Confused, confused every time I'm lost in your arms

[austin_dern]

I haven't got a cable bill since I switched to digital cable. I don't mind, but I worry they might cut my service. So I went to a Service Centre in a mall. After wandering through lines on the first floor, I learned I was supposed to go to the second. I learned at the ``Bill Payment'' counter that since I didn't have a bill, I was to go to the reception desk and get a new one printed.

The reception line had several ``tenders,'' who were to find the people who would just be directed to another counter and didn't need the reception desk clerks. After I'd waited, next in line, behind the two people taking up the reception clerks' time with extremely complicated phone bill problems, one of the tenders asked what I needed. I told him I needed my bill, and he pointed to Bill Payment, and I explained I needed a bill. This he understood, although as I explained this to him the clerks finished their current people; one clerk stepped away, and the person in line behind me jumped ahead to the free clerk, and launched into a phenomenally complex cable modem issue.

The next tender who visited didn't distract me from the next free clerk. They had my address right, so don't know why I didn't get the last two bills. They have my last name slightly wrong -- they dropped a letter -- but they've never had my last name right, so it can't be that. Anyway, they printed out my current bill, then (why not?) crossed out the amount and wrote a lower amount in, in pen, and I went to Bill Payment and paid. I returned home, simply happy to be alive.

Trivia: The United States Navy around 1840 had no rank higher than Captain, but allowed squadron commanders the title Commodore. Source: Sea of Glory, Nathaniel Philbrick.

Redcoats and Rebels: The American Revolution through British Eyes, Christopher Hibbert.

Comments

[orv.livejournal.com]

Was the theme from Brazil playing in the background as this happened?

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

You'd think, but as it happens, just commercials for Discovery Channel and Animax on their (many) TVs.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

Service Centre

Well, they've very nearly got the name right, at least. ^_^

You'd think billing would be one of the absolute fundamentals of a business, but even I've found two cases of "extended credit" of that kind - first with Ricochet, who, after taking me back on at the new, improved $70/mo tariff (nominally 128kbps, but from home I saw 200kbps or so, being quite close to a repeater node), failed to bill me for something like five months. I didn't actually notice until they called, whereupon I paid them, sending them immediately into receivership. Funny how these things happen.. I suppose it's just a cautionary tale of sorts.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Hee heee ...

I think the problem may be that general accounting principles let companies (as I understand it) count as income any amount they're contracted to receive, so that my continued account represents a certain income as they measure such things, whether I receive a bill or ever pay my account at all. In this view there's actually a mild disincentive to spend the money fixing these billing problems; the money counts, after all, even if they don't send a second bill out.

There has got to be a humorous novel to be told in a guy living as long as he can on ``free'' services the companies just don't think worth the effort of collecting on ...

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

to get lost in my arms er, ... wings... you'd have to be reeeeealy reeeeeeally tiny... ^v^

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I have my nights of smallness, don't you worry.