I am on hold trying to redeem my United miles for a trip to visit my relatives. This is the 7th time I've called. My average hold times have ranged from 30 to 50 minutes. I've reached new levels of stunned annoyance I had never thought possible. And it just keeps getting worse.
1. The Hold Music
It is a one-minute long muzak/classical piece that repeats over and over again. A portion of this piece is frequently used in television commercials. It's not so much the repetition of this song 50 to 70 times in a call that is the problem - it's the abrasive, deafening static that accompanies it. There is nothing quite like a horrible, screeching, static-filled, repetition of the same song that you can't turn on too low of a volume because the intermittent informational recording could be mistaken for the reservations agent to make you feel like an appreciated, loyal customer.
2. The Reservations Agents
I believe I am speaking to a woman in India. In fact, I believe every time I call I am speaking to the same woman in India, or maybe one of two women, because they have the exact same voice, but two different temperaments. One sounds mostly unsympathetic without being bitter, and actually tries hard to help me find a reservation that works, and says you're welcome when I say thank you. The other is totally apathetic, annoyed and embittered at my unreasonable requests to know of any return flight at all in the month of July. There may be other women, and I believe this only because each follows a slightly different process of asking me for the details of my account and reservation options - some asking for my mileage plus number first, some selecting a departing flight before searching for a return flight. They are all trained well to tell me they will be silent while searching for flight options, and to apologize for not being able to meet all of my travel needs.
3. The System
Maybe the problem is not the fact that the reservations agents are in India, or that they neglected to tell me it was possible to place a courtesy hold on a partial reservation until my 5th call, or that she (/they?) sounds annoyed at the horrible misfortune of having to assist a moronic American nimrod like myself in redeeming 75,000 miles.
Maybe it's the fact that researching travel options is impossible on the site (it shows an error message indicating that travel to that airport s not available at all for redemption of miles) and that upon finally reaching a reservation agent, they have no way of checking for any available dates, and instead have to check day by day through multiple airlines for any availability of any kind, and you could be on the phone for 20 minutes looking for return trips when there are none available for two months. Sometimes when I call their system is updating certain airlines, and so they cannot tell me what the availability is, and cannot tell me when it will complete updating. One agent says at midnight the system is updated, another tells me it constantly gets updated. Each time I call, even an hour later, completely different flight options are available. And so it's not hard to imagine why hold times can be over an hour.
I realize trying to book a transatlantic flight 2 months in advance during peak season means maybe I should anticipate some inconvenience. But it's taken me a long time to accumulate 75,000 miles - that was a lot of United flights and dollars spent on the United card. And when flights are $1600+ and I have the miles, it would be stupid of me not to try to use them if I can find anything that works. I've never heard of anyone having an experience like this with Continental. And it's not the Bangalorean ladies I blame either. Somewhere on this side of the Atlantic there are people whose job it is to make a tedious process less painful for the customers it is tasked with serving in order to keep them loyal - which is the whole point of frequent flyer programs. And somewhere, somebody's not doing their job.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
so over the laundromat
I loathe doing laundry so much that I put it off until the situation is abominable and it is the night before I go away for the weekend.
So I'm there by myself at Brainwash and there's a few dozen people there for spoken word night, which is not as great there as you might think, but getting a great turnout for Brainwash. I go about my business in the room where the machines are, and I notice this guy is getting awfully close to me at the change machines, but I figure it's just a coincidence. He smiles at me and I half-smile back and look busy. He looks like a decent guy, he's black and probably in his 20s, and when he whisper-mumbles something to me which turns out to be could I watch his laptop I said no problem. As I take my clothes out of the machine he asks me in the same half-coherent whisper-mumble how many times a week I go to the gym, and I look at him perplexed as if I can't tell he's hitting on me and say, usually three, and walk away as he says something presumably about my figure that I can't hear and ignore. He keeps trying to talk to me and asks where I'm from, and I say San Jose and look busy, and wonder when it would be appropriate to tell him I have a boyfriend, and he says "I'm glad you're here now with us in the West Bay," and he's hard to hear and very confusing (West bay?), so I figure I will avoid him, but he keeps somehow showing up near where I am.
I go over to the other table and sit and read my book Jon let me borrow about a microlending bank in Bangladesh while waiting for the dryer, and this other guy asks me what I'm reading, which reminds me of a bad come-on at this same laundromat that resulted in one very bad date, but he says, "Oh, that's by the guy who won the nobel prize, right?" and he seems like a nice enough person who actually was interested in the book and he is keeping that other guy from talking to me, he's probably in his late 30s with semi-gray hair and doesn't seem too creepy, but I don't really want to start a full-on conversation with him, especially not when he replies, "So are you going to Bangladesh to do the same thing?" and I try to cut it short, and it is at about this point that I notice he is folding an awful lot of washcloths, and at first I think he must be really into using washcloths in the shower until I see that he is folding like, 400 of these. At this point I figure it can't hurt to ask, "So what's with the towels?"
"Do you really want to know?"
"Um, I'm curious."
"Well, you could guess."
"Do you run a giant car wash?"
"Ha ha, no."
"A homeless shelter?"
"No, but that's a good guess."
"Um, a massage parlor?"
"That's kind of in the same realm. You're close."
I'm really over this guessing game but by now I am pretty curious, and what could it possibly be? So I finally just ask him to tell me.
He says, "Did you read the article in SF Weekly last week?"
"No, I think I missed it."
