dork placated

Last week, I returned to CompUsa in search of the holy grail of receipts.

As you all know, I'm essentially a sissy, but I was ready for a fight. I went into CompUsa and kindly explained to the very young (8?) customer service girl the problem I had been having getting my rebate, she said (naturally), "Well, they should have taken this. It's all you need to send." Brilliant.

My philosophy when dealing with customer service folk is to always take the tack of "I'm a big dumb animal and can't possibly be expected to figure this tricky, tricky rebate." I find customer service reps respond a lot better to this than the "HULK MAD! HULK SMASH!" mentality that normally encounter. After acting more stupid for a little while, I kindly asked the young girl - if she was old enough to use the phone without her parents' permission - to call the rebate center to get confirmation that if I sent in documents X and Y they would definitely refund my money.

This kind of scared her as apparently the street lights had come on and it was time for her to head home. Her older co-worker offered to make the call for her. She too asked what the problem was and in my best "injured young fawn" I explained that, shucks, I didn't understand what the problem was as I had tried oh-so hard to get my rebate, but the big bad rebate man, Mel, wasn't having any of it.

She expressed dismay at my problem and dialed the rebate center. She got right through to a rep there and kindly explained the situation. After a total of about 30 seconds, she hangs up the phone and says, "They've released the rebate." Me: "Released it like - set it free in the wild and I'll have to track and kill it or released it like, I'm going to get the money?" "The check will be in the mail tonight."

I would like to think my charming email had something to do with this in some small way - even if that way was the rebate center flagging me as mentally unstable and fearing for their CompUsa brethren's well-being. Whatever the case. Mel, I take it all back. You're simply the best.