Phoneplay

Why on Earth can I not talk to a freaking human anymore?!!!  I don't know about you guys but to me telephone customer service should be renamed to "Customer pain in the ass". It's total b.s. Now I do realize that with today's technology and mass consumerism of technology that it becomes difficult to employ the amount of people necessary to deal with the gargantuan influx in phone calls that a single company gets, but seriously, your automated service crap is just not doing it for me.

Here is a list of automated customer service lines that have been pissing me off lately:

- Cell phone help lines
-Telephone banking
- STUDENT LOANS OFFICE!
- The Grande Prairie Post Offices 

I will start with the Cell Phones. 

  Dear Cell Phone Company:

If I am calling you, I am more than likely calling you because I have a question about why my phone bill is 500 dollars more than it should be.  Maybe you're just being smart and proactive, knowing that the caller is more than likely disgruntled and wanting to make your day a living hell.  Okay, I'll give you that. HOWEVER! Making me go through a thousand automated options:
For service in English, please press 1
For service in French, press 2
If you're feeling frustrated and want to beat small children with a rusty golf club, press 3.

Is not going to make me any less disgruntled. In fact, it's probably going to do the exact opposite! Because after waiting in a cue for a half hour only to get to a fucking automated voice telling me to press this and that. And I don't know if this is done on purpose or not, but they never EVER seem to have the option that you're looking for.  So you have to listen to a thousand lists of shit that you don't need just to have the option to talk to a human.  It is stupid and infuriating, please remedy this or I will be forced to destroy you! 

Sincerely, Nyall Savidant.


Now let's discuss telephone banking.

 Dear telephone banking people:

Your service is terrible and quite un-necessary. First I am stuck with an automated person, and when I actually do talk to a human, you never seem to know what the hell you're talking about.  So, you should probably just get rid of your service all together. :)

Now to personally address the Government of Canada and their God forsaken student loan help line!

You make me so, SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ANGRY! I want to scream profanities through my telephone, out of your receiver into your ear, through your cochlea and into your Government employee brain! First things first.  If you're going to start your service with a robot asking me to key in every single piece of my personal identification information than DO NOT make me regurgitate it to you once I finally do speak with a less than competent service representative. You would think that if there is technology to have a robot greet you on the telephone, that you would be able to transfer the information that I typed in -45 seconds before you picked up the phone- to your computer screen, so that I do not have to repeat it to you to prove who I am.  And secondly, if I'm calling about making payments and stuff, why do you care if it's actually me anyway, you're getting your fucking money at $2.85 interest per day for the next ten years regardless, so I'm sure you don't actually care who it is you're talking to. 
 
Secondly: I am calling this line because I'm stressing out trying to figure out the in's and outs of this freakin student loan thing so when I do call you and I'm finally put through to a human please refrain from being rude to me.  I know that you've been at a call center all day and are probably hating your life.  But seriously, I need to figure this shit out so I don't screw up MY life.  So rushing through everything I want to know, and not explaining it so that I understand, followed by rudely asking me if you've "answered all my questions" is not exactly helpful. And no, you haven't answered all of my questions.  You've responded to my questions with a slew of words that I do not for the life of me understand, because you're talking a mile a minute.  And instead of just answering my simple questions, you take me through a long list of things that I already do know and understand; which leads me to conclude that you actually don't know the answers either, but you can explain the parts that are easy to understand. You're unhelpful, and I hate you.

Yours truly, Nyall Savidant.

I don't really feel like ranting about the post office, because I'll just become furious, however I will continue with the whole customer service thing.

Tech support, what the hell is with tech support these days? At the risk of sounding like a racist jackass I have to say, I would rather have to deal with an automated service rep, than an actual human that I can't fucking understand.  I'm pretty sure that I've seen job adds for those things before, and one of the only requirements is that you can speak, read and write English.  Apparently these jobs don't get many applicants because I've yet to have one single tech support person who is fluent in English, and if they are, their accent is so thick that you can't understand them anyway. How are you supposed to tell me how to fix my computer, when you don't know what I'm asking you? Or when you don't know how to communicate an answer to me in a way that I can understand the words coming out of your mouth. I took Italian in my first year of university.  I barely know any of the language anymore, but I somehow feel that I would be able to get a tech support job for some Italian company, and as long as I mumble a few audible words I would be okay. 


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