Bad service

I  do apologize for the inconvenience, ma’am.”  These hollow words still ring in my ears, thanks to innumerable calls to my Internet and landline provider in the last few months of my life, with increasing frequency in the last three weeks. For most big business, service is but a concept.  When it comes down to reality, consumers are left gasping for breath.

My Internet connection has been erratic at best and I find myself being excessively grateful when a week goes by without a glitch; it so rarely happens.  Each time I call for service, I go through the painful process of, well, being processed as if I were a mere number, which I probably am.  In an attempt to make this brand of service seem like service, the frequent but robotic and meaningless utterance of “I do apologize for the inconvenience, ma’am” dots the going-nowhere conversation, at least six times, at the end of which you feel ever more invisible and helpless.

The latest assault took place last week when I realized even my landline had conked out.  I had been experiencing zero Internet days for weeks and only realized my phone was down when my sister and I Skyped (a rare window of unexplained connection) and she said she had been trying to ring me.  I held my breath as I was told — again — that the service time would be 24 to 48 hours. I just had to wait. Miraculously, my dial tone was restored the next day. Yay.

Then I called home from outside.  No answer. When I got home, my children said the phone never rang.  Again I called for service and was given the usual runaround and I-do-apologize-for-the-blah-blah-blah. So I decided to ask the village admin assistant to help me out.  Lo and behold, a technician appeared, but before I could say “What’s up?” he disappeared, leaving my helper to deliver the news that the numbers had been switched.

Two days and several calls later, the phone rang and a voice verified my original number.  Great, I said, now what about the Internet? Oh, he said, this is Central. You need to call the office.  Not five minutes later, the same gentleman called, delivering the exact same message. Didn’t I just talk to you, I asked.  He said yes but now the call was from the office.  Great, and the Internet?  Oh, you still have to make the call separately.  A few hours later, the phone rang with the same assurance-from-hell that the number had been restored. Yes, we know, now can you do something about the Internet?  He at least had a different answer this time: Please have your village admin person relay the message to us.

How did I end up in Moronland?  Why does she have to call you when I already have you on the line? Because we are no longer in the village. I sent another plea to our village admin assistant who assured us the technicians were in the village and would restore our connection by day’s end. No one came.

It’s all about the system — never mind if it isn’t working.  Nobody knows how to respond out of the box, to specific needs, which is the essence of authentic service.  It isn’t about staying within the bounds of corporate red tape, which is what the reality is.  Nobody gets heard, nothing is achieved, no one is happy and the burden of proof and action is always on the customer.

Unfortunately, we have no choice. In other, less corrupt countries, services are aplenty and competition is fierce, so customers have a choice and they determine everything.  Here, despite assurances that companies put their customers first, if you don’t know anyone or don’t want to use your connections, you can just rot in fourth-world hell. I do apologize for that inconvenience.

This is what makes all the government deals so disgusting and unacceptable.  We fork over our income and nothing comes back to us. Ramdam na ramdam na…   ang garapalan. Services and infrastructure are upgraded at such a high price.  We have the most expensive road in the world. Do you need to ask how that happened? And I don’t even need to tell you about the ZTE broadband farce.  Corruption keeps us from moving forward.  It affects everything.

Today, government puppets said that the World Bank’s internal affairs were the real reason for their refusal to lend us money. It wasn’t really due to corruption. Huh? What corruption??? Here??? And then my un-favorite GMA crony judiciously pointed out that the president of the World Bank resigned because of his girlfriend and isn’t that a form of corruption as well? Awwww…..you guys are just so perceptive and you so want to believe we are post-lobotomy stupid.

This is why we have to stop thinking that the government’s unforgivable mess has nothing to do with us. Our culture of terrible service is but one teeny example of how it trickles down. Everything is skewed towards the survival of business and government and the consumer is the last concern. Just yesterday, I went to the bookstore with my store-issued reusable bag, which ripped open the day I got it.  I asked if they could replace it.  The salesgirl looked at me like I was asking for her hand in marriage.  Our first instinct is to say it can’t be done.  This is the way it trickles.  Anything that requires effort and a further step means it’s a no-go. Corruption has stripped us of our freedom and our will. You see it everywhere.

We all grew up in a culture of no-can-do. Because of decades of corruption, people assume there is a dead end and inevitably we all hit it anyway.  It takes an easy transaction, like a few pesos passed from palm to palm, to get things going. That’s just the law of the land. Why put out for free when others will pay for what you can offer? Service for its sake does not exist. Everyone wants to know what’s in it for them and no one is willing to go the extra mile. The true essence of service in any form is lost.

We do not see or acknowledge that everything is interrelated.  If we worked from that space, we would operate differently.  Instead, it is each one for himself, each department standing alone.  I can’t get all my needs met in one company without spending at least half the day on the phone calling each one separately, repeating my story, and hoping for the best, which never comes to pass because nobody sees the whole picture.  If the system were designed to service the whole, things would move swiftly.

I’m tired of hearing canned replies, especially when I can almost see the operator reading the line from a handbook before her. What I want to hear is someone leaping across and saying, “You have been inconvenienced for too long. I will make sure everything is fixed today. Landline, Internet, even your busted blender, just because! Yes! No matter what it takes, because it is the right thing to do! Today!”  Now wouldn’t that be something?

The next time anyone in government does something outrageous and unacceptable, remember that it always finds its way back to you.  Corruption trickles down and is imbibed by all.  One day it is someone else’s evil, years later it is everyone’s habit, behavior and attitude.  It paralyzes cultures. We are already there.

I wish someone would apologize for that inconvenience.

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