Entertainment Weekly is terribly concerned about me.
It’s touching, really. The little notes, the shy reminders, the e-mails. Perhaps I’ve forgotten? Maybe I didn’t notice? They are so sorry for the intrusion but they know, with every fiber in their pages, the unbearable anguish I would surely feel were I to miss even a single issue and so they chide me, gently, affectionately, with discreet letters and whispered notices and great big honking wraparound covers with 72-point type that let people know from across the street my subscription will wither and die in just six more painfully short weeks.
I just laugh heartily and put it off another month, because that’s the kind of guy I am.
It’s fun to wait as long as possible to see just how far the company is willing to go to keep you signed up. I let the renewal notices stack up and measure ’em periodically against a ruler. So far EW is nowhere near the record (Science Fiction Book Club, 1982) but they’re certainly presenting a respectable showing.
I already know I’ll be renewing — I like EW — so the near-constant entreaties to come back and reaffirm my loyalty are just funny. It’s a different thing entirely when I don’t want the product or service, of course. Like the record club I finally escaped in 1984 that still sends out determined representatives to hide in my bushes, ready to sign me up again in a moment of weakness. Like the credit card that could only be canceled by traveling to a hidden valley in the Congo, defying deadly traps and mythic beasts, and bringing back the Emerald Eye of Raheesh before the month rolled over and another service charge could be added. My phone company wants my Internet business; my Internet provider wants to offer me phone service, and neither of them seems to understand the words “no,” “I’m not interested,” or “Seriously, I have a gun.”
An even more persistent example of corporate clinginess was provided by blogger Vincent Ferrari last month when he attempted, foolishly, to cancel his unused AOL account. The recording of that attempt — long, agonizing, familiar-sounding minutes of the AOL retention rep continuing to deliver his “we-know-you-don’t-really-want-to-cancel” spiel while a frustrated Ferrari was reduced to doggedly reciting “cancel my account” over and over — swept around the Internet for a few weeks and resulted in the firing of that rep, a public apology from AOL that declared this should never happen, and an avalanche of comments from people that declared it happens constantly. That’s how devoted to you these companies are.
Companies love you. You’re all they think about. And breakups are always rough for everyone involved.
Right now your phone service rep is lying across his or her desk, doodling hearts around your account number and hoping you’ll prove your affection by signing up for more calling features. It’s a true love, a lasting love, a love that can only be expressed by a 50%-or-higher retention rate.
Rather than get annoyed or frustrated, I suggest you enjoy it. I love it. It’s like being the popular kid in school, in a sad, pathetic way. Suddenly everyone’s after me, I’m the one they absolutely have to have, it’s all about me, me, me! And my checking account, of course.
So I toy with them. I’m coy. When called, I dither about and finally say that maybe I’ll renew, I just don’t know… Once I even called my cellphone salesperson while I was standing in front of her competitor’s booth in the mall, shamelessly flirting with a new 2-year contract, just to hear her beg me to stay. Oh, I’m a hussy, no two ways about it.
And I’m getting worse. Next time I get calls for Internet access I’m thinking of inviting the reps over to have them fight it out in my front yard, possibly with rakes. The winner, assuming one survives, can crawl inside and hook up my new service .
As long as I’m not bothered. I’ll be too busy reading my Entertainment Weekly.