Sidetracked Charley

Ernestine In the old days before technology ran wild you had a chance of talking to a real receptionist or a real operator. Note I did not say human. Ma Bell, the mega telephone company we insisted on breaking up, gave all their operators and service personnel a list of questions and responses from which they could not vary. One of Ernestine's lines on the old Laugh In comedy show was, "Is this the person to whom I am speaking?" I was reminded of Lily Tomlin that made Ernestine famous yesterday in a series of telephone calls to HP and Fedex concerning the undelivered package to ship my broken computer back in. Both have a set list of questions and responses from which they are not allowed to vary regardless of how inappropriate the are.  "Your driver failed to deliver the chemo drug package this week and my husband has died." " We are sorry for your inconvenience." "The funeral is Wednesday." " We apologize for any inconveni...

Everyone raves about Amazon.com but I have had nothing but grief from that site. Even my good experiences seem to be peppered with headache. I always have to reset my password even though my computer remembers it. And they always split my orders even when I click that little box that tells them not to so I can save on shipping charges. Last time when I ordered a DVD that they had to back order they kept billing my account even though they said they wouldn't until they shipped. We argued on that over the telephone three times. Then when I got the DVD it was flawed and would not play. I will never go through the return process gauntlet again! Or the calls to get them to take the charge off my account after I returned it. But all I figured I just wanted four books. Total cost of books $33 and change. I will be paying $54 because of the multiples of shipping charges at $3.99 a time. I went looking for the Contact Us option on their website. They hide that. My sister finally found it fo...