Year in Review: Devil Dealmakers

Year in Review: Faustian Deals

Since I mentioned the phone call that made me so angry I should mention that this has been a year of aggravating situations.

Need I mention the irresponsible shell of a loser man that was and still is the Roommate for the Loserville asylum? One day he will find his match, a young person who will not judge him for being deathly afraid of the dark, to drive a car or emitting an odor and preferring relationships with adolescents and young adults even though he was 36 years old.


Ha, had to get one last entry on him before I lost the moment forever.


I hate it when something does not work the way that I expected. I hate contacting the call center. Seriously, I hate it. I hate it so much that I have to psych myself up to do it. I have to call the number when I am in a good mood and there is a cup of tea in front of me. I must have a pencil near me and a pad a paper. “Why” you ask? Because sometime I cannot believe the dumb stuff that people say to me.



I signed up for auto bill pay for one of my utilities. When I received the notice, I decided that I did not want so much money coming out of my account at one time. So I paid some of it before the draw date. A few days later, I found that my DSL service had been shut off. Why do they have to hit you where it hurt? Why not the satellite dish? I can’t stand that service any way.

I am counting down the days for when I can cancel the satellite dish. I even called a competitor. So funny. When I called the competitor I made it clear that I currently had as my service their major area competitor. I wanted to know what would they offer me to cancel my service and pay the cancellation fee. I didn’t like their first offer but I keep getting phone calls and letters in the mail with better offers. One day I might just take it.

I should mention that when my original contract had expired I called Dish and told them I was canceling. I was transferred to their “Faustian Customer Service” department. Yes, I meant to write that. They offer to you Faustian deals in order to prevent you from canceling the service. Yes, sadly I fell for the devil representatives offer and signed up for another 16 months. When I called a few months later to complain about the poor service on the new receiver, the Faustian representative asked me “well, if you had so much trouble with your previous receiver why did you sign up for a new contract.” The devil is SBC and SBC makes devilish deals.


When I called SBC the silly man on the phone told me that when I paid a portion of my bill the computer expected the entire bill to be paid in full (even though the due date had not passed) because I had 10 remaining from the previous months bill. I suggested that they needed to get a smarter computer because the same computer was removing the entire amount from my checking account in a weeks time. The representative in the most pleasant attitude and supportive tone repeated the ENTIRE EXPLANATION TO ME as if I was not listening the first time. I said, “Yes, I understood you perfectly well when you explained it to me, what I want you to understand is that I think your computer is not very smart and you should send a note to whatever department handles such notes and tell them so on my behalf.” He apologized for my inconvenience and tried to explain it a third time. I interrupted the Faust and thanked him for his being patient with me in explaining in such detail the program in which I had been enrolled and I promised that everything he said made perfect sense to me I just didn’t accept that the computer could not be made to be smarter and adjust for individual payments. Sometimes I think that I am channeling Douglas Adams.


Do you remember the 90s when everyone had a job? Seriously, when unemployment was really low and everyone had a job and you wished that you could talk to, be served by or meet with someone else more competent? I stopped eating fast food in the 90s. I just couldn’t trust what was going on behind the service counter. People didn’t get fired back then they were simply reassigned. It was dark times for customer service and it seemed that for the last few years the industry has been apologizing for it. I mean, really apologizing for it. You can’t take to anyone via phone without hearing some scripted apology and you immediately put into a mode where now you feel bad because some dumb guy making 7 an hour feels sorry for your inconvenience. Really they should be apologizing, these contracts that we are required to sign in order to maintain our existence in the cyber, cellular and digital world are making sign away our choices. Argh. I can’t stand it but I am evolving. I don’t care anymore for apologies, I just want the Faustian deals to stop.

Well, i have run out of 2006 to make more of my Year in Review so look for my Year in Reflections entries next week.