Mini Update

Squeaky Wheel 1:  Asshat Telephone and Technology 1


What does that MEAN?  My computer complaint generated a refund of $29.97 which was woefully inadequate. (I was requesting $250, remember). And the internet was not back on... So I CALLED...

The annoying trouble is, if they think you owe then money, the HING BLOODY HINGING AUTOMATED SYSYEM will only funnel you to people who are able to take your money. The man I reached was pleasant, nice, sympathetic... and had no power to do a FREAKING THING but take my money.  So he transferred me.

I waited on hold AGAIN.  And the system asked for my identification number... which I didn't have... BECAUSE IT WAS THE WRONG FREAKING PLACE!  I might have yelled at the person on the other line... they couldn't transfer me BACK which seemed totally unreasonable... Then the idiot HUNG UP ON ME!  You hear that AT&T? One of your subcontractors is REALLY RUDE!

*cough*

So I called back and swore at that automated guy... If you swear at him, he says, "It sounded like you said, you wanted to talk to a customer service representative. Is this right?" *snort*  Who the HECK got stuck programming all that swearing so that was how he responded. I've experimented over the past months. Pretty much any demand as to what he can do to himself gets that response. Most often I just say 'YOU SUCK'.

And I had to wait on hold again... And I reached a nice man who was even MORE sympathetic... a very nice man with a deep soothing (I suspect black) voice, so listening was nice, too, and he had the decency to stay on the line with me to make sure I was actually connected to who he meant to connect me to...

Felicia.... Oh, Felicia... You need a few lessons in customer service.  She CLAIMED that all those repair people would have FIXED my bloody phone... Felicia, were you at my house? I told her to run our records--they could verify in ALL that time that no call lasted longer than maybe 10 seconds. On occasion we COULD connect, but then it would DROP. MOSTLY we couldn't connect. People calling US never got past 2 rings.  I went through the comedy of errors of these repair people, none of whom had the story from the LAST several people who'd been here. We only got it fixed because WE finally understood the problem well enough to walk the guy through all the things that DIDN'T work so he had a fresh starting place (a short in one of our jacks was interfering with all calls, so he had to disconnect that jack entirely from the system). Felicia also said, 'well I SEE here they've already credited you the..."

Ahem!  We were not short service for one half of ONE month. We were short five months... NOT ADEQUATE.

So she said "the only thing I can do is send you to cancellation."

Kathy, in cancellation, heard my tale and was OUTRAGED on my behalf and within five minutes had credited us another hundred dollars--enough that our account was no longer in the red (so internet was on the next morning).  She said for any MORE, I would need to write to corporate headquarters, and encouraged me to do so. She said while I was at it, I should give them an eyeful about the inefficiency of this infrastructure. The people who collect your money should be able to adjust bills RIGHT THERE... no transferring around... Sure, maybe it's a manager, but the current system puts people on hold WAY too long. (my night of calls totaled 2 hours--if I hadn't have been so determined, I may very well have given up--honestly, I think that's their goal)

So the lesson... right from the get go, if you have trouble like this, just SAY "I want to cancel" because the cancellation department is the only one with any power.

Source

My OTHER Ass

*cough*

So Weight Watchers at Work fell through... not enough people in my building... but I was psychologically set to start, so I signed up online. They had a special--buy a 3 month package, get the 4th month free. Plus some discount on the sign-up, I think.  For $65, I have 4 months.

New Weight Watchers is a little different. I get quite a few more points, but foods HAVE more points too--As best as I can tell, this is an attempt to count carbs, as well as the fat, fiber and calories that have always been part of the formula. They just have it set up to encourage certain choices.

I am on day 3.  Not super hard (though a little). I LIKE the online food diary. The only trouble is I like some transparency for planning... right now, i don't know how many points something is until I plug in a specific thing, where before I had a real feel for broad categories of things "things like this are more, things like this are less". I'm not saying the old system is superior, but i think the online set-up doesn't have the 'okay, it works like this'.

And that's probably ME. I think a lot of people prefer to learn food by food. I'm a big picture person, though... remember?  "what trees?" (which is why I married the guy who sees life for the pine needles).  But I'm smart... I will learn it. I will just need to be diligent for a while.  I've stayed on points so far... used some of my weekly floating points for Friday cocktails (will do the same for Saturday cocktails)

I LOVE that they've added fruit to the freebies... Veggies always were, but when I feel really hungry, veggies don't really do it for me. Fruit can in the short run (had a peach last night at 1am because I felt like hunger might keep me awake--that was my staying up too late, but still... it's not like that's a rarity for me)

So anyway... that's where I am.

Back to normal Monday. Hope you all have a great weekend!