Shutting Down the Shutdowns
I’m a few days from my 55th birthday, and have been spending an excessive amount of time lately, what little time I have left, waiting out the shutdowns. I’m doing it right now, since it’s Sunday. And while making a call list for Monday morning, I realized that having cooled my jets last weekend on an inquiry, I had forgotten to call that company during business hours and now am in a second weekend holding pattern to call about a car part.
Sure, I can order a car part over the internet, but to ship a fender, the part in question, costs quadruple the cost of the part itself. So I wait. It’s not so critical, though the fender is to bring the car up to snuff so I can drive it for rideshare, which means I can’t work. At least for now, I’m furloughed. Shut down.
That company, being old fashioned I suppose, doesn’t accept email or web inquiries or work weekends. But it’s not as if it is life or death. The critical issue that has me peeved at this moment is my Home Warranty claim, placed last Thursday. Again, it is now Sunday. The problem? No heat. Temperatures today are a warm 20 degrees and falling.
Total Home Warranty has a website and claims can be made online, but what I did not know, this being my first claim, is that once a claim is made an email is sent to me with a phone number of the contractor I must call to schedule an appointment. I was under the impression that they’d be calling me, and Yahoo assumed the return email was spam, so early Sunday morning I discovered that I’ve been awaiting a phone call that is not forthcoming. Have you ever called a contractor on Sunday? It tends to be one of those shutdown days. But the answering service paged the contractor who looked at my address and realized that I’m not in their service area, anyway, putting me back at square one. At least I got the callback. More phone calls and more Sunday-phone-sitters, and ultimately I must wait til Monday, call again, and so on…
I’ve never held a job important enough to work only Monday to Friday, 9 to 5. Most working people work weekends, nights and even holidays, specifically to land the customers who shop after work and on days off. And of course outfits like Walmart just stay open 24 hours, 364 days a year (closed Christmas). How do they do it? They stagger the work force. Simple enough. One of the perks of being a second or third shift worker is that you can be off during “business hours” and thereby avoid shutdowns and wait times.
Perhaps it is time to eradicate weekends and holidays in general. They are obsolete holdovers to earlier times, much like religion and monogamy. Perhaps we are evolved enough to make our own schedules. That’s the broad appeal of the internet; not just the access, but the immediacy. Amazon takes no day off, and I never once showered and combed my hair prior to sending a Tweet. In fact, if you’ve ever Tweeted on a holiday you’ll notice that usage is at a peak during our down times. Might as well spend Christmas day on social media, since Walmart is closed, Amiright?
So I wait and during “business hours” I will call, and hopefully between now and then my unheated house will not incur additional damages, requiring more insurance claims, more phne calls and more wait times. As for now, I wait. Perhaps I should shower and put on real clothes since its nearly lunch time.
Comments
Post a Comment