In broad terms I hate my telephone. Well, it gets email, and does some other things so really I only hate the phone part of my phone. Excepting a couple of Luddite friends (you know who you are), if you can't send email I probably don't want to talk to you. I have kids and happen to work closer to home than my wife, so they have my phone number which means I can't turn it off. And that leads me to my version of a little kayakie/paddley story that is almost trite it's been told so many times.
I bought a new drysuit several weeks ago. It's a Kokatat GFER and I was replacing my Kokatat Meridian. The basic difference is the Meridian has a waste band that goes over the tunnel of a spray deck, ostensibly to keep out water, whereas the GFER doesn't. My Meridian was in fine condition but I was pretty much done with the waste band thing. It made the suit a little harder to put on, and it took quite a while for the area under the waste band to dry. I had occasion to try the GFER for a few days, loved it and bought one.
Anyway, my Meridian was in more or less fine shape given it's age of a few years (I do try to take care of my gear) and I had planned to sell it. Before that I wanted Kokatat to check it out, replace the gaskets for me and generally give it a clean bill of health before I did. So I called them, they gave me a price and an RA number and I sent it off. I didn't think much about it after that, they had told me it would be two or so weeks because of their backlog.
Last week my damned phone rang. Of course it was in my pocket so I had to stop working (I type for a living), dig it out of my pocket only to see that some number with, for me, an odd area code was trying to get ahold of me. I hit the go-away-or-send-email button to make the phone shut up and went back to typing.
Now, it is a fact that I suck at many, many things. Golf. Rational discourse when drunk. Getting up in the morning. Lots of stuff. But, if I got to pick, I'd have to say I suck most at dealing with voice mail. I won't rant about how truly evil I think voicemail is, but I hate it in the same way a 2 year old hates peas. Its irrational and annoying, but what're you going to do? So I can go days, sometimes many days, without checking voicemail. That day though I only waited a few hours before I did. Maybe I was just in the mood for greens, I dunno.
Turns out it was someone from Kokatat calling about my drysuit that was in for repair, and mumbling (because that's all you get on voicemail, mumbles and a string of 7 digits) about some warranty issue. So I call back the next day, a human answers(!) and connects me with the guy who called. Took like 18 seconds or so and I'm talking to the actual guy who left me the voicemail who I was suddenly feeling a little better about. Email would have been better, but this didn't entirely suck either. Right...deep breath...and this guy informs me that the Gore-Tex inside my dry suit was delaminating or something. And, before I could get a breath to whine, "but it's not my fault", he says, "but it's not your fault". Speechless is another thing I suck at but right then I was actually doing a pretty dandy job of it. Then voicemail guy goes on to say, "what we'd like to do is replace it". Now I'm really in the whole speechless groove, sort of reveling in my new found lack of suckitude in this regard when he hits me with, "at no cost to you". Further words were exchanged but, frankly, I don't really recall what they were.
I've heard this same story about Kokatat a bunch of times. On the web, on a beach, all over. But it always sort of struck me like hearing a Bigfoot story or something and treated it like that. Smile and nod, take a step or two back, whatever, just don't antagonize the crazy and cause a violent response. You know. But, take it from me, it's true. Kokatat has real customer service and backs their (expensive as hell, let's face it) product to the hilt.
By way of closure here I still hate my phone. And I still really hate voice mail. But I will be checking it in a slightly more timely fasion from now on. Probably. I still prefer email.
No comments:
Post a Comment