What Just Happened?

Today Dave and I went out for our favourite breakfast, and afterwards we had rented a Zipcar to go grocery shopping.  Notice I am NOT linking to the Zipcar site, only because my irrational brain is super annoyed right now, even though my rational brain knows it was totally not their fault at all.

We couldn't get into the car because the battery was dead.  My first thought was, "Whatever, these things happen. We will go home, and try again tomorrow".  Fine right?  Dave called Zipcar because we didn't know what the problem was, and they were able to determine this through whatever means they use, or maybe it was just a healthy guess, who knows. 

They then suggested that they would pay for a cab to and from another car, wherever the closest one was.  Nice right? I thought that was pretty great customer service.  They also gave us our first hour for free, which I also thought was incredibly cool of them, seeing as they can't help these things and really, it was not their fault at all that someone forgot to turn off the lights the night before and the battery died.  They changed our reservation time from 1PM-3PM, and called the cab for us.  The time was 12:50PM. I KNEW, because this city is fucking balls when it comes to cabs, that we would not be picked up in ten minutes, no way, no how.  A wait for a cab on a busy Saturday in Toronto? 20 minutes to half an hour.  So I knew we would have to extend our reservation another half hour, which we would have had to PAY FOR.  

Anyone else see why I am annoyed here, or is it just me? I am kind of PMS-y right now, so it's perfectly plausible that I am a spaz and that there was no harm no foul.  

Also, the cab didn't even come because it couldn't frigging find us! We waited out in the freezing, snowy cold for nearly half an hour before we just left, irritated (well, I was) and foodless.  Dave ended up calling and asking for our reservation to be cancelled and that was the end of it. I wish that he had (nicely, I would never EVER condone being rude to someone) explained what had happened, and that they had put a credit on our account or something.  He didn't do that so we will never know if they would have extended their niceness in that regard, but this whole thing made me think: are we too nice when it comes to this kind of thing?

Dave and I specifically, I think, are way too nice.  Now don't get me wrong, I am not a rude person, I never would BE a rude person, but I also think that if something isn't satisfactory when it comes to a business transaction, it's not rude to politely point that out.  Dave and I went to a restaurant a few months ago and paid $80 for a meal that we thought was disgusting. It came out cold, salty, and took forever.  Also, they didn't have the dessert I asked for (that was advertised on their specials board) nor did they have the decaf coffee I asked for.  To be fair, the waitress was great and gave us a free dessert. But we still paid the $80 and didn't say a word.  Another example would be with my landlord: we have lived here for over 4 years and suffered greatly with how cold it is in our apartment every winter. This is because they want to save on heating bills so they keep it at an extremely low temperature, therefore effectively making us freeze to death.  And we have only passive aggressively said something once or twice about it. We pay $1200 a month in rent, and we might as well be hanging out outside during the winter months. 

I don't know, is it just myself and Dave who do this? These examples are only two on a list of many even more ridiculous ways that we would rather not say anything about the things we consume and are unhappy with. Should we have been as grateful as we were for Zipcar throwing us a bone when clearly, we bought something from them, and they did not deliver?

What are your thoughts on customer service these days, and do you think we have we all been taught to accept what we have paid for, whether it is good or bad, and just be happy that we even have the option?