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Sunday, October 19, 2008

TESTY TOWN TIME

You haven't lived until you need something from a company that has outsourced its customer service to another country. It's a long – and probably dull – story. All we wanted was a deal on our satellite service so that when we're in town, we could pause service on the farm and when we're on the farm, we could pause service in town, hopefully maintaining just one account. "We can do that for you," said customer service. And from there it's been a week of maddening discussions with one rep after another, the game plan changing with every call. Tonight we are on the farm with our HD set in place and no satellite service. The good news is that we'll finally get around to watching those movies I borrowed from friends. The other good news is that a service guy is coming tomorrow to upgrade our satellite service. Maybe he'll have suggestions on how to deal with this problem.

Since the mice seem to like to store things in our oven, we put a trap in there when we left last week. Sure enough! Got one! [No photo]

Yesterday (Saturday) I attended the wedding of Spencer Hagen and Sarah Long in Grangeville. Spencer is Polly and John's second son. It was a lovely event and great to see family and acquaintances. Since Mike was tied up with other obligations, I rode with Harriet and Bill – also fun.

It was so nice this afternoon that Mike said I should get out of the house. I wanted to stay in and work on bears, but then I remembered that now is probably the last opportunity I'll have to make more elderberry jelly. The elderberry bushes / trees on our place and nearby are not doing too well. I think they got hit when the fields were sprayed. But we were able to put together enough berries for several batches of jelly. I juiced the berries today and will make the jelly tomorrow – along with "bear work." KW

3 comments:

  1. Microsoft has outsourced customer service to the Philippines. I was on the phone for several hours (because our IT help is useless) and talked to a woman there. I asked her what time it was (it was 5am) and how long she had to work. She worked the night shift and would get to go home at 6am. It's probably good that we can provide jobs, but I still feel bad that they have to work at night like that.

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  2. It sounds as though she was helpful to you. The workers to whom we have spoken don't know how to deal with the issues. And they end every conversation with, "Has my assistance been satisfactory to you, sir?"

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  3. I left satelite service because they didn't install it right, causing loss of signal when the wind blew, refusing to fix it without additional charge, wanting extra money for HD, and raising the price. The change to cable was not without its problems. It took them several weeks and many trips to the house to get everything working right. One rep would say it couldn't be done, then the next would do it without any problem. Ahhh, progress.

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