Contract Renegotiation

More stories from Customer Service.

This one I've run across this a couple of times. Someone will send in a payment (any payment), and on that payment, they will write something like "This is my final payment" or "Payment in full." When the horror of another bill comes, they will dial in and say that cashing the check constitutes a legal agreement to the terms they write down.Um, yeah... no. You see, there are a couple of problems with this theory they are putting out there, which is quite the techno urban legend on par with "making any payment at all will prevent collection activity."

First, most check payments are run through an automated process, and no one reads what is on this check beyond the amount; account information is read from the bill stub that is sent with the check, but no one physically reads that either. They are just passed through a big machine that reads this stuff by doing an OCR scan of the writing like some home scanners can do. So no one sees this check. If they called in, no one would agree to what they are saying, nor would anyone in person. How many companies would take seriously a check for $5 against a $10,000 balance that says "Payment in full"?

Second, you agree to charges that you incur and dutifully owe to someone else. Trying to circumvent this with a statement on a check is like borrowing someone's chainsaw and giving them back a yardstick with the word "chainsaw" scribbled on the side of it. They wouldn't take that, nor would a short payment constitute payment in full on any planet -- not even the one these people came from. As in the previous example, the logic on this thinking defies the sanest of minds. This would be like owing $80,000 on my house and if I write "paid in full" on a check for $1, that means I'm done, right? Yeah, we'll see how far that goes...

If we move on to our next winner, this guy had called in with a lot of calls to Directory Assistance, otherwise known as "411." Over the last three bills, he'd managed to garner over $50 worth of charges per month and could not understand why he had been charged because the store had given him a "special number" to program into his phone where this wouldn't happen. After some probing, I learned he'd been given 1-800-FREE411 to call for directory assistance, and he'd even been told to program it into his phone book.

This is a number that works identical to 411, but it contains advertising that pays for the call, so you don't have to. It's an immensely clever idea, and of course, we can't officially recommend it, since we charge for dialing 411. There's even a service in the EasyEdge product that allows 411 information for a nominal monthly charge. So in this guy's case, he needed a solution for his habitual 411 calling, and this 800 number really was perfect. So why was he charged? Did we circumvent the 800 number? Were we onto his scheme of taking our $1.50 per call?

Nope. This genius thought that if this "special number" were merely programmed into his phone book, he'd be able to call 411 an unlimited number of times without being charged. That's dial the 1-411 number, not the 800 number he'd been given. While it's true calling the FREE411 number allows this, having this number simply programmed into the phone won't magically dissipate the charges when you dial the regular 411 number.

I guess with some people, you have to be painfully specific. "Program this number into your phone AND DIAL IT INSTEAD OF 411." Ugh.

And to wrap this trio of insanity, let's talk about questions. I tend to be very specific when I ask questions. It makes my family nuts because I'll keep drilling down with questions to find an answer that they may not know or not feel I need to know. Anyway, I'm just this specific with customers and so this joyful person came up one day.

This was one of those times when the customer doesn't want to lie, but doesn't want to tell you the truth either. What a predicament. Anyway, they had roaming on their bill, meaning they went out of their home area as specified by the plan they selected. The phones tend to be really specific when it comes to whether they are roaming or not. Usually, it's the decrease of service quality and the indicator that gives it away. Once this person got their bill and saw these charges, they called in and immediately asked for credit "because I've been a long time customer."

Long time customers love using that phrase. "I've been with you people a long time and I never ask for anything." It's always "you people," too. They tend to be very impersonal. Sometimes this is good enough, and it's not much, but this wasn't chump change, and this person called in all the time asking for stuff. But I digress... My first question was, "Do you know what your coverage area is?"

The answer I got was, "Yes and no, but not to this extent."

... What?

Three People, One Bedroom

Getting back to this story of the past, we left off with the surprise, Polaroidal birth of Rock Girl. Her real name was given by both the Queen and I collectively in that we each gave her one of her names. We actually did this for all three girls, in that we thoroughly discussed what we would call them, and test each name prior to actually giving it.

Her birth went very smoothly, and she came out perfect despite the fact that the Queen had no idea she was pregnant until she was eight months along. A lot of people don't believe this, but you have to remember that she was working to lose weight while she was pregnant and first children tend to be a bit more compact than their subsequent siblings. So the worst experience during this time was frustration over not being able to lose the weight she wanted to ... guess we know what was going on with that now. Now when the baby came out, that's when the fruit of her labors truly showed through, and she dropped down to a size she hadn't been in since high school. 

Of course, since we hadn't planned on this little surprise when we'd gotten the apartment, we had to figure out where to put a baby in a one bedroom apartment large enough for newlyweds, but that's about it. We are very, very fortunate to have the support structure we have, since the Queen's parents were kind enough to help us out with baby furniture, but where to put it? I don't know if you have ever seen the size of the bedroom in a one bedroom apartment, but I can tell you there's just enough room at the foot of a queen sized bed to fit a crib sideways between it and the wall.

Our one bedroom had a queen sized bed, dresser and hutch, chest of drawers, crib and changing table in it, and let me tell you, it was cramped. The accompanying cradle we decided to place in the living room along with the swing and rocking chair. We ran out of room really quickly, but it made quieting the baby in the middle of the night with the pacifier (once she was around 3 months old) very easy since it was as difficult as leaning to the end of the bed to take care of her.

We were under a six month lease in this apartment, so we knew we were stuck for a few months, but we asked about moving to a two bedroom in the same complex as soon as our lease was up. We figured that would be the easiest move to make with a veritable newborn rather than head off somewhere else, and we were sure to request a first floor apartment since we hated the stair climb (and I have yet to meet anyone who actually liked the stair climb).

