Yet Another Great Customer Service Story

So I am paying my bills right? And I've got one in the stack that is a big fat mistake. When we moved in June, Alltel screwed up the market change on our account big time. A couple months later I got an eight hundred dollar bill and my brain promptly blew up all over the ceiling. I called them, we talked through everything and I was assured everything is fine. So today, as I'm going through the remnants of bills to pay, I find a collection notice (WTF?)from an AllTel account. I've had no disruption of service and remember back in September everything was supposed to be A-OK.

I called AllTel. "Ma'am I don't know how you didn't get a bill"
Me: "I didn't bet a bill for this amount because I PAID IT."
AT: "We have no record of that"
Me: "Then why did I not get a bill after that last call in September when I was assured the bill was a-ok and I didn't owe you anything beyond my regular monthly payments on my current account?"
AT: "I DON'T. KNOW."
Me: "So what do we do?"
AT: "You need to pay the bill"
Me: "I already did"

And then my po-dunk bank pisses me off because I'm trying to pull up transactions online and can only get them from the middle of January 2008 to present no matter how hard I try. (Said bank already pisses me off because they're not Quicken 2005 compatible with transaction downloads. I mean - what's the rush? It's 2008!)

AT: "I have no record of payment."
Me: "And thanks to my hick bank, I can't prove anything either. But I paid the bill, Alltel took my money and assured me everything was fine."
AT: "Well, I can find no record of that."
Me: "So what we have here is a situation where I can't prove I paid this amount and you can't prove that I didn't".
AT: "Yes Ma'am"
Me: "So I have to pay this bill"
AT: "Yes Ma'am"
Me: "So because your customer service people in (the shithole town I live in) can't process a simple market change correctly I'm out another $165? And this is despite the fact that you can't really prove I didn't already pay it?"
AT: "Yes ma'am. I'm sorry ma'am"
Me: "Yes, I will bet you are because right before you came on the line, I agreed to take a customer satisfaction survey and I will be looking forward to that call within the next two hours. You have a great day."

Fuck you.

Clarification

I just want to clarify the post from yesterday. I don't hold anything against anyone except when people portray themselves as victims of their own choices. You know? I mean if you've smoked your whole life, you're to blame for your health issues. Don't ask me to save you if you're not willing to save yourself. And to claim that employers can't hold you accountable for drug addiction because it's a medical issue is bullshit too.

At the risk of sounding churchy or preachy I want to say that I love everyone the way that God loves me. But it frustrates me when people try to shift responsibility for their actions onto society as a whole. Does that make sense? Trust me, I'm not a bitch. Some of you even know that first-hand.

And maybe you'll get my views on church later. I'm very fed up with that area of my life right now too.

Peace. I love you.

Politique

I read a lot of discourse on the web about why I'm voting for or not voting for so and so and now that my candidate of choice has withdrawn from the race, maybe I'll weigh in on what I'd really like to see in our next President.

I can think for myself. I don't need my President to define my morals.

I don't want my President to pander to the NEA, NRA or any other abbreviations except the V.O.T.E.R.S.

I support term limits for each and every elected office in this country. Yes. That one too.

We need more MBA's and CPAs running this country and a lot fewer lawyers.

Faith-based initiatives violate the separation of church and state.

Marriage is a sacrament defined by a church. Any Citizen should have the right to enter a civil union with whomever they choose. It should be required in addition to marriage to be joined by a public official - like in France.

I can control my guns. My government doesn't have to. Guns really don't kill people, stupidity does. Prove me wrong. Some stupid person is behind every senseless act of violence. It is our tolerance for acceptable behavior that must change. Not our gun control laws.

If Johnny can't read, it's Johnny's fault and his parents' fault. Johnny needs role models, not friends. Teach him to respect his elders, respect authority and still question the status quo. And teach the little bastard to read, write and perform fundamental math. If he's a college freshman that doesn't know when to use to vs. too vs. two: Johnny is a moron. No child left behind is bullshit. Find a better way to hold both parents and teachers accountable for measurable learning objectives and hold our children to higher standards so that the can compete on a global level. Some kids do deserve to fail and should. So should their parents. What could we do to stupid parents? That is a quandry...

Our government must stop financing our future with debt. And I only want my government to spend my tax dollars on programs that truly add value. Bailing out a company too arrogant to adjust it's model to consumer demand is a waste of money. If you as a company find yourself in financial difficulty because your sales are down, listen to your god damned customer and fix the problem. Don't ask my government for money. I don't think you're a good investment.

If you lose your job, I'm sorry. But you must understand the labor market is based on supply and demand. If the demand for your skills goes away, then you must be willing to supply a different skill set (which you can acquire with the same federal student aid everyone else is entitled to for the same purpose) or just go somewhere where else where turning that screw pays you sixty grand a year. Get serious. Get smarter. Move up and on.

