Corporations are People

I recently had a very horrible experience with a service provider.  I will not name any names, as the service provider is an enormous provider with many, many lawyers. 

As a quick synopsis of the experience, this is the fourth time I have had to contact this company in the last few months.  They have mis-billed me several times, the service was not working, they forgot to bill me for several months and then billed me for all those months without warning, etc.  Needless to say, my patience was thin.

For anyone that has ever called a company such as this, you know that you will wait on hold for hours to only accomplish one of the following outcomes:

1.  You are disconnected
2.  You finally get to speak to a real human, but they unfortunately only speak Swahili
3.  You hang up in frustration because you have burned your entire day and have to do something productive or your phone just died

If you are anything like me, you will eventually connect with a real person.  Very infrequently are people at these types of companies very friendly.  Let's face it, if you got paid minimum wage to talk to people like me about terrible experiences, you would not be very friendly either.

My conversation with this particular "customer service representative" went downhill rather quickly.  I cannot (and probably would not) give a play-by-play of this conversation, as I quickly went into a blind rage.  This person's day did not get off to a great start.

However, before I decided to abruptly terminate the conversation, I informed this provider that I would most certainly terminate my agreement with them if I ever was forced to grace them with another phone call.

Some may see this as abrasive, my wife included.  I also feel somewhat bad for these individuals that have to take the brunt of frustrations that are very much outside of their control.  But, it is the company places these people in this position, not me.

This entire encounter made me realize that, politics aside, Corporations are in fact "people."  There are all types of people we deal with every day.  Some of these people, much like my service provider, are jerks.  Nobody really wants to deal with them, but they have something we need and we are forced to deal with them.  Some Corporations are just there.  Some are very friendly, and always pleasant to deal with.

There are many Corporations I have dealt with that are jerks.  For the most part, I do not deal with them.  Further, I take every opportunity to tell people I know to steer clear of them.  Conversely, if a Corporation is a good person, I am glad to deal with them and recommend them to my friends and family.

So, I say this to any Corporation, don't be a jerk.