I started reading a new book a few nights ago and within just a few pages, I learned a very valuable lesson: if you send a man who can’t read or write or count to get a headcount of your hogs, no matter how much time he takes, the most accurate response he can give you is “You’ve got a bunch.” The lesson, I suppose, is that the skill set a person has must fit the task to which they are assigned--it seems simple, but there are apparently lots and lots of customer service managers who have yet to learn this. I know this from experience, recent experience, experience with several customer service representatives over the last few days that were so horrific, they’ve become one big, bad, jumbled experience in my brain.

We had no internet so I braved calling the provider--the cheerful yet monotone voice that answered the call and immediately asked me to press one for English was not that of a live human--it was one of those annoying voice trees. I then listened to a listing of my options, none of which really described my reason for calling--and my frustration simmered. I waited and waited for my out--the option that allowed me to "press '0' to speak to a fucking human," but it never came. Along the way, however, I did discover that the prompts were voice activated, something that brought me some relief until I understood that this particular system did not recognize my pronunciation of “yes,” no matter at what decibel level I screamed it. To add to the merriment, once it failed to recognize my response three times in a row, it cycled back to the beginning, I suppose in hopes of having those of weaker spirits just hang up. I decided to outwit the machine by speaking in gibberish, nonstop nonsense, in hopes of being passed off to a human.

Bad move.

Although I was eventually passed off to a human, I was apparently directed to someone who spoke in the same dialect of gibberish. The man on the other end spoke with an accent I think was Indian, but I couldn’t be sure. I tried not to laugh at my misfortune when he identified himself as “Chicken Marsala”--or at least that is what I thought he said.

“To whom am I spleaking?“ he asked. I gave him my name, which he attempted to repeat to me--he’d renamed me “Hansel and Gretel.”

“No, “ I said, “It’s Ann Coyle.”

“Would you be so kind as to spill that for me?”

“Sure, “ I said. “It’s A-N-N and my last name is C-O-Y-L-E.”

“Ahh. Let us make sure I understand you correctly. That is Q as in rabbit, L as in dog, B as in monkey…”

“No, no, no. Sir, I’m sorry. I mean you no disrespect but I am having a difficult time understanding you and you are having the same trouble understanding me. Is there someone else I can speak to?”

It sounded as though he were choking back a chuckle when he said, “Yes. Holt please.” And I am fairly certain that his accent shifted to a suspiciously not-so-foreign one just as he told me that he was sorry he hadn’t been able to help me and then quickly transferred me.

There was silence for a few moments and then I heard the sound of a young female, one whose accent Icould  understand perfectly. “This is Yvette. What can I help you with today?”

“We have no internet.”

I heard her shuffle through some papers, finding just the right flowchart for handling this kind of problem. After just a few questions, I could draw the flow chart myself: at the top are a line of boxes, each filled with customer concerns, all with arrows leading to one giant box below that reads, in bold print, “The customer is an idiot"; in smaller print, just below this, it reads, “Don’t say this to the customer though. But do ask them inane questions then threaten to end the call when they get pissed.”

Yes, I had unplugged the modem, yes it was connected to a router, no I was not going to unplug the router and hook everything up to the modem since the modem feeds the router, yes the tv is working, and yes my child’s vaccinations are up to date.

“Oh--you need our wireless guy then.” She transferred me, but was at least kind enough to keep from laughing audibly.

The Wireless Guy was far too happy to have been at this job for long. “Hey there, person on the other end of the phone, what can I help you with this morning?” He was nice and eager to please--I didn’t like him already and sensed that he’d be utterly useless in solving my problems.

“We don’t have internet.”

“Oh wow. That’s awful. I mean, that's really bad. I don't know what I'd do without internet. Do you at least have a tv so you can watch some football today?”

“Yes,” I said, trying to appreciate his optimistic diversion from the real issue, “but we’d like to have internet today too. We’re spoiled like that, you know.”

“Well, have you unplugged your modem?”

I breathed in, slowly, deeply, then counted to 472 to keep from screaming “I HAVE UNPLUGGED THE FUCKING MODEM.” Instead I said, “Yes, I have unplugged the modem. I took it for a walk then to dinner and a movie. We would’ve shared a glass of wine by the fireplace too but it’s rather hot here today.”

“Oh that’s too bad. I live in Canada--it was chilly here last night. A warm fireplace would’ve been nice. But at least you enjoyed the evening--was the food good?”

Was he mocking my sarcasm, word for word, or was he young enough to still like his job, to think he was really helping people? “Sir, what can we do to get my internet up and running? I think the modem has gone bad.”

“Oh, that would be bad. Terrible in fact, but at least you can watch football on your tv. Did you bring home leftovers from the restaurant?”

I let the line go silent, waiting for him to remember why I’d called. It worked. “Do you see any lights on the modem?”

“Yes,” I said. “But there are several lights not on--the sending light, the receiving light, the online light--those aren’t working. I have one orange light and one green light.”

“You need four green lights for your modem to work properly.”

“I don’t have four green lights on. I have one orange one, one green one.”

Between his gritted teeth, he repeated what I assume was the extent of his knowledge: “But you need four green lights for it to work.” Mr. Sunshine was growing impatient with me.

“I think we may be getting somewhere--if these lights that are supposed to be on aren’t on, then there’s something wrong--what could be wrong that would keep those four green lights from being on?”

He stammered for a second then said, “I’m not sure. I’m the four-green-lights guy. If you don’t have four green lights, I can’t help you. “

As I sat there wondering what his flowchart must look like, wondering if “four-green-lights-guy” was his official job title and what his job description entails, he offered to schedule a technician to come out. We agreed that he should come out right away, and when he arrived a few hours later, the nice young kid with the decidedly southern accent said, “Ahh hell--you’re modem is shot to shit.” He replaced it in a few minutes, a fraction of the time I had spent on the phone. This guy, I thought, knows how to count hogs.