Scrubbing On My Last Nerve

I don't have the patience for this.

I mean, I'm not exactly one for the patience to begin with - the reason I haven't been posting much lately is that the website has been running slow and I get frustrated and log off to go watch Scrubs reruns on Comedy Central. I haven't had a new movie from Netflix in weeks for the same reason. Good thing Scrubs holds up after repeated viewings. But what I don't have the patience for this time is this whole changeover-to-gas-heat thing, and I don't see how Scrubs can help me there...

When I called last week to tell them their plumber never showed up and I hadn't heard from any sales rep like they said I would, I dialled the number listed under Keyspan in the phone book for "oil-to-gas conversions," but the lady said I had the wrong department. She said I needed to talk to Keyspan. Oh, well, duh. Sorry. I thought when I called the number listed for Keyspan and they answered the phone saying "Hello, Keyspan," then that meant I was calling Keyspan. No, she explained, that was different. But she forgave me my stupidity.

Then she said she didn't have me "in her system" and interrupted me every time I tried to ask if that meant they didn't have my changeover request or if they had deleted my account all together. Whenever I uttered so much as a syllable ("Does-," "But-," "I-") she'd cut me off. "Ma'am," she'd say, "I'm trying to help you," as if I were already irate - and then do her level best to ensure I would be.

She eventually connected me straight through to what she said was the right number, but that guy - after keeping me on the phone for five minutes and taking down all my information - said it wasn't his department either. Finally I asked him to forget we'd ever spoken, pretend I was calling for the very first time and I was interested in changing over - tell me what number to call and don't connect me through. That worked.

This guy apologized but didn't seem too terribly surprised that the plumber hadn't bothered to come or even call. "People get busy," he said, did I want to give the guy another shot? Oh yes, please, when somebody makes me take a half-day off work and sit around the house afraid to get on the computer or the phone, or even take a shower, for fear of missing them, and then they don't come and don't have the courtesy to call - usually what I like to do in that situation is give the guy a second chance because, hey, I haven't managed to give him any money yet!

He gave me an appointment with a different plumber for Saturday morning (this was Thursday). He also said the sales rep wouldn't call until after the plumber came.

So of course the sales rep called later that afternoon. I missed the call. When I returned it I got a generic "please leave a message for the department" voice mail box. No one's called back yet, but I'm still hoping.

The new plumber did at least call to say he wasn't coming but, again, I missed the call. It wasn't that an emergency came up or anything, he called a day ahead of time to say he was going away for the weekend and asking to resschedule, which is considerate and appropriate, and certainly appreciated, but still, it makes me wonder: they gave me the appointment Thursday and he called Friday to say he couldn't make it Saturday... Were they just willy-nilly setting up appointments without checking whether or not the plumber was available?

This time it was I who did not return the call. One of the three times I was on hold with Keyspan last week, a recorded voice had taken care to tell me, over and over and over again, that they were very, very busy with all the requests coming in from customers like me, brilliant enough to be interested in changing over to gas heat. I tried anyway, but my patience is shot. I'll just curl back up into my ball now and wait for summer, try again when things slow down a little bit.

In the meantime I have this card here from my sales rep. He wants to know how my apointment went with the plumber and hopes I'll be a warm and happy gas heat customer for years to come. This is the second card, actually. He sent me one about the first guy and I sent it back saying that, so far at least, I wasn't too impressed. What should I say about the second guy?

Oh hey look, Scrubs is on!