No Stiff Drink Needed

 Comcast, AT&T, Best Buy, etc..  Whenever I have to call any of these - I hyperventilate, picture failure, prepare to talk a foreigner out of using a script and ask my husband to have a stiff drink ready for me when I get off the phone in 2-+ hours.

What is happening?  I call Comcast.  Our new TV only shows purple and green.  I expect another not helpful encounter with a far east call center employee. I get a real person (in person) who is not only fluent in English, but lives in our community.  He fixes the problem, refuses a tip and gives us his personal cell phone number.  It was a simple problem, but he doesn't look down on us as stupid seniors.  

We buy a new computer and all the data transfers successfully except Joe's e-mail.  He has SBCglobal.net which has been incorporated into ATT and Yahoo.   After a million on-line tries. including a call to our own personal Geek Squad, our son, we call the 877 number on the website.  Voila - we get David Jones (aka Dakil Patel, I'm  sure).  He was so helpful, not on script, listened to me and ACTUALLY SOLVED THE PROBLEM. I wish I knew his real identity so I could tell ATT to hire more people like him.

The Geek Squad really let us down and we suspect "bait and switch" and a little bit of incompetence.  What the hell.  We still have our son, and if we were in Chicago, not Tucson it may have been different. I'm sure he's glad to not be our main helpdesk.

Two out of three is not bad.

I'm buying a lottery ticket with the ID number given to me by AT&T.  And...............I'm having that stiff drink to celebrate improved customer service at Comcast and AT&T.  Love it.