Waiting for An Alcoholic Housecat

06/16/11  |  8:10pm

Tannica was incorrect.  This time I speak with Tasha.  I ask where the technician is.  She says the appointment was cancelled yesterday.  I tell her, no, it wasn’t, but that’s beside the point.  I’m referring to the 12-hour window that Judy confirmed, Jenae backed her up on, and Tannica set in stone.  Where is THAT technician?  Tasha concedes that she does not know. 

And that would be when I lose my cool.

 I take two days of no internet, no TV, staring at that damn dangling cable, out on poor Tasha.  And then I apologize, I know it’s not her fault personally.  But there’s no communication happening here, this is a horribly run business.  My husband works for the Gap.  If you bought a pair of khakis, and he told you to wait in line while he got them from the stock room, and didn’t come back for three days, someone would say something to about it.  They would not let that slide.  She suggests I schedule an in-home appointment.  I tell her I can’t take the time away from work and have no reason to trust the scheduling anyway.  I want to know where the hell this technician is.  Someone needs to hold this person, this company, accountable.  She places me on hold for five minutes, and I am connected with Catherine.

Catherine is empathetic when I explain the circumstances for the eighth time.  I am not sharing new information- she has heard all of this before from other customers.  This is not comforting.  I ask her to contact dispatch and find out if the technician is coming.  She informs me that customer service reps are no longer able to contact the dispatch or drivers by phone.  There was once a halcyon time where this was possible, but it was determined that they were calling too much, and that privilege was taken away.  The best Catherine can do is email Dispatch, but the response can take up to 24 hours.  This is not how “Dispatch” works.  That is not what the word means.  Call a taxi company.  That is dispatch.  You cannot refer to yourselves as “Dispatch” if no one can call you. 

Catherine says, “If they don’t come tonight, they’re probably comin’ first thing tomorrow.”  I ask her what “first thing” means.  She says that’s between 8 and 2.  I posit to you that the only creatures who would consider two in the afternoon “first thing” are housecats and alcoholics. 

Catherine does have one possible solve:  She emails Dispatch with an instruction to call us directly.  She tells us we will either see them tonight, or they will call within 45 minutes.

I tell Catherine to go ahead and schedule an appointment for tomorrow, and then if they show up tonight I can cancel it.  But my husband, smart man that he is, asks if that will automatically cancel tonight’s visit.  Catherine says it will, so we leave it as is.  She gives us our ticket number:  2192952.  I genuinely believe Catherine did absolutely everything she could to resolve this.  She was friendly, professional, sympathetic, frustrated with her own limitations, and ultimately, accomplished nothing on our behalf.     (Call length: 38:52)