I read the next name from the list.
“Becky?”
“Yeah, what the hell is going on with you guys?!?”
“I’m sorry?”
“What the hell is up with the service? I tried calling you five times on the way over here and the phone call dropped every single time. I didn’t have any service yesterday at my apartment. I didn’t get my VOICE MAILS UNTIL TODAY! I MISSED OUT ON THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS IN BUSINESS! I MISSED A $6000.00 BUSINESS CALL.”
“Jeez.”
She’s attractive, but she’s not so attractive that she’d be worth a $6000.00 business call of any kind. I size her up to help her, but she’s barking up the wrong tree. Unfortunately, “Shoo, Go Away!” doesn’t fly here. So here we go.
“I’m terribly sorry, what can I do to help?”
“Well, can you fix the service?”
“Alas, I cannot.”
“Well then, I would expect some kind of compensation for all the business I missed out on yesterday. I really could have used that job and now I’ll probably never get the chance again.”
“So you’re looking for some kind of compensation?”
“Yeah, maybe a credit for the thousands of dollars I spend with you every year and for the thousands more I just missed.”
“So, you want thousands of dollars worth of credit?”
“Well, I doubt you are authorized to do that, but something might be nice.”
I swallow my pride, notice her yoga pants, bleeding-heart-cause-bracelet and blue eyeshadow.
“Let’s see if you qualify for any discounts on your bill. Are you in a union or guild, by chance?”
“I’m in SAG,” she lowers her voice to a level that still reaches the entire room but also tells the entire room that it’s a secret.
No shit.
“Well, there’s a 15% discount for that!”
“Great! Why wasn’t I told about this months ago??”
I want to slap you.
“I don’t know, I’m sorry.”
“Is there any way to make it retroactive to get a little credit?”
“Oh, well, they just announced it last month,” I half-lie. The discount was always available, they just changed it to 15% recently.
“Okay, well I guess that will have to do, if that’s all you can do.”
Again, my powers are questioned. Again, nothing encourages me to hold my ground nearly as much. She leaves, oddly satisfied. I get paid nothing for the therapy session. I might add the discount.
Cock Bombay appears out of nowhere. “Did you ask if the customer was Likely To Refer the Company based on your service?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because the question on the survey doesn’t ask if the customer would refer the company to their friends based on my service. There’s a totally different question about my service. We’ve gone over this.”
“It doesn’t matter how you see it. The customer cannot be willing to recommend you but not the company. Make sense?”
Make sense.
