My favourite pensioner went on a rant the other day about her phone bill and gave me an earful about how tedious it was to place two, three and sometimes four calls in order to reach me on my cell. Was my phone busy? No? Did she dial the wrong number? No. Did she dial incorrectly? No. She dials carefully, and she checks the LCD display and then hears a voice that tells her: “You have dialled a cellular number…” and then proceeds to give her information on how to place the call correctly.

Only problem is that she had placed the call correctly — every time. That exercise was frustrating enough for her, but when she got the phone bill she was really mad. You think those $7.00 calls don’t add up? Think again. You do the math: three dropped calls at $7.00 each for 31 days.

I checked one of my landline phone bills and noticed that out of the 172 cell calls placed, 38 of them were duplicated calls lasting a minute each, suggesting that I perhaps had to place the original call twice. At an average cost per call of $7.75, an extra $294.55 was added to my bill for that month. Truth be told, I use my cell phone to place most calls, and have noticed all too frequently that my callers can’t hear me the first time I call them, and so I have to place the call twice.

I’ve checked my daughter’s phone bill, and well, let’s just say that she’s clearly the Caller of the Last Seven Months (that’s as long as she’s had her own phone) and the phone company needs to enter her in the Guinness Book of World Records for The Most Calls Made On Days When You’re Supposed to be in School. But that’s another issue.

The point is that collectively, the number of dropped calls that I pay for in a month adds up to a quick run to the supermarket for a couple loaves of bread. I think there is merit to my favourite pensioner’s paranoia about the phone company’s ability to deliver hassle-free phone service. You should check your phone bills; let me know what you find.

Taking that bit of change to the supermarket is useful in these lean times, but getting them to accept it could be a hassle. While waiting in line I had the pleasure of watching an exchange between my cashier and a customer. Apparently, this little old man is a regular at the supermarket and pays cash for his goods. No new ‘Nannys’ or ‘Joshuas’ for him; it’s strictly ‘Sharpes’ and ‘Sangsters’ which the cashier objects to because, as she put it: “You always come to me and the money is always dirty.”

She’s clearly the clean-money-only cashier. And unless it’s a crisp bill you’re proffering she’d rather you check out somewhere else. I think this may be the beginning of the end — when the cashier at the supermarket no longer wants to take your money unless it’s recently laundered.

I’ve been singing the praises of my bank to anyone who will listen. Won’t mention their name but my mother had a problem with them — after three tries, she gave up trying to get them to spell her name correctly on a new set of cheque leaves (and would you know they tried to charge her for each attempt).

“I’m sorry. I understand,” are lately the two most often-used phrases in corporate customer service today when an organisation promises to deliver a service or product to you and fails. It’s the two most overused phrases you hear as the stress rises while you’re trying to convey the urgency of the situation to someone whose only response to your crisis is that she’s sorry and that she understands.

As apologetic and understanding as they are, it usually has no bearing on expediting any corrective action. The most you might get, and that comes one week later when you’ve cooled down and got over it, is that the supervisor from the call centre might call you and ask you to recall some very specific inanity of your conversation as in: were you transferred? How many times? Did the operator transfer your call successfully? (Yes, but they transferred it to another apologetic, understanding customer service rep who was of less assistance — that doesn’t count as good customer service, does it?).

Have you ever noticed that all the survey questions are designed to make the call centre look like they did their job? By the time the supervisor is finished with her innocuous questions you end up looking like a troublemaker.

And then my last fuss. Have you noticed the new greeting offered by store personnel and sales clerks? Hardly any words are necessary any more. You enter the store. They stare at you. And then when you take too long to greet them warmly, they lift their chin quickly and point it directly at you in a “What you want?” attitude. It’s such a delightful technique. Makes me want to dig deeper into my purse and just throw my money at them.

Tamarind season is upon us, ladies and gentlemen. For merchants, it is the slow season which sees a sharp decline in consumer spending right after Christmas. For consumers it’s that time of year when we are more than just the usual broke, usually right after Christmas. It’s a good time to remind all goods and service providers and their sales associates that money is hard to come by and the competition for the shrinking amounts of disposable income is fierce.

scowicomm@gmail.com