On Customer Service Calls

Traveling.

It requires money.

Nowadays, that involves the use of debit and credit cards. And calling Customer Service for each card to alert them to the traveling that is about to occur.

ING Direct. They pick up immediately. They make you feel like you're chatting to an old friend on the phone. No scripts as far as I can tell. Just nice people who will sometimes ask you to take them with you in your suitcase. I'd fall over with you in my backpacking backpack, I tell them.

Citi. I'm put on hold for a while. So I fold my laundry to the sounds of a female voice intermittently reassuring me that my call is oh so very important to them but no one is available to assist poor little me. No painful elevator music at least. Finally, I'm connected to a nice man with a hint of an Indian accent who calls me ma'am at every opportunity. "Where will you be going, ma'am?" he asks. "New Zealand and Australia," ma'am replies. "Okay ma'am," he says, "Let me enter this in.... N-e-w  Z-e-l-a-n-d..." Somewhere out there there's a little 'a' relishing its freedom from the eternal confines of e and l.

Capital One. There exists a script. Overused, under appreciated, without any kind of slowing of the speech to make sure the customer can understand its carefully written words. Confused, I check to make sure I'm not stuck in an oldschool TV medication commercial where warnings are delivered by a super speed reader to make sure no one notices that nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headaches, body aches, earaches, noseaches, etc, may occur when you ingest that little pill to get rid of a sniffle. Huh, maybe the Capital One superspeed reader actually told me that they were going to slam me with fees galore and I was just too bemused to notice.

Macy's. They aren't for travel. I just wanted a discount on jeans. I'm not using the card ever again. But I still activated it. Shouldn't that be straightforward and not people involved?

Apparently not.

After some automated number punching, I'm transferred to a human who tries convincing me that I absolutely need need need this product. At least, I think it was a live human. It was a southern-sounding female voice who was clearly reading a very mundane script but trying to make it as I'M a reAL HUman, HEar my inFLECtions! as possible, in the vein of friendly prerecorded phone messages. "If you LoSe your JoB," she lilts, "You get ProTECtion!"

Yeah! Saved when I lose the real job I've never had!

"No thank you," I tell her politely. She pauses momentarily, waylaid by the unexpected interruption only to launch full speed into another reading of even more InCREdible BENeFiTs! She stops for a breath. "Uh... I'm not interested," I repeat. Apparently, she takes that as a go ahead. "AlrigHT, let's GO aHEAD and siGN you UP!" Wait. What? It speaks but it doesn't listen. "NO THANK YOU!" I say firmly but failing to keep my laughter at bay. She finally gets it. And my incredulous self is finally free to go.