Quality assurance - a term probably you hear most of the time, like, after en­during the dreaded automated please­wait-for-the-next-available-agent notifica­tion you get when calling customer care (like they really care for customers), that says “this call is recorded for quality as­surance and training purposes...” Aside from legal intents I wonder if that really means anything at all. Without getting too technical “quality assurance” may mean that the service meets what it promised to do. In other words it’s not the quality of the product that they are “assuring” but it’s making sure that their agents on the phone said the right words.

I could be wrong but it seems that in this part of the world quality is something that’s really missing. One point in case. For the past couple of weeks at the end of the day I had to listen to my wife venting out frustrations with her temp. Apparently instead of helping alleviate her workload the temp seems to be more of a problem than a solution as my wife had to check on the poor quality of that person’s work, and it’s always the same for many of the temps they send her. “So replace your temp, tell them quality of work’s poor.” I suggested. “I can’t, that’s complicated.” she says. I quipped “told you - you should hire a Flip...” Excuse the stereotyping but it’s a fact that we Flips take pride in the quality of our work, right?

Here’s another one. Every day my wife and I stand on the same spot of the same platform of the same station riding the same train to and from work. Amazing, after all these years I can only count the same exact spot that the train stops. If it’s not over it’s short by several feet. Several times the train engineer even backs up a few feet after missing its target. I just can’t understand how anybody doing the same job every day still misses. Job qual­ity? Zilch.

Finally. A few months back was a won­derful experience. I phoned Shaw when my promo bundle package ended and I started getting billed regular rates. After about half an hour listening to the sick­ening your-call-is-important-please-hold­for-the-next-available-agent message I hung up, blood pressure all shot up (amazingly they promise ultra-high speed internet access while their customer ser­vice phone queue is so primitively dimwit­ted and retarted.)

Then I found out they had that nice live-agent-chat thing in their website, so I fired up the chat line. I got a quick response from the other end although I wasn’t sure if it was a live person or an android chatting with me. So I stated my case and asked if they can give me a deal like the one advertised in the papers. The chatter at the other end responded and the chat went like: “Sorry those are only for new customers.” “But I’ve been with Shaw for twenty years!” “Sorry can’t do anything.” “So what should I do to low­er my bill?” “Remove some channels.” “That’s it?” “Yes that’s it.” “Well I think I’ll switch to Telus then.” “OK, sorry can’t re­ally help you.” I killed the chat, fuming as ever. Quality assurance - bah!

Later I phoned Telus and amazingly only after short please-hold minutes a live agent came on the phone. After discuss­ing bundles and contracts and promo freebies like a laptop I signed up and a date was set for a technician to come over the house. That was a breeze, I told my wife. That’s what I call quality.

The date came and sure enough a guy came early. I remarked to my wife how Telus seems to be really efficient - and nice. After some phone calls the guy came back and said sorry but we can’t get the phone switched today as Telus forgot to give Shaw, my current carrier, the required ten-day switchover heads-up. My brains almost popped with what I just heard but civilly I asked “so when can we do it?” which he replied with “an agent will call you.” “OK can we instead do the internet and TV switch now?” “Oh I’m only a phone technician. Maybe an internet guy will be coming later on.” Af­ter waiting ‘til the end of the day and an­other frustrating hour or so enduring the all-agents-are-busy on-hold response I fi­nally got hold of an agent. The response? “Sorry, I don’t see any installation work order for your home. Shall we schedule one?” My wife swore she could see the steam off my popping head. Barely able to compose myself I cancelled the whole deal. Quality assurance - bah!

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