There was once a widespread belief that you could summon the devil by speaking his name. This is the basis for people exclaiming "speak of the devil!" upon seeing someone they were just talking about. Recently, I was midway through writing an email to an acquaintance when my phone rang. You guessed it. Marc denies spying on me, but I can’t help thinking that the devil may have email these days too.
When I mentioned this theory to Z., her reaction was simply, "Devil, thy name is Comcast."
Now I’m not exactly in love with Comcast, but to be fair, that seemed a little harsh. My suggestion was that perhaps Comcast is more of a minor demon.
Z.’s response was, "Well, think about it next time you have to talk to Customer Service."
Now that’s a different matter altogether. That would be, "Devil, thy name is Customer Service." And I had one of those experiences just a couple nights ago.
Two months in a row, I’ve gone over my limit for "anytime minutes" on the cellular plan. The first time, I figured it was a fluke, after all, I’d been on vacation for most of December and hadn’t really been paying attention to the day or time when calling people.
But then it happened again for the January bill.
So I started looking into VOIP service. The one company I’m looking into has a deal that works out to around $17 a month for unlimited calling within the US. (I don’t actually know anyone outside the US, but if I did, that would be 3 cents per minute with the first 100 minutes included.)
The overage for January was more than a single month of the VOIP and the December one would have covered nearly three months. Plus there’s the issue of dropped calls and echoes on the line. So I’m giving it some thought.
Problem is, although the web site is amazingly clear and informative, there’s still a question or two for which I just can’t find the answers. So I called their "customer care" number.
On the first go round I gave up after 20 minutes so I could go make dinner.
Later, I decided to curl up and take a light nap while waiting on hold. Not actually sleeping, but pretty darn close to it. It took them around 35 minutes to pick up the phone, at which point it turned out the automated voice response system had put me in the wrong queue!!!!
Happily, I didn’t get disconnected and when I got put into the right queue it only took about 30 seconds before I got another live person. I asked my three questions. One was "Yes" (just what I’d been hoping for). One was, "You’d have to call the customer service number to make that sort of change." (Yikes! If I want to change the service I have to go through the same half-hour long queue??!!!!) And the final question turned out to be just way beyond anything on the poor guy’s script.
So, I’m going to be trying out a new phone service over the next month, just to see what happens. The good news is that I’m not planning to get rid of the cell phone as my primary way of getting calls anytime soon. (So no need to worry if you just recently had that numbered tattooed anywhere.)
But I’m gonna read the terms of that service contract quite closely and make darn sure it doesn’t have to be signed in blood.