Holding for the next available representative
By Donald Jeffries
I Protest
October 28, 2026
The past week was a bit too interesting in the Jeffries household. Our cable company was bought out by another. Now, this happens all the time in our centralized, merger-mania society, so I didn't pay much attention to it. We bundle our internet with our television, and you all know how important the internet is to me. As in essential.
There were so many problems, I can't really recall exactly what triggered things. I believe our television didn't come back up after one of those daily, unnecessary boots of the system. Our technology is based on the Microsoft principle; when something isn't working, reboot. You'll never know what was wrong, but that usually fixes it. In our case, the cable always takes forever to go through the booting process. Like much of our ass backwards tech, it now takes longer for this process than it did twenty years ago. It's a progress thing, you wouldn't understand. At any rate, we couldn't get our TV back, so I called the new company's customer service line. The old company had lots of glitches. Too many "Kyles" with a thick Indian accent. But this was something new altogether. Every time you call them, your expected wait time is around an hour. As these companies learned during the COVID psyop, they can just have the bot say, "we are currently experiencing higher call volume than normal." They all say that.
So, dealing with this perpetual higher call volume than normal (and if the higher call volume is constant, wouldn't that be the new "normal?"), was frustrating enough. But when you finally got a human representative- which, it goes without saying, no company wants you to be able to speak with- it was like talking to a government agency. I went through more obviously Black surly and unknowledgeable representatives than I care to remember. They all blended together, into one giant Shaniqua. Each of them laughably confident that "I'm gonna take care of you," but predictably unable to resolve anything. Usually, they made things worse. The first one's computer crashed, and we lost the internet. Now, when I lose the internet things get real serious. Shit gets real, as these representatives might say. Think a rock star in the 1970s-80s without drugs and underage girls. I had to go to sleep without TV or the internet. I can barely sleep as it is. I nodded off to YouTube videos on my phone.
The tech was supposed to come the following morning between 8-10 am. They always give you those windows, often a larger one than that. They were supposed to call first, but they routinely don't. He arrived at around noon. No explanation. To my surprise, he was White. That hasn't been the case very often since the 1990s. So I prepared for some of that well known White efficiency and competence. However, this White guy was a Ukrainian immigrant and might as well have been one of the Shaniquas I spoke with on the phone. He left without fixing the TV, although the internet came back. Kind of. The ethernet worked, but inexplicably, the new modem couldn't find our home network. The Ukrainian came back later that day, and again fixed nothing. So I spent another long night, staring at old NFL film clips on my little smart phone screen. The next day, they sent a Hispanic tech. This guy had been with the old company for twenty years. After several hours, he did get the television back up.
However, the modem still couldn't find the network. In between all these service calls, I spoke with several more sterling representatives. Most were stereotypical surly Black women, but I think they threw at least one Asian woman, and one "Kyle" with an Indian accent in there as well. It was a real diversity of incompetence. No one I spoke with apologized for all the inconvenience, or offered to even take the three days I was without television off my bill. I threatened to change cable companies, but they knew it was an empty threat. All companies in America 2.0 are the same. The same awful customer service. The same pricing, which always goes up. And it's a pain to have the cables, modems, and boxes switched. I did call their main competitor (I use the term loosely), but their price would have been even higher. Eventually, an African-American male, of all people, came out and finally resolved things. Believe me, I had very little confidence that he would. Maybe the Man really is holding them down.
Then, another young African-American male, in an excruciating two and a half hour phone conversation, finally lowered my monthly bill by about 80 dollars. He assured me that the various unjust charges for "changing equipment" and late fees (I told them I was not paying them until this situation was resolved) would be waived. So I was happy. Giddy even. The network was back. I could fall asleep to old movies, TV shows, or fantasy football podcasts. Then I get emails about owing the company hundreds of dollars. That would be for the unjust charges and late fees that the diligent young African-American assured me had been waived. I called them about this, and a female with an indistinguishable accent told me she would request the fees be waived. I haven't received word back yet. I don't want to talk to them on the phone again. It's infuriating. It's America 2.0 in a nutshell. It exemplifies all that I write and talk about. But I'll have to do it, probably Monday. And as always, I am not optimistic.
All companies still claim to "value our customers." They don't bother with "the customer is always right" any more, and the customers understand that in any given situation that would involve them benefiting, they simply aren't going to be right. You have no choice in these matters. No my wallet, my choice. There is no competition in our "competitive" marketplace. If there were, you'd see significant differences in the prices of identical products. You don't. Now, I am the farthest thing from a capitalist, but even I can understand how much the average person hates those automated menus. You know, the ones that tell you "listen closely, because our menu options have changed," and "prima el dos para Espanol." Every automated menu tells you that. Word for word. So if I'm starting a company, I'm hiring a perky, bubbly human receptionist. And I'm advertising that we don't have those annoying automated menus. Wouldn't that attract customers ? Then again, I've never owned a business.
We all hear the conservative rhetoric about "no one wanting to work." About "I can't find any workers." My experience the past week, and indeed my experiences over the past few decades, lead me to believe that only the most unqualified and incompetent employees are hired these days. What else is a critical thinker to think ? Again, you're all familiar with my views on randomness. If this stuff was random, you would have at least some friendly and knowledgeable representatives and technicians to quickly resolve your problem. But you never do. You wouldn't have exclusively surly Black women and Indians with fake American names to choose from. Just as James Forrestal once said, before they pushed him out of a window at Bethesda Naval Hospital, that if there wasn't a giant conspiracy, once in a while they'd make a mistake in our favor, once in a while these companies should make a mistake in our favor. Hire people who would be deferential, and display evidence that they were adept at their job.
Things have become so bad that I simply assume there is going to be a problem with every product, or service, that I purchase. It's a forced default setting. I know when I call anywhere, for anything, that I'll have to endure an unbearable battle with the automated menu, and then the AI voice that these companies ludicrously give human identities to. No, I don't want a fake Jessica to not help me. I don't want a fake Kyle from India to not help me. I sure don't want a Laquiesha with an attitude to say "excuse me!" and be ready to cut off the connection if I show the slightest signs of impatience. To be fair, she'd be just as likely to cut me off due to the glaring inadequacies of her working skills. Meanwhile, I know so many young White guys who are making pizzas at Domino's, if they can find a job at all. It bears repeating that only six percent of all new jobs created since 2020 have gone to White males. That's not a "racist" talking, that's an official statistic from the Bureau of Labor.