I hate calling customer service.

First, I need to point out that I don’t hate talking to representatives. Nowadays I am waaay more tolerant towards them. I’ve grown up. Lots. I know they are trying their best to help. Unless they’ve just ran out of weed. But then again, that is usually not the case.

What gets me is the waiting time.

In between waiting for a representative I could make dinner, start the process of making babies, go through all three trimesters, spew twins, get them to preschool up to high school, see them graduate from University and have them spew out some chubby grandchildren for me.

And yet still wait to be serve.

And the fact that this recorded man/woman voice apologizing to me and telling me a “representative will be with you, shortly”. There is not supposed to be any comma in that sentence, but I want to illustrate to you how they say it. Pause a bit between “you” and “shortly”.

“A customer representative will be with you shortly, but of course you know better. So if you’re still intent on holding the line, go ahead, sucker.”

It’s as if they themselves acknowledge the irony of their scripted words. These words will then be repeated every 2 minutes you are kept on hold, driving you NUTS.

I know call centers are really understaffed nowadays. And their turnover rates are quite high. Though I have no idea why, if all you do all day is just sit around and answer the phone.

But I’m hastily taking that back. I don’t know what goes behind the scene in call centers so I have no right to be saying that. The high volumes of calls may be the reason why I’m on ridiculously long queues. And those calls are highly likely to be from stupid people like me, asking stupid questions because they have made some stupid mistakes.

I’m not even being sarcastic here. Considering how computer and technology illiterate I am, the system failing on me could have well been my fault.

At least I did us both a favour. Everytime I call customer representative, I identify myself with an account/identification number and a clear definition of my problem. I’ve learnt to do this because I get tired of them asking me that question, and I bet they are frickin annoyed of having to ask EVERYONE that question EVERYTIME.

So there you go, the two basic things you need to get ready if you’re calling customer service. Get your account number ready or whatever it is that identify you as a unique client because dude, they have a huge database to look through, and tell them your problem straight away as clearly as possible. It makes everything less painful for both parties.

“Nathan”, the unlucky guy who happened to be my customer representative today sounded like he was under a lot of stress. YOU KNOW the sound of someone forcing themselves to be chirpy?

They sound cheerful but they drag their words almost to the point of happy slurring. That’s the best I can describe it.

So now bear in mind that I’m cranky and he’s tired. I don’t like being kept waiting, especially being kept waiting on a phone. If it was cordless phone, I suppose I’d be achieving a lot in that 20 minutes I was kept on hold. But I wasn’t on a cordless phone. Therefore I had just WASTED 20 minutes standing there tapping my foot in painful impatience.

He has probably answered 200 calls of the same nature, answered each cheerfully and who knows, cursing in his mind on how stupid the general populations are.

I kept my tongue in check; he kept his annoyance and ridicules hidden. We went through the problems quickly…I patiently telling him what I did prior to the system failing (this is a challenge for all computer literate people because, remember the part where I confessed I’m computer-stupid?) and he patiently telling me step-by-step method to try to fix it. I was feeling very apprehensive. I’ve just spent 15 minutes entering the day’s business data before the system failed on me, and I didn’t want that to be destroyed. I have a whole lot of other things to do before I closed up the shop for the day, and this wasn’t helping.

There’s a lot of political news going around nowadays. The Malaysian election, where finally the people are taking a stand against the ruling party. Governor Spitzer caught trying to spit his…lets not go there. Australians complaining that ruling Labour party is acknowledging the nation’s various problems, but doing nothing about it. Sarkozy married Carla Bruni…oh, that was old news.

There don’t seem to be any relations between this entry and politics. But I assure you, it has a lot to do with it, or will.

I don’t care if they have brought stagnant “progress” and indulgent paranoia for 50 years, go to hookers for $4500 blowjobs or married one of my favourite singers. Whoever campaigns that he/she will cut waiting time in customer call centers and propose a method for doing so gets my vote.

Oh noes…I just used the word “blowjobs” in this entry. Ok. A bit too late now. This entry is thus labelled NSFW. And if you squirm at the word “blowjob”, grow up you freaks.

Poor “Nathan”, though. It must have been hard dealing with another extremely stupid and clueless customer!

P.S: Lesson to be learned from this, boys and girls? Avoid being a tech customer call representative. It’s not worth your stress. What’s with us tech-stupid people out here, and going forth and multiplying with gusto!