Please give a big welcome to our newest blogger, Harriett Nuff. Hattie, as she is known to friends and enemies alike, comes from a long line of curmudgeons. At her husband’s request, we are pleased to provide an outlet for Hattie’s howls of indignation, outbursts of temper, and the expression of her complete and total frustration with the human condition. It is her husband’s fervent wish that this outlet will preclude the further destruction of expensive high-definition television sets…

The New AT&T is Getting Old

by Hattie Nuff

They call themselves the new AT&T. But what they don’t tell you is that the acronym stands for Aggravating, Terrible & Tedious. Aggravating because of the trouble it takes to get service from them. Terrible because of the quality of service you finally do get, and tedious because of the way you are treated by their ridiculously repetitive customer-service representatives—certainly not the sort of behavior that I want ‘representing’ my global firm.

We could as easily reverse the acronym to mean Totally Taking Advantage because of how this corporate megalomaniac tricks (yes, tricks) you into extra fees. Whatever it says, and whatever it says that will cost, you can be sure there will be additional fees. Often fees for services you never (ever) request. An example: one fine day a shipment arrives from TT(&)A. It is a beautiful wireless USB plugin for my laptop. Wonderful. Except that I never ordered it. And terrible because they want $49.95 for it. I call, clarify that I never ordered it, and after about 45 minutes of pleading I am sent a return-postage label. Good. Except that one month later I get a letter asking where it is or why have I not paid for it. A new series of haggling phone calls follow with overly polite, extremely inflexible ‘representatives’. I get transferred three times before things are resolved. A morning wasted for something I never ordered. I end up with a terrible technology headache. You know what that is.

I could go on, but that’s not the point—even though there are thousands if not tens of thousands of similar stories about this… this company. The real point is that they don’t get it. They don’t realize (how can they possibly not realize by now?) that this is not the way to develop a loyal following of customers and get repeat, much less referral, business. They don’t realize that they’re making the situation worse. Not just because of how they train their customer representatives, but because of their sneaky tactics. And they claim to be in the communication business. Ha!

What to do? Here comes the real problem. There is little that we little people can do. But there is a solution. And that is why I am reluctantly but now firmly stepping forward as a ‘representative’ of all those people who like telephones, want to pay their bills on time, and despise being jerked around. I am going to speak for all of us in the hope that this message crests into a wave that eventually crashes onto the shore—the big beach party—where these guys (who are they anyway?) seem to be luxuriating at our expense. Doggone it. Enough is enough. There, I said it. And you should, too. •

Hattie Nuff is a professional social critic and network technology watchdog who has published numerous books about corporate dominance in our personal lives. She is currently working on a new book entitled, OMFG: Here They Come Again.