Going To War Over A Phone Bill
I can be a prickly sort of fellow, in fact you could say that I am working on becoming a curmudgeon. I kind of like it. There is something kind of fun about being a grumpy old man. I am good at it. In about 75 years or so the body will be wrinkled enough to really pull it off well.
Today I received an email from the good people at AT&T letting me know that my e-bill is ready for viewing. Good old Ma Bell, the old battle axe is never shy about sticking her hand in my pocket. I am not one of those people who just pay the bill. I always look at it. Mistakes happen and I am not interested in giving away any more cash than I already do. It is also why I stay on top of their promotions to see if I qualify for any sort of special rate.
Last week I found out that there is a new program that costs around ten bucks less a month than the one I had. So I called the old lady up and asked her to switch me over to the new and improved AT&T. Lickety split the good woman took care of my request and all was good, or so I thought. Had I not received an email from the old broad I would still have this goofy smile on my face. You know the one, it is that feeling you get when you feel like you just negotiated a good deal.
Anyhoo, I dutifully followed the link in the email to read my bill and flipped my lid. The freaking thing is a good $50 more than I expected. Not only that, but the fine folks at the phone company have done their best to create a bill that is thoroughly unintelligible. It is authentic frontier gibberish. I have never claimed to be Einstein, but Mama Shack didn’t raise a complete idiot. So I pored over the bill and inspected it. There were all sorts of charges and credits. And I can’t help but believe that their intention is to make it so difficult to understand that you just give up.
Well I don’t give up. I don’t let things go, at least not if they are important. Had it been possible I would have called the company immediately to have my concerns addressed. But of course their business hours ended 16 hours ago. Customer service is available for about fifteen minutes each day. As a a proper corporation they spread those fifteen minutes around, such as 8:55 am, 9:21 am, 11:16 and 30 seconds am etc. You get the picture. It is 15 minutes but not consecutive.
Jackasses.
I am not going to go quietly into the night. Tomorrow morning I’ll plug the number into the speed dialer and hit redial one thousand and seventy-two times. Ok, pop quiz, who knows Gematria and the value of 1,072. Or as my old rav would sing, echod, mi yodaya.
One of these days I’ll spend a few minutes and share with you my disgust regarding the insurance companies and their fercockteh bills. For now this is all I have got for you.
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