"Offensensitivity"

As always, Berkeley Breathed and "Bloom County" are sheer genius.

Sorry to break it to you - I hope that you're sitting down - but "life is offensive."

Some people wear the sentiment "I'm offended!" like it's a badge of honor. Even when it's phrased differently - "That sentiment is so hurtful!" - it comes down to being aghast that someone is different from you, and expecting them to change because of it.

"I don't expect them to change because they're different! I expect them to change because they're wrong!" I hear. Of course, they think that you're wrong - and round and round we go.

We're all so easily offended, aren't we? And we think that everything is about us, personally - or, that it should be.

I like to travel, and I've spent recent years working as a travel agent, so I read a lot of travel related stuff. In one list of things actually written in online reviews was this gem from a Caribbean resort: "There was a sign in the lobby that said, 'No hairdressers on property.' We are hairdressers, and we think that they knew, because we did not get attentive service."

The thing that amazes me most about this is the "we" - there was more than one of these people. Let's assume that there are two. Also, presumably, anyone old enough to have a profession that requires training or schooling is an adult. So, one of these otherwise functional adults expressed this sentiment - "They don't allow hairdressers to stay here! And I'll bet they've figured out that we're hairdressers, because they are not being attentive to us!"

Instead of saying, "Don't be a knucklehead. That sign means that the resort does not employ hairdressers; you cannot get your hair done on resort property," the other, otherwise functional, adult says, in effect, "I think you're right! Using no other information than our names and credit card info, they have figured out what we do for a living, told every employee at this resort, and now they are all making a concerted effort to give us less than their best service!" I mean, does that make any logical sense?

What are the odds that a property will decide to discriminate, and choose hairdressers as its target? Come on in, drug traffickers, strippers, phone sex operators, convicted felons - welcome! Stay out, you nasty hairstylists, we don't serve your kind! And we're going to do extensive background checks on anyone who stays here, so that if any hairdressers sneak in, we can give them bad service! That'll show them! Does that actually sounds plausible to you? And yet, at least two people agreed that, yes, that was exactly what was happening.

I saw a review for a doctor's office that complained, "He yanked up the back of my shirt with no warning, so that he could listen to my lungs." She went on to say that she'd never come back, because she feared that the doctor would be sexually inappropriate. She was obviously upset, truly upset, but I found myself thinking - he's a doctor. If your accountant yanked up your shirt, yeah, dump his services and file charges. But have you never been to a doctor before? He can't do an exam through your clothes. If you want him to warn you before he touches you or your clothes, tell him, explicitly. Otherwise, calm down. Every time a doctor has listened to my lungs, he or she has pulled up the back of my shirt, without warning. I have never felt mistreated because of it.

No wonder doctors, nurses, and anyone else who touches you is paranoid about lawsuits.

(I've had to warn my doctors - I will make faces. I will probably make noises (often with the faces). Do not touch my tummy without warning, or I'll yelp. I am not in pain, I am not afraid, you're doing fine - I just hate to be handled.)

Of course, it's usually most baffling when someone directs their outrage straight at me for things that are, honestly, just an ordinary part of life.

The first time someone informed me that I should not belong to my religion (or, presumably, many other religions) specifically because "when you think that other people are going to hell," it makes it impossible for other people to have a productive relationship with me, I was baffled.

Well, my first problem with that idea is the very flawed understanding of my religion's belief in the afterlife. We believe that everyone, and I mean everyone - Adolph Hilter, Ted Bundy - will go to heaven, where there will be no pain, death, hunger, illness, etc. It will be a beautiful, safe and peaceful place, where people will live with perfected bodies. It will not be possible for harm to come to anyone there.

That will be, however, the least desirable "level" of heaven - there are four more places that are even better. In the best of these "levels," people will be living in the presence of God.

Plus, we believe that if you messed up your life, or never heard about Christ, you'll get a chance to fix things in the next life; your fate isn't set at the moment of death. You can change and improve after death.

So, when you accuse me of thinking that people are "going to hell," you're not bothering to find out what I actually believe, or you're being deliberately inflammatory.

The first time that I told someone that my beliefs weren't what they thought they were, and they said, "Just because your church does it differently doesn't mean that religion in general doesn't shame people," I thought that they were just particularly stubborn and trying to save face. I've since had enough people say it to me that I have to concede that it's a pattern. The thing is, if you're going to judge me because of my religion, the conversation had darned well better be about my religion, not another religion or religions as a general concept.

