimes these things happen in chunks and we think there is some cosmic plan to make us miserable, but in fact the alignment is just in our imagination.

And in most cases, someone else at these very same companies was very kind and made it up to us, but that seems like a hard way to do business.
 
There are few companies left that try to do things right the first time. (I happen to work for one that does, and gets it right most of the time).
 
It's not intentional, it's a reflection of the corporate culture. If you can't get someone to care on the phone about your messed up cable bill, it's a good bet that attitude is reflected quite a few rungs up the corporate ladder.

It is truly the exception to run into a very rude employee who isn't reflecting other employees and leaders around them.

[2013-07-30]

c0