/rant.

Make it a great day.

Probably not worth reading... Just move along

I didn't even realize that I haven't blogged this week. I'm so sorry. One of the deadliest The number one deadly sin of successful blogging is maintaining a consistent schedule and I haven't done that. I'm sorry.

I've been in a rare mood lately. Yesterday I called it a rare foul and pissy mood, but I guess it really isn't rare if it happens every day. I know I could go to my th it, but given their pace, the foreclosure will probably happen first. What can we do? Nothing. Can't crap out a few months' worth of mortgage payments on what we make now with no assets to sell other than WAIT! A HOUSE! and our tax refund wouldn't even make a dent - besides our lovely IRS didn't have their rule changes in place yet so our return is still "pending" when it was e-filed two weeks ago and we should have had our money by now. UGH. The house has been on the market for one year as of March 1. But the market is terrible. Where our house is located, some 40% of home sales in November were short sales. Why buy a house at full price when you can effectively steal one? The job market is bad and is taking the real estate market with it. If I could un-do the entire Michigan experience, I probably would. Yes, I'm sure I would - even the MBA. I apologize to my husband nearly every day for getting us into this mess. The house will soon be gone, one way or another, and pretty much our entire financial future with it. Option 1: Foreclosure - financially devastating for who knows how long? Seven years? Ten? Plus it's a VA loan meaning we'd likely not ever be able to borrow from them again. Option 2: Short Sale: The VA makes it right with the lender, but we'll have to cover the VA's loss if we ever hope to borrow from them again. In a nutshell, from my perspective anyway, it is very unlikely that we'll be in a position to own a home again unless I make some very radical, unpleasant changes. To de-personalize it, I'm calling it "minimizing under-utilized earning capacity".

Unfortunately, I'm not quite sure how that will be done. The job market is very supply and demand driven as well and I find myself in a place where my skills are not as in demand as I'd hoped they would be. Why? Oh just because of where we live. Most people don't have post-secondary education so most jobs don't require them. Imagine, then, what having a post-post secondary education does for me here? What it did was reduce my wages by half. The most lucrative job offer I had was 20,000 less than I made at the horrible job I left in Michigan. The best offer, the job that I love so much with the greatest boss I've ever had, is $24K less. Don't you go to school to make more money? Not when you're me, evidently. I went to school to get another massive pile of loan debt. I apologize to my husband frequently for this too. I just feel so profoundly guilty and I don't know what to do. Because we're here, changing jobs doesn't even make sense. I won't make any more money so why bother? And did I mention my job is awesome? This semester I'm almost even feeling like I might be okay at it - no matter what last semester's SEI's say! I digress...

It always seems to me that things progress from bad to worse to completely shitty. Sometimes, of course, life throws me a bone - like the job that I actually like for a change - but mostly, I think that is to keep me from being completely batshit crazy. I am not 100% sure it is working. Because, the day after we get the first forclosure letter, because of DiscoverIndies (the website I had hoped to launch to promote independently owned hospitality businesses) I got an e-mail from a broker telling me that my dream is for sale. Running a business with exactly this configuration and location is something I would love to do the rest of my life. I'd keep it open year-round though. Most definitely. It even almost has a banya. Perfect. I did the business plan for it in Graduate School. If anyone can help me out with half a million... e-mail me.

Do you know what rock bottom is like? I could tell you but I doubt I'm there yet. I have, however, reached the milestone where buying powerball tickets is really my retirement plan. Go. Me.

Quickies:

Ramen noodles with diced tomatoes added are delicious. It is hard to improve on the perfection that is ramen, but make chicken ramen noodles, toss in some diced tomatos and add a dash of parmesan cheese. Perfectly delicious.

I am more than a little pissed that Edwards left the presidential race. The media made it a two-horse contest early and never really gave him a shot. Fuck the media.

Lost is back! Awesome.

The writers' strike may be over. I'm glad. I need more House (because all I do is watch TV these says)

Go find all the video from the Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Conan O'Brien brawl that you can. I'd link you but I'm lazy. Two of the three will be on Comedy Central. The other on NBC. If you live under a rock or, God help you, don't like the Daily Show, et. al; the three hosts appeared on one another's shows Monday night and staged this big mock brawl. It was the funniest thing I've seen in awhile.

Crunchy's blog is still weak but Slutpeter's is worse. Get to Pete's from Crunchy's (Everybody's Favorite in my blogroll) and tell him so.

Oh and in case my blog has brought you down completely, Sarah Silverman is F*cking Matt Damon.

Hey!

Guess what???

My washer is fixed! I had a local place order the right part - the one Sears didn't bring - last Friday. It arrived today. Sarge fixed it in five minutes. Catching up on the laundry may take years.

Now my car is broken. Specifically, the spedometer. Shit.