Dear Unnamed Leasing Company

Dear Unnamed Leasing Company:

You truly suck. I find it unbelievable, your lack of customer service, and your utter disrespect for your tenants. Does your public image, your reputation, matter to you at all?

I look forward to the day when we are no longer contractually bound.

Sincerely,

Disgruntled Tenant

Yup, Comcast

So, my cable stopped working last Thursday. This isn't a big deal for me, as I'm not much of a tv watcher, and I was sort of convinced that maybe I just don't know how to use the remote or something, but nope - it was really goofed up. I called Comcast several times and after trailing through a series of option menus that say things like "Press 1 if you are an existing customer" and "Press 3 if you are having trouble with your cable television," received an error message that said "We cannot complete your call at this time. Please call back."

Eh?

So, I did. I called back - several times. And last night, I had success, and had a charming conversation with a young woman in TX. Apparently, lots of cable users in my area are having trouble - something about thunderstorms, tornadoes, global warming, I don't know.

So she reset my signal, whatever that means, and voila! Le cable.

This was going to be a post about how annoying the whole debacle was, but instead, I'm going to make it about how awesome my customer service rep was. She was friendly, initiated small talk when we waited for my box to reboot, and gave me $17 off my next bill for my trouble. I like it.

Maybe it's a trend, and all client service is improving. Let's hope.

Food, Death, and the South

I love the South. I love being a Southerner (by the grace of God). It's warm and lush and sometimes a little beat-up and impoverished, but the people are good, and there is community, and there is sometimes even a little leisure. And I am from Georgia.

So, we had a death in the family recently, and I was overwhelmed and shocked by the immediate, enormous support we received from our community. Not only did we receive buckets of cards, but not once did anyone have to cook, make a call, run an errand, do a chore, nothing. We were completely cared for and loved. We got fried chicken and peach pie and pound cake and pork roast and pot roast and pimento cheese and rolls and hashbrown casserole and dressing and gravy and butterbeans and green beans and yams and sweet tea and cole slaw and cookies and you name it. We had people stopping in to check on us, sending neighbors to do the same, calling kin, singing songs, praying, adding us to prayer chains, offering to help - the phone rang 'round the clock. The grass was even cut (and we're talking about several acres worth of bush-hogging here) while the family was making arrangements at the funeral home one day. It was incredible.

So, I'm proud to come from the Christ-haunted South, where the flies bite and the dirt's red and the lakes are all dusty. And I'll write my piece on food some other time.