That's Life: Cheap, but not that cheap

Issue of August 14, 2009 / 24 Av 5769

Dear That’s Life,

Admittedly, I am pretty cheap by nature. Coupons are close friends of mine and there is nothing that makes me happy like buying something off-season. However, as I have learned in my ripe old age, my time is worth money. Shopping online, for example, is not merely a convenience but a necessity. Making returns or bringing something back to a store has to be worth my while — one moldy kugel is not enough to send me to a customer service desk. I also, for example, would not wait on hold for an interminable length of time for a (lack-of) customer service representative to return a fraction of my bill to me, no matter how many other things I could be doing at the same time. There may be a method to my madness, but my madness does have its limits.

My friend, however, has much greater staying power than me. Bothered that her order from The Children’s Place did not reflect the 10 percent discount automatically due to her for using a Children’s Place credit card, she called the customer service number to request an adjustment to her bill. Don’t get me wrong — she deserved the $12 she wanted to see credited to her account.  Where we differed was on the wait she endured to speak to a human being: an hour and 55 minutes later. No, that’s not a typo, an hour and 55 minutes before the hold music was finally replaced by an actual live voice.

We cheered as her hold number moved from #59 down through the countdown. #24 seemed like a major accomplishment and #5 was downright thrilling. While I argued against spending her time and cell minutes on hold, listening to really bad muzak, she was determined to reach a real person and get her money back.  We wondered if she’d even be speaking with someone in this country or if the wait time was so long because there was only one Bangladeshi woman tending to the customer service line.

But she was not frustrated by the wait, the wasted minutes on her phone (“My minutes are free”) or the wasted minutes of her life. The moment we had been waiting for finally arrived. We almost couldn’t believe our ears as a live person answered the phone: “Thank you for holding.”

As my friend explained the purpose of her call she added that she had been on hold for an unfathomable length of time and wanted to speak with a supervisor. “They’re aware,” she was quickly told, and after asking for some sort of compensation for the time spent (and the torture the rest of us endured listening to tunes that make John Tesh seem like Beethoven), she was offered a half-off coupon for her next order. Time actually spent on the phone with a Children’s Place representative? About 45 seconds.

Despite my steady commentary and relentless mockery during nearly two hours on hold, the coupon and the automatic adjustment of her previous order left my friend feeling completely redeemed and very forgiving. She was a happy camper, already looking forward to receiving that coupon and using it on a future purchase. So after all of that, I guess the customer service representative deserved a pat on the back and a “job well done.” Not only did she refund the 10 percent but also she somehow managed to make my friend smile and feel successful regardless of the two-hour wait. Even Jewish mothers aren’t that talented.

MLW