Customer Service

Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer. Psalms 19:13-14 (NIV)

I have become a magnet for poor customer servants. Sunday night, we went to Carrabbas for dinner. We had youngest son and his girlfriend, M., with us. Husband likes to eat at Carrabbas because they have great good and good service. Generally. Our waiter forgot to bring our bread until the salads came. We were all hungry so it seemed like a long wait. He neglected to keep our beverage glasses full and then, we had to flag him down for our check. After that we went to Lowes. The cashier piled all our items into one pile and ran the scanner over the pile. He charged us twice for one thing, only once for something we bought two of and not at all for something else. So, we had to stand in line at the refund counter to make it right. After that, we went to Wal-Mart. We had to pick up the groceries that I had paid for the day before but left on that rolling carousel bagger thing. I don’t usually shop at Wal-Mart preferring a real grocery store with quality food, but there was something I needed that I couldn’t find anywhere else. I got my replacement items, and we bought a few more things, paid for our purchase and the computerized cash register went down in the middle of the transaction. We didn’t know for sure that the purchase had been made and also wanted a receipt. We waited thirty minutes while the assistant manager tried to get the computer rebooted. Then, we were sent to customer service because they could assess the register remotely to see if the transaction cleared. Only they couldn’t because the network only updates every few hours. Finally, someone got the idea to rering the purchase and give us a cash credit for it, then rering it and we would pay for the new purchase with cash. Huh? Today, the display on my phone turned solid white. I can’t see a thing. I went to Verizon and after waiting thirty minutes for assistance, the conversation went like this: Clerk: “I can’t help you. You are not the authorized person on the account.” Me: “Can you just call my husband and let him give you permission to give me a new phone?” Clerk: “No, I can’t do that.” Me: “Do you mean to tell me I waited thirty minutes for help and you can’t help me?” Clerk just shrugged his shoulders. I refrained from throwing the phone at him. Because if I had, I would have been doing just what he or the clerk at Lowes or the waiter at Carrabbas or the manager at Wal-Mart would want me to do so they could then complain about how rude people are today. Sometimes, it sure is hard to keep my mouth shut and be nice. But, I know that I reflect Jesus. So, I didn’t throw the phone, but I did walk out without saying, “Have a nice day.”