Sorry guys, no cute pictures today of my pups, or funny anecdotes about foreign countries. Today I'm going to share my pain and disgust with you - the pain that comes when you let a dependence on technology creep into your life, and my disgust when I realize how much we've let our humanity seep away, bit by bit. It's going to be a long post - fair warning - so you may want to grab a drink and settle in.
Today was a bit of a cluster. I have a big job coming up on Friday, and about a million and three things to do in the meantime, so I didn't have time for today's catastrophe, but ain't that always the case? To give you a bit of prefacing information - I have been having enough technology problems over the last 6 weeks (and problems of magnitude, no less) that it has been suggested I seek out the gypsy who has obviously cursed me and make amends. I think I've mentioned this before, but she struck again this morning, so bear with me.
The count is currently one dead Seagate backup drive (Seagate customer service blows, btw - I'm almost three weeks into waiting for their "48 hour warranty response"), one dead Cavalry 2TB RAID backup system, one dead Western digital drive, and 2 dead laptops, one of which has been resurrected and is basically functional but doomed. We're not even going to go into dead cameras, because I'll end up under the bed, sobbing.
So, that's pretty much all the technology I own, all of it was fairly new, and none of it can I afford to replace. I can't even afford (or find!) the cables to get the data off the drives I (think I) managed to salvage. So when I got up and prepared for part one of my phone deposition this morning (my old boss is getting sued), and my Blackberry Storm zapped and completely died, to say I was not amused would be the understatement of the century.
You could say I was astounded, and be fairly accurate. You could say I was astonished, and be pretty close to right. You could say I stood there like an idiot for about 4 whole minutes simply staring at the device in my hand in a state of, "Are you fucking KIDDING ME?" and you would be bulls eye dead on target. I literally hit the state of disbelief, took a left, and decided to stay for a while.
But, in my typical carry-on fashion, I called in to the lawyer, explained about my phone, and geared up for a visit to the Verizon store. The lawyer, bless his heart, was super genial, said he'd be there all day, and wished me luck in the "black hole" of the Verizon Store. Peachy.
Let me just tell you that my visit this morning to Verizon Store #02451 provoked quite a bit of thought. On their best day, when everything goes smoothly, the Verizon customer service experience is a little bit like having thin bamboo slivers tapped in under your fingernails, then having your hands dipped in lemon juice and rinsed with salt water. Today wasn't one of their best days.
Four employees on the floor. Four customers in the store. You'd think we'd all be out of there in a jiff, but you'd be wrong. There was one woman helping us, three of us in line. Luckily, I knew the procedure, and had signed in upon entering the store. The poor woman in front of me wasn't so lucky, and we had been in line over twenty minutes when she finally got up to the front and tried to pay her bill, only to be told that she had to go sign in in the front and get to the back of the line. As you can imagine, that didn't go over well. I told the Verizon person that I was OK with her helping the poor woman, though she had called my name as next in queue, as did the woman behind me. No go - the Verizon rep sent her away to sign in. Unsurprisingly, the woman chose not to sign in, and instead left the store.
Thought Provoked: When did process become so important, and service so automated, that you are willing to sacrifice customer goodwill to preserve a queue? It would have cost the Verizon rep nothing to help the woman, who was obviously upset, and she had the permission of the only other two individuals who would have possibly objected. And yet, not only did she send the woman away, she did so with no apology, no visible remorse, and an attitude of irritation. I hope to God that woman took her cell phone bill right over to T-Mobile or AT&T and got some humanity served up with her new cell phone provider's plan.
So now it's my turn, and the woman asks me what my problem is. Seriously. Not, "how can I help you" - but "what is my problem." Oh, we could be here for a while. I explain to her that my Storm is dead, and she tells me that she can't help me because they don't have any in the store. Um. Nice try, but I called Verizon corporate on my way over, and they checked your stock. I'd like a new phone please.
She walks away.
Uh, ok. Should I wait? Are you going to check? Are you flipping me off? Did I just cause you to quit and vow never to work within the telecommunications industry ever again, sparking a fantastic career in fast food service? Who knows? So, since she's got my old phone, I wait. And wait. And wait, for what seems like forever. In reality, it's only about 10 minutes, but holy cow when you've got nothing to do, no cell phone, and are trapped in a store with plenty of things for sale but nothing you need to buy, ten minutes is a loooong time.
LO and behold, sweet baby Jesus at 8 lbs and 5 ounces, here she comes lackadaisically strolling back with a brand new Storm in the box. She must have been manufacturing it in the back, and that's what took her so long. Since they didn't have any. She tells me it will take a half an hour to set it up, and calls the next person in line.
