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My Complaint Was Unjustified

I was a little too hasty with my complaint.

Spring is here and I should be writing about mountain biking, hockey playoffs or maybe baseball. 

… Or how about those Raptors and Kawhi Leonard’s four bouncer, rim shot, buzzer beater to send Toronto to the NBA Eastern Conference Finals?

But I can’t write about those things. I’m still trying to get my head around my latest bill from Bell Canada.

At the beginning of April I got a shock when our TV/Internet bill increased by $79 from the previous month. (I wrote about it here.)

I got a double shocker this month when my latest bill appeared to be devoid of any adjustments.

After the big increase a month ago, I had called Bell and complained. … I’ll make this short by saying they gave me a $40 reduction on my bill plus faster internet service. To get that, I was on the phone for way longer than an hour with more than one customer service rep.

Within a day or two I noticed some results. They kept their promise of adding three free stations and removing one station, but the internet service didn’t seem any faster. 

Then this month’s bill showed the free stations, but no mention of the upgraded internet, and the same price for TV and Internet as the month before. 

Back to the phones I went! … If nothing else the phone company is ensuring we are still using their services because we have to call them all the time to complain! 

This time the conversation was more disturbing and discouraging than the previous month. 

I talked to two customer service reps who didn’t want to budge. They basically dismissed what I had been told a month earlier. They said that the notes for that complaint didn’t say anything about the credits and changes we had agreed upon. 

In the end, the rep said that she would have her manager call me.  

So I have to wait for the manager’s call … which also means there may be a follow up to this post some time in the future.

Then this morning, as I reviewed my bill again, I noticed something I had missed before. All the itemized charges are the same as the previous month, but there is an amount in an adjustments box with no explanation.

That adjustment is a credit. It only shows up on the remittance page, but it brings my bill to what was promised me the month before.

So I didn’t get faster internet and there doesn’t seem to be any record of or reason given for the credit, but I got one. 

The question I still have is, “Will this credit show up every month?” There is no record of what it is for, so it would be easy to just drop it.

As it stands now, when the manager calls, the only thing I can say to him is … in the words of Saturday Night Live’s Emily Litella, “Never Mind”.

Here’s the thing: I’m distrustful about what my tech company has given me. They might take it away as fast as I received it; it only shows up as a mystery item on my bill. How many times do we treat God that way when He gives us something? We treat Him as though He might take it away at any moment, or we are suspicious of whether it was God who gave it to us in the first place. You might not be able to trust your tech company, but you can trust God. Give Him the credit and praise He deserves.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What has God provided for you that you didn’t really thank Him for? Leave your comment below.

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Should I Wait Or Take Action?

I have a dilemma: do I wait or take action? Sometimes patience is the best policy, but sometimes it’s better to go ahead and get it done.

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About two weeks ago, I came home from work to find little flags on my lawn. I’ve seen things like this before.

I’ve seen people put pink flamingos on a lawn where someone has turned an unsettling age. There have been ornaments on lawns where a significant event has happened like a retirement, anniversary or birth.

But when I saw these little flags I knew they weren’t for any of these reasons. For one, I’m not close to a birthday or any other special occasion.

What really tipped me off was the words on the wee flags – words like “gas”, “Bell”, “utilities”. I wasn’t the only one on the street to have these flags either.

Every house on the street had them. I wasn’t special; I was the same as everyone else.

When I came in the house, Lily informed me that we also got a notice in the mailbox. It explained that Bell would be coming around to put in new lines on our street.

The notice assured us that, though they would have to dig up our lawn, they would make sure the lawn was put back the way it was.

It was a nice notice, a comforting notice, but there was no date as to when they would do this.

It’s now been two weeks and all there is is spray paint and wee little flags on our lawn.

I figure I need to cut my grass one more time before the frost puts a halt to its growth. So if they don’t hurry up and put these new lines in, they will need to cut my grass for me in order for them to put my lawn back the way it was.

Well, it’s either that or I need to cut grass and do a little contour mowing around the flags.

Since the temperatures are to soar up to summertime heights this week, it would be a great week to do one last pass of the lawnmower over the grass for the season.

On the other hand, I don’t want to muck up their work and confuse them by accidentally taking out a flag or two.

I can just see them digging away and “up through the ground comes a bubblin’ crude, black gold, Texas tea, oil that is”.

Well, in my case that would be natural gas, but who cares, it’s all fuel of some kind.

I don’t want to make their job harder. I don’t want to make them have to remark my lawn. But I do want to give my lawn a trim before the snow flies.

I think I’ll give them until Wednesday, and then if they haven’t started digging, well, maybe I’ll have a new career as an oil baron … I mean gas baron (same diff).

Here’s the thing: God has little flags on many different parts of your life. And that means there will need to be some digging and replacing. You shouldn’t ignore the work He’s doing or going to do, but you also shouldn’t just sit back, do nothing and wait. Don’t neglect your spiritual life. God will make sure it all gets put together for the better.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you put off doing in your spiritual life? Leave your comment below.