SHORT STORY FATE HAD CAUGHT UP WITH US
FATE HAD CAUGHT UP WITH US
Automatic traslation from the original story in Spanish. Not checked manually
Héctor had returned from vacation a couple of days early when his cell phone broke. His job meant he had to be reachable at all times, so he had no choice but to return.
He arrived on Friday morning and the first thing he did was go to a store to buy a new device. In fact, his old one was five years old and overdue; that’s a long time these days.
When he got home, he swapped the SIM card and transferred all the content from his old phone to his latest purchase. He had no problems; everything seemed to be working normally. He sat on his couch in front of the television and prepared to watch “Soylent Green” (in Spain was called “Fate Had Caught Up With Us”).
This 1973 film, despite having seen it so many times, still caused him unease… perhaps because we seemed to be heading toward a future of ecological devastation and famine like the one depicted in this film.
Suddenly, halfway through the movie, the playback stopped. He tried to clean the disc and the DVD players, but realized the disc had died. Since it was one of his, to put it in the old-school way, favourite tapes, he started searching the internet for a way to buy it again.
Shortly after, he found it in an online store specializing in old titles. Héctor added it to his shopping cart and started paying with his PASE credit card from the Rotonda hypermarket. He took his card out of his wallet and began typing in the details. Finally, he completed the transaction, and the payment platform told him he had to complete the validation process from his PASE app.
He usually received an SMS or push notification almost immediately, but this time it didn’t arrive. He started to open the app to see if he had the notification and complete it from there.
When he entered his username and password, as always, it asked him for a validation code that he should receive via SMS. It arrived almost immediately. He entered it, and, to his surprise, given that he’d had it for years, it asked him to activate his verification key. He clicked the activate button and was informed of the arrival of an SMS with a code that would allow him to create it… This SMS never arrived.
He repeated the operation several times. Also he even uninstalled the app, downloaded it again from the Play Store, and installed it. He repeated the same steps for the umpteenth time, with identical results.
He prepared to call Rotonda Financial Services, the issuers of the PASE card, to solve the problem.
After searching the internet for the phone number, he called hoping for an immediate solution to the inconvenience he was experiencing.
A voicemail gave him the typical story that this conversation, for security reasons, would be recorded, etc. He then launched into another tirade regarding his data protection rights, also indicating the website where he could read all of them and, finally, how to access them if he wished.
More than a couple of minutes had passed when, after all these announcements, the mechanical voice asked him to enter his ID number. The announcement then recounted the numbers he had entered, adding the distinctive letter, and then continued: “If this ID number is correct, press 1; otherwise, press 2…”
Héctor, now somewhat annoyed, pressed 1. The torture continued as the voice continued listing the different options, associating them with a number that had to be entered. The one that most closely resembled it was “inquiries about your card.” He pressed the number and the voice, impassive, added: “Briefly explain what you need…”
Trying to be as specific as possible, the already fed-up man said: “Trouble configuring the PASE app…”
The detestable voice, mercilessly, simply said: “Sorry, we can’t help you right now, please call back in a moment…” and he began to hear the busy tone…
With a feeling of helplessness and extreme anger, he repeated the maddening process up to 20 times. In the last one, instead of mentioning the configuration, he simply said: “Talk to a human…”
The voice, imperturbable, responded: “We understand you wish to speak to an agent…” For a moment, Hector’s face lit up, but his joy was short-lived, as the voice then concluded: “We are currently unable to assist you. Please call back in a moment…”
The man, usually peaceful, briefly wished he could strangle the son of a bitch who had invented this crap phrase that, in addition to eliminating jobs, usually always leaves you with your ass hanging in the air.
He tried to calm down and decided to look for another way to connect with the aforementioned financial services and, finally, found a web form. With a certain euphoria, he filled out all the requested information and explained the reason for his inquiry. Once completed, he proudly pressed the “send” button. A moment later, a message appeared on the screen that read: “Wow, it looks like that a n error occurred while submitting the form. Please resubmit it after reloading the page.
On the verge of breaking his computer, Héctor tried it several times with identical results. Almost sunk in despair, on the verge of depression and stress, he decided not to give up and continued searching for contact options…
“I’ve found a chat!” he shouted exultantly. He filled out the details, added his query, and, just as requested, the email address he had registered with them. He sent it and… Eureka! It seemed to work well.
He stared at the screen expectantly, waiting for a reply, when he received an email notification on his phone. He looked at it and it was the “friendly” response to his chat, which said: “We have received your communication, the corresponding department will respond by email as soon as possible…”
Almost with tears in his eyes, he continued his search to try to contact this highly protected financial service and, against all odds, found an email: atencionalclientesfr@rotonda.es. Without further ado, he drafted his email, including a few ironic asides, such as the fact that he had lit a candle to Saint Rita, the lawyer of the impossible, to resolve his problem…
A couple of minutes later, a new email added to his disappointment. He also received a reply from an automated system, telling him that his email couldn’t be considered, since they only accepted emails that were registered and signed with a digital certificate.
Héctor raised his computer screen, about to slam it against the wall, but took a deep breath and held it back, unable to help thinking, perhaps influenced by the movie he had tried to watch, that fate had finally caught up with us…
He sat back down on the couch, overcome with desolation, when his mind lit up. He remembered that at the Rotonda hypermarkets, they had a customer service desk staffed by people… real people, even though it may seem unbelievable…
Without wasting any more time, he looked at his watch… It was 7 p.m., and with all this hustle and bustle, he hadn’t even eaten… but it didn’t matter; the hypermarket closed at 10 p.m., and he wanted to put an end to this nonsense…
He got on his motorcycle and quickly headed there… there weren’t many people in customer service… no matter how long it takes, he thought, it will be more bearable than the crap of the non-human customer service.
A couple of minutes later, one of the people in charge of serving customers, a young woman, approached him and said, “How can I help you?”
Héctor recounted his ordeal, and the girl, looking as though she was exaggerating, politely asked him to repeat the process of opening the app. Resigned, he did so, obtaining the same result. Perhaps thinking he was doing something wrong, the girl asked him if he would let her try. He handed her the phone without further delay, thinking to himself, “Try it, try it, you’re smarter than me.”
“That’s weird,” she said. After a few minutes, trying to follow the same paths poor Hector had taken, who, once again beginning to lose patience, said, “Look, I’m in no hurry. I’m going to be here until 10:00 waiting for someone to fix it, and I think if it hasn’t been fixed by then, I’ll try to stop them from closing…”
The young woman forced a smile and went to the phone. Someone answered. She identified herself as an employee of the establishment. Someone on the other end answered her, and she covered the phone’s microphone with her hand and said, “It’s from financial services on our internal line. They’ll check what’s happening with your account.”
Not even a minute had passed when they told her the account was blocked. They didn’t know why, although it could have been an anomaly that had occurred when transferring data from one device to another. They were going to unblock it and that after five minutes she should repeat the steps and she’d be fine.
Héctor said, “Okay, but we’ll do it here. I don’t believe anything anymore.”
After five minutes, she started the operation again and was able to complete the creation of a new mobile validation key when she received the SMS with the security code.
The girl thanked him for his patience and commented that the machines make everyone lose their patience at one point or another.
The man nodded and, thanking her in turn, smiled back, unable to help but think that it was unfair that something that could be fixed in minutes had cost him a day of his life. Just so a company like Rontonda could save a few salaries in exchange for, in many cases, leaving customers in a desperate dead zone.
Any resemblance to actual events is NOT a mere coincidence.
Fate Had Caught Up With Us – Short stories series – Copyright ©Montserrat Valls and Juan Genovés