two thousand six hundred and four

Since January, I've been getting a bill from AT&T that says I owe them for long distance. These are little bills, not more than $8.00 accruing each month. The problem is that I don't have AT&T for long distance, I have Working Assets, that groovy company that gives you pints of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, donates money to great causes, and is linked to Sprint. When I moved in with H. a few years ago, I decided to get off the AT&T corporate teat once and for all, opting for Working Assets long distance, and SBC for wireless and land line.

Since January, I've been calling AT&T, trying to clear up the bill. This is difficult because my SBCglobal account is also now called AT&T, only, I've come to find out, this is different from "the old AT&T" or "legacy AT&T" which is the one that's billing me for the long distance I never ordered. To try to straighten out this mess, I called Working Assets, who told me to call SBC, who told me to call AT&T, who told me to call Legacy AT&T, who told me that my local provider is the one who switched me and that I had to call them. I call back SBC and an operator tells me that there is no record of this, but that she'll get to the bottom of it by doing a three-way [no giggling] call to the Legacy AT&T. This happens a couple of times with promises made on all sides that the account will be removed. But the bills still come, and the amount is increasing.

Then I get a call from Legacy AT&T telling me my name is being sent to a creditor, which really pisses me off. This past weekend, I spent about an hour and a half on the phone, mostly waiting and being transferred to various "associates" named (I wrote them all down) Kevin, Nikki, Judy, Clarence, and Heather, all of whom, ironically, sound like they are from south-east Asia. When I would ask for last names, I was told they were not allowed to provide me with last names, which makes me wonder if I was being helped by prison labor in the global south. Finally, I was transferred to "Tricia," who tells me in heavily-accented English that she even though she is a supervisor, she cannot help me. According to Tricia, the person I needed to speak with works in the "Slamming Resolution Center" and I will have to call back on Monday between 9am and 5pm and thank you for choosing AT&T. I hang up.

But, as things go with me lately, it doesn't stop there. As I'm getting off the phone, I hear the mail carrier posting letters in our box out front. After I hang up, I check the mail. There is only one envelope, and it is from AT&T. I open it and it says that I owe AT&T a past due amount of $2,604 on my long distance plan.

$2,604 is a lot of money. I immedately fly into a rage. I am irrational with anger. I am the world's victim. I shake my fist at the sky and grit my teeth, cursing god's cruel joke. I decide that not only have I been slammed (had my long distance switched without my authorization), but I have also had my identity stolen and someone, somewhere is having lengthy phone calls in my name.

Since today is Monday, I took off from the university early and called AT&T back and asked to speak with the Slamming Resolution Center. It took forever. I hung on the phone even though the recording told me it was going to be at least 30 minutes and that, since Monday was their busiest days, I should call back on Wednesday. I was mistrustful of the recording and held on. Finally, after about ten minutes of muzak and advertisements for all kinds of useless AT&T services and products, I managed to get "Blair," who told me the $2,604 bill was -- oops! -- a little typo, and that the bill was supposed to read $26.04 [I should have been able to figure this out on my own, but, like I said, I was through the roof with indignance and didn't bother to compare.]. After going around and around with Blair, who kept finding ways to put loopholes in my demand that he erase all charges and close the account, he finally does what I tell him to. I even got a confirmation number in case anything goes wrong.

But this is the point: if you get slammed by the heartless and soulless AT&T, you not only have to be tenacious and patient, you have to bully them just as hard as they are bullying you. The operators will try to talk you in circles. They will tell you that your local provider switched you even though you explain a million times that you've already heard that version of the story and it didn't do you any good to hang up and call your local provider. They will say things like "O, I see, well, I can remove two months of charges for you, okay? Let me go ahead and do that for you right now . . . " and you have to reply, "NO. You will remove ALL of the charges or you will transfer me to someone who will." They will say things like, "Ah, okay, our record now shows that you were the one who made the agreement with your local provider that we can now find to be in your long distance plan which, Mr. J_______, as you can plainly see, is why we have been able to reduce your charges by 5% for you today." And you HAVE to tell them that that makes no sense because they are expecting to bewilder you with nonsense so that you'll just give in and they can continue to profit off of your weariness.

That's that. I really don't want this to be a blog about getting the run around by the powers that be, but it is a very real and annoying -- potentially endless -- part of life, one that has the potential to overshadow the fact that you had your last day of classes today, and the gardeny perfumes of jasmine and honeysuckle this spring has been so lovely, following you everywhere you go in this city, and that you don't want to jinx the weather by saying out loud how glad you are that you can still keep all the windows open and sleep well in the cool evening air.