Now, we weren't without incident during our tenure on the second floor. We were able to look out our window straight down a sidewalk to the parking lot on the far side, and on one night, we heard a loud pop. It didn't take long for us to figure out this was a gunshot, and the appearance of the red and blue flashing lights helped to solidify this theory that night. The news the following day, I believe, had a short blurb on it, and that was the end of it. I don't think much of anything happened in the end, but it was the only excitement we had there from the actual complex.

Most of our excitement came from the fact that we were both working and trying to make a life while handling an infant. Our support structure came into play again as we had grandparents watching Rock Girl during the week while we worked, and we learned just how hard that could be since we both rarely saw Rock Girl during the week. The Queen's job at the bank tended to keep her as late as 6 or 7 on some nights, and while I got off at 5 or 6, I occasionally was later as well. This left the weekends to do anything, and we made the most of what we had with her.

The period at the one bedroom was very short, though, so there isn't much else that can be said about it except that it provided a starting place for us. In retrospect, we've found several things we could have done better to set us in a better direction and gotten us to where we are now a little quicker, but that's the benefit of hindsight. At the time, we did the best we knew how to, and it all did work out in the end. Once we hit the two bedroom, life got a little more interesting, since both The Queen and Rock Girl met friends.

The Retailer and Metallica

So some measure of interesting things have happened at the world's largest retailer. To begin with, I did give my two week notice, and I was not fired on the spot. So as far as I know at this point, I'm working the next two weeks, but employers have been known to phone their prospective quitters and let them go during their days off. We'll see, but that phase is coming to an end, either way.

An interesting thing happened over there recently with a couple of the guys. One of them is a bit of a hothead and tends to complain a lot about everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. He just doesn't like anything. I asked him once if he liked anything, and he didn't say anything. The other is a nice guy who I get along with really well, but he tends to be a bit grumpy on more than one occasion about a great many things. Well, these two don't get along, because Hothead doesn't like Grumpy (big surprise), and Grumpy doesn't like Hothead's complaining.

So one day Hothead and Grumpy debate about something, and Grumpy happens to be holding a metal rod. Grumpy holds the rod over his head and then throws it on the ground in front of him. I don't know what this conversation was about, but apparently, Hothead didn't like what Grumpy did, and decided Grumpy threatened his life ... so he called the police to get Grumpy arrested.

The next evening, the police come over to the store and talk to Hothead and Grumpy and want to see the store's security tapes to see if this was captured to be certain as to what happened. The problem here is that the manager was not told about this whole altercation, and should have been before the police were even called since it all occurred on company premises during company time. Of course, nothing came of it from a legal perspective, but it did serve to put Hothead in hot water with management since he went around them and called the cops on a fellow associate without telling them anything.

Well, he doesn't like the mangers, so maybe that's it.

Anyway, the other half of this post is about the heavy metal band, Metallica. I'm sure you've heard of this group in one vein or another since they've been around for many years. I've been at least curious for some time and wanted to give them a listen, but in 96, when I tried to listen to an album (that based on my memory of the CD pic, was Ride The Lightning), I couldn't get through it. It didn't make any sense to me and sounded like noise. But you'll have to note that at the time I listened, the hardest music I'd heard to date was Billy Joel, and I mostly listened to musicals. This means Metallica was completely unlike anything I'd heard.

My curiosity returned in 99 when I heard that they had played with an orchestra backing them up. I figured there was still something to them if they were able to be backed by a full orchestra, so I kind of wanted to hear this orchestral album at least, but never got to it. My curiosity was rekindled after playing Guitar Hero 3 and hearing One. It didn't fit my memory of the group and might well be nothing more than a golden nugget among all the nonsense (such as Elton John, The Beatles, and Queen tend to have in droves).

None the less, I got ahold of some albums and popped them on my iPod to see what I could make of them. As I've done with other artists, I shuffled all of their songs from all of their albums for a part of a day, and while my exposure over the years to progressive metal had prepared me for the sound, I was still left with a large amount of noise, although this time I could make out all the profanity as well, especially in between songs on the live album, Live S**t Binge and Purge, which was the first victim of the delete button.

Frustrated, I remembered that some guys at the world's largest retailer listened to them and so I asked about which songs they recommended among all the noise. I got nine titles: Master of Puppets, Until It Sleeps, Fuel, Seek and Destroy, Whiskey in the Jar, The Unforgiven, Battery, One, and Enter Sandman. The latter two I was familiar with as One is on Guitar Hero 3 and Enter Sandman is on Rock Band. The others, I popped on an impromptu playlist and listed. Sure enough, the gems were there.

One thing I noticed though, was that one of the songs sounded a bit more symphonic than the others, and I discovered the album that I'd grabbed that song from seemed to have almost all of the others as well, like a greatest hits album. It had the unlikely title of S&M, but since it had most of the songs, I figured I'd give it a listen. I noted on the album cover before I listed that Michael Kamen was somehow associated with it. I recognized the name from the soundtrack of License to Kill as well as some other movie soundtracks, so I was getting hopeful.

The San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. That was the name of the backing orchestra for that album. And the album was S&M. It's a live performance of Metallica playing with the orchestra, and in listening to this, I found me a new favorite. One is a good song. One with an orchestra is 1000 times better. In fact, any Metallica song backed by an orchestra is 1000 times better. All their little hit songs were on this played live with the orchestra as well. The orchestrations were layed over the existing instrumental parts that the band played, and it worked very, very well.

I may, at some point, go back and listen to the original recordings of these songs, but given that they are gorgeous in this version, I'll wait a little while.