The Scream

Last week I picked up a call, and the lady on the other end was screaming.

I couldn't understand anything she was saying, because what she was saying, a long rush of garbled, spittly words, was in scream form. It had something to do with Comcast and something to do with "computer", but that was literally all I could get. I couldn't even look up her account to try and find out if our company had ever worked with her before.

(Boring technicality: because folks get transferred over from Comcast's helpdesk, often for the wrong reason and/or without knowing we're a different department (we're not allowed to say we're actually a different company), we have to look folks up in both our own ticketing system, to see if we've ever worked with them, and also in Comcast's database, which is slow as can be. This is always the first thing we have to do, and always takes a minute or two, which can be difficult when a customer is very upset).

She kept screaming words I couldn't understand at me, in a hoarse high-pitched voice. I tried to be calming, and in a couple gaps where she came up for air, I said things like "I'll be happy to help" and "I'm here to help solve your problem". But then before I could make any headway she'd wind up like an old-fashioned siren and start in again. Finally (I think it was only a few minutes total), she literally ran out of voice. I heard her get hoarser and hoarser and hoarser until she was still screaming but only little rasps and squeaks of sound emerged. Then a man took the phone away from her.

"I apologize", he said. "She's a little upset. Here's the deal: her internet got set up three hours ago, and it's not working. We called and they said it'd start working between five and eight pm. It's already five-twenty."