A Haven for Vee

Friday, June 27, 2008

Prickly Communication

Sometimes when we're under life's stresses we just don't realize how prickly we can become. I have, apparently, been quite prickly. No one in my usual sphere told me this, but I realized it all the same while talking with Verizon HELP yesterday.

You see, it seems that MSN and Verizon (recently purchased by Fairpoint in my area), aren't getting along as far as technical matters specifically email and MSN messenger. A friend has been telling me for days, weeks, to call MSN and get it worked out. Her philosophy is that I'm paying good money for the service and it ought to be top notch. Yup. I agree.

Many calls have been made this week. I've spoken with a very nice young lady named Vijay from India, I've spoken with Michael, and Whoever-It-Was yesterday. All were eager to help. All didn't help much at all. It was causing my patience to experience a blow out.

The final straw came yesterday when I realized that Michael from MSN had removed my Verizon account from my MSN page. What?! Simply outrageous! My accounts had been combined on the same page for six years.

Ooookaaay, I braved calling again (I really hate calling and sitting on the phone for an hour while someone goofs around not even listening to me and then decides on his own what needs to be done without telling me.) After finally getting through on the second try, I reach a pleasant enough (albeit an idiot) young man — Whoever-It-Was — who made precious little attempt to hear me out. On the fourth or fifth try to "fix" the problem, he asks me, "So what exactly is the problem?" I sigh in my most exaggerated way and say, "You appear to be quite slow. The MSN email account no longer has my Verizon account on the same page and I want it baaaaaaaccccccccckkkkkkkk." At which point, he began to laugh. This almost made me laugh and that would've been no good. No, I didn't want to appear all soft and wishy-washy that late in the game.

So Whoever-It-Was called MSN again and relayed this information: MSN is having big troubles with POP3 servers and they are doing a major upgrade sometime in July and all should be well after that. Until then, I shall just have to visit Verizon email on their site and visit MSN email at the usual site and everything will be cool. As for MSN messenger, well, who cares if one is bounced off gazillion times while attempting a pleasant cyber chat. It's a free service, after all. Sigh. Deep Sigh. Deep Deep Sigh.

I'm going to revert to some truly old-fashioned means of communication here very soon...a tin can and some string...sometimes the old ways are the best ways.

19 comments:

  1. Oh, boy, do I know the feeling. I'm sure when a tech support person pulls up my account there is a big, red flashing message "Warning, this customer is nuts!"

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  2. Oh that is so frustrating and I knew exactly how you feel.

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  3. I've actually been hung up on by someone from Sprint simply because I didn't understand what they were saying and I POLITELY asked them to explain in terms I could understand...not some techy talk. Then I got angry! : ) Making those kinds of calls is one of my least favorite tasks and I avoid it all all costs! What power those people must think they have! LOL!
    Hope today goes great sweetie!

    Jan

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  4. I feel your pain in this one. Our phone company doesn't have a human answering the phone, they have one of those voice recognition systems.

    After about 5 minutes of this nonsense I start using salty words and he tells me in his perfectly assinine computer voice, "I'm sorry, I didn't understand that..."

    To which I say, "Let me repeat ... @#%$%@#."

    - Suzanne

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  5. I can relate to the feeling of frustration. I called Delta because I could not find the answer to my question online. The rep I spoke with could not answer either. I was very calm and polite. I asked to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor got on the line and advised me that she didn't have time for questions and hung up. WOW!

    Hope you are feeling better.

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  6. Back to the days when real people answered phones...and answered in a language we could understand!

    How's the tooth ordeal going?

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  7. That is too funny. And all too familiar. I called AT&T over a year ago to ask them a question about our internal voice mail. I don't even remember what the question was, but I DO remember the nice young lady's "solution". She fixed it to where my phone will ring about 30 times instead of the normal 5 before it goes to voice mail. By the time she came up with this "solution" to whatever my problem was, I was too tired and crazed to tell her that's not what I wanted. So now, when the phone rings and I decide I don't want to talk (which happens quite a lot, actually. ha!), I have to listen to the phone ringing forever and ever and ever before it'll finally stop. I keep trying to trick my husband into calling them back and having that fixed...but just when I think I have him convinced that only he can do this, he suddenly remembers that I'm capable of calling them, too. (makes me sigh...VERY heavily. lol).

