Customer Service is Dead….and it’s Stinking the Place up!

A wise man once said: "Clear you ass and
your mind will follow"

We were having some trouble selling our old home and decided that maybe clean carpets and tile would spiffy it up and help sell it. I called one of the local carpet cleaning companies to set up some time to get the floors cleaned. I talked to the scheduler and got “We have 2 hour appointment windows. I can schedule a 9am – 11am for you tomorrow.” My response was, “I have a job and don’t really want to take time off of work. I can’t just drop everything and be there to let you in. Do you do weekends?” She responded “No, we run from 9am -5pm, Monday through Friday.” I looked at my calendar and said “I can do next Thursday. Is that available and what times do you have?” She acknowledged “Yes, that will work. We have an 11am to 1pm window open.” I replied “Ok, I will put that in my calendar. Can you call me at work 30 minutes before the cleaners arrive so I can meet them at the house to let them in?” She agreed to call and we made arrangements for them to clean 4 carpeted areas and 2 tiled bathrooms.

Thursday rolled around and work was nuts. I was in a meeting until 10:45 then checked my messages…..no call. I stepped out of my office at 10:59. At 11am sharp the phone rang. I got back in my office at 11:05 and checked the new message. A loud voice bellowed from the speaker “Dude, I am at your house to clean your carpets and you are not here. Can you call me and let me know when you will be here?” He didn’t leave a number and hung up. I called the main office and talked to the scheduler from the previous week. I said “Hey, you told me they were going to call around 30 minutes before they would be arriving so I could get to the house to let them in. They called and left me a message that they were at the house and were waiting on me. The guy said to call him back but didn’t leave me a number.” She replied “I don’t remember agreeing to that but let me call them and see if they can stay.” I heard her talking on the other line and then she rebutted “Sir, they will wait for you. When will you be there?” I told her that I would be there in 30 minutes, hung up, and ran out to my car. During the jaunt to my car I felt a rumble down under and things started to loosen up. I soldiered on and put my intestinal fortitude to the test.

I drove to the house in record breaking time. I opened the garage door and jumped out to meet the crew. The leader, at least the one who could make sentences, said “Dude, I’m Curtis and we’ll be cleaning your carpets today.” We walked inside to review what to clean. Curtis then proceeded to rattle off “I have down that we are supposed to clean 6 carpeted areas. Is this right?” I abruptly barked out “Whoa, whoa, whoa, I have 4 carpeted areas and 2 tiled areas to get cleaned. I discussed this with your scheduler on the phone.” Then Curtis looked at me with his stoner eyes and a confused look and said “Dude, we don’t have the tile cleaning machine. You’re going to have to schedule something later. We’re backed up for the next week.” So I walked out to the car to grab my cell phone. I called the main office and explained the situation to the scheduler. She called the crew to get some details. After we literally played the telephone game for 15 minutes she came back with “The cleaners have one more job then they can pick up the tile cleaner and finish up at your house today.” I thanked her and hung up.

I walked into the house to review things with the cleaners. Both of them looked pissed off that they had to come back and started to get a little mouthy. My stomach once again started to growl and the good ship turdy turd was ready to set sail. I was going to be a nice guy and drop a deuce back at work but I had had enough. I walked back to the main bathroom and dropped a deuce so big that it was a deuce-deuce. The smell of death filled the bathroom and began to roll out from under the door. I walked out and turned off the fan. The smell followed me down the hall back to the cleaners. I wrapped things up and left them to simmer in the stench. Needless to say, I got some sick pleasure out of dropping the pile of a lifetime at the house just for the cleaners to put up with. I’m convinced that customer service is dead. I’m just avenging its death in my own special way.