| (no subject) |
[Jun. 29th, 2009|04:38 am] |
In light of all our recent losses, I know it's going to seem silly for this to be the one I get stuck on, but I can't help it. You're free to go on thinking it's odd, I'm certainly not going to try and stop you, lord knows I never have. But I will, if nothing else, try to explain why I am still awake at 4:30 in the morning, thinking about a man who contributed nothing more to my life than an extensive knowledge of dubiously effective cleaning products.
I have spent an inordinate amount of my life's waking moments between the hours of midnight and 5 AM. Prime infomercial real estate. It's when I am most awake, it's when I am most creative, and it's the same schedule most of my friends have always kept. And through many a late night in college, with the TV left on for background noise, this man yelled at me, at all of us, to buy his products or our lives would be empty and meaningless. And we'd always stop to listen and laugh, then go back to what we were doing. He was an inadvertent backdrop to some of the best nights of my life, on couches with conversations among people I miss dearly, and through him, through his commercials, through an irrational yet real association, I've always been reminded of them. A big, bearded, screaming string tied to my finger.
I could be here, at my current home, six years removed from college, and hear "HI, I'M BILLY MAYS HERE..." and just smile, thinking of all the times I'd heard it before, and all the people I'd heard it with. Now? It's just one more bridge to that past burned. Plus, he seemed like a guy who legitimately enjoyed what he was doing. My hat goes off to anyone who can do what they love and make a living at it.
But he always was one for a bargain, and he saw that we already had three celebrity deaths, and knew that if he acted now, he could throw in the fourth absolutely free! And with that tasteless joke out of the way, here's a moving tribute from his English counterpart and best friend on a Tampa radio station. Godspeed Billy Mays, and best of luck convincing a choir of angels that their wings could always be cleaner.
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 26th, 2009|11:57 am] |
I can say, with confidence, that almost everyone reading this has a cell phone. And I can say, with an equal amount of confidence, that at some point during your ownership of said cell phone, it is going to malfunction. It may be a device issue. It may be something on your account has gotten misplaced. It may be that your service provider is doing a massive billing system conversion that is randomly disabling voicemail for entire states. Or it may be that your neighbor has put five bullets in your nearest cell phone tower because an endangered bird was nesting there, its habitation materials were blocking his signal, and no one could do anything about it because of the bird's protected status.
It's going to happen. And when it does, you will end up on the line with someone very much like myself. And I'd really like to help you make this process as painless as possible. For both of us. No, truly, I would. So here are some things to keep in mind before striking out on your treacherous excursion through mind-numbing hold music and swift, hazardous transfers in the world of customer service.
1) Now, bear with me here, because I know this is going to sound insane, but I swear to you it's true. Every phone purchased through an official channel, and even some through less reputable means, comes with a book. And inside that book -- here's where things get weird -- is everything that your phone can do and how you can go about doing it. Isn't that WILD?! If I remember correctly, it's called an instruction manual, and I'm still not making any of this up, but it will walk you through your phone's functionality step by step, page by page. Withering sarcasm aside, if you think it's a problem with the phone itself, or if you just can't figure out how to do something, you can save yourself a lot of hassle by starting here. Because if you call me, and it truly is just a setting gone wonky inside the phone, or a menu option that needs to be highlighted? I'm basically going to be reading out of the very same book when I'm helping you. Do you really need to wade through a transfer and stay on hold for 25 minutes to take dictation? I didn't think so either. But sometimes manuals get lost, and sometimes the issues are outside the scope of being manually corrected by the user, and I'm more than happy to help. Seriously, that's why they're paying me, keep it coming. But while we're on the subject of helping with valid device issues...
1a) You wouldn't take your cat Woogums to a human-practicing neurosurgeon because she was having runny hairballs. You wouldn't take your toaster to your local auto body shop because the bread was coming out a little more done than you'd like even though the settings knob was on light. So why would you call your cell phone's customer service line because your DSL was out? Why would you call about your cable bill? Why would you call because your computer was running a little slow? I'm not asking for much, because I'd rather not get used to perpetual disappointment, but at least try to keep your services straight. Just because I know how to work a TiVo doesn't mean that's what I'm at my desk to help you with. And while we're still on the subject...
