Any mothers in North Vancouver know what I'm talking about... it's North Van Rec Registration Day. Now I am the first to admit we here in North Vancouver have one of the best, most comprehensive, recreation commissions anywhere. We have access to a host of programs across a wide range of facilities, all at prices that are highly subsidised by our local government. It's accessing those programs that can be a bit tricky.
The Fall Leisure Guide comes out early to mid August every year and showcases the myriad programs available for September through December. Well this year the magic date was August 20th: the date when registration began for the aforementioned programs.
Big-man and I decided we needed to get mini-man back into swimming lessons. He's quite the swimmer now - able to swim unassisted with water wings on and will willingly put his face in the water and blow bubbles. He also will swim under the surface of the water from one of us to the other and will jump in and swim up to the surface on his own (okay end bragging here). Now because he's still under 3 (he's actually a little under 2 1/2) he has to be in the parent participation program: Tiny Splashers. We decided, along with my mother-in-law (hereby referred to as 'Nona') that he would take a weekly lesson with Nona. As such, I ended up having to brave the repeated redials in order to get him in for the desired day/time slot.
I started calling at about 6:58am. Dial, busy signal, disconnect, talk, redial, busy signal, disconnect, talk, redial... I finally got through and put on hold at about 7:07. I was excited it hadn't taken as long as I'd thought it would, though 10 minutes of dialing feels like longer than it is. So there I was trying to get dressed while holding a phone to my ear and listening to CBC radio (couldn't they pick something a little more upbeat at that time in the morning?!), trying to fix lunches and get mini-man breakfast. That's a lot of multi-tasking. Not only that, but I was also trying to speed up the process by refreshing their online registration system in order to see if I could get in faster that way. Every couple of minutes a voice would come on saying something to the effect that they appreciate my business and that I'd be served faster if I hold rather than dialing back. About 7:22 it happened...
I heard an awful clicking sound and my heart sank. I got hung up on. I mean, it even sounded like someone picked up my call and put the receiver down on the base... no joke. I lost it. I can't even explain how angry I was in that very moment. I'm ashamed, really. So what do I do? I go online. I go to their "contact us" page and find a form.
I have to say, that level of anger is not a good thing to have when writing an email that someone is going to actually receive. I do believe I didn't use any profanity, but I really came off as a jerk. Not only that but the moment after I submitted the message I got through to their online registration form and was finished about 5 minutes later.
Once the registration was over, I had forgotten about being disconnected. I was just happy the entire process was over and in only about a half an hour... not too bad all things considered. It was only later that morning while sitting at my desk at work did I remember what happened. Actually it was upon receiving a phone call that I suddenly became keenly aware of what a jerk I'd been. "Hello..." I answered. "Hello. This is Ann Greenwell calling from the North Vancouver Recreation Commission..." oh no! I'd forgotten... Not only had I been extremely rude in my email to them, but the woman calling me used to be a business connection of mine when I used to place advertising in the Leisure Guide. Oh no. I don't know if she remembered me or recognized my name and/or phone number, but that just goes to show you should really think twice about voicing your opinion in the heat of the moment.
Lesson learned. Hopefully...
2 comments:
I work at the company (The Active Network) that makes Class, the software that North Van uses for their rec programs. In fact I used to work as front-line tech support on that system.
There's an anecdote that the first year North Vancouver used the registration software in the Rec Center (maybe 15-20 years ago, this is before internet registration, voice-response phone registration, probably before call-in registrations too). At the end of the day, the North Van rec manager was very satisfied: Only two fistfights had broken out in the queue of people spiraling the rec center, a big improvement over past years.
I'm sorry to hear that the online program didn't handle the pressure; I had gotten the impression that it did well on this season's registration morning.
I'll send a link to your post to a couple of my colleagues, maybe we need to follow up with North Van?
Only two fistfights?! So funny... I knew it was bad I didn't know how bad. Being new at this (given my kid is so young still) I have been going on what friends have been telling me.
In your defense Jan Karlsberg, my efforts towards getting the online system to work were not consistent once I was on hold on the phone - phone was preferable for me because I had no idea where my family pin# was. Luckily once I got through I managed to find the pin# from two years prior (printed on my last program receipt) within a few minutes (a miracle of God lol). It was a random click and all within the first 15 minutes of opening. I'd say it was my 6th or 7th refresh that got me through in the end. Not really bad given I was expecting it to take an hour or more given what I'd heard. My frustrations were directed towards the phone system specifically.
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