Dishing it out.

Lord knows I try, but I admit I'm not the most tolerant person when confronted with poor customer service. Needless to say, I am NOT TOLERANT OF DISH NETWORK. The following was my actual experience today:

My home phone: Ring, ring.

Me: Hello?

Me: Yes?

Me: Hello?

(Why I was so patient I will never know; I usually hang up the second I don't get an immediate response after answering the phone.)

Telemarketer: Yes, may I please speak with Mrs. B?

Me: This is she.

Telemarketer: Oh, yes, hello. How are you?

Me: Fine, thank you.

Telemarketer: Um...I am calling today with Dish Network to thank you for being a loyal customer. Words, words, words...what we would like to do is offer you three free months of HBO and Starz for the holidays. (Insert unnecessarily long explanation of HBO and Starz's programming here.) Do you like movies?

Me: Yes.

Telemarketer: (Insert even more extoling of the virtues of HBO and Starz). The only thing we ask is...

(Here comes the catch.)

Telemarketer, annoyingly shifting gears mid-sentence: Let me first ask you if you are happy with your Dish Network service...

Me: Well, actually; I've been meaning to call and ask when we are going to be offered HD local channels. Your competitors are offering them, and I'd like to know when they will be available through Dish Network. Our price keeps going up, but we're not getting any new channel offerings.

Telemarketer: Um, I will have to refer you to customer service to answer that. Do you have the customer service phone number?

Me: Well, not in front of me...

Telemarketer: Well, all we're asking is that you commit to continuing your Dish Network service for 24 more months and we will activate your free HBO and Starz tonight.

Me: Wait a minute! Commit in what sense?

Telemarketer: Well, we're just asking you to commit to continuing your Dish Network service for 24 more months.

Me: Yes, I heard that part. So is this a binding verbal contract you're asking me to make right now?

Telemarketer: We're just asking you to commit for 24 more months.

(Sigh.)

Me: What would be the penalty if I cancelled my service before 24 months?

Telemarketer: Well, then you'd have to pay $10 a month for the remainder of the contract.

Me: So this is a contract and you would bill me after I removed my service as a penalty for breaking this verbal contract?

Telemarketer: Well...

Telemarketer: We just want to offer you three free months of HBO and Starz, so can I go ahead and sign you up for that?

Me: I just told you that there is no way I would commit to 24 months of Dish Network service if Dish Network isn't willing to commit to providing me with HD local channels. Why would I commit now, especially since you haven't been able to answer my question about that?

Telemarketer: ...

Me: Should I be calling customer service about this? Who can I talk to who would be able to answer my question?

Telemarketer: Yes, um, well that would probably be customer service.

Me: Okay, I'll call them. What's the number? Thank you.

Customer service department's phone: Ring, ring.

Customer service robot: Please state what you want to talk about...you can just say anything!

Me to robot: I received a puzzling telemarketing offer from Dish Network, about which I am seeking clarification from a real person.

(I'm sure that's on the menu.)

Customer service robot: I'm sorry; let me try to understand your issue. Say "billing," "programming," etc.

Me: Sigh. Programming, I guess...

So I get a very nice man in India who wants to know all my customer information. I provide everything, at which point he informs me I am not a customer and asks me what my relationship is with the account holder.

Me: If the account holder is Benjamin, then my relationship is SPOUSE.

Nice but Unhelpful Guy in India: Yes, that's the account holder. Let me see if you are also listed on the account. (typing sound) No, you're not. Therefore, I cannot answer any questions about your account.

Me: Excuse me, what?

Nice but Unhelpful Guy in India: I'm really sorry, but you're not authorized to make any changes on this account.

Me: Okay. First of all, I don't understand why the telemarketer would call and specifically ask ME to enter into a verbal contract on the account if I am not actually the "loyal customer" she said I was. But second, I don't necessarily want to make any changes; I would just like to know if you know anything more about this HBO and Starz offer and what all it entails.

Guy in India: I'm sorry, no. I am not familiar with that offer.

Me: Okay, well do you know if Dish Network is planning to offer my local channels in HD?

Guy in India: Well, you have to have the HD package for that.

Me: I am pretty sure we do. We have the HD DVR and get all the available cable channels in HD...

Guy in India: Oh. Well, for what market do you want to receive local HD channels?

Me: Des Moines, Iowa.

Guy in India: Well, I'm showing that WOI Channel 5 is available in HD. KCCI Channel 8...(rattles off all our local channels accurately, indicating that they are available in HD)

Me: Really? They're available? Are those not automatically included with the HD package?

