Commentary - Stephanie Esworthy: Customer non-service

I’ve observed that as clever marketing creates that glittering bauble of fame, efficiency and customer service often suffer. Consider the intense guys with adhesive-taped glasses. I rushed my laptop with its ominous dark screen to my local Best Buy Geek Squad (not to be confused with Geeks on Call). After waiting 15 minutes at an empty counter, a grumpy Geek, silver badge gleaming under fluorescence, plodded over.

He sized me up and announced that many important people were ahead of me. Geeks would not examine my laptop for 10 days.

Granted, I was dressed casually and did not have the aura of a genius blogger making the world safe for democracy, so I shrugged off his assessment of my neediness and said OK. He hinted that work might commence quickly if I let him charge $299 to my credit card in advance. I said OK to that too. After three weeks I began to call for progress reports, only to be told they still had no time to examine it. I visited the store thinking this would make a difference. A Geek with no schmooze skills returned from the back room to say everything was so piled up, he couldn’t find mine. Panicked, I called Best Buy’s National Customer Service Hotline. The sympathetic clerk who couldn’t contact anyone either, advised me to take my computer and go to another store.

On my retrieval quest, I ran into an investigating Best Buy District Manager who declared my treatment “unacceptable.” Things moved quickly. The Head Geek examined it, declared it dead and shipped it off to Hewlett-Packard Headquarters for a brand new hard-drive under warranty. I returned to Best Buy to have the promised $200 of the Visa charge reversed. The Head Geek refused to come out from the curtained back room, but sent messages through a rookie that he didn’t remember saying he’d reverse part of the charges. Finally, a young disgusted non-Geek cashier overheard. “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain Honey!” she bellowed, “I’ll remove the charge.”

Still in Geek recovery, but more anxious than ever to be recognized as that advanced cool person demanding faster high technology, I found a notice on my front doorknob from Verizon announcing joyous news. The company was about to “revolutionize the way you live, work and play.” Crews began spray-marking our lawns and streets with bright paint in primary colors. Later it was explained that the choice of permanent paint was “somebody’s” mistake, but it would lose most of its ugly brilliance in 5 years. Next I awoke to the abrasive sound of backhoes and augers. On each lawn, two deep square holes were dug. I tried to question the diggers but no one spoke English. They pointed to a hard-hatted, smiling fellow waving a clipboard. Before I could speak he began to spin. “Do you realize how lucky you are that Verizon has selected you and is bringing fiber optic cable to your premises?” Already feeling helpless I retorted, “But you are well onto my private property with your huge grave-like holes.” Ahhh … he whipped out a copy of the notice on my doorknob and read aloud, “This often will involve working … next to or on private property.” “So” he smirked, “permission already exists to upgrade facilities by using your land.”

I wondered if the addition of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito would make a difference this time if a case related to eminent domain went up to the Supreme Court. But I pick my battles, and this one seemed futile. Every week I get a cheery call from Verizon urging me to take advantage of a fiber optic upgrade for an introductory rate of ten dollars more per month. Staring at the squares where once there was grass, with the little decision making power I have left, I summon strength and say, “no thanks.”

Stephanie Esworthy was director of media and public relations and the Baltimore City Film Commission for former Mayors William Donald Schaefer and the late Clarence “Du” Burns and served as head of Baltimore City’s Bureau of Music in every city administration since Mayor Theodore R. McKeldin. Her personal experiences in local politics started in the early 1950s as the daughter of state’s attorney and chief judge of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, Anselm Sodaro, now deceased. She may be reached at steph21093@verizon.net.