Three Cheers for Good Service

This post may be pretty tedious, but I feel like it involves three harrowing escapes from all manner of inconvenience and frustration, due to the helpfulness of three good people.

First, a small one: way back in March, I had the heater service people out. They offered to do a routine maintenance thing that I had already had done this year (by another company), and I asked them not to do it this time. But a few days later, they sent a follow-up guy out, and when he left, I saw that he'd done it anyway. Uh-oh, I thought, but I didn't get a bill for it . . . until July, after a delay where they'd tried to send it to my home warranty people first. Figuring it was going to be almost impossible to verify that I had asked them not to do it, I was ready for a fight, and I warmed up what Dottie, in her hilarious account, calls the Def-con 3 teacher-voice. But they were so nice that I never had to get beyond "pleasant but puzzled." They called me back the next day to say--again, so nicely!--they were dropping the charge.

Second, I had tried to cancel my satellite TV in an effort to pursue a deeper inner life (yeah, yeah--keep reading). But when I called, I was informed that the people who had installed the satellite had signed me up for a 2-year contract, to which I was certain I had never agreed. I got transferred to someone named Peter, and he told me he would look up my contract. I never expected to hear from him again, since I agreed to keep the satellite until the issue was resolved rather than incur an early cancellation charge. But Peter actually called me back to tell me that the installer had been incorrect, that they would track the installer to make sure it wasn't a pattern. And--he left me the number of his direct line. Wow. Go, D1shNetwork! (As for me, my halfhearted momentum has passed and I still have the TV for the time being.)

Finally, RoomBob needed a doctor. Instead of trundling across the room sucking up dirt, he kept going short distances, zig-zagging, and then making a sad chiming sound and turning himself off. He doesn't have a drinking problem (that I know of), so I looked online for some assistance. The iRobot site gave a suggestion and advised calling their hotline if it didn't work. (I liked that they actually recommended calling the service folks, rather than making it difficult--has anybody ever had to get help for a D*ll computer?)

After only a single branch on the iRobot phone tree, Frank answered the phone.* He told me to let him hear the Roomba's sad sound, and immediately diagnosed the problem. [There was no long hold, no pseudo-soothing Muzack.] He told me how to fix it, and after a conversation of two minutes, Roomba was happily trundling in his usual efficient patterns. [I did not then have to bundle the thing up, take it to the post office, and wait six weeks for a letter telling me that he was being held hostage until I paid for an un-warranteed repair. ] I just called the guy, and he told me how to fix it. Yay Frank!

*Not Mr. Frank who appears now and then in this blog. But another Frank of similar good cheer, patience,** and technical capability.

**Joan, I can hear you laughing right now.