Adam I.

Davis
169 Solano Street
San Rafael, CA 94901

May 4, 2009

Verizon Communications
VIA FACSIMILE – 877-875-8857

Re: Ticket ID z0645220504200990304

Dearest Sir and/or Madam:

It has come to my attention that you require additional information regarding your Ticket
ID z0645220504200990304, having to do with payments that you allege you have not
received that appertain to the use of an MCI service, that is, the provision of long distance
telephonic communication service, along with additional required taxes, surcharges and
any associated fees that may or may not be considered to be entirely justified, what with
the advent of the internet, the use of text messaging, the proliferation of web
communication services such as Facebook and Twitter, and even the creation of entire
‘virtual’ or ‘synthetic’ worlds such as Second Life, wherein communication via ‘Avatar’ –
an imaginary, and yet strangely lifelike representation of the ‘self’ - is possible.
Howsoever, it appears that the birth of your Ticket ID z0645220504200990304, an event
along the space/time continuum that is also apparently represented by the ‘Reference
Number’ given to me by your Customer Service Representative during an extremely
lengthy and not altogether pleasant or satisfactory conversation just this morning. This
conversation, in passing, can be fairly characterized, I believe, by a stunning failure on
the part of said Customer Service Representative to recognize the very nature of the
words ‘customer’ or ‘service’. So much so, in fact, that one could begin to question the
relevance or meaning of such a title as Customer Service Representative at all. For
example, the idea that a ‘Customer’, a person who purchases products or services from
your firm, is something different than a cow’s udder from which the milk of cash flow
springs, but indeed a full member of society – a citizen – who has responsibilities to his
work, his community and his family that render his time precious. Because his time is
precious, any ordinary ‘Customer Service’ representative would clearly understand that
placing a customer on hold for fifteen minutes at a time, repeating insistently that the
‘customer’ must research and provide detailed information to Verizon/MCI on incidents
which stem from the abject confusion caused by the accounting and information systems
within Verizon/MCI itself, and so on, would be beyond the pale of any coherent
definition of the word ‘customer’, not to mention the more specific intelligible
understanding of ‘customer service’ itself. The Reference Number to which I refer,
Reference Number 20645220504200990304, provides further evidence of the
consternation-producing systems of accounting and information within Verizon/MCI to
which I refer above, and which may give us some insight into the fundamental flaw or
‘character’ of the issue we are dealing with here. This Reference Number is a 20-digit
number. Now, assuming that one unique number is required for each Customer Service
incident, so that you, the customer, and any third party such as a regulator, member of the
press, or interested non-profit ‘performance tracking’ organization can have a clear and
succinct way of referring to and following along with developments related to said
incident, it is remarkable to contemplate the significance of the fact that Verizon/MCI is
using a 20-digit number for the purpose. A 4-digit number provides tracking for one
thousand unique incidents, for example, and a 7-digit number for one million. Similarly
a 10-digit number provides tracking for one billion, and a 13-digit number for one
trillion. If we pause here for just a moment, we can easily see where we are heading.
The entire human population of Earth is at present some 6.4 billion individuals (and
despite Verizon/MCI’s great success, one can, I presume, be confident of the fact that
only a reasonably small percentage of this total are your actual ‘customers’, given the fact
that at least one billion of us currently live on less that one dollar a day’s worth of income
and so on), and so one trillion incident numbers would allow for tracking 156 separate
experiences for each man, woman and child alive. Even if one were to assume that all of
us are your ‘customers’, it is extremely difficult to imagine, to ‘get one’s head around’,
the concept that each individual would have 156 separate “customer service” problems
that require tracking. This would mean, for example, that your “customer service” was
very problematic indeed. But I’m afraid we must take this still further, because the 20-
digit number you’ve assigned for my unique problem with you represents not one trillion
possible incidents, but a number as large as ninety-nine quintillion such incidents.
Because I know it’s nearly impossible to imagine such numbers, I’ll suggest a simple
visual aid of sorts for you at this point: If one were to place the quantity of “one million”
on a scale of measurement so that it were equivalent to 6 inches, “one billion” on the
same scale would be 500 feet, and “one trillion” would be a distance of 95 miles. On this
same scale, a quintillion would be one of those numbers so large that it could only be
given meaningful understanding through the use of those trite “grains of sand on all of
the beaches in the world” or “all of the stars in all of the galaxies” metaphors, and there is
no place in a formal business communication such as this for triteness, nor for syllogisms,
neo-liberal politics, theories of agrarian society’s adaptive advantages over hunter-
gatherer communities and so on. At any event, the 20-digit Reference Number you’ve
given me, 20645220504200990304, is something we’ll be able to refer to from here on in
simply as the 99-Quintillion Number. And I have to say, upon reflection, that as unlikely
as it may appear on the surface that any company would ever need to utilize such a 99-
Quintillion Number to track their errors, foibles, mistakes, omissions, and abject failures,
that it is indeed possible, given my experience with your firm, that you may have reached
such a moment. Your correspondence with me dated April 27, 2009 provides a case in
point. Without so much as a “good morning”, the letter launches into a vitriolic diatribe
informing me that my long distance “service(s)” have been cancelled for non-payment,
that I need to resolve the matter immediately, that I have not paid at least two particular
invoices, and that failure to pay this invoice will result in “additional collection activity”.
And yet, you fail to mention the payments sent to you over the last sixty days, lovingly
sent and apparently scorned… or even worse, misplaced and disregarded. These
payments, $12.77 sent on March the 5th, check reference number VB9BAHTN, $11.62
sent on March the 10th, check reference number ZBUBRHUP, and $22.10 sent on March
27th, check reference number SBIBH7SC, were sent, in good faith, in the hope that they
would ameliorate your insatiable desires for profit and conquest, your seemingly endless
lust for money. When will you learn… that money is a poor substitute for meaningful
relationships, for personal health, for meaning and purpose in your work? It’s especially
ironic to me, because I have always believed that good communication was a key to
helping each one of us overcome the illusory, even mythical, status that consumption and
acquisition have come to occupy; that such communication could allow a shared
understanding of what is good, what is right and what is ultimately valuable to us as
human beings; and that such communication could happen over the telephone.

Sincerely yours,

Adam I. Davis
Customer