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  8. It is very easy to get.... as we say in Texas... "your panties in a wad" when dealing with problems on the phone...
    HUgs
    Linda

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  9. Yes, it sounds like it might be pen to paper time. My tip for dealing with such nonsense is to keep a log of the date, time and who you speak with. The information often comes in handy particularly when dealing with medical insurance.

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  10. Hee hee...oh my. You are too funny. But yep...good old fashioned communication eh?

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  11. Good heavens...but even in the old days we had party lines and waiting and bickering...Will they ever get it right? :)

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  12. You are so funny! It must have been the toothache talking, although I did not sense any prickliness in your posts.

    I agree, often the old ways are best, now if we could only get a real person at the other end of the phone!

    Happy Weekend and thank you for your sweet message!

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  13. Use phone, yes!!! :-)

    Or even snail mail.

    After all, anyone in your own town should get snail mail the next day. And lots of email isn't read, till the next day, anyway. :-)

    How much more of 'the old ways' can you get to, than with dear old paper and pen?!? And it's a thrill to get something that one knows is not a bill, or something printed out electronically anyway. Imagine all the wonder and joy you'd be spreading... with snail mail! Imagaine!

    So, the $64,000 question... how is the tooth? Or is it, the hole where once the nasty tooth was? How be that??????????? Phullleeeeeze give an update!

    Mari-Nanci
    'Smilnsigh' blog

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  14. ROFLOL...You can laugh now, right Vee. I wondered why I received your email reply in such a delayed manner, it was dated 6/25 but I didn't receive it until 6/26 but then one never knows if it's on MY end either! It's all good stuff right? Gray hairs and all! I hope you're feeling better today! I love the phone, I used to actually have and use one not that many years ago....one ringie dingie...two ringie dingie...Lily Tomlin on Rowan & Martin...LOL!

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  15. Ah Vee, I can so relate. .when I finally learn something, I dont' want it changed. . my learning curve is very sluggish at best.
    I do hope they fix the situation and I do hope that when your phone rings it is a happy call and not a frustrating call.
    I once spent several hours on the phone with a fella from India. . trying to fix my computer that was under warranty. He had me convinced I could do it. . I actually was taking the computer apart while talking to him. I still can't believe I actually agreed to try .. you can do it ..he kept saying. .yah. . no. . I couldn't. jeepers. . now I'm feeling prickly in remembering the call ..smile.

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  16. Oh I hope it gets worker out for you soon! I am the phone call maker too because I am a bit more demanding and less soft than DH....

    Thanks for the tip on the vanilla!!When I first saw all those bottles in your photo I wasn't sure what kind of home remedy you were cooking up!! LOL
    Have a great weekend!!
    Hugs,
    Robin

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  17. You have every right to feel "prickly"! I'd feel that same way after waht you described.

    What has happened to customer service these days? Life is getting so complicated with all the new technology changing so quickly!

    I guess I sound like a bona fide old lady now -- lol!

    My mom still has her original "Ma Bell" black rotary phone, Vee --and it still works like a charm!

    Hugs, Pat

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  18. You go get em Vee! Lord have mercy I can down right rude on the third go round, I think you've been quite patient...makes you just want to sock someone, doesnt it?/? Hope all is well soon and everything combined the way it was! You want me to go hit somebody with my cane?
    hugs
    Sandi

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  19. You have way more patience’s than I do. If I get some on the line with a foreign accent, I just have to hang up. I simply cannot understand them. Never mind trying to deal with some technical problem.

    My husband bless his soul got me an IPOD for my birthday. The thing only came with five lines of instructions. I am serious…I am thinking who knows how to do these things with out a manual. I went on line and those self help things put me over the top too. So finally my son was home one day, he sat me down and with in two minutes he showed me just how to operate through the whole shuffle thing. Great! Now I am stuck on managing the songs on Itunes…Can’t wait for my son to come home again. These kids just work these things by instinct I am sure.

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