Sales Pitch Gone Wrong
Please read the updates at the bottom of this post.
Tonight the phone rang. I checked caller ID and it was unavailable… some random 1-800 number. I almost didn’t answer, but I thought better of it. I’ve been able to stop most of these random calls by picking up the phone, hearing them ask for someone I’ve never heard of, and telling them they have the wrong number. So yeah, I was a little sharp when I said “Hello?” A woman was on the other end of the phone and the conversation went like this:
Her: Is Mr. Wonder there?
Me: There is no Mr. Wonder.
Her: Oh…. Mrs. Wonder?
Me: No, there’s no Mrs. Wonder either.
Her: Ummmmm… I’m calling for…. Jane Wonder?
Me: I’m Jane Wonder but I’m definitely not married.
Her: Oh. This is Comcast and we recently got your order to disconnect… [insert sales pitch here]
Now let me tell you something. I have had this cable account for two years. In those two years I have always been Ms. Wonder. There is no Mr. Wonder nor was there at any point in our cable relationship. Nor was I a Mrs. at any point. Which makes this an incredibly grave error. Especially on the part of a company which has had a two year relationship with me.
Let me be clear. This is not a random sales pitch. It’s not a cold sales call where some telemarketer doesn’t know what they’re walking into. No. This was a call from my cable company of two years. My cable company which I have paid, on time, a rather large sum of money every single month. My cable company who ought to know exactly who I am or at least have a cheat sheet attached to my file so they can pretend to. Furthermore, the cable company was making this particular call to try to entice me to give them yet more money and not cancel my service. They were trying to strengthen our relationship.
How can you strengthen a relationship with a customer by assuming because she is a woman she must be married and because she must be married her husband must be the default person in charge of the account? Especially when there has never, not once not ever, been a man’s name on said account? How do you expect to sell anything to a woman after telling her her non-existent husband is their preferred person to talk to?
If you see this Comcast, never fear. I terminated service because I’m moving. And there already was no need for me to transfer my service. However, if there had been a chance for me to do that, you would have ruined it the moment you asked for Mr. Wonder, my non-existent husband that your sales rep made up because every woman must be married and her husband must be in charge of everything. And if you intend to continue to do business with anyone, you need to train your people to pay attention to the names on those accounts and not assume every woman is a voiceless little housewife. You’ll certainly piss off less people that way. And less pissed off customers equals better business for you. So I hope this turns up in your tireless searches through the internet for dissatisfied customers. Because I’m dissatisfied Comcast. I’m dissatisfied because after two years of taking my money, you can’t even figure out who has been paying you all that time.
Hmph. Glad I got that out of my system at least. Now pardon me while I take out my aggression by packing some boxes.
Update: Comcast formally apologized to me after this entry was posted. Unfortunately, later this same week another Comcast rep called me about my internet service AND DID THE SAME THING. When I complained, she told me it is their policy to ask for Mr. or Mrs. on every sales call. So Comcast lied to me when they said it shouldn’t have happened. And Comcast in fact trains their staff to behave this way. Not only is it unacceptable to assume everyone is married, but it is unacceptable for any business to ask to speak to someone who has never been listed on a given account. I recommend everyone take this into account when deciding whether or not to use Comcast as a cable/internet/phone carrier. And I firmly recommend that you find another alternative. An alternative who will only speak to the account holder. And an alternative that does not, by policy, assume everyone is married.
It only takes a few…
Let’s be honest here… in my little blog bubble, I live with mostly other bloggers. Of course we all have people stop by who don’t write, and follow us, and become parts of our lives. But the lion’s share of people who stop by here have a URL to leave in the comments section. And that’s ok. That’s how it is. Always has been. Probably always will be. But what it means is that the majority of us here understand what it means to publish online. And for those of you who don’t actually do it yourselves, I firmly believe my readers are smart enough to figure it out.
And so it is that it positively sickens me when some of the most basic rules of online etiquette are breached. I recognize that I make my words public. That the thoughts and feelings here are out there for anyone to read. And I’m good with that. That’s why I do it. And I understand that doing that also comes with certain risks.
But I guarantee you, no one who does this does it with the assumption that their words will be ripped off. What we share here may be public, but it’s also personal. And even if you manage to overlook the basic decency of that fact, there is a copyright right there at the bottom of every single page of this site.
So back to being sickened. This week I found out that I and several other bloggers who I respect a great deal, have been plagiarized. I will not be including a link to the site where this was found. There is not a shred of original content. It is our personal feelings, our stories, our lives, stolen and reproduced word for word as someone else’s. And if that’s not bad enough, this person had the utter gall to also place a copyright at the bottom of that page. As if they had the right to claim exclusive rights to our work.
I know this person has at least read this blog once. So let me tell you all something and hope they find it too. We are all also subject to Terms of Service of the hosts and services we use to publish these blogs. All of us, paid and unpaid. And all of those terms include copyright infringement as grounds to terminate your account without warning. So you may think it’s slick to rip off someone’s work and life that way, but your host may not necessarily agree. And you better believe I, and the other folks who were violated here, will take the two minutes to report it. It’s not hard to prove. It doesn’t take lawyers or court. It’s a simple online form and it’s obvious by the dates and words who is original and who is a petty thief.
