Anger

I don’t get angry very often. Honestly, I don’t. Right now, I am angry. Really, really angry. And when I take an honest assessment of myself, I know for a fact that I do not feel this way very often. I don’t get angry because I don’t like feeling angry. I don’t like the heat and sweat and increased heart rate, and the frustration and the cloud that comes over my brain.

I am, however, a really passionate, opinionated person. Sometimes this gets mistaken for anger. There’s not really a whole lot I can do about that. If my blood pressure is perfectly normal, but I’m just expressing an opinion in my “Janae” way, people think I’m angry. Then they tell me to “relax.” That’s the thing that gets me angry. One guy in a text conversation the other night was telling me to relax. Um? I am relaxed, first of all. Secondly, don’t boss me around. Thirdly, you’re basically telling me not to say what I want to say because it’s putting you off. Get over it.

Now, for the reason I am angry today, let’s start at the beginning.

I have the day off. I wanted to sleep in. But you know what I wanted more than to sleep in? To get my internet installed. So when a slot between 8 and 9 AM this morning opened up, I was all over that. I’d rather get up and have internet finally than sleep in. The next slot was between 9 and 11 AM or 4 and 6 PM.

So I got up before 8 AM. I got dressed.

Then I waited.

And waited.

And I waited some more.

I had a hair appointment at 9:30 AM. That should be fine if the Comcast internet guy shows up between 8 and 9 AM like he’s supposed to, methinks.

At 8:58, I was pretty concerned because of this appointment I had. I called Comcast. The guy I got on the line was super nice. He said, “Wow, and he hasn’t even called you yet to say when to expect him?” “No.”

Then there was a knock on my door at 9:01. 9:01. Hmmm.

So I told the guy on the phone that I just got a knock at my door and he said, “OK well he’s a minute late, so be sure to tell him to credit your account for $20 because he is a minute late!”

The tech came in and I told him where I wanted it all set up. It’s on the wall behind my bed. He asked me to pull my mattress out so he could access the plug. So I did. He said he’d go down to his truck to get some things and be a few minutes.

At 9:19, he still wasn’t back. So I grabbed my stuff and met him at his truck saying I’d have to be somewhere in ten minutes, and asking how long it would take for him to install. He said fifteen minutes. Yeah, can’t do that, moron. Thanks for showing up late.

See, my impression of “between 8 and 9” means 8:15, 8:30, 8:45… But not AT 9, and certainly not AFTER 9. I had somewhere to be. That is SO rude. And if it were AT 9 or AFTER 9, then that would be in the 9-11 time slot I was offered.

He said sorry. That really wasn’t good enough. He said I’d have to call and set up another appointment because they have no control over that. Um, see, well, this was YOUR bad, so I think maybe you should come back later today to finish the job you didn’t even start because you’re a tardy slowy slowerton.

Ugh. Whatever. Maybe they could come later today. So I called on my way to my hair appointment at 9:20. They gave the option for them to “call me back in 1 to 3 minutes” instead of waiting on the phone.

So I waited.

And I waited.

And I waited some more.

At 10:35 when I was finished with my hair appointment, they still hadn’t returned my call. Uh?

I called again at 10:45. Then I went to the gym. On hold the whole time on the elliptical, and through a lot of my weight training. 50 minutes on hold. Then something weird happened with my phone, like the screen automatically came on and I guess I unintentionally touched the “end call” button. Freaking touch screen. I was angry. Angrier than earlier.

I called again and opted for them to “call me back in 25 to 43 minutes.” That was at 11:40 AM.

So I waited.

And I waited.

And I waited some more.

Come 1:45 PM, more than two hours later, I still haven’t been called back.

Wow, are you freaking kidding me, Comcast?!

FINALLY I got through to someone with a minimal wait.

I explained to him the whole situation. He was very polite but never apologized for these several inconveniences his company has put me through today.

He set me up with an appointment for tomorrow between 11 and 1. That seriously is not good enough. I probably should have yelled at him till he could get someone out to me today. I’ve been without internet since Monday. By tomorrow, that’ll be the sixth day without it. I need to work. I need to blog. I need to do things.

He transferred me to billing so they could credit my account for the technician’s late arrival. You know, it’s not even that he was late. He didn’t even arrive in the right time slot. 8 to 9 was ample time for him to come and install my stuff before I had to leave. I am SO mad about this.

Anyway, homegirl in the billing department listened to my story. She didn’t apologize about the tech. She didn’t apologize about the two unreturned phone calls and ridiculous waits. She credited my account $20 and asked if there was anything else she could do.

Yeah, be considerate, maybe?! The stress you’ve put me through today is more than $20 worth. At least freaking apologize.

Nope. Comcast: “home of the customer satisfaction guarantee.” How ignorant of them to assume that $20 is going to make up for all of this bullsh-- today. I am NOT happy.

Add on to this that after I went to the gym, showered, and blow dried my hair, the lady at the beauty school totally botched my bangs. Like, beyond help or recovery. I’ll have to wait a couple weeks before they’re grown out enough to do anything with. I usually cut my own bangs and have never botched them as badly as she did. Thanks, idiot hair student that’s going to graduate in 3 weeks. Good luck to all your future customers with botched hair. Guess I’m keeping my bangs pinned back for a while.

Then I had to put my mattress back. This wouldn’t be such a big deal if A. it weren’t a queen sized mattress and B. I didn’t have a bed skirt. But it’s a queen. And I have a bed skirt. It’s really, really hard to put a mattress back and get the bed skirt lined up without trying to pull it under the mattress and possibly rip it in the process. So that was another 5-10 minutes of hassle.

You know where just everything has been frustrating in a day? It’s nothing huge, just a bunch of little things piled on top of each other? That is what this feels like. I almost started bawling while I was trying to put my mattress back, I was so frustrated by the events of this day.

The good news: I got some of my reading done for Tuesday. The weather is awesome today. I have a date tonight at a nice restaurant with a guy who will not be a jerk; I’ve made myself pretty clear. And parent-teacher conferences went well. More on that in the next post.