December 23, 5065. 7:00 a.m.
Sherry sighed heavily as she powered up her computer.
She had to work the alien shift today.
She hated working the alien shift. They never spoke very good English, and the intergalactic translators took forever. She sighed again.
As she sat down at the customer relations station, her elbow banged painfully against the corner of the desk. The person who worked customer relations last night must have lowered the chair. It was probably Ronald. He was always doing things like that.
As soon as Sherry checked the “clock in” button on her monitor, the transverse wave telecommunication device began buzzing. The transverse wave telecommunication device always buzzed as soon as she clocked in. And the buzzee was never happy to speak with her. She pressed the connectivity button.
“Insulation Installation Customer Service Line. This is Sherry speaking. How can I help you?”
“This is Xbarg from Planet Megatarius,” she heard the voice on the other end of the line respond. “I’d like to report a problem with a shipment I recently ordered from your thermal anti-conductive line.”
Of course he was calling to report a problem. That’s the only reason anyone ever called a customer service line.
“Just a moment, Sir, let me pull your name up in our database.” Sherry quickly typed his name into the search field. She was a very efficient typist.
“I’m sorry, Sir, I’m having some trouble locating your record. Can you spell your name for me please?”
“X-b-a-r-g.”
Sherry typed it again. She already knew how to spell Xbarg, but if she’d told him that his name wasn’t in the database before asking him how to spell it, he would have accused her of spelling it incorrectly.
“I’m still not finding you in our database. Let me repeat that back to you. X as in…X. B as in boring. A as in Alien. R as in rotten. G as in glutton.”
“Yes,” Xbarg answered heatedly. The aliens always seemed to think that if they raised their voices, their record would magically appear in the system.
For several more minutes, Sherry attempted to locate his name. This would have been much easier if he could have given her his invoice number, but, of course, no one ever knew their invoice number. No one ever had their packing slip either. If he’d opened the package this morning, like he’d claimed, then why wouldn’t he have his packing slip? Half of the time, the aliens calling to complain were calling the wrong insulation company. Xbarg’s shrill voice interrupted Sherry’s thoughts.
“I gave you the name. Xbarg. X, as in Xylophone. B, as in balloon. A, as in aardvark. R, as in Rock. G, as in Grape.”
Sherry sighed again. Xbarg was clearly agitated, like she was doing this on purpose. Maybe his name was under “B” instead of “X.”
Ah ha! There his name was! Under B. She was so clever.
“There you are,” she said, trying to mask how impressed she was with herself. “It was under ‘Barg, X.’” She paused slightly, waiting for him to make an appreciative comment.
Xbarg said nothing.
Sherry pursed her lips.
“It looks like you ordered the Deluxe Enveloping Model Thermal Insulation.”
“Yes, that’s what I ordered.”
He didn’t sound grateful at all. Unbelievable.
“And what’s your problem, Sir?”
“When I took it out of the box, it started expanding.”
“And?”
“I’ve told you already, it’s filled my entire ship.”
“That’s what it’s supposed to do. You ordered the Enveloping Insulation. That’s an auto-expansion variety.”
“This can’t possibly be its intended result.”
Sherry sighed, and hit “enter,” so that she could scroll to the next page of Xbarg’s record. Of course Xbarg’s insulation had performed according to its intended result. Insulation doesn’t malfunction.
“Did you unpack the insulation in the area where you wanted the insulation to be contained?” she asked. She was only asking to be polite. She knew the answer. The answer was always user error.
“What do you mean? No, of course not.”
Yep. User error.
“I wanted it in the walls. I opened it in the center of the main passenger compartment,” Xbarg continued.
“Well that’s your problem then. You’re supposed to open it in the area where you want it to be contained.” She knew that her statement would be met with objection, excuses as to why he was incapable of following the directions, even though hundreds of thousands of other users had managed to get it right. She made a notation in his record about his inability to follow instructions.
“I want my money back,” Xbarg huffed.
Of course he did. Callers always wanted their money back after they ordered the wrong product and then ruined it.
“I’m sorry, Sir, but all of our auto-expanding insulations are non-returnable once they’ve been removed from the original packaging.” This was also clearly printed on the package. In bold font.
“But this isn’t what I wanted. I can’t use this stuff!” Xbarg exclaimed.
“Sir, you ARE using the insulation. Doesn’t your ship feel warm now?”
“Don’t patronize me,” he said angrily. “If you can’t help me, then transfer my call to someone who can.”
“Sir, I can transfer you to Technical Support if you’d like, but you’ll have to pay for the service call because product misuse isn’t covered by your warranty.”
“What?! What have I misused? It malfunctioned! I shouldn’t have to pay for a service call.”
Sherry made a notation in his record of Xbarg’s displeasure regarding his anticipation of paying for a service call. “Sir, your insulation is not malfunctioning. If you request and receive technical assistance for a product that is not malfunctioning, you are expected to pay for it.” Sherry reached over and took a sip of her coffee. At the rate this call was going, she’d be lucky if she got to take her lunch hour.
“If I pay for a service call,” the annoyed voice said on the other end of the line, “can they tell me what to do?”
Sherry reached into her top drawer for a piece of chewing gum. She wished that she could afford to use Enveloping Insulation in her ship. “The only thing that the service technicians will be able to tell you is that you should have followed the instructions. If you wanted non-auto-expanding insulation, then you should have ordered our Premium Defined Packing Model.”
“I won’t be ordering anything else from your company again! How would I have known that it would fill my whole ship?”
They’d been over this. Sherry made a notation of Xbarg’s confusion over the product’s description in Xbarg’s record.
“You didn’t have to input a building size into the electronic form when you ordered the product,” she explained with what she considered to be an abundance of patience. “If the insulation that you were ordering wasn’t auto-expanding, the electronic order form would have required you to enter a building size.”
For a moment, there was stunned silence.
“Well,” Xbarg began. “I didn’t think about that at the time of my order,” he concluded indignantly.
“There was even a warning that you were ordering auto-expanding insulation on the screen that you affixed your electronic signature to.”
Xbarg cleared his throat. “No one ever reads the fine print on those things,” he responded dismissively.
“Do you want to speak with someone in Technical Support?” Sherry asked.
“I want to speak with your manager.”