Her telephone died weeks ago. Since then, Helene Pancoast has been engaged in a farcical struggle familiar to any no-account customer up against an errant provider of cable, gas, electricity or telephone service.
You know the feeling. Like wandering through a maze. Reduced to communicating with robotic voices reciting touch-tone menus of choices that hardly correspond to your particular dilemma. ``Press 3 if your phone is inoperable.''
Finally comes the live voice of a service rep with a tenuous grip on English, who shunts you to another line that kicks you back to the original recording. ``Press 9 if you would like to be transferred to the suicide hot-line.''
Helene Pancoast speaks for all of us, as she bemoans the ``general malaise and disconnection of the service industries of people serving people.''
``General disregard, for the problems of others and of service to customers and community, has become the norm,'' she complains.
WHAT'S IN A NAME
Except it's not just you or me who can't convince AT&T to fix the phone.
``My grandmother Marian Bell Fairchild always told us that we should never `use the connection' of the Bell Name to get special attention,'' Pancoast says.
A few days ago, in the midst of trying (and failing) to convince a telephone repairman to reconnect her to civilization, she violated grandmother's edict. ``I did mention as well that, as the last remaining Bell descendant living in Miami, I felt their service was beyond terrible.''
The very great granddaughter of Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, father of the Bell communications conglomerate known lately as AT&T, can only rage against the machine.