Do people just piss you off?

The older I get, the less I like people.

I have a fairly large group of people I care for - love, actually.

But dealing with the general public anymore can be fraught with rudeness.  Civility when dealing with a customer, a client, a patient, etc. seems to have become a real chore for people who now make up what used to be known as the "Customer Service" force.

I think there are several reasons for this.  One, is that they're not paid much of anything.  Many will argue that they don't deserve to be paid any more than they are based on how they treat people, yada yada yada.  Well, that's a vicious little circle that can be debated for days.  But I will never "get" that the guy at the top might make more in a hour than the person on the phone with me might make in a week.  Or longer.

The people in "Customer Service" positions these days aren't vested in what they're doing, probably won't be there for long, and in many cases haven't been given the training to do the job they've been placed in.

Next time you're somewhere like Lowe's Hardware or Home Depot and you want some assistance in say - bathroom fixtures, ask the person helping you how much training they've actually had in bathroom fixtures.  Chances are they just wandered over from selling someone a garden hose and fertilizer.

Because I'm no longer working and Donald is, I'm the one who gets to do a lot of the duties that we used to share.  And that's fair.  But it also means I'm the one who gets grumped at by "Customer Service" people who are, a lot of times, much too young to even know what "Customer Service" used to be.

Today's events were all mine.  And I have pitched one of the most royal fits I've ever pitched.  Since I'm not adverse to speaking my mind, believe me when I say, this one was a bad one.


Just because I may sound like I understand the problem does not mean I react well when confronted with it.


Rudeness begets rudeness.



Insurance companies are the bane of our civilization.

They are ruling and ruining the middle class of this country, and no - I do not think that's an exaggeration.

When I was told by my pharmacy this morning that my insurance company would not refill the eyedrops needed to have cataract surgery done on Monday I rolled my eyes, hung up the phone and called the insurance company.

In an attempt to explain that I was pretty close to the end of this bottle of drops because I had been using them for a little over two weeks for my right eye, I would not have enough to get me over the next two plus weeks for my left eye.

It is, after all, a teeny little bottle.


A teeny little bottle that does not magically replenish itself.


I was told they would approve renewing the prescription in two weeks.


No.

Not good enough.

So.

I went to youtube and played this song a few times and sang along -






Since then, I've freshened my coffee, sat down with the phone and have had conversations with my eye doctor here in Boone, the pharmacy, the insurance company, the surgeon's assistant at the eye clinic and a nurse at the eye clinic.


More than one conversation with each of the above.


This is not a good thing for someone like me who hates the telephone.


The one that ultimately had me snap was the surgeon's assistant at the eye clinic.  She refused to let me talk without interrupting.  She told me I was wrong with the information I was giving her.  She then said, "Mrs. Barley, you don't really know what you're talking about."  I finally asked her was it just me she had a problem with, or was it people in general?  No answer.  So, I said - "if it's me, how 'bout you just tell me what I've done to have had you treating me with so much disdain and condescension since the first conversation we had when we were setting up these appointments."  No answer.  So, I said - "we're done.  If you'll ask the doctor to call me, I'd appreciate it.  And if I don't hear from him, I'll just keep calling back until I do.  And I would suggest you find a job where you don't need to talk to people until you get your nasty little attitude adjusted because, honey, there really are people out there smarter than you're giving them credit for.  Most, much smarter than you.  And if you insist on being a bitch, you need to take some lessons 'cause you're not even that good at it."


About 30 minutes later, a triage nurse from the eye clinic called me.


A very pleasant, very professional woman.

And since I try to be fair about dishing out the good as well as the bad, I thanked her, told her how much I appreciated her professionalism and her kindness and wished her a pleasant day.  But not without also telling her she was part of a rare breed - and she said, "oh, Mrs. Barley, I know.  That's what makes me determined to try as hard as I can when this type of situation pops up.  There's always a solution."


Long story short - my prescription for the eye drops will be ready for me to pick up at the pharmacy in a couple hours.