California With a Brief Stop in West Virginia

The vanity of people and level of self importance often boggles me. This being said I have a tendancy to be self focused, so if something truly bothers me about a person in this regard, I can only being to imagine how the rest of you feel. Along with the grandeur people see in themselves, comes the stereotypes. Now they wouldn't be sterotypes if they weren't steeped in truth. Enter one of our most beloved areas growing up (at least my generation) Beverly Hills 90210. TV taught us this place was full of rich, overprivaledged youths who had no idea how to deal with real life and stumbled through things in an obscene and often humorous and touching manner. Take out humours and touching and you get the vast majority of the people I have dealt with from this area.



me: Thank you for calling HSI technical support, my name is Jacapo. How can I help you today?
cx: Yeah I just had an installer here and he gave me the wrong cables, can you send him back out for me to get them replaced?
me: I'll do my best to assist let me just pull up your account. May I have the phone number with area code first please?
*cx gives me the number after sighing very very loudly INTO the phone, and I pull up the account*
me: Thank you mrs. X. You say the technician left you the wrong cables, did he not leave any power cords for the modem / cable box or did he just leave ones that don't fit the boxes?
cx: No, the power cord is alright, I just have the wrong cables
me: *logic would dictate if customer has power cords, it might be a USB / Ethernet cable isue.* Well, are you having a hard time fitting the Ethernet cable into the computer or using the USB connection? *I ask because my diagnostic on the modem wont load to tell me which connection the customer is using >.<* cx: No, those are fine, you aren't listening to me! He. Left. Me. The. Wrong. Cable. *she stressed each word as if saying them would cause her to lose control and turn into a beast*
me: Ok, Maybe I just don't follow you here, I know he didn't forget to leave the coax cable because I can see signal through them here on my system.
cx: He left me the wrong cables!!!!!
me: Yes. You've said that several times, however I don't see any missing cables, even by your own description you have everything you need to watch TV and get online. So if you could elaborate on your statement of "He left the wrong cables" and give me some specifics, that would be most helpful to our conversation here.
cx: *huffs* Fine. Since I have to spell it out. *dramatic pause* He came, and installed BLACK *she stretched the word out and emphasized it a lot* cable throughout my house. BLACK! can you believe that?
me: Yes I can, that's standard coax cable maam. I fail to see the problem.
cx: *chuckles* Of course you would my dear. Of course you would. *she has since adopted a condescending tone* It simply doesn't match anything in my house. My furniture, my walls and my rugs are all white. The cable sticks out like a sore thumb. It doesn't mate the decorum *yay for a nickle word used wrong*
me: Right, that's all well and good, but coax cable is black, that's how we buy it, that's how we ship it, and that's how we install it. If it's such a big deal I suggest you go to your local hardware store or radioshack or something, purchase white cable and just hook it up.
cx: That is unacceptable! They promised me white cables!
me: No we didn't.
cx: Yes they did! I have the name of the agent who said so right here
me: I have the billing account open, the agent that sold it to you has it noted that you requested white cabling and were denied, it is documented here.
cx: Then get me a supervisor! Right now!
me: Sure, but just so you are aware, my supervisor will tell you the exact same thing.



I walk over and talk to my sup. He's really laid back and a HUGE stoner, you can tell. Awesome guy, miss him as a sup, but I digress. The exchange here was kinda funny and a first for me.

me: Got a phone call for you, she's bitching about white cable lines needing to be installed.
sup: Really? California?
me: Yeap.
sup: Alright. You want to deal with it?
me: o.O?... O... k...?
sup: *pulls up the monitoring software for QA, hits the pause button, and turns monitoring off for me for the next hour or so, and deletes the call record of the call I am on* Have fun *He smiles at me and goes back to his other work*


With an evil grin on my face, I get back on the phone



me: Maam, I just talked to my sup, he says he doesn't want to talk to you.
cx: That's preposterous! You HAVE to get me a supervisor if I ask for one.
me: Yeah, about that... No. I won't be getting my supervisor, and I will note your account that if you hang up and call back they won't get you a supervisor either. You and I will reach a resolution to thin.
*long pause from the customers end*
cx: Then I want the tech to come back out here and find white cables to install, I don't care what he has to do to do that!.
me: You don't care what he has to do as long as it's done?
cx: Yes! That's what I said
me: Alright. I'll get the tech back out there.
cx: About time!
me: And the word is decor, not decorum
cx: *hangs up*


I call dispatch for California for the customers district and tell them what happened. They laugh, and patch me through to a tech in the field near the customers house. I tell him what happened, He laughs and says "I got this".


I look the account up a few hours later, the tech had gone to a radio shack 3 minutes from the customer's house, and bought about 500 feet of white cabling for probably a 50 foot job. Charged the customer for the cable, and charged the customer almost a grand for the rewire and noted the account "crazy spoiled brat"


That was the first time I realized how awesome doing that to a customer was. It wouldn't be the last as you will find out. My sups were awesome =)


Also that same day I got a call from West Virginia. On the whole nice people, never any angry folk, but stupidity isn't so much a trait as it is a theme and hobby for most of the people I've talked to from there. I had a call that ended like this that same day as the one above.



cx: Wow, you sure are a good computerizer.
me: what?
cx: You are mighty good with a computer, you's a good computerizer.
me: Ok... thank you...
cx: You single?
me: WHAT!?
cx: I said is you single? I gots me a daughter, shes a real gem, been lookin fer a husband fer her. You got's smarts, You all would have good kids.
me: Spoken for, thanks though.
cx: Thats a shame. Well tell you what, I'll give you her myspace, you check her out sometime. Maybe you'll change yer mind.*she gives me the webaddress*
me: Ok.... Thank you.
cx: No problem sugar, thanks for the help.


Out of morbid curiosity, on my break I go to the myspace. Yeah. Shouldn't have done it. The "thing" in the photos could have been the stunt double for Free Willy 5, carcass adventures. I don't mind large people, but this person probably needed a gurney system just to get dressed, and had a face that could sink a thousand boats.