FutureWorld: everyday life in the third millennium

A couple of weeks ago, I took off my glasses at work to make a dramatic gesture, and the temple snapped off in my hand. This is the second time these particular frames have broken in just a few months, so I bounced right off to my funny little optician to get them fixed.

He is a silly little bunny. His prices are good, but he is not much of a businessman. Also, intellectually, he does not seem to be the most fully-inflated beach ball at the pool party. “They’ll be ready by Wednesday” usually means “Check back on Friday.” He gets dithery and confused easily. Every time I go to him, I swear I’ll never go to him again. Then he posts a new price list, and I think: Wow! That’s cheap! And I go back to him.

Anyway: “No problem,” he said. “I’ll order new frames for you.”  (This was on a Saturday.) “Check back on Wednesday.” (Translation: “Stop by next Saturday.”)

During the week, I made do with old pairs of glasses. My prescription changes dramatically from year to year; evidently my eyeballs mutate at random. Some of my old glasses are good for distance vision, some for close-up. I found I was reading the newspaper by taking off my (old) glasses altogether and holding it up to my eyeball, like a jeweler examining a precious stone.

Another week passed. I went to see Funny Optician. He spun in circles, excusing himself for not having fixed my glasses yet. It was the manufacturer’s fault; they hadn’t sent the replacement frames. He didn’t know what the problem was. (Did I mention that he has a high whiny voice with a really seriously advanced Rhode Island accent?) Come back Monday, maybe Tuesday.

I checked in on Monday. I found a sign that said CLOSED MONDAY.

Now I was ready to kill him.

I took the day off on Wednesday and went to see him again, carrying a polo mallet. Again he spun in circles. Then, suddenly, he circled back. “Hey!” he wheezed. “What about plastic?”

“What?” I said.

“Instead of metal frames,” he said. “Maybe they’d wear better for you. I could do those right now. These are tortoise. You don’t want tortoise. Are these brown or black? Can you tell? I got black here somewhere. Wait a minute –“

As he was jabbering, I thought: I need something new. I just turned fifty-five. I’ve been wearing metal frames for decades now. Maybe a little hipster action will be good for me. Also, he’s probably right; plastic will probably wear better than metal.

I left a few minutes later with a nice pair of plastic frames. I’d forgotten how intense! my most recently-updated prescription was; as I stepped out onto the street, I think I could see the past and future simultaneously.

Everyone says I look younger now.

So: my funny little optician has (inadvertently) given me the best fifty-fifth birthday present of all.

We got an email about a month ago from our landlords, informing us that there would be a Verizon FIOS meet-and-greet in our apartment courtyard at the end of May.

Our longtime internet / phone / TV carrier (which began with C and ended with OX) had excellent customer service, but had been getting progressively more expensive over the past few years. So, we thought, why not go have some punch and pie, and hear what the nice FIOS man has to say?

As it turned out, we were pretty much the only people who turned up at the meet-and-greet. (I had a very small Italian cold-cuts sandwich.) It was hosted by a cute young salesman, who talked us into switching from C + OX to FIOS. (He also offered us a whole boatload of gift cards, which very much sweetened the deal for Partner and me. We love gift cards.)

The actual conversion happened about a week ago. Poor Partner: he was home alone when the Verizon installer came. It took the installer forty-five minutes to find the place where the cabling enters our apartment. (It was in my clothes closet, incidentally.) Then it took another four hours for the installer to set everything up.

Then it took us another three hours in the evening after the installer left to get everything up and working.

The process wasn’t perfect, but then: what is? I got the master account working, and then started creating email accounts. I bogged down for a while, but finally figured it out.

Conclusions:

·       The FIOS network is faster (slightly).

·       The TV service (especially in HD) is clearer and has less interference.

·       We get more features (like caller ID and voice mail) for less money (at least for the next two years).

·       I vaguely recollect that, ten years ago when we went from ATT to C+OX, we went through the same kind of hell week.

More than a week has passed. I’m getting pretty much the same amount of email I was getting before; everyone has found me, even some of the spammers. I’m getting used to typing my much longer (but very descriptive) email address. And did I mention how much faster the Net is?

Shop around, kids. Shop around.

There’s gift cards in them thar hills.

I have written before about bad customer service.  In my young-and-foolish days I used to put up with it, thinking that I was a poor humble sap and that the cashiers and tellers were treating me badly because I somehow deserved it.  As I’ve aged, however, I’ve gotten smarter and crankier.  I have actually made a couple of customer-service people burst into flames when I focus my anger onto them.

A TD Bank recently opened in downtown Providence.  I was curious, and went in for some casual transactions.  They have lollipops! They have dog biscuits! They open the door for you!  They’re almost invariably cheerful!  (I’ve seen one of the tellers looking a little melancholy once or twice, but she didn’t take out her bad feeling on me, and I felt sympathetic for her.)

So I decided to join the TD revolution.

I could not have done better.  The folks at my old bank (whose name begins with a CITI and ends with a ZENS) were snarky and unpleasant when I closed out my account. The customer-service representative (a football-hero type, beefy and bluff) tried to talk me out of my decision, until I pointed out to him that he’d kept me waiting for several minutes while he chatted and flirted with a couple of the bank’s other employees.  At this point he became rather chilly with me. 

I am deliriously happy with TD Bank.  They’re cheaper, for one thing; their fees are much lower than those at my previous bank.  And the staff are cheerful, and they actually make a point of being helpful.  If I see someone in the bank wearing a nametag, I can actually ask him/her a question, and he/she will actually answer it, fully and helpfully, with a smile. 

I think my head might explode with joy. 

Now: if they opened up a few more branches in Rhode Island – preferably up here on the East Side of Providence – my life would be complete.

(Can this be true? Can the world actually be getting better?)

(I doubt it.)

(But I’ll take whatever I can get.)

---

I was never one to rock the boat. 

Bad customer service makes my head cave in.

I didn’t used to be this way. For a long time I was very reluctant to make a scene in a public place.  With age, though, I hide my feelings less. Also, life with Partner (who is far more forthright than I am in expressing himself) has made me a little more, ahem, openly expressive.

So, for example, when supermarket cashiers get impatient and reach around to push the card-reader buttons for me (TOTAL $16.13 OK? YES / NO), I have been known to slap their hands away.

Also, I recall a smirky little coffee-shop employee who, when I asked for a pound of coffee to be ground for espresso, informed me that I didn’t really want that. I don’t really remember what happened after that – I think I blacked out – but I think I decapitated him.

Lately Partner and I have been mixing it up at our local health club. It’s only been open for a couple of years, and it’s still moderately shiny, but the staff are cheerful and inept. When equipment breaks down, they hang little OUT OF ORDER signs on it and get back to their important and difficult job of schmoozing and smiling. There’s been a problem with the stationary bikes lately, and the evening manager gave Partner a lot of guff last week about how difficult it is to have these things repaired, blah blah blah.

We have, in order to show our appreciation for her help, been writing long descriptive essays about the place, and the staff, and sending them via email to the health club’s corporate office.

Well, the equipment’s not fixed yet, but the staff is now terrified of both of us.

Now that’s progress.

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