The First Crazy Episode...

When you talk to a customer service representative you are almost always warned that, "This call may be recorded for training purposes." I'm pretty sure that a phone call I made in October 2003 was indeed recorded and is now part of the American Express employee training program. It was the first time I ever went "crazy submarine lady" on anyone. Please understand that I'm not proud of this story. I share it only to establish a reference point for the beginning of this blog.

Tim and I had married about 6 weeks earlier and he had just deployed for 6 months at sea. Anytime your husband is gone is difficult. But there are unique challenges when stationed on a submarine doing whatever it was that they were doing. It means no contact until they pull into port. For that deployment it was about 45 days at a time. No phone calls, no instant messaging and no emails. Life just goes on. And for me, life was going on at Lowe's. We had purchased a new home and needed a washer and dryer. I was trying to buy them. American Express was making that difficult. Apparently, their "no pre-set spending limits" policy was not as direct as it appeared. Because I had recently been added to the account and because my husband had never charged that much in one month the card had been suspended. So, I call customer service to try and get this all straightened out...

"Hi. I'm calling to ask a few questions about our account and change our billing address."
"Are you the account owner?"
"No, I'm his wife."
"Well, you'll have to have Timothy call back to that."
"Actually, my husband is deployed on a submarine and can't call right now. I just need to change our billing address and make sure that I can still use the card."
"I can't do that for you. Timothy is going to need to do that."
"He's deployed right now - on a submarine. He can't call. If I don't change the billing address I don't know how I'm going to know what to pay you."
"Mam, you just need to have him call us and we'll take care of it."
"He's on a submarine!"
"I understand, mam. Just have him call us and we can change it."
"What part of submarine don't you understand? He's under the water in the middle of the ocean!"
"Mam, please stop yelling at me. I need to speak with your husband..."
"I'd like to speak with him too, but he's on a submarine!"
"I'm going to need you to stop yelling mam so that I can help you."
"Help me? You aren't helping me! You keep telling me to have my husband call you. Don't you think I would do that if he weren't on a submarine?!?!"

This continued for a while. Finally, I think he got tired of the crying and yelling so he transferred me to his supervisor. After more tears and a little more yelling I was able to change our billing address and unsuspend our account. In hindsight, I probably should have hung up and tried calling back when I wasn't so upset. But then I wouldn't have this amusing little tale for you to laugh about and I never would have earned the "Crazy Submarine Lady" nickname. So, if you ever go to work for American Express and you hear this call "for training purposes," you'll know my side of the story.