(scroll to the bottom for the reconciliation – for now)
((and scroll there again for the end-of-November possible redemption))

My apologies, AT&T. I’ve been trying to resolve an issue with my AT&T account. I thought they were a simple set of questions, probably requiring some actions, not just answers. That shouldn’t be a problem. The first time I bought a smartphone was with AT&T. There were some issues, but a call to the corporation fixed an issue with a local store. Last month. I bought a new phone. This time didn’t go as well. But this time, the process is more automated, online, and AI-enabled. You can probably imagine how this went. At the start, I had hopes. Oh well, here I go and how it went!

With the new phone, my bill basically doubled to ~$180. Eep. Hey, AT&T, let’s resolve and review that. Or not.

If only I could talk to a person on my AT&T phone about my AT&T phone. Oddly, I was repeatedly told that the phone company isn’t allowed to make a phone call.

In summary, for those with less time (details follow, but you are welcome to skip ahead), I evidently lack the technical skills to use the phone app, the web site, the 611 system, and to follow the directions given by a new manager. I’ve been asked to do a lot of work, which, sadly, I am not trained for. I guess they’ll just have to fire me as an employee, er, customer. 

But, surely, there’s some simple resolution.

I feel sorry for the local guy in the local store. He’s already made manager after several months because he knows his stuff. Sadly, he has to deal with me, this guy who can’t follow the simplest directions. I mean really, he does this all day without a problem. Here comes this customer who is untrained in the AT&T system, despite being a customer for about a decade or more. I must be such an embarrassment. (Seriously, the dude does a better job than I’d do, but the store is a long way away.) I wonder if they have similar training for customers. Who pays whom for that?

I feel sorry for the several Customer Support folks I talked to. First, it required them to decipher my accent and put up with my poor attempts to hear through and declutter their poor phone connection. One thing that would help would be if they or I had better phone service. Irony, or simply modern life? After about 20 minutes, if they were able to answer my call, verify who I am,  and verify my account, they would tell me that I was being transferred to someone who could answer my questions and possibly act on my requests. I can’t recall getting an answer. Maybe that’s in there in my pages of notes.

I apologize for running out of patience after weeks of waiting as recommended, working through several sessions, attempting to connect successfully, and running out of ideas. Twitter (won’t call it X) was opened on a tab, so I vented a bit. My apology for being honest. Ah, but that produced another reason for an apology. 

I feel sorry for the Social Media manager who actually responded, who would get back to me in a few days, and who did – but did so on Twitter Message, which I didn’t know to look for. I did, however, sit by my phone waiting for them to call me with a ring or a ding or a vibrate or a flash. (BTW I am spending more time on BlueSky: tetrimbath.bsky.social .) My apology is because, despite their help, I was unable to log in to the online service. 

I wonder if I should feel sorry for the online service, the website that asked me for account login information for an account that I’ve never logged into. When it told me that it sent confirmation emails to my email account, of which I only have one, they never arrived. Maybe they’re wandering the World Wide Web. I hope the website isn’t spending a lot of resources waiting for my response. In Spam? Nope, though, ugh, that’s an ugly folder to open. (Later, I learned that it was sending the emails to an account from years ago.)

It can be so hard to find good help, er, customers, even ones who pay for a Business Unlimited Performance service. Wait. I’m paying for Unlimited Performance? I wonder when that happened. See, I am such an unschooled customer. (Hmm. I am schooled, but as an aerospace engineer. Maybe I should’ve gotten that business degree. My bad?) 

I got curious. Sitting there and trying not to stew, I decided to do some research. Maybe I’ll double-check these numbers, and maybe not. Nah. They’re not paying me enough. AT&T is, however, paying their CEO over $24,000,000 per year. The company made over $14,000,000,000 last year. And yet, somehow, a telephone company doesn’t budget enough to let people use a telephone to talk to people about their telephone. I wonder how much more the company would have to make to make that happen – or if it would even matter. I wonder what those Customer Service people are getting paid. What’s that Manager getting paid? What’s the Social Media Manager getting paid?

