Have you picked up the phone lately to call a business and heard these
much anticipated words: "Thank-you for Calling ACME Blow Torches. Your
call is valuable to us. Please stay on the line and a customer service
representative will be with you shortly." a wait of approximatly 2
minutes and then.... "Thank-you for holding. A customer service
representative will be with you shortly. Thank-you for your patience."
two minutes of a Johann Strauss Waltz, or some 40's American Swing or
maybe you might even hear Billy Idol(which wouldn't be so bad...heck I
dance in my chair to White Wedding) "Thank-you for holding. A customer
service representative will be with you shortly. Thank-you for your
patience." Now after about 20 minutes of this, even Billy Idol couldn't
make you feel any better. This kind of mania has been happening a lot to
me lately. And the two most hated words in the English language for me
now are'Customer Service'. I have been cool; I have been kind; I have
maintained my dignity and integrity . But last Monday at the Post Office
I totally lost it. I will get to the Post Office fiasco. But I must
inform you what else was going on in the last week or so. We rented a
U-Haul Van to move stuff out of one apartment to move most of it to
Storage. The next day we walked into the U-Haul Office at the designated
pick-up time of 4:00 P.M. When Luigi was all finished with the forms,
the woman (Michelle) behind the counter gave Luigi a very long receipt
with a lot of printed info. It was a contract she said. As soon as he
finished signing the receipt he noticed that the return time was
7:00A.M. the next day. "What is this? We have to turn the Van back at
seven in the morning?!" "Yes" Michelle says sweetly. "That's when the
next reservation comes in." We proceeded to explain to her that no one
had told us we had to have it back by 7:00 when we made the reservation
on the phone. A'slight' detail that a customer should know. It really
was poor service, you see, but obviously Michelle didn't see the
common sense of it. In her little brain it did not occur to her that had
we known about the time limit we would have called somewhere else.
Eventually she told us to call her supervisor in the morning. When I got
home I called back and told her that the whole thing was insane and that
it was totally unfair to us. She finally agreed(no supervisor necessary
apparently) but insisted Luigi come back to sign a new contract. Oh
great....we have so much time to kill, we would love to come back in
this traffic to sign another contract. I figured out the other day why
there is so much widespread inefficiency and irresponsibility when it
comes to---ug!---Customer Service. It's very simple. Most of these
people are making minimum wage and have very little, if any, training.
It just costs the businesses too much money to train when there is
turnover constantly. And they don't ever fire anyone because of
lawsuits. Anyway on Monday afternoon I went to the Post Office(no
minimum wage here) to find out what had happened to my overnight Express
Letter I had mailed on Saturday. The office I sent it to never received
it and Post Office Tracking Service claimed it had been delivered at
5:00A.M. in the morning? There was a very long line, so I asked the
person in front of me to save my place and walked up to speak to one of
the Postal Clerks.(Actually the same clerk who had helped me with the
Express Mail on Saturday) I had been advised to give the tracking notice
to someone to research in the back on their computer. I gave her the
notice and she said something about someone would be checking it. I hung
out at the counter for about 5 minutes. "Is someone going to take care
of this?" I asked. She said someone would be with me 'shortly'(don't you
just love that word?). I waited another 5 minutes. I asked her again.
"Would it be better if I waited in line again?" . She caught someone's
attention but the help wasn't for me. So I continued to wait at the
counter as she had indicated to me not to go back in line. In the
meantime a very irritated and angry s.o.b. in line starts yelling at me
and telling me I am holding up the line and he is just trying to buy
stamps and not Express Mail. I tried to explain I had only handed in my
form and was waiting. I do not know whether he thought I cut in line to
get an Express Package mailed or what. But he was so hostile and nasty
to me , you would have thought I had gone over there and smacked his
face. Time was moving and I wasn't! I was getting very perturbed at this
woman and finally asked to see her supervisor........another ten
minutes. By this time the line could have been around the block and been
finished for all the time I was standing there. When theSupervisor
finally made her entrance I explained that the postal clerk had written
2nd day instead of Overnight and that she had kept me waiting. You would
assume that this was a simple matter but the Supervisor didn't get it.
At some point I really did lose it and said in an angry voice that all I
wanted was to have my package delivered on time and why did I spend
$13.65 when I could have done the 2-day Priority Mail. "Don't raise your
voice to me" she said very calmly. I was so frustrated that I walked out
of there even though I heard her mention to the clerk to refund my
money. I had been waiting there for 45 minutes. That week was not a good
one for me. The cleaners lost my favorite pair of black capris and
didn't have a clue as to why they were lost. People with minimum
wage?..........nothing against it.........I just wish they had more
responsibility and been taught better manners, no matter what they earn.
Peach