Started as a ramble, turned into a rant

There were a bunch of things I wanted to ramble about over the course of the week, but I was too late/exhausted by the time I got home. Let me try to remember some of them:

(1) DIY as opt-out. I'd blogged earlier, in reference to Emily Matchar's book, about how cooking can be one manifestation of opting out, i.e., the market is not offering me what I want, or if it is, the price is ridiculous, so I'm going to make it myself. This kind of opt-out is my standard operating procedure; I cook well, easily, and doing so gives me more choices at a much lower price. And it frees up money for the things I don't do as well, such as home repair. I would absolutely DIY more around the house if I were more skilled, but I tend to outsource home repair (and improvement) because of the skills-needs mismatch. This is especially true (the preference to DIY, or more specifically, to opt-out) because my latest bouts of outsourced home repair and improvement created problems as they solved: the drywall repair guys scratched the new bathtub, among other things, and made messes of things. It also took too much reminding on my part to get them to finish every part of the job. Then, the painters scratched the bathtub again, after I'd already had it fixed (they weren't supposed to be in there, so I hadn't warned them, but they ended up cleaning their brushes and rollers in the tub). They also painted over the outlet covers and vent. Really? The floor guys chipped the newly painted walls. And so on. Each of these jobs was necessary and overall worth it, i.e., I couldn't have done it myself, but it made me wary of the hassle of relying on people.


So when it came time to fix my laptop screen, I opted to do it myself (with a friend's help). It was easier than I would have thought, and if I had to do it again, I could probably do it myself (having seen how it's done). When it came time to hem three suit jackets (yes, I just bought three suits; there have been a lot of suit days recently, and I've outgrown (or undergrown) most of my older suits), I first thought about taking them to a tailor; definitely worth the price. But then I decided against it because of the hassle (getting them there, picking them up, risking their getting lost amid the holiday madness). They don't look as great as they would with professional tailoring, but they fit, and only someone really looking at my wrists will know the difference.

But this isn't about food or home improvement or tailoring; it's about opting out of sectors that aren't meeting one's needs. Which brings me to another issue I wanted to ramble about: horrendous customer service. I know that call line people have crappy jobs and get a lot of mean people, so I generally go out of my way to be (and stay) as polite as possible, but occasionally, I snap. As with snapping in family situations, I snap when I'm not being heard. I know it's a crappy job, but it's still your job to listen to what the caller is saying. And the caller is likely stressed out about the source of the call.

Take the time, years ago (when NetBank still existed), when I called NetBank to say that there was an electronic transfer that I had not authorized, for $600, for a "Progressive Insurance premium." The unhelpful person on the phone said, "are you sure you don't have insurance with them? Because they got your account and routing number right." Yeah, sparky, anyone who's every gotten a check from me has those numbers, and everyone with a NetBank account has the routing number, and the checking account could have been a typo based on one number. Use your head, but more importantly, don't f* with me when I'm telling you that there's $600 missing from my bank account.

Something similar happened not once, but twice, a year ago when my credit card company got bought out by Barclay's. Two things happened: (1) my automatic payment setup transferred over, but apparently too late for the next payment, and (2) there was fraudulent activity on my previous card that was identified as such by the previous issuer, but somehow transferred to my new account under a different account number. When I called about the first issue, bitch on the phone said, "if you are having trouble making your payments on time, we can refer you to a service for that." Because there's nothing that clients love more than being condescended to and blamed for the bank's error. When I called about the second issue, I was transferred/hung up on (perhaps accidentally?) five times while explaining what had happened. By the fifth time, I was understandably furious, especially because I'd been told that the other account had been referred to a collections agency. And nobody could tell me what that meant, or explain it. So they kept transferring me, and then making me explain again, and then hanging up on me.

I always thought that kind of thing was in the customer-service no-no top ten. I was a computer lab assistant in college, and--there was a focus on service as well as technical stuff--we were taught not to keep sending the person from one helper to another; it was up to us to make the other calls--to do the legwork required--and get back to the customer. Just sayin'.

Update: LiveScience has posted a slideshow on bad customer service.

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While I'm ranting, I want to tell you about one of my coworkers to exhibits RM qualities. I guess "RM qualities" has become a catch-all for all kinds of cluelessness, including but not limited to boundarylessness and aggressive talking. Anyway, remember how RM would express suprise whenever I wasn't following whatever schedule for me he'd created in his head? Even after I explained, each time, that I didn't follow a fixed schedule? There was that time that he came in at 7am on a Saturday morning, making all kinds of noise, because of course I'd be up; I often was (but he was often away on weekends, so how would he really know). Anyway, I have a coworker who pulls similar $hit, and it's really f*ing annoying. He'll come into my office in the afternoon, see me eating, say, "oh, I thought you'd be done with lunch by now," and continue to talk to me as if I'm supposed to drop my food because he didn't think I was going to be still eating it. One day, we were late getting back from a meeting across town and I was texting on the metro because I was supposed to meet friends for dinner at 6pm (I am often in the office until at least that time). He couldn't stop saying, "But you're usually still in the office then," He just couldn't comprehend, "but I have dinner plans so I was going to leave a bit earlier, and I got in a bit earlier to do it." I've explained many times that I don't adhere to a fixed schedule--I don't have to; I come and go as I please (or, rather, as I get work done). But some people can't let go of the frameworks they've created for you.

While we're on the topic of RM-related excesses, I'd like to reiterate the irony of extroverts' extroversion not correlating with actual people skills. I told you about my recent RM redux; what's amazing about these guys is that they're great with people on a superficial level. They're outgoing, they make friends, they trade favors, etc. And then they just drive you up the wall with their lack of actual people skills. They overstep your boundaries, they try to make dumb-ass conversation with you like you're a five-year old, and they get upset when you're just not that into them. I may not be outgoing, but at least I get along with people.