Tuesday, July 1st, 2025
Jul. 1st, 2025 05:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ryanreacts A few days ago, I texted Joey the Baker to ask if he wanted to go to Walmart this weekend and he gave me an enthusiastic yes. Usually he invites me to tag along when he drives to Pahrump and/or Vegas and/or Beatty because he has at least one urgent errand, and I say yes just for the chance to buy more weed and get some non-Xanterra food. This time I had four goals:
1. Go to T-Mobile and return my wireless router, which worked great until I moved to the middle of the desert, where it just can't catch a signal no matter how hard it tries. I wasn't sure how long this might take, so I placed a Walmart pickup order to save time.
2. Go to Teriyaki Madness and buy two bowls. One to eat there, one to eat later. Except I couldn't finish the one to eat there, so I have more than one full bowl to eat later!
3. Collect my Walmart pickup order.
4. On the way home, stop at DVJ.
All four goals were accomplished, but two moments of communication frustration did make the day more annoying than it could have been without them.
The first one happened around departure. Joey had suggested we leave around noon. Normally, what happens is he picks me up right outside my building a few minutes after the time he suggested. Today, like a complete moron, I WENT OUTSIDE IN THE HEAT to wait for him a few minutes after noon. When he hadn't shown up by 12:07, I texted him. He said he would meet me outside the "chow hall," which I inferred to mean the EDR even though I have never heard anyone call it that before. Mildly annoyed that he didn't mention this detail to me until I texted him because I thought he was running late to pick me up, but okay, of course I can walk over to the EDR.
When I get to the EDR parking lot, his Jeep is nowhere in sight. It's fucking hot, so I walk over to one of the benches under the misters and texted him again. After a few minutes he did park in the EDR parking lot. He didn't mention his communication fuck-up. I didn't either, since he was doing me a huge favor by driving me to Pahrump and back, but oh my fucking what the fuck?
The second one happened at T-Mobile. Full disclosure, I had eaten two gummies earlier (two gummies = 40 mg), so I was maybe a little bit extra impatient to get what I thought should have been a fairly quick transaction over with already. When I got the router, that store had one employee and one trainee who was so new that he couldn't do anything but watch. But the one full employee balanced my transaction and another customer's at the same time and I was very pleased the whole thing had been resolved so quickly.
Today, for some reason, the employee who helped me return the router asked me if I had already canceled the service. I said I hadn't and asked if we could do that there. In retrospect I probably should have called customer service before today, if only to confirm that I would be allowed to return the router to this particular store. I didn't, because I figured that canceling the service would be fairly simple. Either the employee who processed the return would automatically cancel the service as part of the return, or I would have to contact customer service sometime before my next bill. Both options sound as reasonable as they are simple, right? Right?
Apparently not. Apparently, canceling the service required the employee in front of me to call a number on my behalf. Apparently, the employee who answered that call advised that I would need to call customer service myself. The employee in front of me did not like this, for some reason, so instead of wrapping everything up and letting me go she asked me to wait there while she talked to her manager. She was gone for at least fifteen minutes, and in that time I received a text message and an email that said, "We have received your device, you are good to go, call this number or open this link if you have any questions."
After waiting a few more minutes, I fold up the receipt she printed for me and slide it into my bag, then put my phone in my pocket and walk out because I don't fucking care if one T-Mobile employee thinks it isn't protocol for another T-Mobile employee to tell me to call customer service to cancel my home internet and needs to consult her manager about it for fifteen minutes and counting, even though I have a paper receipt and a text message and an email that say my device has been returned.
So I walk to Teriyaki Madness, place my order, and sit down. This takes about ten minutes. When I get out my phone to text Joey, I see that I have a missed call from an unknown number. Fortunately my phone automatically transcribes voicemails, so I didn't actually have to listen to this genius say that she was unable to cancel the line due to me leaving the store, and could I please call her back because blah blah blah---
For half a second I seriously considered listening to the voicemail and then calling her back, and/or texting her to say I have a paper receipt and a text message and an email, so I don't know what else needs to happen here.
But then that half a second passes, and I just . . . open the text message, click on the number, and call customer service myself to explain the confusion and get confirmation that returning the device has indeed canceled the service. This call took six minutes, which is nine minutes less than fifteen, which as you may recall is how long I waited for what's her face to hold me hostage while she talked to her manager because another employee told her to tell me to call customer service.
