Last night, from 8:30-9:30PM I was the only one answering the phones and the only person in the entire Adelphia office building. Since only a few of my readers have actually seen the building let me explain it to you. In a nutshell, it is very big, very loud, and out in the "back woods" of the Plymouth Industrial Park.
Now, for those if you who are not obsessed with television, the seriousness of what I am about to say may elude you. My job description entails many things however, the main responsibility I have is answering customer phone calls. Some of the calls may involve a billing issue,some may require me to add or remove a service, and some may include questions regarding a specific program or channel. These calls are what I refer to as the "easy" ones...not much to them...generally simple and handled with ease. Then, there are the "trouble calls". These are calls from customers that have some type of problem, whether it be a channel missing from their lineup, poor reception, or virtually no picture on their set at all. There are customers who are understanding, who are willing to trouble shoot with you, and are willing to wait for a technician to come out, whenever the next available appointment is. Then, there are the customers who want their television now. They do not care what the reason may be behind the problem they are experiencing, they do not even attempt to try to work it out over the phone and they are not willing to wait more than 30 seconds for a solution, whether it be sending a technician or resolving the issue while on the call. They want it fixed and they want it NOW! Obviously, this is not always possible. These are the obsessed customers, the ones who swear, yell and threaten to come down and "throw the @#$%^&* box through the window" (Just a little side note...it is still beyond me how people can be that angry...over a television). Now 99% of the time these people mean nothing by this. They are screaming out of sheer madness and a sickening obsession. However, there are those that will literally carry their threats out. I know this because I have experienced this first hand. On one occasion, during a Pay Per View event a customer came to the office as we were leaving and threw his cable box at the locked door. Another time, one customer kept calling, threatening to come down to the office and "!@#$%^& kill us all"(please keep in mind that this is all over a TELEVISION...HELLLLLLOOOO!). We called the police who came and monitored the parking lot until we were leaving for the night. My point in telling you all of this is that I was ALONE in the building last night. Not another soul around, no one there with me should something happen. Aside from having to answer the phones alone for an hour, I was apparently expected to handle anything that may have come my way...an angry customer approaching the building, a power outage in the building(we have an emergency generator for the phone lines but not the lights...go figure) or even the possibility of something happening to me...what if I slipped and fell in the bathroom and smashed my head on the ceramic tile? While the chances of any of the above situations actually occurring are between slim and none, the fact is any one of them could. The part of this whole situation that really got to me is that my supervisor knew that I would be alone on the phones, as well as alone in the building and did nothing about it. I know that she new this because we had talked about it on Friday, during a conversation in which she said she was going to have someone there with me. Whether or not she asked anyone to come in or stay late, I do not know. What I do know is that if she did in fact ask a few people if they could cover the hours and they could not, she should have come in. I left her a voice mail a little while ago saying that I was not comfortable being alone and that I wanted her to arrange for someone to be there next Sunday, and any Sunday thereafter which for whatever reason may have a staffing shortage. I have also resolved in my own mind that if no one is there next Sunday, I will be leaving the building and not returning until I know that someone will be there with me. This may seem to be a drastic step, however, based on past experience of trying to handle this professionally through conversations and letter writing, I know that in order for anyone to care or do anything, drastic measures must be taken.
