Like a good neighbor.
So, my State Farm agent, Kimyee Ross, is the icing on a rather unpleasant cake today. After my car accident, I had the most difficult time getting people at the claims office to return my phone calls or update me on what was happening. Even Kimyee's office only provided me with telephone numbers to call which I had already been given and had already called. The day after my accident when I called to file my claim, Kimyee answered the phone but said she couldn't take the claim from me because she was with a customer, so she gave me a number to call. And later, when I was being offered a total loss amount on my car that I felt was unreasonable, I called Kimyee and asked for her assistance, and she gave me this whole rap about how she is my agent and that's what I'm paying her to do. That I shouldn't have to be dealing with any of this. And it's because of this level of service she provides that she's able to afford to take cruises. Yes, that's right. Cruises.
Well, since the initial furor of the accident died down, it's just been dealing with paperwork and figuring out logistics. My car was towed away from the body shop without my permission and taken to a place in Van Nuys. When I told Kimyee about that, she said that seemed incorrect and that I shouldn't have to drive all the way out there to get my personal belongings. That she would call me with the location of the salvage yard and also see if she could get my personal items delivered to me. Well, I never heard from her again. The next time I spoke with the claims representative, she was very apologetic about the poor customer service she said I felt I had received. Apparently Kimyee had given her an earful. But Kimyee never stepped in again. I negotiated my total loss myself. I called and got the address of the salvage yard. I went out and picked up my stuff on my own. And I will admit that, whether it was just the post-traumatic stress or the overwhelming nature of it all, I didn't always return phone calls promptly during that time. Mostly because dealing with it all filled me with such dread. But I got it all taken care of in the end. And in the past few weeks, when I needed help with a new auto quote -- because I am borrowing a car from my parents and want to make sure it's covered -- I could not get anyone to call me back. Kimyee had even given me her cell phone number so that I could reach her quickly. And when I left messages on it, I did not hear back from her. Say nothing of the fact that no one ever answered the phone when it rang.
So today I called both Kimyee's cell phone and her office phone and left curt messages expressing my frustration. And Kimyee called me back pretty promptly and proceeded to tell me that I was basically full of shit. She said that I have a reputation for not returning calls and that she has never not returned a call to me. And when I started to point out that she didn't call me back about this auto quote, she said that she didn't have to listen to this. She's no longer a State Farm agent. And I said, Okay, then, who should I be talking to? And she said, "You know what? You can just look it up yourself. I'm not going to give you the number because I don't like your attitude." And then she hung up on me.
It's funny. I don't have any massively emotional relationships to contend with. My mom occasionally makes me cry. But that's about it. For the most part, my relationship life is pretty even-keeled. No great drama to speak of. Maybe that's why my brain is ill-equipped to handle the amount of frustration and injustice and fury that well up in me when something like this happens. And maybe it's because I had just spent 40 minutes on hold with Cingular trying to get my phone replaced, the first 20 of which were spent on hold before getting summarily disconnected and having to call back and wait on hold for 20 minutes again, all while listening to 12 looped measures of incredibly monotonous guitar music. Maybe my nerves were a little raw. But when I went to State Farm's web site and located another agent nearby and called to ask how to proceed, I ended up crying into the phone like a big stupid baby. Embarrassing.
This new agent appears to be the bee's knees is the upside of all this. And he is getting me a quote and making all the calls for me and just generally being a right peach. But I wanted to make sure that -- if in a fit of vanity -- Kimyee Ross was ever to Google her name, she would find that someone took the time to write about what an unprofessional, insufferable jerk she was. Like a good neighbor.