My mother's watermelon curse
I decided long time ago to never use lightly the power I discovered I have to summon "my mother's watermelon curse."
In fifth grade there was a bully who was bothering me and a lot of others. I tried several times to ask him nicely to stop. I believe in the power of humans discussing differences and resolving them by virtue of using speech and empathy to see each other's perspective. When that fails however, what do you do? As a young teenager I cursed the bully with what later I learned to call my mother's watermelon curse.
Mom was always buying watermelons by asking the farmer to choose them as for himself or else Mom would curse the farmer if the watermelon wasn't good enough. We always got the best watermelons. All the farmers must've been afraid of being cursed. Not surprising for the curse of the Mom of a Vampire Count.
The bully's parents both died in a terrible car accident that summer.
I couldn't sleep for a year. I still dread that I cursed my colleague. It's how I decided to never use that power in vain.
I bought tires during Black Friday week. I really didn't need the card but they pushed me into getting it by luring me with a discount on the tires. I had the cash in my pocket but who doesn't like a 25-30% discount? So far so good.
I called Citibank about my GoodYear card. I had paid five times more than I needed over a month ahead twice in a row. I didn't need the card but they made me apply for it to get a double discount on the tires. They dare say I'm late. They explained on the phone why I was wrong. About a bullying [billing, really] cycle. They can't count to two. Their software programmers are logically challenged. The second level CSR can't understand 12/04/18 is a date earlier than 01/10/19. When I explained their error they didn't accept the explanation and they start arguing with me, starting with "we have millions of customers" and "we cannot adapt to what the customer is doing." Huh? This is a business? It tries to exist and survive today?
Not only did they not apologize for their mistake. They tried to convince me that somehow I made a mistake paying them way ahead which justified how and why they could call paying way early as being "paying late." Who hires and trains these people? Maybe teaching fourth grade calendar skills and mere logic could be necessary. Or system wide firings.
This deserves the deployment of my mother's watermelon curse. So I summon it.
My DBA former student clearly showed that quality initiatives among Fortune 500 companies _only_ work if introduced strategically with customer orientation in mind. Duh!
I hereby officially wish strongly and curse Citibank NA to die a quick death into oblivion, unless they radically change their approach to quality and customer orientation as of right now.
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