Phone repairs and the decline of civilizaton....
The first bit of good news is that I have, alone and without the assistance of the phone company, repaired my phone system. I did this with a 120 mph Black&Decker yard leaf blower. Balderdash you say. No, just good use of my native logic and American genius. Correctly reasoning that excessive moisture had caused a short in the outside line somewhere, I meticulously searched for water on the line. I found it under the patio, where water had been leaking all day. Thus the use of the Black&Decker 120 mph leaf blower which quickly dried the offending area. Within minutes of my second application of 120 mph. air I picked up the receiver and surprised even myself to find a dial tone. And I'm glad to see that 100's of fans read my previous post and did not call. But come to think of it, no one ever calls anyway.
Now to the decline of civilization as we know it, or more specifically customer service in that civilization. If you are over 40 you will know what I'm talking about, those under 40 probably think service is just fine these days. This topic entered my thoughts after calling SW Bell TelCo yesterday during the phone crisis. After enduring the call to the Haitian phone tree several times and talking to computers and disinterested Haitians, I reflected back on how the old SW Bell used to be. Looking back, it was wonderful. Number one, they had a big local office, staffed by actual English speaking people [choice #1 on the phone tree]. They also had a actual phone number in the yellow pages, to get to the English speaker. All one had to do, was dial the local number, tell Agnes what the problem was and she would have someone out within hours. If you had to wait for a moment while Agnes located LeRoy the repairman, you could talk to her about how well the high school football team is doing.
No more.
We recently visited Santa Fe and stayed at a B&B where I have loyally stayed the last several trips. The previous owner was a more mature woman, i.e. slightly older than me. But the B&B has recently been purchased by a "young" couple, who I found out went to the same small university I did. Since the owners were away during our visit, I left my name and email address along with a nice note with "what a coincidence we both went to Trinity U". When I got home I sent them an email about our pleasant stay and included some pictures taken at the inn. Well, do you think I've heard a word from these young saps. NoSireeBob. Not a word. Don't these ignorazzi know that although they own a B&B, they are really in the service business, the people business. Apparently not. I suppose they think that they have the finest B&B in Santa Fe and people flock to them for that reason. Well it's not the finest and there are 100's of places to stay in Santa Fe. The former owner used to stay in touch, send specials by email and just generally making you think she liked you and wanted you to come back. Which is the reason I did. I don't know now.
The list of the sorry excuses for customer care in the new service ethic is inexhausable. Neither my phone, electric, nor gas companies have local offices anymore and it takes forever to talk to a real person in Dallas or Haiti, if you can at all. I opened an account at Bank One years ago based on their personal service record [they actually used to advertise this]. Now there is one actual human teller at the bank and every week I get flyers in the mail advertising computerized banking and bill paying....at $5 a transaction. Screw you multi-national conglomerate, I'm getting ready to move my account to a local State Bank where I know an actual person. Probably the worst offenders are the retail establishments that utilize mostly very young workers. Used because they can run much faster to get away from you if you need to ask a question.
Now I am not against young workers, computerized systems where they speed up transactions or any other form of modern improvement. Improvement being the operative word. Apathy in service towards the paying customer is not an improvement. The first saying I heard as a young Army officer was, "take care of your troops". Well the paying customers are industry's troops, and they're not being taken care of. Could be why so many businesses fail these days. Especially the Dot.Com's run by smarmy 20 year olds who stangely know more than people who have been around twice as long as they.
Again, if you are over 40 you know what I'm talking about, if you are under 40 you should have been there.
The first bit of good news is that I have, alone and without the assistance of the phone company, repaired my phone system. I did this with a 120 mph Black&Decker yard leaf blower. Balderdash you say. No, just good use of my native logic and American genius. Correctly reasoning that excessive moisture had caused a short in the outside line somewhere, I meticulously searched for water on the line. I found it under the patio, where water had been leaking all day. Thus the use of the Black&Decker 120 mph leaf blower which quickly dried the offending area. Within minutes of my second application of 120 mph. air I picked up the receiver and surprised even myself to find a dial tone. And I'm glad to see that 100's of fans read my previous post and did not call. But come to think of it, no one ever calls anyway.
Now to the decline of civilization as we know it, or more specifically customer service in that civilization. If you are over 40 you will know what I'm talking about, those under 40 probably think service is just fine these days. This topic entered my thoughts after calling SW Bell TelCo yesterday during the phone crisis. After enduring the call to the Haitian phone tree several times and talking to computers and disinterested Haitians, I reflected back on how the old SW Bell used to be. Looking back, it was wonderful. Number one, they had a big local office, staffed by actual English speaking people [choice #1 on the phone tree]. They also had a actual phone number in the yellow pages, to get to the English speaker. All one had to do, was dial the local number, tell Agnes what the problem was and she would have someone out within hours. If you had to wait for a moment while Agnes located LeRoy the repairman, you could talk to her about how well the high school football team is doing.
No more.
We recently visited Santa Fe and stayed at a B&B where I have loyally stayed the last several trips. The previous owner was a more mature woman, i.e. slightly older than me. But the B&B has recently been purchased by a "young" couple, who I found out went to the same small university I did. Since the owners were away during our visit, I left my name and email address along with a nice note with "what a coincidence we both went to Trinity U". When I got home I sent them an email about our pleasant stay and included some pictures taken at the inn. Well, do you think I've heard a word from these young saps. NoSireeBob. Not a word. Don't these ignorazzi know that although they own a B&B, they are really in the service business, the people business. Apparently not. I suppose they think that they have the finest B&B in Santa Fe and people flock to them for that reason. Well it's not the finest and there are 100's of places to stay in Santa Fe. The former owner used to stay in touch, send specials by email and just generally making you think she liked you and wanted you to come back. Which is the reason I did. I don't know now.
The list of the sorry excuses for customer care in the new service ethic is inexhausable. Neither my phone, electric, nor gas companies have local offices anymore and it takes forever to talk to a real person in Dallas or Haiti, if you can at all. I opened an account at Bank One years ago based on their personal service record [they actually used to advertise this]. Now there is one actual human teller at the bank and every week I get flyers in the mail advertising computerized banking and bill paying....at $5 a transaction. Screw you multi-national conglomerate, I'm getting ready to move my account to a local State Bank where I know an actual person. Probably the worst offenders are the retail establishments that utilize mostly very young workers. Used because they can run much faster to get away from you if you need to ask a question.
Now I am not against young workers, computerized systems where they speed up transactions or any other form of modern improvement. Improvement being the operative word. Apathy in service towards the paying customer is not an improvement. The first saying I heard as a young Army officer was, "take care of your troops". Well the paying customers are industry's troops, and they're not being taken care of. Could be why so many businesses fail these days. Especially the Dot.Com's run by smarmy 20 year olds who stangely know more than people who have been around twice as long as they.
Again, if you are over 40 you know what I'm talking about, if you are under 40 you should have been there.
