Call Centers

Today I am grateful for Call Centers.  I expect some of you are already reaching for your phones to call the looney bin folks to come and pick me up.  I don’t blame you.  I’m shocked for this gratitude, too.

Yesterday we finally picked up a letter we didn’t know we needed from my old job regarding when the insurance ended when I retired.  After months of believing everything is settled, now medicare, AARP supplemental insurance and prescription insurance decide they need this before John is covered.  Swell.  Getting the letter meant that we now had to call Medicare, Blue Cross and AARP.  Shoot me now! 

My face got hot and I felt instant stress.  Why?  Don’t I believe, my “call is very important” to them?  Hah!  You’re not sucking me in this time.  I’m going to be ready with paper, pen, and a beverage.  Bring on the Armageddon of call centers!  I’m prepared.  I’m taking the names of each person I talk to; and the date & times, too.  I want to know who to report when I’ve had enough and pitched the phone out into the snow bank.  I might want to call them back after spring thaw. . .in July.

John made the first call.  Short of scrambling for the pen that got buried under papers, he was fine.  No bulging veins in his neck, no swearing.  Hmmm.  Interesting.  I made the next call. I got a guy who not only spoke English without an impossible-to-understand-accent, but he also had a brain bigger than a gnat.  When I was done my heart was not palpitating. How odd.  Unusual.  We both made the last and most important call together on the speaker phone.  It was a very long wait to actually get a breathing person.  We were “pleasured” with everything from canned musak, to a pitch for Yak insurance, to ocean-front property in Utah. When a person shocked us by speaking, we had all of our questions answered, with respect and in a slow enough, clear enough voice that we didn’t have to say, “I’m sorry, what?  I can’t understand you.” a dozen times.  Not even once.

We used to spend time going on dates, eating too much, drinking too much and doing the nasty too much, if there is such a thing.  Now we’re just happy when we don’t have to increase our blood pressure meds after an afternoon on the phone with a few call centers.