The intellectual equivalent of a ham sandwich.

Posts tagged ‘help’

Customer Support Tips & Tricks

You may have noticed when calling a lot of large corporations these days that the customer support has changed. In place of being connected straight away to a person, you answer a few automated prompts.

“Thank you for calling .. Comcast! Customer service is … important to us! Please state the reason for this call!”

That’s when you’re expected to say something like “bills” or “tech support” or “change plan” or who knows what else.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret – the system is even more complex and convoluted than you ever thought.

Here’s what they’re not telling you

You remember those old computer text prompt games? For example, Colossal Cave Adventure? In these games you received text descriptions and you responded to the game with a set of commands.

Modern customer service is actually an audio based version of a prompt game. If you’re not getting the help you deserve, try some of these shortcuts.

“Thank you for calling .. Comcast! Customer service is … important to us! Please state the reason for this call!”

“Search room”

“In front of you there is a gathering of inpatient customer service representatives. To your left you see a door that says ‘helpful people.'”

“Open door”

“The door is locked. You will now talk to our worst agent.”

Huh. That didn’t work. Ok, how about this.

“Thank you for calling .. Comcast! Customer service is … important to us! Please state the reason for this call!”

“Grab lantern”

“You are holding a lantern. There is an ON/OFF switch. It is currently OFF.”

“Turn on lantern”

“With the light you can now see that the entire room is full of clowns, laughing and pointing at you. You retreat in fear.”

“Stop retreating in fear”

“Command not recognized.”

“Flee room of my own volition”

“Command not recognized. Our worst agent is on the way to support you.”

Welp. I tried.

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Du Jour of the Week

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Have You Tried This?

Sometimes I come up with an idea for a post for my blog and I think, hey, this is actually pretty good. Then, this may seem confusing, I think, this is too good for my blog …

My ultimate goal is to get published (as I’ve written about a few times … here, and here for example). With that in mind, it makes sense that I would want to do something else with my occasional gems (or at least what I consider to be gems).

One complaint I have is that I wish there were more places to submit my brand of weird. I feel like I would have better luck if I was a dramatic/full of confusing symbolism short story writer, or a sci-fi writer – it seems like there’s oodles of that stuff. And poetry? I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a goofball poem in a magazine, just the serious and artsy stuff. (The type that I read and say, “I really like the language in this poem but I have no idea what it’s saying.”) A number of magazines I have looked through to see if they would accept submissions from someone with my style have not panned out.

What’s My Point?

I do have a few places that I send things to. I figured I would write a post on this because it might force me to look up more magazines/popular online sources and then maybe I would quit being lazy and send more submissions out with fingers and toes crossed.

Bonus: I’ll be a kind internet neighbor to other quirky humor/oddball bloggers out there and share places that I think are a good fit for that particular category.

Here’s Where You Can Send Your Brilliant Quirky/Humor Story:

Shouts and Murmurs, New Yorker

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

Mad Magazine (I have to be honest, I haven’t read one of these so I haven’t researched this … I think you need some art attached and I stink at drawing so I’ve never looked into them seriously)

Cracked.com (I’ve only read occasional things here and they haven’t been the type I write … I should look at this more though …)

McSweeney’s Quarterly (I’m reading an issue for the first time now and it seems like more literary fiction)

The Believer Magazine (I just subscribed to this so … I’ll get back to you, but I’m guessing memoir type essays)

 

If you are reading this and you know of another great source for that kind of writing, please let me know!!

If you add a good source in the comments I will be sure to link back to your blog/twitter/whatever when I add your revision to my post.

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Say, Care to Be Super Nice to Me?

Recently I was reading a post from Lesley Carter’s blog and I got inspired. The post was all about trying to get more people to check out your fantastic blog.

I have been doing this for … a while … and I don’t have that many regulars or visits a day. Generally, I am content to write, throw it out there, and go on. I don’t do enough to pump up my site, or check out other people’s sites (which then can help get people to come back to your site).

Why? Laziness, I suppose.

I’m going to try and turn a new leaf, though.

My goal for this blog was to get well-known, get published, make a subsidiary income from that, and then become a teacher, (have you SEEN what teachers make?) and derive a huge sense of self-worth and satisfaction knowing that I make people laugh or have written stories that people enjoy. Easy-peasy plan, huh?

Here’s my begging request … re-tweet (my twitter! follow me!) my posts! Share them on facebook (my facebook page)! Give me a great rating at sites like Alexa.com (here for my site) or stumble, or any of that jazz.

Thus ends my HELP ME! post.

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