1b) The company I work for already offers a bajillion different phones, all of which I am expected and somewhat eager to learn about (I am a techno whore after all), all of which I have profiles on to help navigate through, and all of which I am provided the settings for because our logo is stamped right on the outside. These phones are enough to keep track of, believe me. And they are all I am expected to keep track of. Not to sound materialistic, but does the name on your phone and the company on my pay stub match up? Then let me take care of that for you sir/ma'am, we'll have you back up and running in no time. But when you call in with the Fujimatsu XKQ-352 you bought off of eBay from a guy in Hong Kong a few days ago and unlocked to use on our network, and you want to know why it won't get on the internet? Guess what. I don't know either. I don't know, and I have no way of finding out, nor do I feel particularly inclined to, because half the time it wants settings we don't even USE in North America. That phone could have a death ray on it for all I know, I may end up barbecuing your children in a beam of concentrated destruction while trying to program your proxy settings. Call the manufacturer and pray they have an English speaking support line, because I've got nothing. And that doesn't change, no matter how much you yell.
2) Stop yelling at us! Seriously, how screwed up are your priorities that you're going to let yourself get to the point of elevated blood pressure and unhealthy emotional responses because you can't text message your buddy Earl to let him know your cousin's sister's aunt's nephew's friend wrecked your boat and you can't go fishing tomorrow morning because you have to go help look for the body? I get that you are frustrated. I get that sometimes you have been calling in about the same issue for a bloody month now, and yeah, that'd start pissing me off too. And yeah, I get that you don't care that you are talking to a different person every time you get on the phone, we are all just different facets of the same company. I accept these things. But seriously, where is it getting either of us if you decide to punish me for the sins of six other people before me by letting me know how incompetent all of us are? Anyone who has ever held a job, anywhere, in any industry, knows that all employees are not created equal. Some people are Ginsu blades, some people are rusty butter knives, and if you've been slathered in tetanus-butter during your last several calls, I'm sorry. But I've got news for you. When I get on the line with you? I genuinely want to help you get your shit straight. I like my job, I am GOOD at my job, I get a rush out of fixing technical issues, and if you work with me, I will all but bend over backwards to fix any problem that I know is in my scope, or get you to the person who CAN if it is not. Quick and painless, in and out, done, go back to your life. I will get engineers involved if I have to (which really isn't as glamorous as it may seem, but it sounds important). But the second you start yelling at me, the second you begin insulting me, we start to deteriorate that relationship, and the longer you go, the more inclined I am to look for the first logical reason to get you off my damn phone. I will still do my job, I will still try to help you, I'm just letting you know right now that the gap between what I am contractually obligated to do and what I am able to do is a wide one. And I'm not going to retaliate, I'm not that petty and am in a better place than that personally, but let's just put it into perspective. You're pissed because you have to keep calling. You have to keep calling because your problem isn't getting fixed. Your problem isn't getting fixed because whenever someone asks you an honest question to gather information about your issue, you're calling them a mouth-breathing shit head. I think we've located where the breakdown in the process is occurring! Trust me, and I am speaking from a breadth of experience here...if the worst problem you have this week is that you can't access your voice mail? You go home, you hug your family, and you thank whatever deity is applicable.
3) So we have determined that you cannot fix the issue on your own, and you have done your Zen breathing exercises to keep from screaming obscenities at anyone for trying to do their job. It's time to talk to a tech rep! And the first step toward happiness when talking to a tech rep is to NOT BE ON THE PHONE YOU WANT US TO FIX. Your mechanic cannot fix your transmission while you are driving down the road. Your doctor cannot perform surgery while you are running errands. I cannot fix your phone if you are talking to me on it. Is it the only phone you have? Locate a friend and borrow their phone. Don't have any friends? Locate a neighbor. Already killed all your neighbors and put them in your meat locker? Go into town and find a corporate store. Do they all already have your picture on their security terminal and won't let you in? Find a pay phone. No pay phones this far out into the woods? Then why the hell is your cell phone your only method of communicating with the outside world? This is not 1909. Phones are everywhere. They'll be implanted in our brains by the end of my lifetime, and you'll just poke your left nostril and say the name of whoever you want to call. You can find some other way of communicating with us, I promise you that you can. If you get to me on the phone you need fixed, and you have no other line available, I will do what I can, but there is going to come a point where I'm just going to have to have someone call you back. And no, I cannot give you thirty minutes and perform a personal callback. Thousands upon thousands of people find new and creative ways to destroy their phones every day, and they need to yell at me and call me on the phones they need fixed, too. Let's be fair about this.
