I received a phone call from a computer yesterday. It was AT&T with an important message asking me to call a particular number. The computer had that familiar very pleasant with just a hint of urgency tone.

I recently cancelled my AT&T service and said goodbye to my beloved iPhone as the service in my area stinks. This isn’t an AT&T bash, I’m sure they’re a fine company with excellent coverage all over the universe, just not here.

A realtor having spotty cell service is close to professional suicide, so you all understand my dilemma, but I digress.

I called the number the computerized voice indicated and waited until a live operator came on the line. She thanked me for calling AT&T and asked what she could do for me.

I told her that I was merely returning her computer’s phone call and I assumed it had something to do with the cancellation of my service. She read her script telling me how sorry she was to see me go and to hold while she looked up my account.

She came back a minute later and was a bit annoyed when she informed me that she had no record of calling me.

It was hard to leave aside the irony of the phone company calling me and having no record of the phone call.

I know that this is a vast giant with departments inside departments just to keep track of all the departments, but that’s not the point. For that moment, that phone call, that exchange, AT&T was embodied in that one operator, who was getting more and more annoyed at me.

I asked if there was another system she could check to confirm as this was a courtesy return call from me and I didn’t want anything from AT&T. Her tone was now openly hostile nicely folded inside her midwestern drawl insisting, “Sir, we don’t have any record of calling you” {and her tone suggested:} So therefore we didn’t call you and you’re a moron.

She then asked me again if there was anything she could do for me. I told her she could nicely say goodbye.

Three morals of this dopey little slice of life:

• Customer Service, Customer Service, Customer Service.
• This is the 21st century, the new millennium. Your left has to know what your right hand is doing.
• Worry about 1 and 2, otherwise people will write about you.