Uh, ok. I guess I'll wait over here (though I don't see how you're going to set up my phone when you're helping someone else...but OK, I'll play along). I also was a bit peeved that she kept addressing me as "Meldy." I entered my last name in the system. You have my account in front of you, with my last name on it. If you can't be bothered to address me by my last name out of respect, could you at least not completely mangle my first name? I know that this is petty, but it's a matter of respect - something that was in extremely short supply at Verizon this morning.
So I sit in the front of the store, and settle back for some people watching. AND HOW. I learned alot this morning - the biggest lesson was that I learned how little Verizon actually cares about the people who sendtheir money to the big red checkmark.
The first big wake up call came when an older Hispanic gentleman came in and tried to report his phone stolen. He wanted to cut off his service until he could afford to buy a new phone - in effect, put his phone bill on hold. There was a teeny bit of a language barrier, but not much, and the manager did suspend his account. The fun came when she explained to him that suspending his account did nothing more than prevent the person who stole the phone from making calls - he was still responsible for the charges on the phone, still responsible for paying the monthly bill, and they would still charge him for his plan. There was no compassionin the manager's voice - not one drop. She didn't offer to waive the monthly bill for 30 days and charge a simple maintenance fee - she didn't talk to him about low cost phones (and maybe waive the activation fee), nothing. She simply told him he could pay his regular bill (but not have a phone, so pay for having nothing, basically) , or he could pay an early termination fee of $175. OUCH. The gentleman got so frustrated after going back and forth with her for easily 15 minutes that he simply canceled his service and left.
What I found so disturbing about all this is that the entire time this exchange was happening, a Verizon sales agent was standing on the other side of the counter, behind the Hispanic gentleman, laughing and rolling his eyes. He glanced over at me several times as if to share the joke, but I don't think he appreciated the fact that I wasn't laughing - at all.
I think this is something we unconsciously do as human beings - we are so uncomfortable with other people's misfortune that the majority of us look for humor. We look for something to laugh at, so that we can distance ourselves from their circumstance, and have a solid wall of "glad that's not me!" in between us.
Case in point - I ran a call at the fire department several months ago for a woman that was sick - she called 911 because she had a fever and was nauseous. We showed up, the medic and the ambulance both, and found that the woman was indeed quite ill - her fever was fairly high, she'd been sick for about a week, and she smelled of vomit and unwashed body odor, indicating that it had been a few days since she'd been able to pull herself together. This woman stands out in my mind because we walked into a house that was almost squalid, it was so dirty, and she had SEVEN children under the age of 10. We cared for her, got her straightened out, and got family members involved to care for her.
The minute we all convened back at the station - the jokes came out. We joked about disinfecting our equipment - we joked about the doritos ground into the carpet - we joked about the sandwiches on the counter that looked as if they might get up and walk on their own.
My friend Shawn was riding in the captain's buggy that day, and had not gone on the call, but we included him in the jokes after giving him a brief rundown of what we found on the call. Do you know what his reaction was? He didn't even crack a smile, but looked at all of us, and said "It's obvious she needs help. Did any of you offer to help her? Did any of you offer to come back off duty and vacuum her carpet? Feed her kids? Clean her kitchen? Let me know her address and I'll swing by tomorrow to see if she needs anything and if she feels better."
I have never felt so small as I did in that moment.
I didn't even realize until he said something that my compassion had taken a backseat to my discomfort at her circumstances, or that my humanity had been overwritten by ridicule. It was a big wake up moment for me, one I have tried very hard not to lose, and one that I wish I could have passed on to the Verizon store clerk today who found such humor in an old man who couldn't afford to replace his phone.
I eventually got my phone back from the Customer Service Agent Who Couldn't - although she "couldn't" get any of my contacts, "couldn't" sync my phonebook or calendar (though I saw the phone work in the machine) and couldn't switch out the memory cards, until I showed her how. And wouldn't you know that my backup for my phonebook is on the drive that died? It's been interesting today to relive what life was like before caller ID - every phone call is a surprise caller.
Anyway, I could go on for days, but at the end of the day - it's the little, human things that count. Addressing a stranger with a "Mr." or "Ms." and their last name out of respect. Not making light of someone in circumstances more unfortunate than yours. Being willing to help a stranger who needs it, without them having to ask. And most importantly, and for me this is the hardest one of all, not losing that human compassion that makes us care about the well being of those around us, whether we know them or not. I know that there are days when I need it badly, and I'd like to be able to say that I've done unto others as I'd have them do unto me, and have it be true.