this morning, instead of collapsing back into bed for another hour after connor and madeline left for school, as i am often apt to do, i decided to be productive and pay some bills. bear in mind that it is just past 6 a.m., not the most shining of hours for me on the best of days, and, i feel, a greatly contributing factor in the hasty decline of my patience and good nature over the ensuing hour.
so i go online - pay a few bills...it's relatively painless considering the cost involved - i understand that the electric bill is going to be on the high end; power's not cheap, we live in arizona, it's still summer here. catch up on the gas bill...i overlooked last month, double the payment and we're back to good. kids lunch accounts paid?...check!...they've gotta eat on the days i'm too lazy to make lunch, right?!
but then i get to the phone bill and it's a whole different ball of wax people. my usual $44.93 bill is $136.25!!! the next few seconds came all in a rush...but i think my mouth went dry, i know my stomach did that free-fall thing it does at the bearing of bad news. and i'm pretty sure my eyes started to roll into the back of my head, and i may have even started to lose consciousnous but miraculously was somehow able to stop myself from falling off my chair before things got completely out of control.... ok, so that's not exactly how it went down...but my bill was 136 bucks, and i really was quite taken aback. the dry mouth, eye rolling, and near concusssion didn't actually occur until after i found out what the extra charges were for...
there, in black and white, were 2 charges - $38.08 & $43.98 - grand total, 81 dollars and 98 cents for 2, thats t-w-o, count them. 1. 2. collect calls made by caitlin from a los angeles airport payphone telling us she had arrived safely. (she had to call twice because the first phone drpped the call in mid-sentence). and how many minutes to you think that $81.90 covered? an hour of catching up? 45 minutes to pass the time? no sirree bob! try 14 minutes. 14 stinkin' minutes!!!
...I.N.T.E.R.M.I.S.S.I.O.N...
you may want to go potty or get a drink. make yourself a sandwich. this could take a while...i'm on a roll.
at the risk of sounding like one of those annoying been-around-the-world-92-times-i-looked-this-up-on-snopes-so-i-know-it's-true-send-this-to-10-friends-you-don't-like-in-the-next-3-seconds-or-you'll-single-handedly-bring-about-the-apocolypse emails....just let me give you the heads up on collect calling. read the fine print veeeery carefully before pushing those buttons and asking that operator for help. better yet get a calling card, treasure it. you'll thank me one day when on that rare occassion the absence of a cell phone makes payphone usage a necessary evil.
i was absolutely flabbergasted. it had to be a mistake, $82 for 14 minutes? noway! so i did what any self-respecting, indignant, 6 a.m. bill payer would do. i called the 1-800-suckstobeyou hotline - loosely known as customer service. HA! after going through what seemed like every choice on the options menu i finally get a human being only to be told part way through my initial rant that they are in fact not who i need and "please wait while i transfer you to the next available apathetic, heard it all before, representative." i wait. i wait. and i wait a little more; but not without the intermittent recording reassuring me that someone would be with me shortly. i think by the 8th time around even the automated voice sounded a little sceptical. finally tanisha graces us with her verbal presence. she starts out pleasant enough. i start out pleasant enough. i firmly, but nice enoughly, state my case disputing the charges and my associated feelings concerning them. the pleastantries don't last long. tanisha calmly and robitically reads the prepared explanation of operator fees, surcharge fees, tax fees, and long distance fees that have resulted in our beyond-all-reason bill. and as she assures me that the fees are listed in choice #3 on the voice menu, and as i continue to explain to her just how idiotic it is to put the fee schedule as a 3rd option on said menu and how absolutely riduculous the charges are in the first place, and as i further offer my humble opinion that the company she works for is run by rouges and ripoff artists i quickly realize she's heard it all before and could give a rats ankle about my interpretation of grand larceny. after a little more sparring tanisha finally concedes and offers me a 45% one time "courtesy" credit. i vacillate, still not really satisfied. i ask to speak to a supervisor. fine! she says while assuring me that the $36.89 credit is all i'm gonna get. i vacillate again and we spa a little more. fine! give me the credit and the supervisor! enter melissa. begin round 2. many of the previous explanations and dissatisfactions are reiterated, rehashed...this time a little more forcefully. i tried to make her understand that neither of us had talked to a live operator as caitlin was being connected. but it was all for naught. she offered a few more useless insights and finally admits that she doesn't understand why i'm talking to her anyway because i already took advantage of the ONE TIME courtesy credit and there's nothing she can do now anyway because i already took the ONE TIME credit! which in my mind is her alluding to the possibility that had i not accepted tanisha's rock solid, non negotiable offer melissa might have indeed been able to help me further...thus proving my point that they are all rogues and ripoff artists.
i fully understand that poor tanisha and melissa are only the messengers. i even apologized to each of them in our respective head-to-heads for being so angry. i really didn't mean to take it out on them. frustration got the better of me. i'm not proud of it. i don't know what resolution i was hoping for exactly. a heftier refund for sure. but more than that i think it was about understanding, compassion. and just a hint of acknlowledgement that while they were bound by the policies of an opportunistic company they could still sympathise with my frustration. i certainly tried to sympathise with them between bouts of rage.
but i guess $36.89 is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, and i should count it as a blessing. i am always telling the kids that the "something" i am offering in the one hand is better than the "nothing" i'm holding in the other. perhaps i should start taking my own advice.