Sigh. Alas. Well, there are reliable systems. The US Postal Service is supposed to be reliable though slow, but could be fast compared to the electronic system that occupied me for weeks. I asked for a mailing address but was discouraged from mailing them a letter in an envelope because it would take too long. I never found the address. Bad me. 

A later night idea: AT&T at one time was American Telephone and Telegraph. Maybe I should send them a telegram. Oh. Maybe one of those ‘T’s is now Twitter (won’t call it X).

Is anyone surprised that I began considering options?

It was time to get ready for a dance class. There is a Verizon store along the way. I asked for a quick estimate for a personal phone plan that fits me. $180? Nope, $45. AT&T = $180 Verizon = $45 Hmm. Different plans and different amounts, no surprise Let me see…Dance is more important.

The dance is done (and was fun.) It is the next day. I didn’t make the switch because, as I was open with the person at Verizon, I give people second and third chances. 

Circa 4:30AM, I received a note via Twitter Message that my query was reassigned to the Business Team. (Isn’t that who I was communicating with all along?) I checked back after breakfast. Finally, after another attempt at catching another of their PINs, I asked where they were sending them to. Ah, the old, defunct, now wrong email. My apologies for not checking that sooner in the online account that I never used.

Rather quickly, two of my three questions were answered and resolved. Whew. They were small, but successes. Now, about the big one, the Plan that was now about as much as my bills had been with my old phone. This wasn’t about the Plan plus buying the new phone; the new Plan alone was the size of my old bill. Several Messages later, I finally saw the alternative Plans, but couldn’t find my old one. Some of the Plans did look appealing (cheaper). Sign me up! Oh. That’s the price per line for multiple lines. See, here is where I’m not good enough. I didn’t notice the fine print to read the fine print, and then after reading the fine print, I didn’t pull down the submenu with additional details. I am so bad at this.

Maybe the personal plans, like AT&T’s versions of Verizon’s, make more sense. Can I switch to them? Yes, but I’d have to start the process over with another department. Oh, to have the energy, the lack of a need for anxiety medication, the time, and the trust to begin that again. Again, I fall short of requirements.

Recently, I wrote about shopping and loyalty, about dealing with people instead of bureaucracies. (Stores Malls And Loyalty) With this and that in mind, I was glad for an interruption from a friend of mine, Steve Smolinsky (previously Project Faculty at Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania). We have a podcast, IntriguingCreativity.com . He’s a fun guy to trade business stories with. We should’ve recorded the conversation for an episode. We laughed a lot. Oh well, opportunity lost. As usual with us, we wound around to a conclusion that left us thinking. 

We laughed about me feeling like I was being treated as an employee who was not meeting expectations instead of a customer paying for a service. And we realized it was another aspect of a larger conversation. We pump our own gas. OK. We use the ATM instead of a teller. Convenient. But the trend hasn’t stopped. We’re encouraged to bag our groceries, and now to run the cash register (which may be cashless). And we’re effectively required to maintain our customer accounts. We get to manage all of these tasks for no pay, with no training, and with support that might be remote and might not even be a human. (Did I apologize to the AI that I confused along the way? There was one. It is so hard to keep enough notes. Ah, I contacted the Fraud department, just in case. It hung up.)

You may notice that at some point, I decided it was enough. The issues aren’t completely resolved, but the potential savings became less than the increased health care costs in terms of counseling, treatments, and medications. Switching will also effectively induce charges, but I have decided to recuperate before entering back into that battle.

In the meantime, some of those Verizon offers were attractive enough that I might get a second phone for the price of my savings from AT&T. An irony: The phone number I’ve carried with me since 2000 was originally a Verizon number. 

I’m glad Steve has a sense of humor. I expect we’ll talk soon. Maybe we should record that call. (BTW We record those calls over Google Meet. It is essentially a free video call. Ain’t that cool?)

PS AT&T’s system offered me the opportunity to comment on their service. OK. They asked for it. No charge.

PPS Yay! Around Thanksgiving, AT&T sent me the new bill. Much better, or at least it looks that way. The total is back to, and possibly less, than with the old phone. I paid it with relief. My congratulations to whoever at AT&T figured out how to deal with me. We humans, somehow managing to manage a myriad of systems. Maybe managing electronic systems will be AI’s ‘in’.