I don’t think I can take any more phony corporate BS. I just got off a customer service call with a rep in India. I really can’t stand all this “please sir, thank you sir” stuff, and what I really can’t stand is when they ask how my day is going. Do the corporate overlings really think having their people query my emotional state will make me more pleased with my phone experience?

And the fact that he asked, “did you have a good day” at 9:15am completely gives away that he isn’t anywhere near my time zone, even though his employer has attempted to conceal this fact by changing his name to “Bill”. I think that’s what bugs me the most. First, they make the poor guy pretend he’s interested in my day, and then on top of it he has to use a fake name because his real one might creep me our or something. Honestly, the only thing I really care about was being able to understand him, and frankly, his English was better than that of most high school seniors here in the US.

I just had to post this… it’s too amusing. I was trying to figure out how much volume licensing for Adobe Flash costs. A brief summary:

1:30pm - Call Adobe, wait on hold for 25 minutes, told to call Dell because Adobe does not actually sell its products directly. Right… Customer: “Here, here’s some money. I want to give it to you.” Adobe: “I’m sorry, see that guy over there? You have to go talk to him for a while, then give him the money, and then he will give some of it to me.”

2:00pm - Call the number for Dell that Adobe gave me. None of the options sound at all like what I want, but it says to stay on the line. I stay on the line and am connected to a person who collects my name, email address and phone number, makes me wait on hold for several minutes at a time while she tries to figure out if they even offer what I want. Eventually she says that she has can’t help me but she has found the correct department to transfer me to. She then gives me an incident number and emails the results of our conversation to me (for a transfer? Sheesh!)

2:20pm - After waiting on hold for a while someone finally picks up. He has no idea what I am talking about and doesn’t even know who these “Adobe” people are or what this “Flash” thinger is that I claim they sell. He says that I need to be in the Consumer Purchasing department.

2:25pm - This department has by far the best response. My question of how much Adobe Flash volume pricing costs is met first with a long silence, and then with, “sir, may I have your order number?”. We are both confused until she explains that I have arrived at the Customer Service department, not the Customer Purchasing department. I am transferred to the Sales department

2:30pm - The Sales department doesn’t know what Adobe Flash is. I explain that it is a software application. They transfer me to the Software Sales department.

2:35pm - The Software Sales department can’t find any volume licensing information, so they transfer me to the Business Software Sales department.

2:40pm - And again, I am in the wrong department. The automated menu offers information about 1) printers, 2) peripherals, 3) toner and ink, 4) monitors. I am instructed to stay on the line if none of the options are correct. I stay on the line. Dell hangs up on me.

2:45pm - I call CDW instead and within 5 minutes they are able to tell me not only that they do, in fact, sell volume licensing, but also how much it costs =D. Unfortunately, the volume licensing costs $10 more per seat than the standard licensing costs directly from Adobe =(.

I have decided that the rest of the world has gone insane today.