My recent dealings with AT&T have brought to mind that I used to work as a Customer Service Representative, which should have made me feel empathy for them.
Turns out empathy ain’t my strong suit. In this case it’s because I actually knew what I was talking about as a CSR, whereas these people don’t seem to know their butts from a hole in the ground. Metaphorically.
Or I could just be a jerk–who knows?
Anyway, when I worked as a CSR, every day I was plagued with emails from people who wanted to terminate the service they receive from the company I worked for. Normally, responding to these emails is routine and relatively painless, but inevitably, there is always an email (or two, or five, or thirty) that I can tell just by looking at it was written by someone as literate as my brother-in-law, whom I suspect of having close genetic links with inbred raccoons.
I’m talking about emails that look something like this:
To: CUSTOMER SERVICE
From: SOME FOOL IN ARKANSAS (HOBOSTOP1@AOL.COM)
Subject: CACLE MY SEVERICE PLEASE NOW IW WANT TO FCANELSO YOU WANT TO DANCE I SEE I WANT TO DEAL WITH THIS ISSUE AND CACENL MY SERVIS WITH YOUR COMPANY I DONT KNOW MY ID NUMBER OR ANY INFERMASHUN THAT YOU WOULD NEED TO CANCLEE SO CNACLE NOW AND RESPOND BACK OK IT IS IMPORTENT OK SO NO MORE CHARGE ON MY CREDIT CARD OK OK CANSEL CANSEL CANSEL CANSEL CANSEL CANSEL OK BYE
Now, seeing one email like this every few weeks would be tolerable. But the sheer volume of illiterate goo that filled my inbox has convinced me that this is a problem of epic proportions, and must be curbed before the major part of Americans–nay, humanity at large–are walking only semi-upright and use different types of grunts for ninety percent of their daily communication.
Wait, I think I just described most of the male population, and two or three women whose company I do not look forward to sharing.
The solution I propose is that an email virus be created and sent to all people who use all capitals in their email correspondence. The subject line will read, “Are you for capital punishment?” Since people who use all capitals are some of the stupidest people on the planet, they will instinctively open the email, whereupon evil laughter will be played and a message will flash on the screen that says, “Guess so, loser.” Then computer crashes. Who are they going to complain to? Smarter people? Yeah, that would work:
Capital Offender: “DUDE MY COMPUTER CRASHED ALL I WAS DOING WAS WRITING EMAILS AND IT JUST STOPPED WORKING.”
Smart Person: “I’m speechless.”
I bet that if we petitioned, i.e sent enough money to Microsoft, it could even become a standard Windows feature.
A guy can dream, can’t he?