pearwaldorf | School blither. You've missed this, I'm sure.

[Typing on the mushiest Dell keyboard EVAR. It is a fucking crime to have spring-back on keyboards that feel like you're mashing keys down on bread, and probably a sign that this company is not destined for Good Things anymore. But

agnostic_jihad could have told you that. Ask him about upgrading his video card and replacing his power supply sometime.]

I note that, even in a university with as little lack of community as PSU, there are alliances drawn. The new Broadway computer lab is relatively empty, but there is a definite divide (literally as well as figuratively) between the Mac and the PC users. There is one grizzled old guy in the first row on the iMac closest to the wall, and
one clueless freshman(? Given the fucked-up demographics at this school, one is never really sure) raising his hand for help from the resident IT nerd. He looks like somebody who uses Macs just because his friends say they're cool.

//

At the bookstore, I ran into somebody I went to high school with. We were in all the same classes together, being two of three Smart Asian KidsTM at David Douglas, but we ran in different social circles. You know that scene in Garden State where Large runs into that cop who turns out to be one of his classmates from school? Epitome of every post-high-school encounter I have had with people from my graduating class. I mean, there is/was that shared connection, having to sit through the same stupid assemblies and watch horrible things like two halves of the track team lip-sync in stupid costumes (to the Spice Girls and Bohemian Rhapsody, respectively) and be at the Chiles Center the same time for graduation, but other than that, you really have nothing to do with each other, during school or after. It's this strange affectation I have not been able to break myself of, greeting these people I have been studiously neutral towards like my long lost friends. It's very awkward.

//

I have become that clueless meandering left hand (which the right knows not of) in the machinery of call center customer service hell. First, let me give you some background on where I, Alice Little Cog, stand in
relation to Big Stupid Mess That Calls Itself Cingular Wireless. I am recharge. I take credit card numbers and tell the system to put minutes on people's phones. I work for a company that Cingular has a contract
with to do so. Customer service is this department that is farther than Portland but closer than India, and deals with things like telling people how to dial numbers on their phone (I wish I was kidding) and
access voice mail. But apparently they do not reactivate dead numbers, which is something I was told they do. And they do not.

This distresses me greatly, and makes me rage impotently at the inability to get the situation changed. It may come as a surprise, but I actually LIKE helping people. Or at the very least, I do not wish to
give them incorrect information, unless they are gigundous pains in the asses, in which case I transfer them to people who are paid to deal with their hysterical threats to sue the company (which always amuses
me because it means they haven't read the fine print that says "We can rape you up the ass if we like, and under contractual obligation you have to enjoy it"), unlike me. But of course, Cingular makes it fucking impossible, by putting up as many barriers to communication as possible, and giving the people I go to for help incorrect information. Of course, I think this is kind of inevitable in the prepaid wireless
market. They buy the minutes, Cingular has their money, and they will keep on buying the minutes (if you want my unsolicited opinion, <a href="http://www.virginmobile.com/">Virgin Mobile</a> has the
best value in prepaid wireless, if you can ignore the hideous marketing), so why bother providing anything more than the most minimal service possible? N (who is also the drummer for <a
href="http://www.freakathon.com/">Julian's band</a> and thus knows <lj user="mydarkstar">, which shows you how fucking small a town this is) and I were talkiing about this the other day, how it's
relatively easy for them to get to recharge, but takes the sacrifice of an albino baby goat on the third full moon of the year to get to a customer service rep that knows how to walk upright.

The distribution chain, oh dear sweet Jebus the distribution chain. There was this dealer one time, who made me stay on the line with him while he put time from a prepaid card (I don't deal with prepaid cards)
onto the phone because HE DIDN'T FUCKING KNOW HOW. I mean, I know that any moron with enough money can start up a Cingular store franchise (and Cingular seems to specialize in this), but Christ. And the
customer service reps that N tells me about who ask him to do things they don't know how to do but he can't, and the ones who ask me about shit they're supposed to deal with, and then there are the customers. Perhaps it is just a regional thing, but never have I dealt with a more motley, uncouth and dim collection of customers in my entire life. And I worked at Fred Meyer for three years. Perhaps the white trash in the
South is different from the white trash in the North. But regardless, I will froth at the mouth and scare people away from ever associating with me again if they ask me about my experience with Cingular cell phones.

[edit:] LJ's rich text mode sucks donkey balls.