"You just don't understand how painful it is to be told that you're going to hell," people (yes, plural) have told me - ignoring, I suppose, that under the belief system of most of the people on the planet, I personally am going to hell. Born again Christians, Muslims, Catholics, Seventh Day Adventists, Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, all believe that I, myself, will not be going to heaven. There's more religions that think so, I'm sure, but I'm not well enough versed in their teachings. (On more than one occasion, someone who's telling me how I "just don't understand" the pain of being condemned has also told me that I'm headed to hell; I suppose that I'm not supposed to notice the contradiction.) This means that I have family, friends, health care providers, casual acquaintences, people that I will hire and people that I will work for, who all think that I am going to hell. And, as the person who spends the most time in my life, and knows it the best, I can say with authority that it does not harm me. I can assure you that those of other religions do not make me feel condemned.

I once asked someone (accusing me of being a bad person, by virtue of my religion) if they knew of any instance in which I'd treated someone badly, based on my religious beliefs - smacked alcohol out of their hand while yelling, "SINNER!", said that I feared for the souls of their children, refused to spend time with them or told my children to avoid them, for instance. The answer: "No, the way you treat people is fine. You just think that they're inferior."

Whoa, there, Thought Police. Aside from the fact that you are not a mind reader, and therefore can't accurately speak to what anyone else is thinking, even if you could, are people's thoughts a big issue for you? Every day, people wish they could push past everyone else in line and be served first, they want to slap rude clerks, waiters or customers, they lust after strangers (or those who aren't strangers), they think about how easily they could shoplift that item they want, but they don't do any of those things. At least the hairdressers and the patient were complaining about something that someone actually DID. I cannot get behind the idea that you are a bad person, and I should censure or shun you, based on what you might be thinking. (Because, of course, no one knows exactly what you're thinking unless you tell them.)

Treat me politely, even if you don't like me, and we'll be fine. No one is required to enjoy someone's company. But, every human owes other humans civility.

Pressed for an example of how I thought that other people were "inferior," the answer was that I think that ordinances performed in my church are "better" than those performed elsewhere.

Oh, for crying out loud. Every religion recognizes its own ordinances, but not necessarily those of other religions. If you want to join a religion, you may need re-baptized, remarried, re-ordained. Churches generally do not mirror civil authority; a justice of the peace, for instance, can perform civil marriages, but not religious ones. At my church, I am a teacher (Sunday classes for adults), but I hold no civil teaching credentials, and I would not be asked to teach religious classes at any other church.

If people do not agree with religion in general - say, they're atheist - I can understand them thinking that the entire concept of religious authority is silly. But if you're a religious person, and you get angry at another religion for having its own criteria, procedures, etc., I just can't get behind your outrage. You're entitled to have it, and express it, but not to expect me to change because of it.

Don't be the Thought Police. Don't suffer from offensensitivity. Live and let live!

Taking on the Phone Cops

"I cannot understand," I said to the poor, hapless young woman on the phone, "why it takes an act of Congress to shut off my mother's phone."

My mother died five months ago. Her oldest two children live hundreds of miles away, and her third has health issues including heart problems and a pacemaker. Thus, she chose her youngest, me, to be the trustee of her estate, since it was most likely that I would be alive, well and available when she passed away. (As a bonus, I only live two blocks away from her home.)

My Grandmother Henriette, my mother's mother, had Alzheimer's. After having to deal with all the legalities and mess of having the court declare her mother unable to manage her own affairs, and then appoint someone to do so, my mom made her choices about how she would handle putting her own affairs in order. She put my name on her bank account after my dad died and long before she worried that she might be going senile. She sold herself everything she owned and held it all in trust, and appointed me the successor trustee. As these things go, it has been as smooth and painless as it could be, with everything already set up the way she wanted it. I've had to make very few decisions.

Most of her accounts closed with just a notification from me. Some, including her utilities, transferred easily to her granddaughter, the current caretaker of her home. The phone, though, has been an ongoing headache.

I mean, how tough should it be? I wrote a form letter: "Mrs. Smith has passed away. Please close all accounts in her name." I paid all her bills as they came in, and sent the letter out with each one. Pretty simple, right?

Some of the businesses wanted to know, "Would you like this account transferred to your name?" A polite offer, to be sure, and useful for things like her electric bill. But, I am old school and I can't quite wrap my head around having three phones for the four people who live in my house; I do not need another phone, especially if it's a landline at a residence that I do not occupy.

Besides, we heard nothing from the phone company; we just got another bill a month later. A record keeping screwup, I thought. We called the automated phone number and left a voicemail telling them to close the account. When did it become impossible to talk to a human operator, anyway?

The next month, we got a nasty notice with the bill. So, we called the number, AGAIN, and left a message AGAIN, plus we went online, as the bill urged us to do, even giving us the web address. Once you get into the site, though, it informs you that you cannot disconnect a phone online. Excuse me? YOU referred me here!

