Dear “Customer Service Representatives”

I didn’t have a bad day today, you’ll be glad to hear.  I got a decent amount of work done, the traffic wasn’t too bad coming home.  All was well.

Until we got here and found the note from the postman, informing me that I hadn’t been at home today, when he called. 
Armed with the friendly little note, I went on the Internet to try to establish who on earth had sent me a parcel.  And it turned out that it was you.

You see, I’m not actually an idiot.  While I was speaking to you, two days ago, I informed you that I would not be at home to receive my new phone in the post.  I asked you, quite clearly, to have the parcel delivered to my kindly next door neighbour.  We’re lucky, His Nibs and I, to have the kind of neighbours who will take in parcels for us without  having to be asked in advance.

I was informed it would arrive three days from the conversation.  Which is tomorrow.

Despite this specific agreement, you took it upon yourself, of course, to send the phone to my house.  So now I'm faced with the extremely annoying job of getting to the sorting office to collect the parcel.

Except the sorting office is open from 8am to 2pm from Monday to Friday. 

The postman called, apparently, at 8:05 this morning.  I would have thought that if I wasn’t at home at that time of a Wednesday morning, I was probably not going to be around on weekdays between these times. 
Anyway, I decided that it was your fault, for not sending it where I asked you in the first place.

So like a fool, I decided to ring you.  I don’t know why I’d make a decision to do something so annoying, when I was already so annoyed.

You surpassed yourselves today.

I was instructed, by the infuriating recorded voice, to choose whether I wanted to pay my bill,  report a fault, make a service inquiry or whatever other nonsense they could come up with.

All I know is that the list of options was so long and boring that by the end I actually didn’t know which one I needed.  All I knew was that “speak to an actual human” wasn’t a choice.

Around and around we went, with me shouting at the recorded voice, and him ignoring me.  Eventually, on about the eighth round , I threw my head back and shouted “For God’s Sake” at the ceiling.  So he put me through to Broadband support.

No, the human I’d finally got through told me, he couldn’t put me through to the person I needed to speak to.  He could only put me back through to the damned recorded voice.

I eventually got through to another human, about ten minutes later.

I informed your “assistant” who assisted in absolutely no way, that you had sent the phone to the wrong house, and that I am not in a position to collect it. Was there any chance you could kindly send me another phone?  Since I’m not going to collect the original one, it’ll eventually be sent back to you.

No, no, she informed me, that’s not how it works.  If my phone is broken, that’s my problem.   I need to get in touch with the maker of the phone apparently.

I don’t think so. The phone was supplied by your company, and since your colleague had already sent me one phone, I couldn’t understand why she couldn’t sort it out.

Her best offer was to send me a bag, into which I am to place my broken phone.  I’m to post it back to you.  And I’m not to collect the new phone, I’m to contact the phone maker for a replacement.  They will eventually post it back to me, and I assume this whole caper will begin again.

The phone is rented, I’m so daft that I’ve been paying a couple of euro a month for the use of this five year old phone for years. 

I informed her that none of this was going to happen.  The phone doesn’t work, kindly stop charging me rent for it, I’ll just buy a phone in Argos or somewhere.

I still need to send back the old one.

I admit I started to lose my temper a bit with the nonsense she was now spouting.  What’s this foolishness about an empty bag being sent to my house?  And by the time all this sending rubbish around the place is over, I’ll have been without a phone for a fortnight.

I ended up telling her I couldn’t deal with her, and hung up.  Her last words to me were that she was sorry I was so upset, and she’d cancel the line rental.  I barely caught her words as I switched off the mobile.

Shite.  Now she was going to cancel the phone line altogether.  I need the landline.  I like talking.  And His Nibs is very fond of looking up the Internet to find the most dangerous and unlikely holidays he can suggest to me, just to torment me.

I sighed very, very deeply, and re-dialled.  After another infuriating, distressing and depressing round of stupid questions from the disembodied voice, I got through to another human at last.

I told him my tale.  I told him that I’m buying a phone tomorrow.  And that I want to just bring it home from work, plug it in, and start making calls. 

“Could you please hold” he asked me.  “It’s our distribution department that sent the phone to the wrong address, I’ll put you through to them.”

“Do NOT put me on hold” I told him, very loudly.  “I do not wish to speak to the Distribution people.  I don’t care where the phone is, or where it will be.  I’m not getting a new phone from you.  Do not cut off my line.  Do we understand each other?”

“Yes”

“So when I bring my new phone home tomorrow, I’ll just plug it in, and it’ll work?”

“Yes”.

“That’s fine.  Thank you.”

I was too exhausted to make dinner, after all that.  It may not sound like much of an ordeal, but it took a miserable forty minutes.

I can’t wait to see what on earth happens tomorrow.  I presume another phone will be sent to the neighbour, or it'll be the line all along and not the handset.  Or something else difficult and irritating.

I don’t think I have the strength to ring you two days in a row.  Just sort it out please.