we give a shit, inc.

i want to start a company called “we give a shit.”

people can call in and complain about whatever they want to complain about, and we will be sympathetic and empathetic and listen and soothe, and generally act like we actually give a shit about their problems. we don’t solve; we merely are a shoulder to vent on. there is no automated phone menu to suffer through first. we give a shit, inc.

yes, i do realize the totally impractical implications of this — for instance, what if white supremacists called to complain about nonwhite people? there would be no sympathetic ear from me; in fact i’d certainly go off on them. so sure, there’s a million reasons it wouldn’t work. i’m just tired of being treated like an insignificant piece of trash in a big corporate system.

what started this rant?

i spent waaay too long on the phone today with sbc, attempting for the second time to understand my bill. their bills are the absolute WORST i have ever seen. they are (possibly intentionally, by design) absolutely and utterly the most confusing invoices i’ve ever seen. i’d wager that probably 95% of their customers have no idea if what they’re being charged is correct. i’m a pretty sharp cookie, and i STILL don’t get it even after approximately 1 hour on the phone with three different customer service people, two of whom insist that i have not been overcharged for anything.

part of the problem is that charges and credits aren’t always listed on the bill in the month that they occurred, and every line item has a date range attached to it, and the date ranges don’t necessarily match up with the bill date. and some things that are labeled “discount on service” are discounts (with a little negative sign next to the number), and some are actually charges (no negative sign). is that “discount” that’s actually a charge an error on their part? it sure looks like it. so i have absolutely no idea what i’m being charged for, and if that credit that’s on there applies to my current charges or to last month’s charges… so have i been overcharged for something, or not?

another part of the problem, and what spurred my idea, is that most of the people at sbc that i’ve talked to over the course of this debacle seem to not give a shit whether i end up understanding. they just continue to spout numbers at me — none of which match up with anything on my bills, and tell me “so you see, all of these charges are correct.” and of course, at the end they always go into their little spiel (which i can recite from memory, what does that tell you): “you may be receiving a survey in regards to how i’ve helped you today, and please be sure to let them know that i’ve made you a very satisfied customer today.”

part three of the problem: sbc also has this HORRIBLE voice-recognition system that you are required to get through before you can talk to a live body. i thought that the “press 1 for english” button-punch menus were bad enough… now we’re expected to tolerate a faux-friendly computer voice that is supposed to recognize what you speak at it but hardly ever does? so do i use my regular voice, or do i speak up and enunciate very clearly? how long do i wait before starting to speak? what if i can’t “state the nature of my problem” in five words or less? if i pause to think about how best to word something to try to get it to understand, it gets irritated and tells me to hurry up. these things don’t recognize full sentences. i shudder to think how people with heavy accents fare when using these systems.

doc observes that we’ve been trained over the last 20 years or so to accept this “customer abstraction layer” as normal — that it’s normal that we often can’t ever talk to a real person on the phone. i don’t think i’ll ever accept it. i long for the days when you called a company and somebody answered the damn phone. i just wonder if maybe it’s too late. maybe it will never get better. maybe it will only get worse.

all i can say is, i’m still seriously considering cancelling my sbc service over this, and i can guarantee you that i’m never doing something as stupid as switching my dsl service from regular to pro, and then back again, ever again.