By the third month, we were repeating all the steps again, my husband, myself, and my daughter, in case the call had to come from the number in question. Calling the number printed ON THE BILL for Customer Service took you to an automated system that hung up on me after I'd been on hold for too long, and informed my husband in a prerecorded voice when he called from his cell phone that "it is not possible to disconnect a line over the phone." What?

By the fourth month, the notices in the bill were getting increasingly hostile, and so were we.

Were they not checking ANY of the systems that THEY put in place? Did no one actually work at the phone company? Were they noticing that the only calls made on that line, for literally months, were to their own system? I mean, they're supposed to know things, right? There's supposed to be some level of monitoring, right?

By now, we're all pretty ticked off. My husband kept saying, "We have to actually go into the office," but the thing is, there is no local office of AT&T. So, one day, I went to an AT&T store. At least there, there would be humans.

We walked in, my husband and I, and the employee chirped, "May I help you?" I surely hoped so, I told him, and explained the problem. "Oh. We can't do that. We don't have access."

*&^%($#!@+&!!!!!!

"We can call, though."

"Is it a different number? Because, believe me, we've already called."

Yes, he assured me, he could get a human on the phone. So, I went with him to the phone, waited while he went through elaborate steps that all but took a DNA sample, and he handed me a phone playing the melodious muzak of "hold." Soon, a human actually picked up.

"With whom am I speaking?" she trilled. I know they're trained - in fact, required - to ask this first, but it would be so nice, and timesaving, if they let me tell them what I need. Instead, I gave her my name.

"Thank you. And what is the telephone number?" Sigh. I gave it to her. Tiny pause, then an irritated voice: "I don't show you as the account holder."

"No. It's my mother's phone."

Irritated voice again. "I'm sorry, I can't - "

Enough. I need to stop you from being helpful so I can tell you why I've called. "She's been dead for months. I've been trying to turn her phone off since then. Her name is..." and I provided the name that should now be on her screen.

"I don't show your mother as the account holder, either."

Oh, for the love of Mike! "Well, my dad's been dead for 25 years," I told her, then provided his name.

"Oh. Yeah, that's it. I guess they never got around to changing it." No, I guess "they" didn't.

Then I explained what I wanted, and the steps I'd taken to get there. "I know that this isn't your fault, and that you don't make company policy, but I'm understandably irritated by now."

"I understand. Did you go online?"

I did not say, "Did you listen?" I said, "Yes. More than once." I then repeated that we'd also phoned and sent in a letter.

"What address did you send it to?" I told her. "Oh. That's the wrong address."

"Well, if someone had let me know that, I would happily have mailed one to the correct address. Do you have that address, so I can mail another one?" She did not. "Did anyone notify me that the address was incorrect? Did they forward it to the correct department? Has anyone made any attempt to communicate with me at all?"

"I don't have that information. I can't access that."

"Can you transfer me to someone who can?" She could not.

We went around and around, me trying not to bite the girl's head off, and her becoming more flustered. I did fairly bite her head off when she said, "I can take care of the bill. We'll have to prorate it..."

"NO. There is NO money actually owing. I notified you within DAYS of her death. I PAID the final bill in full. There is NO money owing at all."

"No, ma'am, I can reverse most of these charges, but you'll still owe from the day she died until the day you first notified us." Good gravy.

"OK. Fine. That'll be maybe a week." Far be it from me to keep the company from getting ten bucks or so.

At one point she said, "I don't think you're lying to me, ma'am. It's just that I have policies I have to follow." That's the problem. Do you ever feel that you're lost in the morass of a huge conglomerate that has lost touch with reality and humanity?

Poor kid, she couldn't do what I needed. I couldn't do what I wanted. How is that even possible? It's a friggin' PHONE, not the nuclear launch codes or somebody's life support.

"With every other account, I got, 'So sorry for your loss,' and then they cancelled the account."

"We really are sorry for your loss, ma'am!" She was sounding shrill and slightly distraught.

Sorry. That ship has sailed. You do not get to be sorry for my loss unless it's one of the first things you say to me.

She tried, repeatedly, to transfer me to her manager, who was "on another line," and finally told me that he'd call me at home. Poor kid, I told her several times, "I know this is not your fault." But I am starting to contemplate drastic action, like sending in another letter, but this time sprinkling talcum powder in the envelope, so it will get noticed and sent up the chain of command. I won't do it, but oh, my gosh!

Her manager never called. They finally turned off the phone, but the nasty note with the bill tells me that it was "suspended for non-payment."

AT&T, here's a Handy Business Tip: you may not want to threaten for months on end before you finally take action. Don't be hysterical and cut it off if payment is a day (or even a month) late, but we're headed into month six. You lose some credibility when people can mooch for months.

Assuming that they want to mooch. Assuming that they haven't tried to sever the relationship repeatedly over those months. You are the equivalent of a stalker ex, AT&T. Know when to let go!