As infuriating as bad customer service is, when you do finally find someone who is good at their job, the contrast between the incompetence that passes for normal, and how wonderful this person suddenly seems is astounding.
Two people, in particular, have been little glimpses of joy in the stress and complications that have arisen from moving home.
Lynn at KW Insurance Brokers is a beacon of competence and clarity, who’s taken each of our rather unique requests in stride and responded promptly to make sure we get a fair price for the right insurance for our needs.
And Angela in Bell Canada’s Corporate Support Department is an angel, sent to save me from the hell of poorly-synced DSL. Angela’s number is a hard one to get, and I’m not even sure how I ended up with it. One of the two-dozen off-shore tech-support people I’ve had to talk to, who could be replaced by monkeys without lowering the quality of their work, must have accidentally transferred me to someone who knows the difference between KB and MB, and although things didn’t immediately get better, she’s had a solution to every problem we’ve hit.
On top of that, I finally figured out how to get our Primus VoIP telephone working well via QoS (I hope!) Nicole had an hour long conversation with her sister last night, and didn’t once hear any static, or have her called randomly connected to a stranger in Connecticut.
A little aside about Primus: when it works right, its the coolest phone service ever. For $30 a month we get every imaginable calling feature, plus some features normal phone users can’t even dream about (like checking your voice mail online, or directing your calls to a different number depending on time of day) AND we get unlimited long distance to anywhere in the US and Canada. Its a pain in the butt when its not working right, but once you get it nailed down, it awesome.
And finally, tomorrow we wrap up 1/3rd of our vehicle dilemma. So far its level of difficulty has been almost on par with buying a house, but easily the biggest hurdle is now done, and lent itself nicely to solving problem #2: Old Squeaky (our SUV.)
To celebrate resolving all our issues (at least for now), Nicole wants to go appliance shopping. Not my idea of a good time, but seeing as how we’re 28 this year, I guess its time to break down and buy our first fridge…