Tag Archives: panic

Swinging on the Limbs of Phone Trees. Stress, Part 3

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Dateline:  Left hand on one phone tree limb…Right hand gripping another tree limb…oops.

PART THREE.  Hour Three. You will not be able to properly feel my pain or find some shred of forgiveness for my behavior unless you have read Parts One and Two of my torture history.

Hour Three in Phone Tree Stress

Now I’m bumped up to Level Three Customer Service since my request is
apparently too complicated for the first two levels. Level Three Customer
Service Guy thanks me for choosing Dell and asks me to give him all my
information again.  He assures me he will solve the problem. I let out a sigh of relief.

Level Three Customer Service Guy comes back on the call where I wait with gratitude and anticipatory excitement. LTCSG says, “I see the problem.  Your computer only fits with a six cell battery and what they sent you was a nine cell battery.”

I struggle to breathe. Okay. Just because common sense made no sense to Levels One and Two, maybe it will work with Level Three Guy. I begin, “Sir, I’m afraid you are mistaken. Yo see, the computer in front of me came with a nine cell battery and I have purchased several replacement nine cell batteries from Dell.”

Didn’t even make a dent. He continues, “Ma’am. No. Please listen. You have
the right battery for your computer. We just need to send you six cell batteries of the same type and you will be ready to go.”

“But–”

“Trust me. Your computer can only use a six cell battery edition of the same kind of battery you were sent. I will order two of these for you.”

At this point, I suspect I’m going insane. I give up. “Fine. Here’s my credit card number…though you are sending me an incompatible battery and wasting another week.”

To check out the insanity possibility I now drive to Best Buy to get checked out with a Geek Squad Guy. I run my story, show him my computer and ask if I’m losing it. Geek Squad Guy says: “No ma’am. That is a nine cell battery and your computer uses a nine cell battery.”

Trembling and nauseous. I know what hell lies ahead. I call Dell back. I trudge through levels one, two, and three spouting my name, address, and shoe size over and over.

Level Four Supervisor Guy apologizes profusely and says he’ll fix the problem. Could he please have my name, address, last four digits of my Social Security Number, and place of birth.

Hour Four

Fifty-six games of solitaire and four dropped calls (each requiring that I give them my birth certificate again), Level Four Supervisor Guy is back on the phone. I tell him my sad story. He looks up the order for the two batteries Level Three Guy ordered for me. He agrees that those batteries are not the correct batteries. He tells me not to worry, when I receive the batteries, my money will be refunded after I take the package to a UPS office, since I have nothing to do with my life except to do research and run errands for Dell.

Level Four Supervisor Guy has a special goodie for me since I’ve had so much trouble.  The goodie? “We are going to give you free shipping for these new batteries!” he says grandly.

I go back to the insanity possibility.  Did he just say Dell was generously going to
pay for shipping back to Dell the batteries to replace the wrong batteries for which I had paid Express Shipping?  I couldn’t hold in my glee and laughed. He asked me if I’d be interested in opening a Dell credit card.  Now I am roaring with joy.
“Oh, yes, that’s just want I want to do. I want to arrange my life to deal further with
Dell customer service, that is exactly what I want to do.”

Then, Level Four Supervisor Guy asked if I would stay on the line for a survey to help them out.  What?  I’m working for Dell Human Resources now?

Maybe I would have answered a few questions, but I was thinking margarita and a Jorge’s enchilada platter for lunch.  Oh, but wait.  My other phone is ringing….which was handy since my call with Level Four Guy had dropped before the survey commenced and before he’d ordered the correct batteries for me.

I answer the cell. “First, let me thank you for choosing Dell. We show that earlier today you ordered two six-celled batteries. We’d like to follow up on your call to Customer Service. Would you punch in your name, phone number, and the Day Lincoln was shot…and then choose from the following options…”

Lunch turned out to be a fantasy. You’d think this situation couldn’t get worse, but it does. Going insane seems like a small price for how I spent the afternoon.

