Tag: rude

Protests & Parking Passes

This morning, I just had to laugh.

You see, as I pulled into the parking lot of Will’s House where I work, there were a few police officers waiting at the entrance who stopped me due to a much needed counter-protest down the street. The officers informed me that I couldn’t park there at the moment unless I was law enforcement or faculty.

As I explained to them that I worked there at Will’s House, I realized that I was driving our van which doesn’t have a Fac/Staff parking sticker on it making me look like a liar.

To my knowledge, this was the first time this had ever happened in our parking lot. It just so happened to fall on the very day I had to ride the van into work due to my car breaking down last week.

Go figure, right? But wait, there’s more.

When my car broke down last Friday, it caused me to have to coordinate using the van instead as I was driving for a newly set up carpool to work with a coworker. This put Lindsay in a pickle because she had a doctor’s appointment to go to on Monday.

Unfortunately, due to an expedient rescheduling last week, that appointment wasn’t on our calendar. So, I thought I was in the clear to use the van. I was wrong.

I wasn’t able to get ahold of Lindsay on Friday to confirm it, though, because she was working an event all day. This caused a marital scuffle to ensue on Sunday, ironically right before entering the house of Shalom. I, as usual, was being hard-headed. We made up during the service that conveniently was on the topic of forgiveness.

Anyway, all that to say, try not to allow your car to break down, ok?

It makes things so much easier. It also makes your bank account $400 richer.

Volvo katulampun alla
Photo Credit: Anssi Koskinen via Compfight

Customer Service Confessions | an apology to the tech on the other end, but not to the boss

Yesterday, while on the phone with a certain support line for a certain company that shall remain nameless, I found myself to be more rude than I ever am to someone in person. Let me explain. You see, I have called this company many times in the past ten years over a multitude of issues.

These days, my patience really wears thin when I am routed through the automated navigations before I can actually talk to a human. By the time I finally do get to someone for whom english is not their native language, I have to re-iterate all the information that I have already given to the automated voice.

This makes me question why I needed to even submit it all in the first place in order to be routed to someone who can’t see that information.

What is even more frustrating to me is that I am passed along to about three more people, all of whom I have to reiterate the same issue (which takes a long time to explain).

Again, I have to repeat all my information with each new person in order to finally get to someone who can talk intelligently about the issue and recognize it as an issue without reading me some prescribed script that doesn’t at all address the issue at hand. This usually seems to take somewhere over the half-hour mark before I get to this point… every time.

Now, call me discourteous, but at that point I tend to be a bit firm on what it is that I am explaining and what it is that I need. I realize that over the years I have been gradually being more and more unfair to the tech who is now able to address the issue, but who couldn’t control my experience before I finally got to them.

Sometimes, I admit, I take out my frustrations with a faulty system on people who are just doing the best that they can in that system.

I’m sorry.