Lester Ryan Clark
speaker
109 appearances
5 recordings
1 series
first heard Aug 2024
last heard Oct 2024
Lester Ryan Clark’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Yes, exactly. I was using my electric phone. I would crank it up. And every 12 seconds, a voice would come on the line telling me that I was on hold. Got it. I'm there. Have you ever had... There's a rash of facilities out here in Los Angeles that they don't say, we'll be right with you. They say, you are currently on hold. But they don't tell you like what place you are in.
They're just reminding you exactly the purgatory you're in. It's like when I go to an AMC movie theater and there's an ad for, hey, do you want to try AMC? I'm here. I am doing it. So 48 minutes. And I was getting really frustrated. It was, I mean, it turned off my air conditioning because I was afraid that I was going to lose my apartment.
And then I tried to change my way of thinking, and guess what it was, Pete? It was Vipassana.
It was Vipassana. Because even though I was in the right and was suffering for reasons I didn't deserve, was it really that big of a deal? I was able to just sort of sit back and be like, I didn't have to cancel a meeting to be on hold right now. I'm sitting in my incredibly expensive, now I know, apartment, just draining electricity into the ground. And...
Why not just see it for the ridiculousness that it was? So I took a deep breath and just decided to go through it with as much kindness and patience as possible. And this is going to have a reason that this exists. Well, the next step is I met Janelle. Janelle finally came on the line. And in a bit of a monotone, she introduced herself and asked how she can help.
And as cheerfully as I can, I explained that I believe there's a problem with my bill and I'd like to see what the options are to help with it. And with all due respect, Pete, Janelle is ready for me. And I don't mean ready to help me with open arms. I mean, she is ready to explain exactly that the only problem is me and there's nothing to be do about it. And.
instead of becoming defensive or cutting her off or coming back at her because I was in this Vipassana type of mood, I was like, she just must be yelled at all the time.
Every day. No one says, thanks for the water. Click. Why would you do that? That's what a crazy person would do. No, she just deals with people. She is like the LADWP customer service must be like every airport person that like sits at the different gates. Like all you're doing is Hurting cattle. Taking problems. Taking problems that you did not cause and you are not in charge of.
And so, and yeah, so obviously her defenses were up very high. So again, patience, kindness for Basana. I didn't talk over her, shut her down. I let her say her whole piece. And then I very calmly and very cheerfully asked, do you mind, could you just pull up my bill so we can look at it together? Yeah. And she starts typing away. I can hear her typing.
And she starts a new speech about how bill fluctuations happen. And they're almost always accurate representations of usage. And other than payment plans, there isn't a lot they can do. And whoa, that's what she says. She stops at mid-sentence and goes, whoa. And she says, yeah, that is certainly a jump, huh? And I laugh and I say, that's why I was calling. And that's when everything turns.
This is a very simple Aesop fable involving the LADWP. But because I was patient and kind, she was extremely patient and kind in turn. Here's what she did. She thanked me for my patience. And because I was in such a ridiculous situation, she went out of her way. She said the next step was to have someone come out and reread the meter. But that could take a really long time.
And I would keep getting notices about bills. And I'd be worried about collections. It was hard to jam that up. She said, instead, let's just take care of it together while you're on the phone. She walked me where to go to read the meter. I knew where the meters were, but she helped me find... It's like a blizzard of cords and weird dials and everything.
She helped me find my actual meter that belonged to my particular apartment. She had me take a photo of...
of it with my phone and send it directly to her while i was on the phone she forwarded it to another department who immediately confirmed that the guy read it wrong he read it backwards yeah they kind of looked like clocks he read it backwards so instead of some power i used all the power and it got solved that afternoon yeah So you've apostatized your way right through that.
But I'm not if this isn't supposed to be a story of, hey, check me out being a real sweetheart. It was, I guess, a karmic situation that because I didn't, if I went in hot, and then she was forced to sort of apologize. And I was like, yeah, you're right. That wouldn't have been solved for a week or two. But instead, she stopped everything. So
i think it's just how kindness and patience can be instantly rewarded with more kindness and patience kindness and patience seems like something so altruistic but you also get something from it like if you want if it helps you to be greedy about being kind and patient fine as long as it leads to more kindness whatever you need whatever weird backflips you need to do as long as you don't
beep back at someone that beeps at you and you're in the wrong and they're in the wrong. I mean, just every day. Don't even get me started on Ralphs. Have I mentioned Ralphs in the last three minutes?
If we were just all able to just take a deep breath and see the absurdity around us for just that and show kindness and patience, so many things, as we said in the very top of the episode, so many things would fall into place. And that's it. That's my fable, Pete. I love that. I almost had to pay a bunch of money and then I didn't. It's not that great of a story.
But I really wanted to give a shout out to Janelle. I just sort of went through the story again in my head and I'm like, that maybe didn't need to exist.
Yeah. Well, no. Yeah. Do it to Netflix. They'll drag it out to 12. Yeah. They'll do me staying on hold in real time as a whole.
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