3a) Conversely, and this is vital...I appreciate you not being on the phone that needs fixing, but the reason you are not on that phone needs to be something other than, "Oh, that phone's not here right now." Then what, pray tell, are we discussing? The weather? How about those Mets? Boy, that economy is something, huh? I can no more fix a phone that is non-existent than I can a phone that you are on. Let's all put on our thinking caps and big boy pants, shall we?
4) We are now on the line, we are calm, you are not on the problematic device, but you have it there in front of you. It is time to describe to me the issue at hand. I understand that you are not a trained technician, nor are you an employee of the phone company. Your terminology and mine may differ, but we all become pretty good at speaking customerese. Do the best you can, we'll ask some back-and-forth probing questions, and we will figure out precisely what needs to be done. That having been said, I am going to need more than, "My phone just beeps every now and then," or my personal favorite, "This phone don't work." Really? I hadn't noticed. I figured maybe you were just calling to see how I was doing. Another thing that is really going to help speed the process along is to try and organize your thoughts into some kind of sequential order. I'm mildly ADD, I mean hell, look at this article, right? I know what it's like to rabbit trail during the course of normal conversation. But I can also only fix one problem at a time, so I'm going to need you to describe one problem at a time. "Every now and then this phone powers off, but my text messaging doesn't work either, and then yesterday I got an error that said insert Smart Chip, which is kind of what happened last week when I was dropping calls, except then I couldn't get on the internet either." ...wait, what?
5) I'm probably not allowed to get into specifics, but I can assure you there are a hundred different moving parts behind the scenes for every little thing your phone does. As such, when part of it stops working, I have a lot of stuff I need to go through, starting at the top and working my way down, because it's not going to do either of us any good for me to skip steps or run screaming in circles through my systems. As a former programmer and web designer I understand this more than most. I spent a couple years working in a computer language where a missing semi-colon in line 23 would cause your computer to burst into flames of the blackest pitch and awaken the dread lord Cthulu. With this in mind, I ask that you A) be patient with me while I cover a lot of ground as fast as I can in the most logical progression possible and B) don't ask me what exactly went wrong after I finish fixing it. There are things that happen in our systems that we don't even really understand. Bits fall off, privileges get revoked, suspensions get misapplied, when you have that much information shooting across that complex of a system handling the information for 80 million some-odd people, lines are going to get crossed every now and then. It sucks, and I'm sorry, but I can't explain it. I just fix it. I could tell you it was a gremlin and only be half-joking. Let us all just be happy it's working again and move on with life.
6) Let us also not get carried away with our expectations of what I can fix. Think about the air around you while you're strolling along later today. Think about how much information is now just saturating that airspace in the form of radio waves, cellular signal, WiFi, god only knows what else. It is nothing short of what would have been considered high magic not too long ago in our species' history. And sometimes it just does weird shit. I can fix systemic issues. I can dispatch engineers to fix mechanical problems on the towers. I can correct the settings in your phone. I can replace your phone if it is truly borked. But if you call in and tell me that every Tuesday for the last four months while heading east on Main Street you hear your own voice echoing back at you from 4:23:02 to 4:26:49 PM, I am going to apologize for the inconvenience and then sit in silence with my head in my hands for about 45 seconds while I try to figure out exactly what it is you want me to do about this. You know what interferes with cell phone signal? EVERYTHING! Buildings, trees, fog, rain, microwaves, hospitals, particularly thick gravy, Criss Angel, dementors, you name it, it is screwing up your cell phone signal. Short of arming me with thermonuclear weaponry and a license to creatively reconfigure the landscape, there are going to be times when I am going to have to use the phrase "Nature of the service." As in, "I'm sorry you cannot make or receive calls from inside your bomb shelter while wearing your tin foil hat and standing next to your bitching home-made Tesla coil, sir, but that is just the nature of the service." And you don't get to yell at me about that! You don't! These are the universe's rules, not mine! You call MIT and take it up with a physicist and leave me out of this. I only took physics as an elective, dammit.
6a) Also, I need to introduce everyone not familiar with it already to the phrase "statute of limitations." In law, this basically means that you can only be charged with certain crimes for a certain period of time after they have been committed, because it's just not worth the effort to chase you down Tommy Lee Jones style for seven years over a jaywalking violation. In cellular phone service, this effectively means that if something has been going on long enough, and I am talking months here, then chances are it's not readily fixable. Again, this sucks, but it's only logical. True issues either resolve themselves, or enough people call in to bitch about them that we get them resolved. If I ask you how long you haven't been able to make calls at your house, and you tell me a year and a half? Lady, you just don't get signal at your house. While we're at it, what's been keeping you so busy that you're just now getting around to asking us about this? Ark building? Coma? Alien abduction? Seriously, inquiring minds would really like to frickin' know.
