I've always considered myself a bit of a hipster, the sort of woman who will be the cool granny someday, like Betty White who is in her 90s but remains unafraid to talk smack.
But recently, I've experienced some blow back from the younger generation especially the ones who work in customer service.
They treat me like I'm stupid.
I went to Howard's Pawn Shop the other day to see if I could buy a used Apple Shuffle because I lost the one I had at the gym. These little devices cost $60, half of which pays for the incredibly overly expensive headphones. Mostly, the Shuffle is little more than a flash drive which we can get at the Quickie for five bucks. Because flash drives don't have head phone jacks, we have to pay Apple $60.
Anyway, the woman behind the counter presented me with something that looked like it came from Walle, a strange little device that might have been made in the 1980s. She wanted $60 for it.
"Look," she said, with a liar's grin. "It has a little clip that you can attach to your belt if you go for a walk."
I glared at her.
"Hey, I can get a brand new shuffle for $60," I said.
"Oh, I don't think so."
It was so much bullshit, I wanted to drive her.
It's the same thing when I go to the damned Fido store. I've had to replace my Nexus 5 twice this year and both times the clerks accused me of senile stupidity. First, they showed me how to close all the apps and suggest that maybe I have too many apps open.
"I know how to close the apps," I snap back.
"Did you drop it? Maybe you dropped it."
"The phone doesn't ring."
Then they offer to take the phone and get it fixed and then they don't fix it. In the meantime, they charge me $50 for a piece of crap little lender phone that was made in the 1980s. Then they repair the Nexus and it still doesn't work.
All they need to do is replace the phone with another one.
Things would be so much easier if they had a Lemon Aid policy, like companies did in the old days.
So you see, they force me into old person's thinking. Back in the day thinking.
Remember when a company stood behind its product? Remember when the customer was always right?
Now, companies pay people to take out the customer, make them feel bad, make them think everything is the customer's fault.
I have many examples of this.
I recently spent nearly eight hours on the telephone with Rogers Cable, holding the company to account for an offer they gave me to switch from Bell Media, which by the way, has really good customer service, just lousy products.
The agent offered to give me $200 worth of credits in order to switch as well as a really good rate for my cable service. Last week, I got my first correspondence with Rogers. It was a disconnection notice and a bill for $444.
I was outraged and got on the phone, had my call dropped three times and went through at least four agents before I was directed to customer retention. In the middle of all of this, during a call drop, I got a collection call. Unbelievable.
In the end, after scrapping like a gutter rat, I finally found intelligent life on the end of the phone. She found my original offer. The disconnection was cancelled and my bill was reduced by half.
By the end of that battle, my blood pressure was sky high.
In another encounter with bad customer service, I complained to Loblaws about their stupid app for PC Plus. The thing flutters and chirps and I can't get see the offers.
"Here is a handy trouble shooting Q and A so you can reset your phone," the helpful agent chirps.
"I don't need to trouble shoot my phone," I retort. "It's your app."
Still no resolution on that one.
Maybe it's because I complain so much. But I guess that's what happens when you get old.
You just get cranky dealing with stupid young people.
Comments
Post a Comment