Every six months we snowbirds migrate--south in winter, north in spring, along with the Canadian geese who fly by right outside our windows. Every six months we must sort through all of our stuff and try to remember to take what we will need from one place to the other. For me, that task is extremely traumatic. Should I haul the box of books back north that I brought south last winter and never looked at? But, worst of all, is transferring addresses, computer DSL, television, phone service, and newspapers, among other items.
It takes approximately an hour and a half to transfer phone service, to change one phone to minimal and switch all of the services to the other phone. Why is that the case? Why shouldn't it be accomplished in five minutes? I had been trying to get Qwest DSL in northern Utah for years, and finally I was told it was available. All I would have to do is order a new modem, plug stuff in, and I would be back in operation. Not so fast. After nearly two hours with a techie I could scarcely understand, I was told a technician would have to come to my home and that it would cost me 85 bucks. Whereupon I called Qwest and asked them to cancel since I could hook up to Comcast for nothing. Whereupon I was transferred to a sweet and very nice young lady who informed me she had the authority to waive the $85 fee. Why, I asked, couldn't I have found that out earlier? So, true to her word, the tech guy came out the next morning, installed some magic filters, snipped various wires for 15 minutes, and the internet was on after a five day wait. But then, after being on for an hour, the internet died. I went upstairs, watched Matlock, cursing Qwest, went back downstairs, and, miraculously the internet was back on. This little operation took only several hours of telephone time, listening to the ritual "Your call is important to us" until I was nauseated, and causing me nearly to swear off the internet forever. Again, this task should have been handled in minutes, not days.
Newspapers usually take several calls before people get that right. Some people never get around to changing addresses no matter how many times you send or phone in the address change. Once more, I express my displeasure at the sloppy way so many people handle their jobs, entering the wrong information, failing to verify information, and often not taking the action they are supposed to take. People who do their jobs efficiently and well are often not very busy much of the time because they did their work carefully, accurately, and quickly in the first place and don't spend much of their time correcting errors, retracing work that was done erroneously, and wasting customer time. Finally, I think we are over the worst trauma. Now I need to think about whether I should unpack the stuff I brought from St. George or just leave it in the boxes so it will be ready to go south with me again in November.
