Getting information is impossible

Unbelievable. I tried to get information on the stupid debugger. All I
wanted was to talk to someone who could tell me whether the script debugger
is still available in WDSC. Took me 15 minutes to get no answer whatsoever:


Start: Call 1-800-IBM-4YOU. (ON HOLD)

01:30: Talk to the primary offshore call center. She spends the next couple
of minutes asking me about my business, trying to get a passport advantage
number, a customer number, and so on. I tell her I just want information.

04:00: Finally get a chance to get transferred to another number. (ONHOLD)

07:00: A semi-connection (I can barely hear) and then dropped. She tries
again. (ONHOLD)

08:30: I get to Passport Advantage. I have to re-explain my request.
Passport advantage person tells me she is not technical and will switch me
to Rational.

10:00: Asks me questions (all of which I answered for the original person)
to determine my representative and then puts me... (ONHOLD)

11:30: Tells me I'm being switched to Todd Paris, my regional
representative. (ONHOLD)

13:00: Get Todd's voicemail. Try to get out of voicemail and talk to a real
person. No luck. Get disconnected from Todd's voicemail.

13:30: Get prompted for survey. I am quite ready to take the [CENSORED]
survey. Automated system asks me if I talked to one person or many. I
answer "2 or more" and am told that "this is a random survey" and that I
wasn't selected.


Well, there's a way to keep your complaint level down. Be sure that anyone
who is shuffled to multiple people doesn't get to take the survey <grin>.


Anyway, there's a waste of 15 minutes of my life (and then 10 more writing
it up here). It shouldn't require three people to get me to an voicemail
hellhole for a product question. As people have noted in the past, it's
like IBM doesn't want to sell anything. In fact, if the person's name had
been Tom Paris rather than Todd I'd be sure that they were just yanking my
chain (Tom is the dashing but impetuous pilot on Star Trek: Voyager).

Joe