[TheForge] Small shop questions

[Andy Vida]

Jerry Smith wrote:

>          Letting a place now that you mean business is very necessary these
> days or you get treated like garbage. Only be rude when they are rude to
> you. If you say you want to talk to the manager, you don't always get
> anything out of it.
>          If you don't stand up for yourself, who will????

	So true.  Back in 98 the Evil One was having problems with her
	long distance bill.  The plan had been sold to her under false
	pretenses of 25 cents a minute 24x7.  Turned out the price was
	for certain times of the day only and she wanted the bill rolled
	back to 25 cents per minute.  The person on the other side of
	the phone basically said "tough shit" and disregarded her because
	she was a woman.  "Allow me" I finally said, and called and got
	a woman named Victoria who tried to give me the same line of
	nonsense.  "What's your CEO's name, please" I asked, to which
	she said soemthing to the effect that I will never get his name
	and if I do, I will never speak with him even if she had to man
	the switchboard herself.  I swear on my word that she said this.
	I called again, got another CSR, got the CEO's name, called again
	and asked for the CEO.  When they asked who I was I told him I
	was the CEO of Proof Technologies, and that was the truth.  I was
	immediately connected with their CEO, a nice old boy from Texas, and
	told him what had just transpired.  He expressed astonishment and
	displeasure at his employee's behavior, whose name I gave when
	asked.  He offered to eliminate the entire bill.  We told him
	that that was not what we were looking for.  He axed it anyway and
	the next call to the company was to cancel service.

	When Deloitte & Touche tried to stiff me for $60K, I waltzed
	right in to the CEO's office.  When I told him what his peons
	did to me, he was visibly annoyed.  Five days later I had a
	check in my hot little hands and my rumor mill said several
	people in that office lost their jobs including one director
	who'd been with the company something like 20 years.

	Go right to the top.  The people up there really hate having their
	time wasted with crap like this.  In my experience it gets fast
	results.