The modern world

If you want to talk to a human at any big business, for instance AT&T, prepare yourself to search and search for a telephone number. Once you find a number, get ready to answer a bunch of questions put to you by an automated voice. Saying agent or representative does not help, the automaton just gets confused. Once the electronic voice realizes you are not going to go to at&t.com, it tells you the wait time compares to the Ice Age, hoping you will give up. If you continue to wait, eventually it connects you to someone in India, who knows English but sounds like Punjabi. Then the real test comes. The representative wonders what you mean when you say you got an email to sign up for auto pay and you say you already auto pay. You try to explain the cost of doing business with the company has caused you to drop the telephone of your bundle. You want to know if dropping part of a bundle means I need to re-sign  up for auto pay. After explaining myself twice, and failing to give him a secret phrase I established in 1986 when I signed up for service, he said he would have to call me back. After he called back, he gave me an answer -- no I do not have to re-sign up. Then I asked since I had dropped their phone service in the middle of the billing cycle, would I get credit for time I did not use, but automatically paid  out of my account this past bill. He tells me I need to call back when the next bill comes out and the company would credit my account. So it falls on my shoulders to make sure they do their job.

Then comes the matter of a gift card I ordered through Amazon for a nationwide business. I understand this time of year the burden of work for delivery companies exceeds the norm. Plus the ice storm we had also caused delays. However, the company tracker indicated the gift card would arrive by 8 p.m. Friday. It did not. Now the tracker says it should arrive today by 8 p.m. At noon today the delivery company left an Amazon purchase at the office. This purchase I made a couple of days later than the missing gift. Trying to contact the delivery company will be a repeat of the phone fiasco. The company website does not offer a phone number nor email address.

I do not have the umph to do two battles in one day, so I will wait until tomorrow. If the gift card has not arrived, I will have to play CIA agent to contact the dern company.

'Tis the season.