Seriously, About Moving And Customer Service [Disappointing People]

If the thought occurs to you, “Maybe we should think about moving,” please call me. I’m the last guy to encourage people to call me, but this madness has to be stopped.  I can’t think of anything more painful than moving has been.

I’ve already recounted the painful details of the move itself (so painful, I can’t even summon the strength to paste a link to the posts).  But a separate and equally painful experience writ large is the entire ordeal of changing, terminating, and creating services at the old house and at Farmington.  Telephone, gas, electricity, cable, internet, post office, insurance, and the hundreds of  that are tied to a mailing address (credit cards, subscriptions, memberships–I’m having flashbacks just thinking about it).

The major items–phone, gas, electric, cable, internet–all unleash their own unique brand of telephone-menu customer service hell.   AT&T has discarded the ever-maddening system of push-button menus in favor of voice recognition.  So when you say you’d like to establish cable service, it says something like “I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. Please repeat.” or “You’d like to milk a cow.  Is that right?” But should you ever reach a real person, the chances that the information you are given is correct is near zero.

Of course, you won’t realize the information was correct until either 1) they come to install something different from what you ordered; 2) the bill comes with vastly different charges; or 3) when the service isn’t working properly, you call in for support.  The upshot is that if you ever get an answer you don’t like, hang up and call back because the answer will change when you talk to someone else.

Proves once again that people are morons and customer service stinks.