Blogging as Revenge: A Verizon Story. Part III.

The Not-Very-Christian Part

After that traumatic call to No One In Particular at Verizon, I called home. “Hey, Dad.”
“Hey kid, what’s up?”
“I called the phone company today.”
”Yeah? How’d that go?”
“I didn’t get anywhere. They didn’t give me the options I needed, and it wouldn’t take me to an operator when I hit zero, except for one time when it apparently routed me to New York and they said they couldn’t help someone in Boston.”
“The bastards.”
“Normally, I don’t mind automated systems, because I get shy when I have to make calls and talk to people, but this one made me want to break my own fingers.”
“You know, these people are so stupid. By the time the customer gets to a real person, they’re so angry that they chew the operator guy – or girl, what-have-you - out, so they’re afraid to talk to customers…”
“…so they create lousy automated systems and the cycle repeats.”
“They’re all bastards. So you didn’t get anywhere?”
“I got too angry and hung up. I might try again tomorrow.”
“Let me talk to ‘em.”
”Well, I should be able to be a grown-up about this…”
”No, you let me talk to ‘em. I’ll tell ‘em what their problem is, and if they give me a hard time, I’ll go down there in person and shove each individual phone up each individual ass. Let ‘em automate that. They can press 2 for a proctologist.”
It might be worth explaining here that my Dad is half-Italian, and from New Jersey. He’s a good guy, but I think he sometimes daydreams of being in a Mario Puzo novel.

***

The next night I went to the folks’ house for dinner. Dad was all pumped. “I talked to those dipshits at Verizon!”
“Oh, dear. Who got hurt?”
”Pissed me off.” He began to enunciate each word very carefully. “You were totally and completely right – their system is awful! I’m doing them a favor. I try to be civil and explain the flaws in their system to them. I am patient and articulate and I don’t raise my voice. So the girl on the phone, Gladys is her name – nice girl but not too bright, huh? – she puts me on hold while she finds a manager or whatever asshole they get to not help people with their problems. And he comes on and says, ‘Hi my name is Seth’ or whatever, and I tell him no one can use his system, and he doesn’t listen! This guy is talking all about ‘the heavy influx of calls’ and how they ‘strive to provide superlative service’ and this and that. He was givin’ me a superlative influx of bullshit, is what he was doin’. So I told him it’s people like him and companies like theirs that take this great country and flush it down the toilet with their incompetence and carelessness and bullshit. And I said if he wanted to keep your business and my business and the business of everyone we know, he’d stop making excuses and start making things right. So your phone or your computer service or whatever is fixed and you’re getting the next three months free. And if they charge you, you tell ‘em to talk to me.”
I stood there for a few seconds. Dad looked at me expectantly. Finally I said, “Did you really?”
“Indeed.”
I was now stunned both at the force of what he’d said to the Verizon guy, and by the fact that he’d just used the word indeed. I repeated it, “Indeed?”
Dad was calming down, and starting to smile. “Indeed I did. Yes indeedy.”
Now I was stunned and bemused. The thrill of victory was rushing to his head. “Yes indeedy?”
He tried to suppress a giggle. “Weedely deedely doo.” And with that he lost it and doubled over in laughter. He gasped again, “Weedely…deedely…”
Oh my word. It was Tony Soprano meets Ned Flanders.
He eventually raised himself again and wiped away a tear. “So, are you proud of your old man? I did good, huh?”
“Thank you, Dad. Three months free. I’m impressed!” I kissed him on the cheek and let him cook me dinner.

Ha! Take that, Verizon.