My main takeaway is that copyright infringement may cost you your site. But secondary, understand that the violation runs deeper. That person reprinted some entries that were extremely personal to me. They were hard to write. They said a lot of things out loud that I may not always want to say. In one case, I cried over that entry. It is not only a legal violation but a personal one. And it was petty, unoriginal, and rather disgusting by the person who did it.
I will continue to post here. I will continue to share. And I will continue to hope that the trust I put in my readers is well placed. But this week I lost a little bit more of my faith in humanity. And I also reported someone for copyright infringement. I seriously hope you rot.
Update 11/3/09: Got an email from the host of the blog discussed in this entry. It has been removed for copyright violations. We won.
Filed under rant | Comments (15)Happily Ever After
It seems like everyone from your parents to Disney movies wants you to believe in this concept of fairytale endings. From children we are taught that we deserve happiness and it is waiting out there for us just around the corner. That the natural conclusion to every life is a happy home full of someone who loves you. Even today our well-meaning friends fill us with advice about we we deserve and what we will find. They are full of platitudes and don’t-give-up-yets. But is it really possible for everyone to have such a happy ending?
I mean, let’s think about this for a minute. How could we know how good we have it if we weren’t aware of how else things could turn out? How could I know how lucky I am for job security right now if so many people weren’t that lucky? If everyone were secure, it wouldn’t be luck at all, right? It would just be… a normal state of affairs. Average. The norm.
So how do people know they are having their happy ending unless they can see how not everyone does? And if that’s the case, then how can we all be destined for this happily ever after?
The truth is that I gave up on my own happily ever after about a year ago. After two divorces and countless dating flops, I simply stopped believing that there were rainbows and pots of gold at the end of a specific journey for me. I turned off some of my online dating accounts and simply stopped looking at others. And while it seems like such a sad thing to so many of you, it wasn’t. It was just that I stopped believing I would ride off into the sunset on a white steed with my prince charming. I stopped assuming that that was the ending created for me. And I started to believe that I might ride off into the sunset by myself at the end of my life movie.
And that’s not a bad thing. It’s just a thing. That’s not a relegation to an unfulfilled life. It’s not the swan song of a sad and pathetic old maid. It’s not the determination to live in eternal unhappiness. Rather it’s a shift in my personal thinking. It’s a belief that my pot of gold may be just for me. It’s an attitude of making my life something I love on my own instead of waiting for someone else to complete it. It’s me spitting on Mr. Jerry Maguire because I don’t believe I need him to complete me anymore. Maybe I’m meant to complete myself. And maybe that’s okay too.
Conventional wisdom is still otherwise. Everytime I catch up with old friends invariably they want to know if I’m seeing someone. If I say yes, they see me as happier. If I say no, they assure me I will still meet the one. It’s not too late, poor little single Jane.
Right now, for all of those misguided souls, I’m staging a revolt. Whether or not I’m seeing someone does not define my ability to be happy. Getting married or having children does not equal the successful completion of life goals. There is not only one ending to this fairytale. I can be complete and yes Virginia, even happy, with or without a man.
I am redefining happily ever after. Starting now.
Filed under rant | Comments (9)Single Again
When you were a child, you had dreams. Maybe you dreamed of some great career. Maybe you dreamed of getting married and having kids. Maybe you dreamed of being tall enough to reach the cookie jar. The possibilities are endless. But I can almost guarantee you did NOT dream of growing up and being divorced one day.
I think we can all agree that divorce wasn’t in anyone’s grand plan. It’s not something you aspire to, or even something you’re particularly proud of. And in most situations, it’s something you’d simply rather not tell people. I mean, it truly is rarely relevant.
So why then does every form which collects any demographic information feel otherwise? Ever since my divorce, I’ve discovered that most every form I fill out wants to know if I’m single, married, widowed, or divorced. And I have yet to figure out why. I mean, why does my doctor need to know this? Does it affect my health? Am I, as a divorced woman, likely to catch some exotic disease that a single woman is immune to? Or what about getting a car loan… is my salary suddenly more or less green if I’m divorced versus never married at all?
What is the difference between that divorced checkbox and the single checkbox in the first place? I am not married, therefore I am single. Do you really need to know why? And if so, where is the checkbox for “Has an annoying loud laugh” or perhaps in my case, “Is quite stubborn”? Surely that is every bit as relevant to the mole on back as my divorce is when I’m at the dermatologist’s office. Which is, to say, not at all.
I say there is no difference. If we are not married, we are single. Period. Full stop. And I’m staging an uprising of the no-longer-marrieds everywhere. That’s right, I’m calling for us to band together against this mutual cause. There is no need to be branded forever as divorced. We may not be married, but we are certainly single. We are single… again!
Here is what you do. Refuse to check the box. I’m serious now, the revolt is just that simple. Refuse to check the box. The next time you fill out a form in the doctor’s office, or a survey to win that free car, remember that you are single… again. You are no different than the never married. You are every bit as single as they are! Refuse to be branded by your past. Reclaim your dignity! Check the “single” box.
If we band together to make this point, the divorced box will fall out of vogue. It’s basic darwinism. We will evolve forms and soceity’s minds to stop branding us as anything other than the very basic “single” that we are. They will be forced to remove the checkbox and stop creating a new demographic category for us. We can re-enter society with our collective head held high. We can be single….. again!
Who’s with me?
Filed under rant | Comments (12)
