Author: Dick

Is it just me that gets total idiots on the line when I phone a call center for customer service? Sometimes I wonder if businesses send these call takers to the same school where a major portion of the curriculum is geared toward learning how to colossally piss off the customer.

Today I tried to call Bank of America to find out if my neighborhood ATM was up and running after having been down due to the hurricane. The person I talked to could not find my city and didn’t seem to have the faintest notion of about what I was asking.

ME: “It’s in Beaumont, Texas.”
CALL-TAKER: “Are you sure it is in that city?”
ME: “Yes, I live four blocks from there.”
CALL-TAKER: “Maybe I’m spelling it wrong.”
ME: (Increasingly irritated)”It’s B-E-A-U-M-O-N-T.”
CALL-TAKER: “Oh here it is. I’ll have to put you on hold while I call that bank.”

And hold I did, for about 8-10 minutes, before I hung up. I looked in the phone book and called the phone number for the bank myself but did not get an answer. While that was happening, I missed a call that was apparently from the call center. I called the call center back. The person on the other end, a supervisor no less, hadn’t a clue as to what I was talking about. I said “To hell with it,” hung up, and drove to the ATM. It was closed. I should have done that to begin with. But wonderful customer service is supposed to be one of my bank’s big draws.

If you work in a call center, I’m sorry. I’m sure you are very customer oriented and a real people person. I’ve just had many more negative experiences dealing with call centers than I’ve had positive ones. First you go through an extensive phone menu that appears designed to prevent at all costs human-to-human communication. Next you wait and wait and wait to talk to a live person. Then that person has to telephone Earth from whatever planet they are own to get an answer to your question. Oh, and you are put back on hold while awaiting your answer.

It seems like these types of experiences would create a lot of ill will for companies. Then again, I’m beginning to wonder if people in the business world or anyone at all gives a damn about customer service anymore? Or, maybe it is just me.

Events seem to be moving rapidly in what has become a tumultuous second term for our president, GW.

During his summer break in Crawford he had to endure the soap opera played out on the McLennan County road to his ranch on which Cindy Sheehan was protesting the war. During that same period of time Bush saw his poll ratings fall like radioactive snow. Of course, GW doesn’t pay attention to poll numbers. Right!

Meanwhile, the Plamegate affair continued to roll on with it appearing more and more as if GW’s Brain, a.k.a. Karl Rove, had his chubby little fingers in the scandalous pie.

So what would lift GW from the depths of despair in such times? Why a good old fashioned, rip, roaring hurricane. That’s what. Only this hurricane, named Katrina, seriously messed up America’s party city and blew down most of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. What’s more the federal response was called into question, criticized and spat upon by TV news anchors standing in the ever-present water of New Orleans. Brownie, a.k.a. FEMA head Michael Brown, got an atta boy from GW just before he got sacked as an apparent sacrificial lamb.

Then came Hurricane Rita. Whoa hoss! Make ’em stop! It tore up Louisiana and Texas like a Barney Bushdog’s chew toy. Petroleum production took a serious hit. More evacuees. More money the government had to spend.

GW had scored one ringer in getting Chief Justice John Roberts run through confirmation rather smoothly. So why not go for a deuce?

Enter Bush crony Harriet Miers, GW’s pick to succeed Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court. Harriet, who looks on some days a cross between Carol Brady and on other days like Betty White, was never a judge so was therefore WPT (without paper trail).

But the damnedest thing happened. Many members of Bush’s right-wing Christian, fanatical, lunatic fringe base say they’re ag’in’ Harriet. I guess she wasn’t wearing her “I Went to An Abortion Clinic Bombing and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt) T-shirt.

Now the investigation into Plamegate is winding down. Pundits and assorted professional speculators of whatever degree of competency predict that at least Rove and Dick Cheney’s main man, Scooter Libby, will be indicted. Indictments seem very “it” lately as even GW’s sleazy little bug-killing friend from Sugarland, Tom DeLay, was indicted in Texas.

You say there can’t be more. But wait, there is more! Now the press and punditry are making noises about the Plamegate grand jury, a wider investigations and Veep Dick “Lon” Cheney. Wow, I’m getting these weird deja vu vibes a’la Watergate. For those of you who were around back then, do you remember Spiro Agnew? He was a tumbling domino long before Tricky Dick Nixon was run out of town on a rail.