So yeah, that's fifteen minutes of life that I'll never get back, bitch.
1. Go to T-Mobile and return my wireless router, which worked great until I moved to the middle of the desert, where it just can't catch a signal no matter how hard it tries. I wasn't sure how long this might take, so I placed a Walmart pickup order to save time.
2. Go to Teriyaki Madness and buy two bowls. One to eat there, one to eat later. Except I couldn't finish the one to eat there, so I have more than one full bowl to eat later!
3. Collect my Walmart pickup order.
4. On the way home, stop at DVJ.
All four goals were accomplished, but two moments of communication frustration did make the day more annoying than it could have been without them.
The first one happened around departure. Joey had suggested we leave around noon. Normally, what happens is he picks me up right outside my building a few minutes after the time he suggested. Today, like a complete moron, I WENT OUTSIDE IN THE HEAT to wait for him a few minutes after noon. When he hadn't shown up by 12:07, I texted him. He said he would meet me outside the "chow hall," which I inferred to mean the EDR even though I have never heard anyone call it that before. Mildly annoyed that he didn't mention this detail to me until I texted him because I thought he was running late to pick me up, but okay, of course I can walk over to the EDR.
When I get to the EDR parking lot, his Jeep is nowhere in sight. It's fucking hot, so I walk over to one of the benches under the misters and texted him again. After a few minutes he did park in the EDR parking lot. He didn't mention his communication fuck-up. I didn't either, since he was doing me a huge favor by driving me to Pahrump and back, but oh my fucking what the fuck?
The second one happened at T-Mobile. Full disclosure, I had eaten two gummies earlier (two gummies = 40 mg), so I was maybe a little bit extra impatient to get what I thought should have been a fairly quick transaction over with already. When I got the router, that store had one employee and one trainee who was so new that he couldn't do anything but watch. But the one full employee balanced my transaction and another customer's at the same time and I was very pleased the whole thing had been resolved so quickly.
Today, for some reason, the employee who helped me return the router asked me if I had already canceled the service. I said I hadn't and asked if we could do that there. In retrospect I probably should have called customer service before today, if only to confirm that I would be allowed to return the router to this particular store. I didn't, because I figured that canceling the service would be fairly simple. Either the employee who processed the return would automatically cancel the service as part of the return, or I would have to contact customer service sometime before my next bill. Both options sound as reasonable as they are simple, right? Right?
Apparently not. Apparently, canceling the service required the employee in front of me to call a number on my behalf. Apparently, the employee who answered that call advised that I would need to call customer service myself. The employee in front of me did not like this, for some reason, so instead of wrapping everything up and letting me go she asked me to wait there while she talked to her manager. She was gone for at least fifteen minutes, and in that time I received a text message and an email that said, "We have received your device, you are good to go, call this number or open this link if you have any questions."
After waiting a few more minutes, I fold up the receipt she printed for me and slide it into my bag, then put my phone in my pocket and walk out because I don't fucking care if one T-Mobile employee thinks it isn't protocol for another T-Mobile employee to tell me to call customer service to cancel my home internet and needs to consult her manager about it for fifteen minutes and counting, even though I have a paper receipt and a text message and an email that say my device has been returned.
So I walk to Teriyaki Madness, place my order, and sit down. This takes about ten minutes. When I get out my phone to text Joey, I see that I have a missed call from an unknown number. Fortunately my phone automatically transcribes voicemails, so I didn't actually have to listen to this genius say that she was unable to cancel the line due to me leaving the store, and could I please call her back because blah blah blah---
For half a second I seriously considered listening to the voicemail and then calling her back, and/or texting her to say I have a paper receipt and a text message and an email, so I don't know what else needs to happen here.
But then that half a second passes, and I just . . . open the text message, click on the number, and call customer service myself to explain the confusion and get confirmation that returning the device has indeed canceled the service. This call took six minutes, which is nine minutes less than fifteen, which as you may recall is how long I waited for what's her face to hold me hostage while she talked to her manager because another employee told her to tell me to call customer service.
So yeah, that's fifteen minutes of life that I'll never get back, bitch.
