Self Writing - "The Unhappy Customer"

Today at work a lady walked in and was upset about charges on her bill. I went to help her with finding out where the charges were coming from and what can be done about it. When I looked at the bill I saw the charges she was talking about, and knew that it was due to her using her phone in another country and incurring a lot of charges due to that usage. The customer said she did in fact take the phone out of the country, but never used it and therefore should not be required to pay for the charges, which were a substantial amount.

It seemed that the lady had already made up her mind about the charges being “unfair” and she made it clear that she would not be paying. I called in to the support center to see if anything can be done for the customer, but was informed that these charges came from direct use of the phone itself and that it was not possible for the system to have charged her unless the device itself was used, and if she did not make the full payment, she would incur late payment charges on top of what she already owed.

As I explained to the lady what the situation was and showed her on her bill where the charges came from and that she would have to pay, she became more upset and more clear in her decision to not pay for the charges and that we “take care of the problem” for her. I agreed to make another call and to see if there was any way to dispute the charges or have the customer pay only her regular rate while disputing the other charges – and again I was informed that there was no way to dispute these charges, and that in fact the device itself was used and thus the charges were justified, and she would have to pay the full amount.

She informed me that she was not satisfied with the way I 'handled' the situation and that she would be notifying my manager about this, and then spoke with my associate about my performance, holding to her claim that she should not have to pay for those charges. My associate gave her the same response and calmly explained the situation to her again and advised her to try calling into the corporation herself as the customer, since we have done what we could at the store level.

This was an interesting experience because I felt justified in 'sticking to the policy' – and in that moment I experienced myself as being 'right' and that I was 'standing my ground'. But within this experience is the hidden and subtle manipulation where I participated in wanting to 'win' and wanting the customer to admit that she is wrong, which is exactly what I judged the customer for doing to me and the company I work for.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to experience the energetic feeling of being 'right' and feeling righteous because the 'policy' and the 'company' are on 'my side', where I am allowing myself to exist in ego and superiority.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want validation and support from my coworker so that I can feel protected and secure within 'standing my ground' against an upset customer.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge the customer as being unreasonable and unwilling to hear things unconditionally when I was actually doing the same thing, because I was not unconditionally listening to the customer and was rather more concerned with my own job and fearing that I would make a mistake or 'give in' to the customer's demands – and thus I allowed myself to stand in separation from that customer and from that moment, bracing myself and going into an energetic experience of superiority and righteousness in 'not giving in' to the customer.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to congratulate myself for having 'stood my ground' in 'dealing with' that customer.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I am special for having an ability to 'deal with' customers who are upset.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from that customer as myself when 'dealing with her' instead of pushing myself to not go into reaction and judgment so that I can actually be here as her.

As the lady expressed herself and her dissatisfaction I knew that it had nothing to do with me personally – nothing is ever personal except to one's own ego.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to, within my backchat, congratulate myself for how well I believed I handled the situation and for not going into or feeding further reactions as the lady became more upset and dissatisfied with me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to indulge in backchat that is just feeding and padding my own ego.

I stop. I realize that all backchat is of the mind and of consciousness and is simply a story that is being told in my mind that is actually keeping me from seeing what is here within clarity. Thus, I give myself the responsibility to not participate or feed my backchat as ego as self congratulation and righteousness.

I see and realize that when I am participating in self congratulation and righteousness I am in fact suppressing my own points of self pity and self inferiority – which makes the self congratulation, pride, and righteousness seem harder to resist because they balance out the other polarity and thus 'feels good'.

As I look at this more I see how ridiculous it is for such events to even be happening – it is all so unnecessary. Here we have a woman who may or may not have used her phone in another country and being charged for using the phone service in an area that is considered 'roaming' because it is outside of the calling area the company provides for. But why do we accept this? Why and how did this come to exist? Is it best for all that we have these restrictions upon mobile devices that are meant to help us communicate with each other? Again it comes back to the point of MONEY – and the current money system.

We are able to provide wireless internet and cellular communication all over the world – but the reason why such services are not in place for everyone to enjoy is because the starting point of those who are in control of the communications industry are doing it for profit, not benefit. And in order for there to be profit, there must be consumers who will may money for the services, and the money these consumers have is quite limited because of the current money system, so companies have to compete with each other to find ways to bring the best quality services for the best prices – which means instead of using all of the resources available and all of the infrastructure that is already here in ways that bring communications services to everyone in the world, these companies must instead focus on consumerism and profit.

And in the case of the lady who came into the store today, she is upset because she now has to either pay for a large sum of money for charges that she did not actually agree to, or have to face further penalties for not paying and trying to dispute the charges by claiming she never used her phone, with very little likelihood that the company will be willing to waive her charges. But again, why and how does this even happen and is it actually what we would want for ourselves?

These seemingly 'everyday' occurrences are not being questioned – and we are continuously accepting a state of affairs that makes absolutely no sense and is in fact driving us all backward into our own self destruction – we are not seeing how in every 'little thing' there is a line that can be traced to a starting point that is rooted in a system that does not in fact support life – which invariably leads to the money system as it currently exists.

What I mentioned here may see minor and trivial things – but then we blind ourselves to their origin and to their starting point and we fail to see that these trivial things are symptoms of a rampantly self destructive and merciless system, and those who currently benefit from having money in this world are blinded by our familiarity with and acceptance of it's 'everyday' flaws – to such a degree that we have allowed more than half of the total human population to fall into poverty as a direct result of our numbness.

This must stop. Incidents like these remind me of why an Equal Money System must be brought into this world while we still can – before these 'everyday' and seemingly trivial symptoms we experience in the parts of the world where there is money begin to resemble the symptoms currently being endured by those in parts of the world with no money at all. Let us turn this ship around with an Equal Money System.