I Need a Wife!

(With apologies to Tyler, who hates it when I say that.)

I've spent an hour-and-a-half this morning on the phone dealing with various service providers: Waste Management, where both my tenant and I have been paying for service on that house and there's an overage of $200 that Waste Management owes me and they've been sitting on for a month (never mind that I had to point out the double payments to them); DirecTV who has charged me an early termination fee for a DVR unit that they forced upon me when I moved and it's take three calls and over an hour on hold trying to get resolution; ReadyHosting who billed me even after I told them I wasn't going to renew, then told me they'd refund the amount and never did; AmeriTrade where you have to place a phone call to terminate an account you opened online; and so on.

I am a single woman who works long hours. My work is as a contractor, and I'm am not supposed to use IBM's resources for personal reasons. So how does one manage the business of running a home and work long hours and deal with people who want to make problem resolution as difficult as possible so you'll just give in?

I know one thing for sure: I will never again use DirecTV for my television service. This $75 they want me to pay has now cost me at least two hours of my time.

I guess it could be worse, but the illustration of how it could be worse escapes me right now.