It is better without customer service/tech support hell.
- True?
- Yes. Certainly feels that way sometimes. As usual, I can find stories telling me it is true. And people who agree with me.
- What evidence do I have? Hmm… It takes up time and energy for me. I am paying for having this done, and they don’t – or it takes a long time.
- Sure?
- No. Just an opinion. An uninvestigated belief.
- What happens when I believe that thought?
- I get frustrated. Angry. Impatient.
- I go into stories to support my belief. I run it through my mind, again and again.
- Several years back, we wanted to cancel our AOL service (“service” is probably too strong a word here), and they wouldn’t let us. When they finally agreed, they signed us up again without our knowing and against our wishes. And all of that repeated itself several times. I don’t know how many hours I was on the phone to deal with this but it was many.
- When AOL finally canceled our service, for real, after many tries, they left our website up, and it is still up almost ten years later. In fact, it comes up first when someone searches on my name, and it is embarrassing. Not to speak of all the old and outdated information that is there. I have called many times about this too, but they say they can’t delete an account unless they speak to the owner, and there is no owner of that account! Speak of a bizarre, Kafkaesque situation, and just plain utter stupidity.
- I spent hours with QWEST online tech support last fall to upgrade our service. It took two full afternoons to get it done, to just upgrade our service! And when it finally went through, it turned out that it didn’t take effect when they said it would, even if they charged us for it, so I had to spend another few hours to make it happen.
- I spent several afternoons over two months (!) with HP online tech support to connect an extended service plan to our laptop. I had bought it, and just needed to connect it to our laptop, sent them all the information I have about both, and it didn’t happen. It finally went through, after two months of frustration, when a family member of mine who works with HP talked with them on my behalf. For him, it took less than five minutes.
- I have also spent several afternoons to get a replacement battery for the HP laptop. Each time, I go through the same frustrating process of trying to install battery-check software which doesn’t install, and they telling me they cannot do anything if the battery-check software is not installed. The battery doesn’t work. (Drains in 20 minutes.) It’s on warranty. What more do you want? This is still not resolved.
- I tell myself that this is all because of huge monster corporations, with lousy customer service and tech support. I ask myself why I even bother dealing with them. I promise myself to use local services whenever possible, even if they are more expensive on the surface.
- I feel hopeless. A victim of circumstances. Locked into it.
- How do I treat others? I treat the tech support people in a blunt way, sometimes impatient. I don’t hold back expressing how I see the situation. I treat others as my allies, as people who agree with me, support my position.
- When did I first have that thought? With AOL.
- What do I get from holding onto that belief? I get to be right. Angry. Frustrated. Entrenched in my position, in the view created by that initial belief.
- Who would I be without it?
- Relaxed. Sense of relaxed determination. Enjoyment of the situation. Of getting to use a more vigorous side of me, more yang, more determined, cutting through the bullshit. Enjoying that part of it, and getting something resolved even if it takes time. Probably much quicker to take it to higher-level managers instead of being stuck with low-level customer service and tech support folks who sometimes can’t really do what I need to have done anyway. More sense of options. More flexible mind, finding different solutions. Not a victim. Enjoyment in engaging in the situation, leaning into it, getting things done with minimum of effort.
- Turnarounds.
- It is worse without tech support hell.
- Yes, I can see that. It wouldn’t bring out my yang side the same way as it does with tech support hell, and I enjoy that yang side. Doesn’t get to come out so much otherwise.
- It brings me up against my beliefs about these things, which is good. I get to see my beliefs and inquire into them.
- It does keep those customer service and tech support people employed to spend hours and hours on something that could take just a few minutes. It is good for them, I guess, in a limited way.
- It is better without my hell.
- Yes, much more true. I am the one creating my own hell here. There is no hell outside that created in my own mind around this situation.
- I can take it to inquiry and see what is more true for me than my initial belief. I can untie the knot created by an unexamined belief.
- It is better without thinking hell.
- Yes, absolutely true. My thinking makes it into hell, when it takes itself as true and go into these stories.
- Tech support hell is better without me.
- Yes! I can leave tech support hell to others. I don’t need to do it anymore. I can find peace with it, and find other solutions. I can investigate my beliefs around it, which creates a sense of hell and stuckness. I can go to higher-level managers right away. I can get things done through my relative working with HP. I can use local services instead of these monster corporations, which is more aligned with my values anyway.
- It is worse without tech support hell.