one of those days

Last week one of my favorite J. Hilburn clients decides on a suit he wants. This week he is traveling, so we get together this afternoon. I want to get his order in before the month closes. It means I'll enter a new commission bracket at a higher payout for the month. Still not enough to live on, but better than zero.

I spend about an hour with him. He falls in love with a specific fabric. He chooses several custom style options. Even a tie that'll be perfect with the suit. It really will look great on him. I come home and begin to enter the order. The fabric is sold out, and is no longer available. Lost sale. Disappointed client. Not good.

Then Shari calls me on my cell.  She tells me that my landline is not working. I can call out, but when someone calls me, they get a message that says, "You have reached a non-working number."

I call Time Warner Cable (TWC). About 30 minutes of troubleshooting ends with no solution. We set an appointment for a tech guy to come to my apartment between two and four. I cancel my plans for the day. I get two automated calls around 1:50pm, each asking me to confirm my appointment. I say, "Confirmed," for each of the two calls.

It's after four and the technician has still not arrived. I call TWC. "I'm sorry ma'am,"  the customer service rep says. "The technician tried to call you and confirm the appointment but no one picked up." I say (not too calmly), "I'm looking at the call list on my cell phone and no one called." Then the story changes.  "The technician said he came to your home but no one was there."  "I never left my apartment," I say (even less calmly than before).  "And, I live in a building with a 24-hour doorman.  NO ONE FROM TIME WARNER CABLE CALLED ME AND NO ONE FROM TIME WARNER CABLE CAME HERE!"  I ask for a supervisor and get James. He offers me a $25 credit for my lost day, and says he can try to  schedule another appointment for today.

I morph into a crazed person, telling poor James how much I hate TWC and how it's so understandable that they're always ranked last in Customer Service surveys. Patient James just listens, and then tells me he'll call me back when he has a time for the technician's second visit. 

As promised, about fifteen minutes later James calls back. I'm calmer now.  "Did you call yesterday to get a new promotional rate?" James asks. "Yes," I answer, wondering what that has to do with anything.  "Well apparently when you spoke to Edwin (from El Salvador), he did made the changes to your bill, but he also changed your home phone number."  

What possible response can one have to that?  I'm speechless.

But by then James had remotely fixed the phone issue, gotten my number back, and  offered me a monthly rate of $20 less than the promotional rate Edwin from El Salvador had applied yesterday, good for 12 months. "I'm surprised you'll even speak to me after my rant earlier," I say.  James and I are now good friends. "Oh, I'm used it," he tells me. "You were calm compared to some people who call and insist on talking to the president."

I think he is just being nice.