Constant Battles

No, I'm not talking about the kids. I'm referring to the battles we consumers are forced to fight daily due to growing incompetence and negligence of the very people who specialize in customer service. It seems you not only have to PAY for services and products but you have to fight tooth and nail to receive what you actually paid for. You all know what I'm talking about. We have to hound our physicians for test results, demand pre-paid warranties to be accepted, altercate with insurance companies to pay their pre-determined share of the bills and compromise with our car mechanics and utility companies notorious for overcharging. We expect to get ripped off and grow weary of spending half the day "on hold" in attempts to resolve the injustices. After all, time is money, and we spend far more than the original service or faulty product was worth. Today, I am on the front lines with two foes: the e-bay vendor who never shipped the item I ordered and has now sold out of it (of course, it had to be the transformer toy David painstakingly earned through completing his home preschool lessons and has pleaded with the mailman to deliver every time he arrives at our front door mailbox... it's been three weeks now...) and the online school that enrolled me in the wrong class and is now resisting relinquishing the refund for it. We expect far more courtesy from our children, forcing them to hand over the toy they've agreed to trade. Yet, we're not surprised when the adult/customer service rep wants to keep both toys to himself. Are there any salespeople out there who still care about making the customer happy, or at the very least, care to GIVE them what they paid for? I know my husband tries, but in all fairness to salespeople, there are a lot of greedy consumers too. Perhaps the callousness shown by our service providers is due to the influx of dishonest consumers. We need to take responsibility for this too. Their skepticism may de drawn from numerous examples of incorrect claims and scams. I challenge you all to a moment of reflection and resolution, regardless of which side of the battlefield you are coming from: seller or consumer, to fulfill our commitments to each other and maybe our kids will learn from our example, growing up to service a smoother society.