Monday, June 1

This one goes out to all of the consumers who make a giant scene in public:

Crazy customer
Not sure that’s the best way to
Get your money back

Sunday Poll: May 31

French Customer Service...

Friday, May 29

This lifeku is dedicated to the fact that I will be sans internet for at least 10 days as I leave crap internet provider in the dust to switch to SFR Neuf...

Orange Internet
Your service is a big joke
I hope you all die.

Tuesday, March 17

I just spent one full week with no internet. Zero. None. Zilch. I basically wanted to die. My internet stopped working one day, at which point I made a phone call (which I then did not know would precede many, many other phone calls) to my internet service provider, which would be Orange. Also known as: Quasi-Fascist-Anti-Humanitarian-Internet-Mongers. QFAHIN. Or something. First they gave me one explanation, then another, then another, then no internet and some more phone calls later, yet another. And of course none of the 15 people I spoke to actually knew what was wrong.

7 unconnected days and 100 hours of Orange's hold music later, it turns out that my account was mistakenly closed. Indefinitely. Why? Because, like a total idiot, I paid my bill online. This was obviously too much for the computers at Orange, who provide internet service I remind you, because their computers didn't take my payment into account. Wait, let me re-phrase that: Orange was more than happy to physically take the money out of my bank account, they just didn't register that they had done that, because they're awesome. So for 3 months in a row, as I was thinking how convient it was to pay my bills online, for Orange I was actually not paying. Even though they were taking my money. Really, I love France.

So how did I have to fix the situation? This is where the awesomeness reaches a whole new level, because once an account has been closed, you have to open a new one. Once this process, comparable to a root canal, has been completed it takes UP TO 15 DAYS to re-open the line. There is, of course, nothing that Orange can do about this. Obviously. Because it's not like the line was functioning a couple of days ago or anything. I began to feel like an idiot for having believed the woman who claimed to have put my file "in priority." I even had one guy who said I would receive a text message when the line was open again, and it obviously is because I am posting this right now, but I never received said mysterious text message.

Let me stop right here to handle any questions or concerns you may be having with this ridiculous situation: If you are asking yourself, "Why didn't she just get a new internet service provider instead of waiting the 15 days?" I'll explain why this is not possible. It turns out that ALL OPENINGS OF INTERNET LINES IN FRANCE TAKE UP TO 15 DAYS, no matter what company you are with. And since I had already done 5 days of waiting, I wasn't about to go back to the beginning. You feel me?

Back to resolving my situation... I called again Saturday to have an estimate of when it would come back on, where yet another idiot gave me some more useless gobbelty gook crap of an explanation equating to up to 15 days, but he did offer to give us one month of internet free. After I already paid for the month of March, which is not over by the way, and during which I did not have internet for about 10 days, in order to open the new account. It's times like this where if I didn't have social security and 8 weeks paid vacation, I would totally move back to the States just for the customer service. Anyway, this morning, when a certain someone found themselves at the house with me after a certain accident (more on that later) it seemed that the internet just HAD to work. So we called yet again. First the "service commerciale" and then of course, because one phone call is never enough, the "service technique." Finally, when I got someone who actually knows computers on the phone, we managed to figure out the problem. It turns out that my stupid livebox had reset itself, and I had actually had internet since Friday. As you can imagine, I am far too tired and frustrated to be angry about this. I was just happy when she re-sychronized and my internet magically came back. Naturally my experience inspired a lifeku or two:

French “service technique”
You do not know anything
I hate you so much

Internetless life
Ostracized empty black void
I feel so alone


Most of you have had a similar experience, send your life-without-internet haikus for dailylifeku@gmail.com for next week's Reader Submission.

Monday, December 29

We called for Reader Submission: Holiday Edition and received the oh-so-lovely legend of the non-existent newspaper. That is to say, a newspaper was ordered from said date to said date, yet said newspaper fails to appear when the date arrives. When asked, Cheryl explained:

No tip for Christmas
I just didn't feel like it
Bah humbug, news boy

Thursday, November 13

Let me just start by saying that the concept of "French Customer Service" is an oxymoron in and of itself, since service in France is either non-existent or a total joke. That being said, I still feel like plenty of Americans will feel where I'm coming from:

Useless salesperson
You have no idea what
You’re talking about

Friday, September 19

Customer service
Why do I call you for help?
When you are useless