 

Stress. The “Ha Ha, We’re Here to Help you…” Incident

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Dateline: Voice Mail Hell.

Dealing with the stolen luggage was nothing compared to the day I spent working for Dell.

I have a dream.

One day, I will take my seat on a plane and the person who plops down next to me will be the pathologically cheerful woman who makes all the sugar-laced phone tree recordings. She’ll say, “Welcome! Thank you sitting next to Time Warner, Dell, Hilton, American Airlines, Southern European Sushi.”

I cannot in a pubic medium give you the exact words I will choose. But my first sentence will begin with “Please choose from the following options…” And none of the options are going to be pretty.

Not since Hitler has any one person caused so much screaming by so many people.

Hour One

When my luggage was stolen in Albuquerque, I had two expensive Dell batteries inside. That very miserable day—anxious to get back to work–I called Dell and ordered replacement batteries. Today I’m calling Dell because they sent me the wrong batteries.

The call began, of course, when Bubble Voice Lady Sugar Voice greets me with: “Thank you for calling Dell!”  We all know what the woman THE VOICE is as really saying, which is:  “Hi, sucker. So glad you are willing to do this company’s work for us. Because by you spending your time trying to match the words I’m saying, we don’t have to pay real people to work for us. You can just imagine how this is helping our profits, since we don’t have to pay social security or benefits to machines!”

I punch one for English.

“Great! You are now with customer SERVICE and I want to help
you….Now TO SERVE YOU BETTER…”

Which really means: “To continue not having to provide you with services… please choose… between the following sixteen options…. And don’t even think you can skip this trial by fire, because if you do, you will be punished by having to start the game over….and over and over until you shoot yourself and we don’t have to take the chance that you will ever bother customer service again. Now aren’t we having fun?”

I punch buttons like a trained donkey and get to this message: “Okay! Great! Now I can get you right over to someone who can help you!”

I breathe a sigh of relief. I’d walked through the fire. I hadn’t thrown anything or cursed. Would this be the one time customer service solves my problem? Had I previously been too hard on invisible mankind?

Now I am on terminal hold…Every two minutes the Bubble Cheery Voice comes back on to gaily remind me how important my call is and ask, “Did you know you can have your order completed faster and more conveniently online at www.DoThisCompany’sWorkForNoPay? If you choose to stay on the line,
your call can take up to an hour or however long it takes to get you to give up.
Now wouldn’t you rather do this all online?”

I’m trying to remember where I keep the pistol….to be continued.

Devil in the Blue Bathing Suit Brings Down Paradise

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smokedreamstime_9669923Dateline: International Hilton Branch, Cabo San Lucas…in the tiled breeze way between fabulous rooms and the La Vista Restaurant.

The Devil in the Blue Bathing Suit (and wearing the ultra-rich bathing suit cover that I couldn’t bring myself to buy in the gift shop, which means I’m right away over-valuing her place in the world)…Okay, now we meet.  She more or less blocks my path. (See previous devil in blue bathing suit).

She says, “Pardon me, the bed in your room, is it terribly uncomfortable?”

I land my best gotta-lot-of-work-to-do stare, which was not nearly as powerful as her well-practiced desire to share her anxiety. 

“No, actually…”  

“My husband’s back is just awful today….  Where’s your room?”

“Third level up, over there, overlooking the pools and the sea.”

“Oh, that’s probably the difference,” she says, gazing out at the Sea of Cortes. “You’re in one of the better rooms. Ours doesn’t have a view. They must put the best beds in the view rooms,” she says, ambling away.

And there it is. Her seed of anxiety lands in the fertile ground of a person who can get anxious over anything—me.  And, now I have two new life possibilities to get anxious about.  One: “What if the bed in our room is awful and I just didn’t notice…Yet?”  Two:  Now that I know this hotel has better rooms and lesser rooms, and since this hotel happens to be one of my favorites—Yikes! “What if, next time we come here, what if…we get one of the not-fabulous rooms?”