"I'm part of a group just down a few blocks from here that does orgasmic meditation and massage, usually involving a male stroking the female on her genitals, and we use these towels because we practice safe sex. So we wash them after each use. Each one of these towels is going to touch a person."
Whoa.
Although it's going through my head that that's not meditation, it's foreplay, and a towel does not the safe sex make, and these women expose their genitals to towels he's just laying out on the semi-clean table at the laundromat, and it's creepy that he's going into so much detail about this, all I can do is nod, and say "interesting" and try to go back to reading.
"So this is my job," he says.
"You guys take turns?" (I'm not sure why in the hell I asked that)
"This is the job I wanted. I want to touch every person who comes to the center, so I get to touch all of these towels, which are going to be used."
Holy shit.
"I'm Chris. You don't have to tell me what your name is. It's nice to meet you."
Yikes.
"Do you like massage?"
I need out of this conversation.
"Sure...uh-huh."
He tells me they are running a course to teach back massages at the center, and that for only $25 I can have a free massage from one of the students.
"Cool."
He puts all of the little towels into a giant, not particularly hygienic-looking straw bag and tells me to enjoy the book, and to come by the center if I'd like a massage. I wish him luck (what else can you say?) and he leaves.
The mumbling guy comes up to me again.
On the other side of my cart I hear "You whwooo shmooo."
"I'm sorry?"
"You look smooth."
"I have a boyfriend," I say.
"I said, you looked spooked, what did he say to you?"
I feel like a jackass.
"He told me he did some crazy erotic massage with the towels."
"I heard that," he said, and took his clothes and left.
My next apartment is going to have laundry in the building, I swear.
So I'm there by myself at Brainwash and there's a few dozen people there for spoken word night, which is not as great there as you might think, but getting a great turnout for Brainwash. I go about my business in the room where the machines are, and I notice this guy is getting awfully close to me at the change machines, but I figure it's just a coincidence. He smiles at me and I half-smile back and look busy. He looks like a decent guy, he's black and probably in his 20s, and when he whisper-mumbles something to me which turns out to be could I watch his laptop I said no problem. As I take my clothes out of the machine he asks me in the same half-coherent whisper-mumble how many times a week I go to the gym, and I look at him perplexed as if I can't tell he's hitting on me and say, usually three, and walk away as he says something presumably about my figure that I can't hear and ignore. He keeps trying to talk to me and asks where I'm from, and I say San Jose and look busy, and wonder when it would be appropriate to tell him I have a boyfriend, and he says "I'm glad you're here now with us in the West Bay," and he's hard to hear and very confusing (West bay?), so I figure I will avoid him, but he keeps somehow showing up near where I am.
I go over to the other table and sit and read my book Jon let me borrow about a microlending bank in Bangladesh while waiting for the dryer, and this other guy asks me what I'm reading, which reminds me of a bad come-on at this same laundromat that resulted in one very bad date, but he says, "Oh, that's by the guy who won the nobel prize, right?" and he seems like a nice enough person who actually was interested in the book and he is keeping that other guy from talking to me, he's probably in his late 30s with semi-gray hair and doesn't seem too creepy, but I don't really want to start a full-on conversation with him, especially not when he replies, "So are you going to Bangladesh to do the same thing?" and I try to cut it short, and it is at about this point that I notice he is folding an awful lot of washcloths, and at first I think he must be really into using washcloths in the shower until I see that he is folding like, 400 of these. At this point I figure it can't hurt to ask, "So what's with the towels?"
"Do you really want to know?"
"Um, I'm curious."
"Well, you could guess."
"Do you run a giant car wash?"
"Ha ha, no."
"A homeless shelter?"
"No, but that's a good guess."
"Um, a massage parlor?"
"That's kind of in the same realm. You're close."
I'm really over this guessing game but by now I am pretty curious, and what could it possibly be? So I finally just ask him to tell me.
He says, "Did you read the article in SF Weekly last week?"
"No, I think I missed it."
"I'm part of a group just down a few blocks from here that does orgasmic meditation and massage, usually involving a male stroking the female on her genitals, and we use these towels because we practice safe sex. So we wash them after each use. Each one of these towels is going to touch a person."
Whoa.
Although it's going through my head that that's not meditation, it's foreplay, and a towel does not the safe sex make, and these women expose their genitals to towels he's just laying out on the semi-clean table at the laundromat, and it's creepy that he's going into so much detail about this, all I can do is nod, and say "interesting" and try to go back to reading.
"So this is my job," he says.
"You guys take turns?" (I'm not sure why in the hell I asked that)
"This is the job I wanted. I want to touch every person who comes to the center, so I get to touch all of these towels, which are going to be used."
Holy shit.
"I'm Chris. You don't have to tell me what your name is. It's nice to meet you."
Yikes.
"Do you like massage?"
I need out of this conversation.
"Sure...uh-huh."
He tells me they are running a course to teach back massages at the center, and that for only $25 I can have a free massage from one of the students.
"Cool."
He puts all of the little towels into a giant, not particularly hygienic-looking straw bag and tells me to enjoy the book, and to come by the center if I'd like a massage. I wish him luck (what else can you say?) and he leaves.
The mumbling guy comes up to me again.
On the other side of my cart I hear "You whwooo shmooo."
"I'm sorry?"
"You look smooth."
"I have a boyfriend," I say.
"I said, you looked spooked, what did he say to you?"
I feel like a jackass.
"He told me he did some crazy erotic massage with the towels."
"I heard that," he said, and took his clothes and left.
My next apartment is going to have laundry in the building, I swear.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)