Apr 30, 2004 5 min read

When you run into a fellow like Jason, you keep your fingers crossed that the phone line won’t somehow disconnect him from your life. Sure you know the phone number that you dialed to reach him – you have the toll-free digits written down right in front of you – but there’s no guarantee that if you called again Jason would pick up. In fact, you aren’t even sure that your call would go to the same city, state or country ever again. You’ve had some really horrid experiences, so when you talk to a fellow like Jason, you can’t help but want to stay on the line long after he has been of service.

Jason and I hooked up Tuesday evening. I wasn’t going to call. But I was stuck, or rather my car was stuck, inside the garage. The opener wouldn’t work. I tried every troubleshooting trick in the manual before I broke down and called. Jason was patient in discussing my problem, offering suggestions, asking pertinent questions.

It was amazing that he could diagnose over the phone that the sensors that keep the door from slamming shut on small children or sneaky cats were keeping it from working at all.

One must be too sensitive, picking up too much sunlight. Could I tell which? Well, Jason, it’s like this: There are black clouds rolling in, hail is coming down as we speak, so I really don’t think the sun has a thing to do with it. Jason let my sarcasm pass without notice, instead offering to ship a couple new sensors. I should be able to swap them out without electrocuting myself, he said. Should I have any qualms, do feel free to call back.

Lately I’ve run into a series of mishaps, miscalculations and misstatements that cannot be repaired with an electric screwdriver or duct tape. So I have been forced to call the professionals. These are the people who staff the phones at call centers such as the Teletech Center that we have locally. Only I doubt I have ever been so fortunate to have my call routed just a few miles away.

I’ve met a lot of people in a lot of towns and countries these last couple of months. I’ve tried to picture what they look like dressed in their phone headsets, with manuals and computer terminals as desk mates.

Sometimes they are as competent as Jason or as rude as the fellow who must have forgotten that our conversation was being recorded, when he snippily said, “Lady, you need more help than I can give you.”

Indeed, I do. I need help remembering how we used to have services turned on or shut off, bills straightened out, broken products serviced. I know there was life before 1-800 numbers. I just can’t remember it. I’ve tried moving beyond the phone to doing these things online but find mostly I’m referred to the phone. In a sense I find it reassuring that we still do need people and not just machines, even though increasingly companies think they need fewer Americans to answer the phones.

I recently talked with Julie, who was going to sort through my car insurance bill. She lives in Atlanta and started in college with the notion of becoming a journalist. She switched majors late in the game to psychology and somehow ended up taking a job talking on the phone all day. She loves it, she said, but her family wonders about her sanity.

So while we waited for my new quote to pop up, Julie asked me about journalism, trying to decide whether she made the right choice. And I asked whether she worried about being outsourced. She was optimistic.

I like when I encounter Julie types. I wasn’t so fortunate a few days later in calling another company that was continuing to charge me for an Internet service I canceled months ago. I found the woman difficult to understand. Everything she said through a thick accent was punctuated with OK, apparently her favorite American word. No, it was not OK, I kept replying. She said everything was removed from my bill OK and that if OK I would just hold on she would transfer me OK to a person who would tell me how I could enhance my service OK. When I asked her how could I enhance something I no longer had, she pretended that I couldn’t speak plain English. So I’m not sure that account really is OK.

I hold nothing against this woman who probably is doing the best she can to work this American job that was exported to her country. But I do hold such crappy service against the American companies who treat their customers this way.

I keep a mental list of these firms, and I won’t do business with them again. It’s my small way of protesting the shipping of jobs overseas.

I have better things to do with my evenings than spend them on the phone without getting any results. There are places to go, people to see. Or at least there will be once Jason sends my sensors and I can leave the garage.

E-mail: ltraud@heraldstandard.com.