My week with technology and customer service

These stories are all accurate accounts of interactions with brands and businesses this week and I approve this message. buckle up. grab a snack. this one’s a reader.

Monday. 5:10 p.m*. CT. The Shoe Repair Debacle.

*times not accurate, i don’t actually remember, you can sue me

I spilled candle wax all over my boots in Deep Ellum two weekends ago because I forgot to take my night vision goggles to the Twilight Lounge. It’s pitch black in there, ok? I was blind and I knocked an actual lit candle off the table. Call 911.

My boots are thigh high Steve Maddens that I bought after two of my friends bought them so I’m not easily influenced. They’re perfect and I’m obsessed with them and now they’re covered in wax. Please pray.

So it was my mission to find a shoe repair shop and pay them my life savings to save my boots.

but first some quick context about the person that is me….
I am the dream consumer. I’m the salesmen/marketer poster child. I LOVE being sold to. My ideal decision making process when shopping is just to be told exactly what to do. And I almost always say yes. Seriously. It’s bad. Ask any hairstylist I’ve ever been to. “What do you recommend sounds good” is my middle name.

But back to the story.

I don’t know who shoe fixers (shoe repairers? shoe tailors? shoe specialists?????) think they are, but apparently it’s a thing to be closed on Mondays if you’re in the shoe repair business. I’m suing. After an exhausting 3 minutes of mobile Googling open shoe repair shops near me, I finally began my journey.

First stop: Drive thru dry cleaning and shoe repair shop in uptown. I chose to park and walk in instead because I’m exactly like my mother, except without the checkbook. A girl about my age was at the counter. I showed her my sad, wax boots and asked what could be done. This was our conversation.

Cashier: I can’t promise you we can remove the stains.

Me: I understand. Wax is hard.

Cashier: And we don’t repair shoes ourselves, we use another repair shop down the street.

Me: Oh okay that’s fine.

Cashier: And  you’ll get your shoes weeks later, that place only comes by on Mondays. 

Me: Is there any benefit to using this place over just going straight to your vendor down the street? Is it cheaper to go here?

Cashier: No, we upcharge a little. 

Me: *awkwardly laughs* You upcharge and it takes longer?

Cashier: *slowly nods*

Me: I guess I’ll just … go there, then? *more awkward laughter, grabbing boots off the counter* OK BYE THANK YOU!!(?)!!

Like JUST SELL TO ME!! LIE TO ME!!! I JUST WANT THE BOOTS CLEANED, I WANT TO HAND  YOU MONEY WITHOUT THE GUARANTEE YOU’LL EVEN REMOVE THE WAX.

But that wasn’t the only non-sell of the day.

5:50 p.m. CT. The Quest Bar Saga.

By this time, I’d gone to 2 other shoe repair shops. One was closed (Monday is shoe sabbath y’all) and the other was about to close but at least accepted my shoes. Bless.

So I walked to the nearby uptown Total Nutrition store because why not, I’m a Kenyan runner, an Olympian athlete, a too-lazy-to-make-breakfast-so-I-buy-bars office worker. I went in for the magical Quest bars that I like to buy on the occasion I’m near this one Total Nutrition place on Lemmon idk yall let me live.

btw, here is an accurate photo I took of the staff at TN.

I walk in and beeline to the register area, home of the Quest bars. Bro #1 tells me they’re discontinuing the bars because Quest just added some sketchy not-organic ingredient so it’s basically recalled Blue Bell. It’s basically the Zika Virus. He told me to not buy it.

Bro #2: “Yeah.”

THEY HAD A SURPLUS OF BEAUTIFUL QUEST BARS JUST SITTING THERE READY TO BE SOLD AND THEY ME TO NOT BUY IT. AS IN DON’T HAND HIM THE MONEY HE NEEDS TO WORK AT THE PLACE THAT SUPPORTS HIS PROTEIN HABIT.

Me: Well that’s really all I came for so…

Bro #1 proceeds to tell me about this other bar, to which I immediately tell him I can’t eat it because the packaging is too manly and scary.

Like I can’t eat this lime green wrapped bar, I have dignity, I work in social media, I’m elite. I’m sophisticated. I am the tweets. Thou shall not buy aggressive, manly protein bars that obscure my delicate stature.

5 minutes later, I’m walking out of TN with a cinnamon toast flavored protein bar and a green juice sample. I ate it for breakfast today, in my car while driving to work, hiding it from the world, and it was delicious, and I almost want to buy more so help.

Wednesday. 6:02 pm CT. The HBOnow/Uber Eats/Eat24/Phone charger/Mac Crisis.

I was fried from the week and it was only a Wednesday. I also had a headache the whole day. It was also a rare, blessed night of having no plans whatsoever and being home alone. And I had every intention of making it a productive, educational evening: Order delivery and binge watch GIRLS. like all i want to do in this world lately is binge watch girls and pay taxes and die okay????????????????????????? 

Here is roughly how the night went down.

“Crap I left my computer at my boyfriend’s house. Now I only have two computers here.”
Lol. Stressful. Work computers are hard. My life is hard.

“Oh I’m hangry.”
I watched about 800 episodes of recorded Sex and The City and decided it was time to feed myself after Carrie and Big’s second break up (WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL HER ABOUT PARIS, BIG?????) “I think I’ll try Uber Eats,” I said to myself because I do everything via Uber and Google and Apple because I want robots and the government to have insights and access into everything I do.

“Yay I have Cayla’s HBO log in, I’ll use that to watch GIRLS for the next 200 hours. Perfect.”
No. Because the HBO Gods know you’re lying. I kept getting kicked out before even getting the option to sign in. It kept asking for my “provider” and Jesus wasn’t an option and the site kept rejecting Uverse I was in hell and I don’t know what to do with my hands.

“No problem bc they let you play FREE EPISODES OF GIRLS ON HBO GO DOT COM!!!!!”
Hannah did Opium and passed out in front of her parents. Jessa has never heard of Sex and the City. Shoshanna goes by Shos. This is comedy. This is America.

“Oh okay so you only get one free episode it’s fine.”
I’m desperate and impulsive, I’ll just start a free trial. I’ll just buy HBOgo or HBO now or HBOIDK. I’ll just sell my soul to watch GIRLS, that’s what I’ll do.

I chose to download the HBO app through iTunes, because that was an option to start the free month trial. This makes sense, I said to myself, great.

BUT ONCE IT WAS DOWNLOADED TO THE ITUNES, I COULD NOT OPEN THE APP. CAN I ONLY WATCH ON MY IPHONE? WHAT YEAR IS IT? WHY IS THIS HARD? WHY DID I GO TO COLLEGE? WHAT’S THE POINT OF ANYTHING?

“Oh yay my food is delivered!”
Thank God the drunk Thai noodles are here except oh wait they’re not. The Uber Eats App says they were just delivered, and charged me, yet I’m drunk-noodle-less. Wait.

Well I’m a patient, understanding and sophisticated young professional adult, and I handled this situation as such.

   
 
So there is that.thereisthat.

I ended up using a coupon at Eat24 that they tweeted me for dinner last night. My drunken noodles eventually came. Someone explain the HBOs. I just want a Quest Bar. I just want someone to save my boots. This is your early-mid twenties, kids, this is your future, hello, welcome to your future, hi. #SaveTheBoots2016 #RTtoSaveALife