A letter to the editor

So we got a water delivery service where every two weeks or so, Sparkletts comes to our house and swaps out our 5 gallon empty H2O bottles for filled ones. It's a decent price: $6.29 per bottle, which is more expensive than the stores but I don't mind paying that for the convenience.

We get our first bill. It's too high. I wonder what the problem is. Seems that instead of $6.29 per bottle, they've been charging us $9.29.

WTF???

I call and inform "Mary" that our contract stipulates that we're to pay $6.29 per bottle. Easy. I'll even fax you the damn thing to prove it.

So I send it Friday morning. I call late after noon and Mary still hasn't received my fax. OK...I guess it'll just get there Monday.

Today, Monday, I get a voicemail from Mary. She says, in essence, thank you for the fax. Can you please call me back to finalize out the details of this? I don't see why, but, hell, what's a guy to do but call her back?

So I call and give my phone number 3 times at different stages that I am who I y'am. Finally get ahold of Mary. She has to re-check that the price discrepancy was what I wanted Sparkletts to change.

Of course that's what I wanted to change. Did I have to call you back just for this? I ask her what would've happened had I not called back. Would my issue been solved?

She: "Oh yes, sir, it would have been solved. I just would have had to cross my fingers and hope that what I was processing was the right thing. Thank you for calling sir."

a) She obviously DIDN'T KEEP ANY NOTES ON ANY OF THE CALLS. AND SHE LIKELY NEVER DOES SO. WITH HUNDREDS OF PHONE CALLS PER DAY.
b) She wouldn't have done ANYTHING had I not called her this last time.

I know it's been like this for a while, but it always irks me when the customer has to be so ridiculously proactive to get anything done at all. And, usually, the errors are the company's fault to begin with! Ridiculous. How do we, as consumers, put up with shit?