I have finally joined the late 20th century. My home phone and Internet service are back. Jesus, Allah, Buddha - I love you all!
The whole deal wasn't as painful as I'd feared. I did my own technological sleuthing in the phone box on the outside of my house (after which I decided that maybe tree branches were to blame for my connectivity outage and so trimmed my trees, alone, on a ladder, in the dark, knowing the whole time that I was being a moron. But that's a story for another time.). And after my technological sleuthing, I entered a repair ticket online at work. Easy enough.
I was pretty pumped about zero time on the phone with AT&T. But the repair dude - Doug - called my cell to tell me he was headed to my house. That was nice. And then he called to tell me that he was done. That was nice, too - even if Doug reported that there was still static on the line and so another repairman was coming back the next day.
Doug was A Repairman. Rather gruff, but nice enough. But he was a bit taken aback when I asked how his day was going, and when I thanked him for calling. It must really suck to be the recipient of misdirected anger all the time.
So, the next repairman was Luis. I spoke with him three times. Each time, I asked him how he was doing, and I thanked him. I don't think this is all that weird, do you? I'm from the Midwest ... isn't this just what we do?
Well, sweet Luis giggled every time I asked him how he was doing. Like, giggled and wasn't able to talk. He was so taken aback that I was actually being nice to him. It wasn't creepy, it was just ... sweet. It made me want to bake him a pie, if I were capable of such crust-based activities.
When did we stop being nice to each other? Is it really that hard?
I will admit that I was using some very choice words to describe AT&T in the privacy of my own home. Yes, I used that word, and a combination of those words, and, oh yeah, a new one I made up just for the occasion. But I would never use those words with the actual people whose job it was to fix the problem. But since when did this make me Miss Congeniality?
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2 comments:
I have yet to encounter a giggly phone serviceman... but that's probably because I haven't asked any, ever, how their day is going... so I will work on that next time I'm in need of phone help and see if I can't get a giggle out of one!
And yes, that climbing-ladder stuff, that's a no-no when you're solo. Or so I've been chastised...
And eye contact. I make eye contact with EVERYBODY and I'm amazed at how many people look surprised. WHO the F*** do we think we are that we can't look at and talk to people helping us? Very sad that it's not the norm.
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