The customer was extremely irate. She had a right to be, since it was 11 o’clock at night and I was still at her house trying to install her I-World service.
“Four hours, you said,” she said with her voice trembling with anger, “it’ll be all set up in four hours, you said. You’ve been here 14 hours and I still have no Internet service, no TV and no phone. I can’t believe I passed up playing cards with my friends so I could stay home and watch you fumble around. Are you sure you’re from WGT? What’s that stand for, anyway? World Global Telecom? Isn’t that redundant?”
In the meantime I was struggling to get her service up and running but was trying to resolve the multitude of issues that stood in my way, such as antiquated phone lines in her neighborhood and the distance from the source of the I-World service she had ordered. Add the fact that I hadn’t been working this job very long and that set the stage for one very miserable day. And now this customer was berating me, her mouth rambling nonstop and pushing me to the very edge of my sanity.
After trying once more to reattach the coaxial cable to its outlet on the wall, I decided to try once more to reboot the modem in the next room to see if the TV service worked yet. Of course, the customer followed me with her metal cane scraping the floor as she let loose yet another barrage of insults.
“I can’t believe I fell for this scam,” the customer ranted, “WGT makes billions of dollars a day yet it can’t even provide decent service for its customers. I knew I should’ve stayed with Adelphia Cable, but then I would’ve paid much more for Internet. But at least they have technicians who know what they’re doing instead of drunk monkeys like you-”
Suddenly her speech was cut off by a short, piercing dial tone that swiftly darkened the room. Immediately afterwards there were two bright flashes of light followed by the sound of something falling to the floor. Finally the room began to fill with the sickening smell of burning flesh. I nervously reached for my toolbelt and switched on the flashlight and the truth was illuminated in an instant.
The customer’s metal cane had touched the stripped phone line on the floor, creating a short circuit that sent the dial tone shooting out of her mouth before the electrical current reduced her to a smoldering pile of ashes on the floor.
Then my work phone rang. I knew who it was without looking at the screen.
“Hey, Mike,” my boss shouted, “I’m still waiting for you. I can’t lock up the yard without your truck back over here. Are you done yet?”
Your bad day doesn’t seem so bad anymore, does it?
MJBDiver.com 