I’m one of those people who sometimes “screams” at customer service agents. It’s embarrassing. It feels involuntary. It’s usually the worst when I have little in my little account…

It happened again today. The inner-demon rose, I said something horrendous, asking snarkily for a smarter or less sociopathic rep (whichever one was the more relevant need for the chronic misunderstanding and/or gaslighting so far) for assisting with explaining and rectifying the large mysterious charge from my hosting company, one which they to this day refuse to justify or explain. 

By email four, after being accused of “admitting” to the (still unexplained, unauthorized charge) –for the suspicious tell-tale crime of having access to my other email address and following their instructions, I found myself shaking. 

I blacked out and sent the rapid-fire emails with f— bombs. 

Alexander, we’ll call him, was the manager who stepped in wrote that he thought I was being rude. It was a long exchange. I imagined the staff colluding in his lil office, perhaps joking this one “didn’t take their meds” today.

I don’t want to be mean. Maybe I could blame my suspected CPTSD or the haunting trigger of feeling gaslit yet again and run through hoops and a wild goosechase all for another grubby late capitalist company– they types who tell you to first email them at their other secret other special email address, use the special password, promise them your first born, go through this new web portal, let them scan your retina, do the hokie pokie and blood sacrifice a chicken before they will -maybe, but not yet- give you your damn $111 dollars back. (I’m sure if it gets approved, this will be conveniently back in my account in 14-1000 business days).

And that’s a lot of money in this (manufactured) dumpster-fire of an economy! 

Anyway, this is just my confessional for you rude bitches at my hosting company.You know, I did use colorful language, I am a colorful artist, and if you really looked at the content of the discussion and it’s implications, maybe you’d see that a strong reaction was at least a little contextually understandable!

I am ashamed, though. I wish I’d kept my cool. I pray to God to calm that dawg in me every day. There are a lot of times in life I think or hope I’m a good person– I try to be compassionate, rescue animals, I stick my neck out and stand up for others, volunteer, break for worms, and have patience and love in my heart for humanity and the world– most of the time.

But gaslighting? This late-Capitalist themed greed-oriented Machiavellian Nazi Psychological Jujitsu? 

It’s my kryptonite. I turn into the Hulk. Kali Ma. My Fitbit has registered a BPM of 160, probably, and Alexandar, my friend, I am going to cry. I promise you this exchange has shortened my life by 10-90 minutes if you have wondered at all about my impending negative karma before moving on to your next (statistically likely pissed) customer. 

It really isn’t anyone’s fault that this system sucks. I often think of my old college friend we’ll call Marie, on days like this. When I have another crashout over money stress, overstimulation, bureaucratic communication breakdowns, deliberate time sucks, and oppressive, wacked-out corporate funnel systems. The kind-hearted Marie was a call center person:

“Oh yeah, people would just go off on you. It was hell. I’d hang up sometimes.”

I imagined a horrible demon monster person screaming, and my sweet, bubbly, fun-loving friend, and shamefully vowed to try to do better myself next time the urge happens. 

I’m still trying. My outbursts feel not dissimilar from wanting to tell cops they chose dangerous jobs and don’t deserve their superiority complexes and unaccountability. You, hosting-company-guy, obviously work for a soulless corporation when most people in our world are financially stressed! Are you really going to bat for them like this?

When I was a corporate barista, my favorite thing would be to comp or refund drinks for almost any and every sound reason without batting an eye. You’d think you’d work to help people feel less, not more stressed about your respective relationships with them, or your company would want you to. Not under late capitalism, oh no. In this age of vulture capitalist subscription plans, it’s up to you, the consumer, to prove and defend yourself against whatever the fuck a masked ICE j6 agent or website that somehow got your credit card info might decide to chuck at you. That extra unauthorized charge is now short-term worth it, even if it’s the deciding factor in doing everything in your power to make sure it’s the last one fucking ever. Making interfaces and refunds more and more convoluted, consumer loyalty be damned, is the new name-of-the-game of late-stage “fuck it” capitalism.

The customer is *not* always right, but if you ever catch me crashing out at a corporate rep (which, for my sense of shame, I hope you never do), please remember a disgruntled client isn’t always 100% wrong either. I swear I’m not always a Karen. And when I am, I try to use my ‘Karen powers’ for good. 

Maybe I’m rude, of course, “Alex:” was right. 

But “what the fuck?!…” was my most honest, authentic response.

Someday, Alex, maybe we can rise up and burn it all down, together. 

Warmly (nuclearly) yours,

-Alex’s least-favorite unfriendly neighborhood anarchist