Have you ever gotten one of those notices from the IRS that says something like, “You owe us $10,000 but maybe you don’t. Fill out this paperwork and tell us why or why not. Kthxbi.”? I didn’t exactly get one of those—I don’t actually owe the IRS anything, much less $10,000; it’s complicated—but something in that vein that at the very least made me want to call them to find out what’s the 411, hun. So I did.
It’s two hours later and I am hoppin’ mad. I’m 38 hot. I’m ready to throw shit out of windows.
I literally sat on HOLD with the IRS for an hour and 38 minutes only for the hold music to change and say, “Please wait,” and then 20 seconds later an automated message stated that “this call cannot be completed at this time.”
Dialtone. I’ve never felt more lonely and alone. I also didn’t know what to do. I had this rush of adrenaline shoot through my body and I literally had to stand up and just walk and then like do shit. I wanted to pick up toys and clean rooms in the house. My soul was filled with so much negative energy I almost felt my eyes sweat glands pooling. Listen...I HATE bad customer service. I’m not good at talking to customer service reps who don’t know what they’re doing. It always goes bad. I try my best to be cool but sometimes I just cannot. Like, I apologize in advance to people and tell them I know it’s not their fault, but their company’s fault so when and/or if I yell, it’s not at them, it’s the company I’m seeing.
But what do you do when the fucking government doesn’t even let you cook AFTER sitting on hold for almost 2 hours??? I questioned life. I went to my wife and just looked at her and she looked at me looking at her and wondered what I was gon’ do now. I didn’t know. I just wanted to fight all the things. I wanted to punch a hole in the wall.
ESPECIALLY BECAUSE I HAVE TO CALL THEM MOTHERFUCKERS BACK. See, that’s the gotcha gotcha. They hung up on me like I didn’t really need to talk to them! So now, I have to prepare myself to potentially sit on hold with them for another set of hours and mentally prepare for the same outcome. Do you know what kind of mental gymnastics (like literally; my mind is about to have to get its balance beam game strong) it takes both prepare yourself to sit on hold for hours for what could potentially be absolutely no reason. Who has that kind of time? I know we’re in the midst of a panera but shit, two hours of time is still two hours of time. I still have to fix my problem. And the worst shit is, I think this really is as simple as a phone call to an adjustor. I got proofs. I got papers. I got scanners.
And yet, here we are. Hold me. I realize that it’s highly probable that nobody cares about this but me. But I also know that I’m not the only person to be stuck on a phone for an hour-plus only to be hung up on by customer service or whoever is on the end of that dispatch line. It’s frustrating for us all and well, I hate it here.
I hope that when I call tomorrow—because yes, I have to call back tomorrow—that my fortunes change and my luck is better. Honestly, I don’t know if my soul can handle this happening twice. And whats worse is that I know that the IRS doesn’t care one way or another how this shit turns out (my phone call, I mean), so it almost doesn’t even matter. Pray for me.
I just spent almost 700 words telling you I sat on hold for almost 2 hours because I’m pissed. I feel better now.
Thanks, Obama.