We all know I won’t be able to handle that.  Mexico has enough tourism problems with the drug cartel murders.  Mexico doesn’t need me whining to the world because I don’t have a view.  And I would. I can’t help myself. 

The thing is, you can go from downscale to upscale, from desert view to a balcony over the Sea of Cortes, but not the reverse.  Oh, dear.

There once was a private eye television program, starring Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd, called Moonlighting.  On one episode the two lead characters are walking down a city street. A crowd is gathered below a man threatening to jump to his death.  Cybill looks up and recognizes the man as her accountant and heads up to save him.  Then she learns his reason for jumping is that he embezzled his his clients’ funds, gambling their fortunes away in a few months time.  Now, Cybill has mixed feelings, but still opts to try and talk him down.

She offers a few encouraging words to the men on the ledge, and he says back: “Look at me. I’m a fat, bald, fifty-year-old, three times divorced, short man with bad breath and poor taste. (An accurate description.…

“I could make it in this world as a rich man. I can’t make it as a poor man.”

That’s what I’m saying here…what the cruel Devil in the Blue Dress tapped into.  I’m barely hanging on to a sense of self with a view of the Sea of Cortes. I can’t make it with a parking lot view.  I wish I was that mature.  I’d feel better if I could even pretend.  But I open that door next time I’m in my favorite hotel in Baja… and see stripes on asphalt and I am maturity toast.

“If you don’t take life seriously, it isn’t worth living.  If you only take life seriously, it isn’t worth living.”

You See What You Believe

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vm__cr00352352_ss90_.jpg  The saying goes, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”  This is not how the human mind works.  We cannot see what we do not “believe.”  We cannot STOP seeing what we DO believe.

What does this have to do with relationships?  What does this have to do with being a happier person?

When we BELIEVE the other person is noticing us for our IMPERFECTIONS, almost any comment they make is taken as CRITICISM.

More later.

How to Be Fabulous

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mv5bmjezmdkymzm3ml5bml5banbnxkftztywmdmzmti2__v1__cr620296296_ss90_.jpg   “The most important, most life-determining, conversation you have, is the conversation you have with yourself.”

What have you told yourself about you so far today?  Okay, now that we KNOW:  People who SEE THEMSELVES as BETTER LIKED than they actually are . . .  mv5bmje2mze5mte5nv5bml5banbnxkftztcwodi4oduymq__v1__sy140_sx100_.jpg

 As more SUCCESSFUL than they are . . .

As more ATTRACTIVE than they are . . .

As more INTELLIGENT than they are . . .

Those people have MORE FUN in life. 

Hey, I’m for more fun.  mv5bmjezntiynjkxnl5bml5banbnxkftztywmty0otc3__v1__cr00475475_ss100_.jpg  But I’m tired and envious just from making the above list.  Reading it doesn’t MAKE ME feel refreshed and ready to hit Broadway.  What I’m thinking is, “Sheesh, what’s wrong with me that I’m not kicking up my heels every hour of everyday?”

Oh, noooooo.  Now I remember.  It’s hard to change. 

If getting a grip on the on your EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM were easy, EVERYONE WOULD DO IT. 

Since it isn’t easy, we usually attempt an EXTERNAL solution– that is, we try to change other people’s response to us– by doing the list of things, and buying the endless image changers, offered every single month in every single magazine–

To an INTERNAL problem– the habitual conversation with have with ourselves.   Since we’re strategists, we:   1) expect situations to repeat; 2) study what we did in the past; 3) rehearse new material; and, 4) practice, practice, practice.

First, there is an ACTION.  Example:  Someone says to you, “It’s all your fault.  As usual, you are not listening.”  mv5bmte5ntg2mdq4of5bml5banbnxkftztywoteyotq3__v1__cr830318318_ss100_.jpg

Second, you PERCEIVE.  You hear and absorb, “It’s all your fault.  As usual, you are not listening.”  I know, perceiving seems so obvious, but it’s not.  How much of what you see and hear depends on the spounginess of your Emotional Guidance System, how “ready” to hear and see you are.

