customer service

I never thought I'd say this, but I am sick of American customer service. I long for the days of German customer service which consisted of a very frank and clear, "you are not worth my time. I am hanging up on you now, and if you call back I will continue to berate you in German, mocking your lack of understanding while simultaneously refusing to do anything that might even remotely be helpful!" At least they were honest. The fact that I didn't speak German fluently was instant cause for them to refuse to help me in any way, but they were honest about, and I appreciate that.

Recently, I have had two customer services experiences that were so underhandedly rude that I just wanted someone to tell me to my face to "fuck off." Is that asking too much?

We are trying to get a loan to buy a house. We have diligently sent in every scrap of information that was requested. We were assigned a loan officer three weeks ago. I called said loan officer 4 times before she bothered to get back me to let me know that they needed yet another piece of information. I immediately provided that information...and waited...and waited....

I called loan officer again. No response. Again. No response. Again. No response. Almost a week later, I called one last time (very politely) threatening to look elsewhere. No response. My messages were never rude. All I wanted was information. I finally did look elsewhere, and guess who finally called me back?

My second customer service debacle was in all honesty, completely my fault, but its the TONE that pisses me off. I decided to donate blood and used the online form to request an appointment. I accidentally requested the appointment for 4/20 instead of 4/30, and received an email kindly requesting me to clarify the time I wanted as "today is 4/21 and we have nothing available for 4/20..." Fine, I can appreciate how difficult it might be a write an email to someone who is requesting an appointment for a day that has already passed, but COME ON! I'm not stupid. I know that you obviously don't have anything available for YESTERDAY!!!. I responded with my "clarification" and asked for an appointment on 4/30. This was the response:

"Ms. Eivy,
Thank you, unfortunately the Central Seattle Blood Center is only open Monday-Friday. Would you like to try another day and time?"

Now, I have a tendency to read too much into emails, but is this not the most passive aggressive, "you're completely idiotic!" email ever?

I'm sure they were just trying to be nice when faced with such a "stupid" person, but the whole thing makes me never want to donate blood again!

I'm sure at this point, you are all thinking that I have completely lost my mind, and you are probably right, but this is my blog, and I am allowed.