(lack of ) customer service

i wish i needed to embellish this story to make it better. i wish it wasnt actually this ridiculous. i wish i had a dollar for everytime i called one of our providers whether it be our bank, credit union, credit card company, cable company, tivo, verizon account, insurance or any other one of our many "monthly" bills and was transferred to a different department. and this would naturally be many minutes after listening to any one of the 15 different menu options from an all too pleasant automated voice that really sounds like she is dying to say, "press this and watch me take you nowhere". i would be loaded. last weekend, pat and i found ourselves in a house divided. his beloved aggies were hosting mizzou in college station for a basketball game. we debated on whether or not to order this on pay per view and decided half an hour before it started that we would like to find out how much it is to order a game and then decide. we were planning on probably ordering it, we just wanted to know the price. sounds simple enough, right? yeah, simple to you, simple to me, simple to countless other individuals with an ounce of sense and a brain. however, you would have thought that i was asking for someone to talk me through open heart surgery over the phone. we attempted to just find the price on the tv, you know go to the screen to order and see what it said. it had these options "order" "do not order". hmm. sounds simple enough, but what if we select "order" and then find out its like $25 for a 2 hour game that i secretly knew would probably end with the tigers leaving with their tail between their legs. we decided to call the cable company, prairiewave, to ask the question. i called and listened to the menu choices for 5 minutes, and then waited on hold for another few minutes before laura in customer service answered. she asked what she could help me with of course after asking my name so we could be polite friends for our 30 seconds together. i asked how much it was for a college game that was starting in 25 minutes. silence. "um, let me check. i dont have that screen. just a minute while i get to the right screen. im sorry my computer is so slow. um. we are showing weekend and season packages. would you like one of those?" i answered, "no, laura, just really wanted to know the price of one game, not the season pass". "oh. um, let me ask someone else." at this point, i thought we had caught her on her first day after training and all she needed to do was ask another customer service rep for the answer. when she comes back to me she says, "um, let me transfer you to technical support. theres no way for me to find out here." fine. technical support, here i come. im on hold for a short while when jeff answers, again requests my name and offers to help. i asked the same question of jeff that i had asked of laura noting that the game i was inquiring about was tipping off in now 10-15 minutes. jeff, the technical support genius sounded baffled, "um, thats done through customer service". yes, jeff, i, too am thoroughly confused as to why you in technical support would know the prices of pay per view games, but laura sent me over. he explained that he use to know how to find this apparently elusive information, but with a brand new system, he no longer knew how. hmm. he put me on hold, checked or pretended to check with fellow tech support people before offering to send me back to customer service. sure. again, hold for a minute, listen to crappy hits from the 70's and wait for someone to pick up. what are the odds, laura picked up again. "hi, laura, its me, katie, again. yeah, jeff over in tech support didnt know and wants me to ask you again. did i mention the game starts in 5 minutes?" defeated, laura says "i dont have that information. hang on and let me try something." harumph. i am now questioning the drug testing policy at prairiewave. a few minutes later the phone just starts ringing and low and behold its my friend, jeff. are you joking and does anyone else work there?? jeff, now sounding like an idiot apologizes for his lack of help and transfers me back to none other than laura, who at this point is im sure wishing there was some form of caller id on her call center phone. i said, "laura, hey, its katie. funniest thing, jeff still cant help me, but the game has started. any idea on how to find the price of this game??" she told me that if i would go back to that original screen on the tv that gave me the two choices, that once i selected "order" it would give me the price and the opportunity to finalize my order. "thank you, so much, laura, for cracking the code, ba-bye". i go to the screen, i select order and guess what wasnt on the next screen? certainly not a price, but a phone number to call to place the order. hmm, lets hit redial. yep, same number. laura answers again after the 5-10 minute hold time at which time im checking scores online and it is a tie game. you have got to be kidding me. "hi laura, its katie. again. that plan with the screen didnt work." she offers a half hearted apology while im sure simultaneously wishing i would drop dead and then transfers me to none other than jeff. im beginning to wonder if i am the pawn in a love affair gone sour. pushing me back and forth until i snap on one of them. just a thought. jeff again explains the new system issues to me in great detail and says when he finds the bleeding artery, i mean price of the game he will call me. i kid you not, 30 minutes later jeff calls, not to offer us the remainder of the game free, but to tell me he has located the holy grail. and it is $16.00. thanks, jeff, but mizzou is now losing, we are past half time and i refuse to give prairiewave any of my money today. they have already robbed me of 45 minutes of my life i will never get back and inspite of our first name basis, we are clearly no better friends than when we started this journey nearly an hour ago. i didnt actually say all of it, but certainly my inside voice was having some major dialogue while i wished jeff well and told him to tell laura hi for me. i love customer service, i just wish it came with some actual help.