Third, you INTERPRET.  You decide what– “It’s all your fault.  As usual, you are not listening,” –MEANS.

Forth, you MAKE UP A STORY.  mv5bmtgymja2odm0ov5bml5banbnxkftztywmjg1mja3__v1__cr00485485_ss100_.jpg  You take your INTERPRETATION of what you think– “It’s all your fault.  As usual, you are not listening” –means, and develop a DRAMA.  “Your saying that shows you do not love me, respect me, want to please me.”

Then, you RESPOND.  (And, of course, if you’re me, the first words out are:  “Now look how YOU MADE ME feel.”)  mv5bmti1ntqwody4n15bml5banbnxkftztcwndq1mzazmq__v1__cr00300300_ss90_.jpg

So, what can you do?    mv5bmtqyodk4nzi5of5bml5banbnxkftztywmtc0ody2__v1__cr00450450_ss100_.jpg  How can you take charge?  

What does perception, interpretation, and making up stories have to do with the “conversation you have with yourself”?

Later . . . manana.

WHY depending on the OTHER PERSON for maintaining SELF ESTEEM does NOT WORK

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mv5bmti0odu5ode1of5bml5banbnxkftztywmjm0nty3__v1__cr00327327_ss100_.jpg  ”Hey, buddy, I’m not feeling so good about myself.  Do something to fix me!”   

Bad news.  No matter how hard you try–how skinny, sexy, funny, good at the house, cooking, or whatever, you are– Relying on other people to keep you liking yourself WILL NOT WORK. 

    Why and damn, you say?

    1.  People are UNRELIABLE.    vm__cr700309309_ss100_.jpg

    Here you are this lovely person, doing what you usually do, being yourself, which he liked yesterday and now he has a problem with you.  You’re too controlling–

Truth from Last Therapist Standing:  Everyone is controlling.  We’re designed to “want” our own way.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  Some of us are just lousy at the game.  Now, I assume all of you are nice people who want good lives.  That being said, we also want others to have what they want.  We’re better off admitting, “Yes, I do want my way, but I’m willing to listen.”

    Okay, back to how you are being your usual self and today there’s something wrong with how you are.  But you haven’t changed.  People are unreliable in providing that approval feedback.  Could be they’re hungry.  Could be a bad day all around.

EVEN WHEN IT’S ABOUT YOU — IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU.

      2.  People preoccupied with THEIR OWN LIVES.  mv5bmtc3ntmzmdeynf5bml5banbnxkftztywmzkzntq2__v1__cr00345345_ss100_.jpg  I know.  Pretty nervy, huh?  Hey, I have needs here!  Oh, that’s not attractive?  What do you mean “egg shells?”   mv5bmty1njqxotg3of5bml5banbnxkftztywmdczntq2__v1__cr00352352_ss100_.jpg         Yep.  It’s not about you, but now you know that’s good thing.

   vm__cr00475475_ss100_.jpg   3.  People are difficult to TRAIN.  

     Long term marriage is truth enough.  No matter how METICULOUSLY we explain over and over what he’s supposed to say and do to keep me calm–he just keeps on being himself.  You could write a script.  Rehearse even.  I don’t know why other people are so stubborn about this.  So rigid and unwilling to TAKE CARE of MY FEELINGS at ALL TIMES.

mv5bmtkzmta0ode1nf5bml5banbnxkftztcwmjgwmdkxmq__v1__cr00335335_ss100_.jpg Yep.  There we were, happily married couple, rolling into the American Airlines gate at DFW.  I wanted to do one thing.  He thought my idea was a bad one.  That I’d never make it back in time to catch the next leg of the flight.  I really wanted to.  He really didn’t want me to.  I knew how to keep him calmed down. . . .