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| Photo: bloomsburys |
I dialed the number, knowing I might be on the phone with a DirecTV customer service representative for a while. The power went out in three quick spurts the night before and I couldn’t get past the blue screen on one of the televisions in my house.
The representative ran me through several lists she was reading from, including the infamous lines, “Are you sure everything is plugged in?” and “Can you check the cables please to make sure they are secure?”
“Everything is plugged in and it doesn’t have anything to do with the cables,” I said. “The power went out last night and now I can’t get past the blue screen. I reset my other TV, and it’s up and running again, but I can’t figure this one out.”
Once we got past the formalities, she had me try multiple other options, but none of them worked. The blue screen was winning. Finally, after maybe 30 or 40 minutes, she offered to send someone out to fix it, saying the service call would be free.
After we hung up, I disconnected the VCR from the set up since it was no longer needed anyway, and when I reconnected everything, the evil blue screen was gone. Even though the representative couldn’t fix the problem while I was on the phone with her, I was impressed by her patience and determination to make sure I was able to get back up and running as soon as possible.
The next day, I had to call my phone/internet company because the power outage wiped out my wireless connection and I couldn’t get it going again. I was on the phone for an hour with a customer service representative who again took me through the standard “Are you sure everything is plugged in” questions before deciding to help me set up the network from scratch. She too was patient and we got the network back up.
My problems weren’t really problems as much as they were time drains, but dealing with two friendly customer service representatives whom I didn’t have to battle made my life easier, and I was thankful for that.