7) Now that the problem is fixed, here are just a few handy tips. First off, bat within your league where your phone is concerned, alright? Punch your weight. Know your limitations. Do not buy your 70-year-old grandmother an iPhone. Do not give your 11-year-old a Blackberry. If you can barely operate a calculator, you don't need a Palm Centro. Universal remote have you stumped? Put the touch-screen device down. I know they are shiny and I know the nice man in the store told you about how it would let you keep in touch with your family, check your e-mail, cure your glaucoma, and grant you the ability to phase shift through solid matter, but these are both things you do not need and things you cannot operate. Learning is fine, I am all about expanding your horizons, but let's build the sailboat before we try and construct the faster-than-light space shuttle, okay? Here's a Nokia! Figure out how to use this without impaling yourself on it, then we'll move you up to some nice LG phones. There is no shame in it. At their core, they are all still just phones. Acclimate yourself slowly so you don't accidentally run up a $76000 data-usage phone bill trying to change your damn ringtone.
7a) If you're going to buy a Blackberry, if you are insistent on going that route, please be able to justify it. If you do not plan on pushing e-mail to it, accessing the internet, or using a messaging service, if you do not even plan on putting a Blackberry plan on it, then why are you spending the extra money on a Blackberry?! Do you not get that these are serious pieces of hardware? RIM began as a company catering to the business elite. Just because they are moving mainstream doesn't make them any less serious. It's a status thing, fine, I get it, it looks nice to pull out of a belt holster, but they are their own animal and they feed off their own aforementioned plans. Yes, those cost extra each month, but if you can't afford the monthly charge, can you really afford the phone? Because without those plans, there is a lot of stuff your phone simply will not do. It's not broken, it's just not happy. And yes, I am well aware that the man in the store did not tell you that.
7b) Ask the store rep everything you can possibly think of, read the contract, review the customer service statement they hand you before you walk out the door, familiarize yourself with what you are dropping hard-earned money on. They are not dishonest, but they are sales-driven. They are working for commission. It is no different than a car lot in that respect. They want to close the sale, I want you to fully understand what they are selling you, because if you don't, it can bite you. And I'm likely the guy you'll be yelling at. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 25th, 2009|12:37 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  resigned | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Hide and Seek, by Imogen Heap | ] |
I go to the old places and I torture myself about the old things. I don't know what I plan to accomplish. Penance for crimes I didn't actually commit to distract myself from the ones I did, I suppose.
I stand in the old spots and I get lost in the old music. I don't know what I plan to hear. Tired songs on a loop, ears straining for the minutia, to make up for all the little things I didn't pay enough attention to at the time, I suppose.
I stand under the old streetlight and I touch the carving in the old tree. I don't know what I expect to learn. Searching in the dustiest cabinets in my mind for that one day, where every last thing went right, and seeing if I can even remember how that felt, I suppose.
I shiver in the familiar ocean breeze and I refuse to zip up my jacket, embracing the wind as I once did. I don't know if I can stand out there much longer, but I fully intend to try. Trying to recapture that fearlessness and reckless abandon I once barreled headlong into everything with.
It was so insanely complicated back then, but the insanity boiled down to very simplistic realizations. The path was clear, even if it was filled with gibbering madmen and Lovecraftian geometry. Now it's all so sane. The banality ate most, and time abandoned the rest. I feel a bit lost.
I go to the old cemeteries and I visit my old friends. I don't know why I think they can help me. Gone too soon and far too long, maybe I feel a bit grateful that they didn't get to see what became of some of us in these waning days. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 14th, 2009|03:32 pm] |
Way too many people, some of them very confused, and not enough of me (perpetually confused). I really think the tug of war is the reason I've been so susceptible to illness lately. Like many of my friends before me, with whom I have a much greater sense of empathy now, I will be shutting most of my online presence down very shortly to head off any number of problems. This LJ will survive, and become a primary conduit once again. My Twitter account est fini. MySpace will probably be leveled, or at least locked down and heavily pruned. Facebook I'm rather fond of still, for some odd reason. Will probably keep it around.
Pardon our dust as we bring it all back in to a much simpler time. |
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[Feb. 13th, 2009|12:05 pm] |
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[Feb. 11th, 2009|12:02 pm] |
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