I Need A Truck, and Customer Service Reps Need Brain Surgery

It would help if I had a driver's license and drove.

Of course, I didn't to admit this to Customer Service Manager from KMART. I would have sounded even more like the disgruntled New Yorker. But I had plenty to be disgruntled about, and this phone conversation ate up 2.5 hours of my Friday evening as well as 1/3 of my anytime minutes from Sprint (whose Customer Service is in a whole other league).

So, I'm ordering furniture and KMART screws up my order. I place another order, as suggested, and try to return screwed-up order. Then, it turns out first order wasn't actually screwed up and arrived as it should. So now, 2^nd order needs to be canceled. I spent a week trying to stop this order from being processed so that two 6-ft tall boxes didn't show up at my door.

Of course, these incompetent fools couldn't prevent that disaster from happening – they could only prevent half of it. So 1 box of 2 in this order gets intercepted, but not the other – that one makes my doorman lug it to my door one fine evening and causes several accidents as I prance around my apartment. I'm on the phone with UPS and KMART trying to explain to them why I cannot wait for a pick-up to have the package returned between the hours of 8 am and 7 pm. They are not understanding why. Um, because I'm not home, and no one else is, and I can't stay home to take care of this stupid debacle they created in the first place?

Ms. Customer Service Manager's remedy was giving me a discount on the previous order and sending me a KMART gift certificate. I asked her AGAIN what to do about this stupid box that I apparently can't get rid of no matter how hard I try.

Her response?

Her actual response?

"I don't know, take it back to KMART in a truck or something."

Words cannot express the quiet rage simmering inside me at that moment, so I won't even bother getting into my reaction.

When I EXPLAINED to that her I'm 5' 1", live by myself in Manhattan, and that no one here owns a FRIGGIN' TRUCK, she says, "I don't know ma'am, I'm from the Midwest, everyone has a truck here!"

The nerve. The balls. The audacity of incompetence.

People in the Midwest have trucks and I'm obligated to experience horrible customer service all the way here in NYC. Apparently, people in the Midwest are also unaware of global urbanization and what living in a city means. They think no matter where you live, you should have a truck. A truck. Of course. We all need at truck. You know, for hauling back items we weren't supposed to order in the first place and that UPS and KMART can't coordinate canceling because their systems are so slow and backwards. Like some parts of the country. Oops.

I apologize (sort of ) for ripping on Midwesterners and anyone who has a truck, but this has thrown me into an outright RAGE accompanied by utter contempt for customer service professionals from the Midwest who have trucks – and the like. Those who need trucks to haul dead moose count.

Who are these Evil Customer "Serivce" people? Who trains them? What kinds of truck-driving lives do they lead? Can someone teach them how to talk to customers and refrain from provoking regionalism and intense hatred of the retail industry?

KMART is not alone. UPS called me at the ungodly hour of 7 am this morning to tell me they can't give me a timeframe for my pickup (apparently, 8 am – 9 pm is considered a reasonable timeframe), and can I leave it by the door, lobby, anywhere for them to fetch?

Door? What door? The building door that faces Central Park West and by which more than few loony bins pass everyday? The apartment door facing the narrow hallway, by which placing a 6 ft. tall box would block anyone from coming and going? The empty lobby to which the delivery guy won't have a key to enter? All at the risk of losing the box and never getting my money returned? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how unwise that would be.

But it nearly took brain surgery to make UPS understand that I "only" have a part-time doorman and that the package could be picked up after 2 pm. Mind you, I've made this small request to anyone who would listen since last Monday.

This explains a lot about my dad. There is a direct, positive relationship between how much time he spends arguing on the phone and the number of fights he picks with the family. With time to spare due to his professor lifestyle, he has spent countless hours dialing 1-800 numbers and also hurling himself into inexplicable rages. I know, because after fighting with Sprint about our high phone bills, he would then fight with us about it.

Completely justified. One needs the patience of a saint (and sympathy for people who think everyone has a truck) in order to deal.

From now on, if I ever have to encounter this evil, I'm requesting backup in the form of a friend or family so I don't completely lose it. Of course, then I might unleash it on loved ones, but they are obligated to deal.

And anyway – I don't have any loved ones who drive a truck. They would understand.