Guy in India: Well, I can't really tell you because your name isn't on the account.

Me: Seriously? I just want to know how one goes about getting these channels; you can't answer that question for me unless I'm an account holder?

Guy in India: Yes, surely you understand the security concerns that would preclude me from doing that.

(No, I do not. Actually.)

Guy in India: Words, words, words....I think they could help you in technical support.

Me: Okay, then can I speak to someone in technical support?

Guy in India: Sure. Is there anything else I can help you with before I transfer you?

Me: Well, I don't think so; you really haven't been able to answer any of my questions.

Guy in India: Sorry about that. So, is there anything else I can help you with?

Me: Um, yeah...no.

Guy in India: I'm sorry.

Me: It's okay; thank you for transferring me to the technical folks. I'll try them.

(And here's the part where I really start to lose my $hit...)

Tech support rep: This is Jane, how can I help you?

(I try to calmly explain the whole mess again, with probably a modicum of irritation evident in my voice as I explain that I keep getting directed to people who can't help me.)

Tech support rep: Well, I'm afraid I can't help you because your name isn't on the account.

Me, irritated beyond all getout now: That's really frustrating. Why did Dish Network call and ask me to enter into a binding verbal contract on my account if I have no authority to know anything about my account?

Tech support rep, in a super snotty tone: Well, maybe because you were on a MARK-eting list.

Me: Okay, that doesn't make any sense. I just want to know when HD local channels will be offered in the Des Moines market. Pretend I am just Joe Schmo off the street and I want to know about this; what would you tell me?

Tech support rep: Well, I don't work in customer service.

(AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!)

Me: You have GOT to be kidding me. So, I need to call my husband and ask him to add me to the account just to get you to answer a question about how your product works, huh?

Tech support rep: Yes, I can only speak to you if you're an equal person on the account.

(Perhaps challenging someone's equality as a person is not the most semantically effective way of calming down an angry customer who is actually not a customer.)

Me: I just have to say that I think your customer service is terrible, inconsistent, inefficiently segmented, and completely unhelpful. I will call my husband, have him call Dish Network, and then call you back. Can I get your name so I can call you back so I don't have to re-explain all this to someone else?

Tech support rep: AS I TOLD YOU AT THE BEGINNING OF YOUR CALL, MY NAME IS JANE.

(True; she did.)

Jane: And if you call back they will just give you to the first available representative, anyway.

Way too late to make a long story short: I finally got my Dish Network personal equality status and called back to be blessed with the information that I will have to enter into a 24-month contract, anyway, if I want to get my HD local channels, because my equipment needs to be upgraded.

Don't sign up for Dish Network. Just saying.

Putting my wheels in the water

This is certainly not the kind of day when a pensive mood would be at all unexpected, but I am basking in it nonetheless.

I woke up this morning with the distinct feeling that my life had changed. I think, and hope, that I probably experience life-changing moments every day, but sometimes those moments are so heavy you can feel them in your body. When you wake they are pressing on your heart and you want to let them out, but the "how" seems so elusive. Twenty-three hours later, I am faced only with the sparkle of rain-kissed window screens and a dimly lit keyboard as I continue to wonder.

This morning as I heard tales of Swahili chants over a mango branch-covered tomb and the shaky voice of a 109-year-old daughter of a slave say she never thought the "colored would rise up," I had hope that for at least one day in this country we could put aside bickering and breathe in what has happened in our world. It goes so far beyond my tremendous pride in a great man, so far beyond the nationwide restoration of faith we feel in America, so far beyond hope for our country to lift itself up. It is men's chants in Britain, children's smiles in Indonesia, and the declaration of a jubilant Kenyan carpenter named Joseph: "If it were possible for me to get to the United States on my bicycle, I would."

I am not sure I can remember a time in my relatively short life that my country has carried the lantern, but I now know it casts a circle of awesome warmth. I am so excited about our opportunity and yet so afraid of not measuring up.

Today I also woke up carrying another life-changing weight: the power of telling the stories of others. I have had wonderful opportunities to do this. In my conversations with an Iraqi parliament member, I saw many shades of gray in a war that had once seemed so black and white to me. From a 13-year-old, I learned that objects aren't important and that selflessness is truly the greatest virtue. Yesterday, I spent the afternoon with a 25-year-old who has been forever changed by a traumatic brain injury but has battled bravely to reclaim a life for himself. Even where justice seems absent, the human spirit is omnipresent. This I have learned in all these experiences.

Last night was one of those rare moments when justice and human spirit collided. And it's the kind of thing that just makes you want to ride your bicycle across the ocean.