I don’t know what sort of plague has befallen me of late, but I seem to have suffered here lately from spate of experiences with inferior customer service by several companies that I’ve had the misfortune of choosing to do business with. I don’t understand why this has come on all of a sudden. I really hadn’t experienced such a bad run of poor service before in my life. Maybe it’s because only recently I decided to stop beaing such a cheapskate all the time and actually go buy some stuff.

I’ll discuss the least distressful one first, and after you read this and realize that the others must be worse, you’ll wonder how I haven’t found myself a semi-automatic and gone postal at some company’s customer service center by now.

This first episode involved a prescription that I had purchased at the pharmacy of a major discount store which shall remain nameless but rhymes with “fart”. Upon my arrival home with said prescription, I quickly noticed that it had come with no instructions as to the dosage. I looked all over the package, and all it said were “refer to enclosed dosage instructions”, of which there were none.

So, I called the main number of this major discount store, and explained my issue to the person who answered. She put me on hold and then transferred me to the automotive department. I explained to the person who answered how I had been misconnected, and he said he would transfer me back to the operator. In the transition, the line went dead.

Following this slightly aggrivating incident, I came up with what I thought to be a clever ploy to circumvent this harrowing system. I called back, this time explaining to the operator that I had a problem with the tires I had just purchased. Surely this would get me connected to the pharmacy so that I could obtain the vital instructions that could very well prevent my death by a drug overdose had I tried to guess how much of the medicine to take. No such luck- my call was transferred to sporting goods.

Now, this was starting to become a game for me, and I was bound and determined to reach the end of this telecommunications maze and claim my prize- “Take twice daily with water before meals”, or something like that. So, in my next call, I explained that I had a problem with my new fishing pole. Off to hardware.

Called back to say they mixed the wrong color paint- off to lawn and garden.

This pattern repeated itself for a few more rounds until it all came to an abrupt end with a transfer to lingerie. I simply could not bring myself to calling back with the explanation that I had a problem with my bra strap.

I was beaten!

As for the prescription? A few minutes on the good’ ol Internet and I find what I need at the pharmacutical company’s web site.

Some say that computers are no substitiute for people. It appears that, at times, the opposite is also true.

Stay tuned for more hair-curling customer dis-service stories!