Customer Service and Kindness

I call my mom everyday to check on her. So yesterday when I couldn't get a hold of her, and my brother wasn't able to either, I went over there and fortunately she was just fine and surprised to see me. I soon found that her phone wasn't working. In fact, none of them were. So I called CenturyLink and the automated system took me through a big long thing and I finally made an appointment for the next morning. Then, the same system, connected me to a customer service agent somewhere offshore. Then I had to do the same thing over again. It was now rush hour and I wanted to get on the road and get back home to make dinner. But none of this was fast or efficient. I know my sister-in-law used to work customer service for CenturyLink, and then they laid everybody off and now it's all offshore. So today, a technician went over there and he checked everything out and concluded that there was something amiss in their (central) equipment, so he was unable to fix it. When he called me, he apologized, and he said he was not going to get any credit for his work either, because he wasn't able to fix it. Now, my mom felt bad that he spent all that time there, and so she sent him away with a couple of muffins that she had just pulled out of the oven before he left. Even though he said when he escalated the ticket, the fix would probably take a couple of days, he called her back later, and said that her phone was fixed, and indeed he was calling her on her landline. When she asked him how it got done so fast, he laughed and said that the muffins probably helped. How we treat each other, especially when things get frustrating, is very important.