The last two days have been excruciating in terms of notifying utility and credit card companies of my father’s passing. How many times does one need to say “He’s dead. He’s passed away. My father is gone, dead. No, it’s not for me, it’s for my dad, but he’s deceased”? Apparently again and again and again, in many different ways, a thousand cuts. I’d say “death by”, but this waking sort of suffering is far worse.
I’ve been stuck in that netherworld of waiting for hours on hold, listening to cheery music, advertisement for Apps, and “we’re experiencing higher than usual call volumes” on repeat. In the end Rogers/Shaw has won for longest wait time so far: that one was resolved at exactly the five hour mark, after two calls and multiple social media direct messages later. Despite the lady’s cheerful reassurance every four minutes during the first 2.5 hours I was on hold (before the system hung up on me) that the takeover of Shaw from Rogers wouldn’t impact me, it did in the end. After an hour and a half of going back and forth with a service rep on X (only used for company shaming these days, Mastodon is our beloved haven) via messages, the Rogers fellow couldn’t help me at all. He kept making me verify my dad’s identity again and again, coming back with saying my father didn’t exist (which ironically is true). Finally it was revealed that Rogers systems aren’t talking with Shaw systems, and he had zero access, please call the line that hung up on me after 2.5 hours.
When you do finally locate a human being (or good AI version, hard to tell the difference these days), they often offer their condolences, usually with that obligated hollow sounding way. A few alter their tone and sound genuine. I always long to tell him about the multifaceted gem Dad was; how he lived his life and brought joy to everyone. How talented and loving and wonderful he was. How the world has suffered a great loss. Instead I offer a weepy “thanks” and get on with the business at hand.
In the midst of waiting on Shaw and dealing with Epcor rather tearily at the same time, the Epcor fellow said “he’s in a better place now”. Given the hell of bureaucracy, a world eating itself and facing life without the joy of Dad, his words rang all too true.
Oil Painting: Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion – John Martin (1812)
