Condensed hatred
Now. We all know that I love my iPhone. It’s like a tiny God. (For a time, I even named it “Cohen,” after the Jewish tribe of Aaron, those responsible for priestly duties, because it is my immediate and direct contact to the great infinite deity that is The Internets. Now it’s named the Admirable Crichton, after the notable Scottish polymath.) Most people feel the same way, and almost everyone, and certainly Michael Wolff, agrees that AT&T sucks.
Is it mere success, as AT&T seems to suggest? The iPhone is just too popular, straining its network. The fault, in other words, lies with consumer demand and great design, and not with AT&T and its resources and infrastructure.
But how come for the last two years I go dead in the East Thirties, on 57th Street and Sixth, on 72nd and Madison, on Bleeker and Lafayette, on the Williamsburg Bridge, and about a hundred other specific locations I’m too irate to remember now?
And more to the point, even if it is just success, what kind of crappy excuse is that? Am I supposed to be proud of you, AT&T, because you didn’t have the sense to foresee that the iPhone would be wildly popular, and expand your infrastructure to support it? You’ve got a lot of sack signing and exclusive contract with Apple, and charging me $170 a month for a two-phone plan, and saying “Hey, if everybody didn’t use their phones so much, it wouldn’t be a problem!”
Screw you, AT&T. And while I’m on a consumer rant, I’d like to give a big Eff You to the Claymont Steak Shop, a staple of North Wilmington for donkeys’ years. Apparently they changed ownership a few years back, and have been coasting on the reputation of the previous management. On Sunday we ordered some steaks and sides, and were told “15 minutes.” 10 minutes later, I made the 5-minute walk, and was told that the Strombolis were done, but the steaks were not. That’s a well-timed cooking operation. Even I know to get all the food done at the same time.
So I waited, and listened to countless other customers complain about how long things were taking, to which the blond woman with the funny accent who was throwing sandwiches into bags invite anyone who wasn’t happy to get their money back and leave. (I can only assume she was one of the owners, but it seems likely.) One poor couple insisted they’d been coming to the shop for years and had never been treated like this, to which Blondie replied that no one else was complaining, which was horseshit, since the only person not complaining was me, because of my overwhelming desire to not get my food spat in by some woman who may have a disease she picked up in prison in her homeland.
Hey Claymont Steak Shop? Suck it. If you don’t have the brains to foresee a big customer rush at 6pm on a Sunday during football season, and allocate resources appropriately, then I’m afraid you get to listen to customers whine about it. Also: when customers make reasonable complaints, such as “This is taking too long,” you apologize, and maybe offer some free fries or something. Saying “You can see how busy we are” is not a valid excuse. Lastly: if you’re busy, perhaps telling your phone clerks to let people know that the food might take a while might be the move. Because if they say 15 minutes, and I show up 15 minutes later and the food’s not ready and you’re being a crackhead whore, I’m going to write rude things about you on my blog.
If AT&T and the Claymont Steak Shop were an ice-cream flavor, they’d be pralines and dick.
</RANT>
