So, I’m trying to do business with a place that’s only open by appointment. Fine. They have a phone number, so I call it. I’m hoping to make an appointment for the following day, which is a Sunday, to avoid Bay Bridge traffic on a weekday. I figure 24 hours notice should be plenty, if they’re around 7 days a week.
Their website lists a phone number, so I call it. No answer. No voice mail, even. “That’s odd,” I think to myself, “maybe they only turn on the voice mail after hours or something. I’ll call back in a bit”.
So I called back in a bit. Still no answer. By this time I was beginning to get a little annoyed. Did these people want my business or what? If they’re only open by appointment, allegedly seven days a week, they really need to be easier to get a hold of.
Then I tried again the next morning. Still no answer. Still no voice mail. “Who do these people think they are?” I fumed. “They don’t have regular hours — that’s their prerogative. It’s even understandable, since they have a big warehouse and mostly do mail order. But if they’re going to demand an appointment, they need to let me make a friggin’ appointment!”
Finally it occurred to me to check the number on their website again for like the tenth time. I had to hold my phone up to my computer screen to finally see that yes, I did have the number correct — except for the fact that I was using the local area code with their toll free number.
I was calling a number that didn’t exist.
Usually what happens is I just transpose digits within the number, which I did several times later that day when trying to contact someone who was buying my crap on Craigslist. Again, I had to hold the phone up to the computer screen, and look at the number in the call log, and read the numbers out loud to myself to realize I’d screwed it up.
I wound up losing a whole day to dyscalculia, and I’m on a bit of a deadline here — I was hoping to get some work done this weekend with my purchase from the warehouse. And that’s not even getting into the hassle of the Craigslisting, and then the extra time I’ll spend because I’ll have to go to this warehouse on a weekday and deal with traffic.
Why can’t phones have names instead of numbers? Or even be assigned words? It would be so much easier.
Dammit.
Talk To Me