I would doubt something so dramatic will happen as was the case in Watergate. For one thing you have a pretty obstinate Republican-controlled Congress that will let Bush-Cheney get away with just about whatever they want anyway. Some of the extremism that emanates from those hallowed halls on Capitol Hill make me wonder if some of the real Kool-Aid drinkers aren’t the political equivalent of suicide bombers. Relax, I’m being figurative here. I refer to some of these dingbats who are willing to run headlong into something that would blow their political lives all to hell. Going against the wishes of their voters, and the American public, can make that all happen.

Where does it all lead? Around and around and around it goes, where it stops nobody knows. No matter how you feel politically, you’ve got to admit these are interesting times in the life of our government. I’m ready for the next page to turn and to see what happens next.

I did a recent freelance assignment for a publication about local mosquito control efforts post-Hurricane Rita. I mentioned that the U.S. Air Force had been enlisted to help local mosquito control officials in Jefferson County, Texas, fly mosquito missions using C-130 transport planes. Little did I realize how big and how close they look when they are flying a few hundred feet above your home. Jeez Louise! I thought the twin-engine Cessna the mosquito district uses to dive-bomb was “close-in-air support.” Seeing these C-130s up close, up above are downright scary. But I hope they smoke a lot of those little f*****s.

Here I am at the Sign of the Beast a.k.a. Starbucks. Well, it really is a part of the Barnes & Noble store so I haven’t completely sold my soul.

I would not be here in the first place had not our wonderful local Roadrunner service made its daily crap-out. When I returned to Beaumont after evacuating for Rita, my cable TV service came on, somewhat, the night after electricity was restored. Internet service appeared the next day. And I’ve sort of had such service since except each and every day the service goes off for significant periods of time.

The problem is I really don’t know whether it is all storm related or from an existing problem that Time Warner never got around to fixing. I really hate Time Warner Cable. I have never dealt with a more incompetent, totally dysfunctional business in my life. Just maintaining service during times when the area has not been devastated by a hurricane is difficult enough. I will say, their tech service people are generally good. I’ve also had good service from the cable guys who come to your house. But customer service? At Time Warner customer service is an oxymoron.

I wonder how many people out of the nine or 10 here in Starbucks who are using their computers are doing so because Time Warner can’t keep Roadrunner online?

By the way, there is an obnoxious little boy sitting here with his mother and his mother is about as obnoxious. The obnoxious boy is trying to sing “Eye of the Tiger” except he sings (badly) “I Am the Tiger.” Perhaps he should try “Secret Asian Man” or “Warn Snell of Colitas.” The mother is now talking on her cell phone. She just hung up. They’re leaving. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh! Adios ya little shit.

Insanity. Don’t leave home without it.

Why oh why must I have such deep, dark, cynical, jaded thoughts? Experience maybe?

U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Woodlands, Texas, listened yesterday as his East Texas constituents aired frustrations over Red Cross and federal responses to the aftermath of Hurricane Rita. Various news accounts indicated Brady was wearing a bullet-proof vest and was guarded by state troopers in response to an alleged threat made against the congressman.

Next, the news apparently reached the rest of the world early today that Brady had been arrested the previous Friday night in South Dakota for driving under the influence. Brady was reportedly there to attend the University of South Dakota homecoming, where he had graduated from college.

Do you see a connection?

It would not be the first time a Texas politician did something rash to gain sympathy from voters. Former State Rep. Mike Martin, a Republican from Longview, was prosecuted for perjury by the now prominent Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle. The charges stemmed from Martin arranging to have his cousin shoot the lawmaker to gain sympathy for a planned state senate run. I seem to remember Martin, who was sought for awhile by police, was found hiding in some speaker cabinets. However, I read it was a puppet stage in which he hid. It was way back in 1980s, the time that time forgot.

Now I am not accusing Brady of anything. I just raise the specter that odd things happen in politics. I don’t think a DUI is necessarily going to be a death blow to Brady anyway. Despite the Bible Belt leanings of the East Texas Pineywoods portion of his district, the people can be a forgiving lot if you do your job. After all, former U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson represented the area for more than 20 years.