Is Adobe sexist?
I’m on the phone with Adobe tech support right now.
I am having a serial number issue. I have to reinstall a version of GoLive onto my computer following a system failure.
So I call Adobe. Customer Service guy #1 asks me for an email address (check), mailing adddress (check) and serial number (check). He gives me my Customer Number and transfers me to “Aaron” - Customer Service Sexist Asshole.
Aaron asks for email address (check), mailing address (check), serial number (check) and customer number (check). He says he sees the old serial number (!) that I need (great) but… he can’t give it to me. He can only speak to “my husband.”
Wha-huh? I say to him, “Do you realize what you just said? Doesn’t that sound offensive to you?”
Let me put this into a quick perspective. My husband and I run a company together. We have the same last name. This is company software - a company which has our last name in the title. I own part of the company. Aaron - Customer Service Sexist Asshole - says it’s Adobe policy that he can only speak to - his phrase, again - “your husband.” Why? Because his name is on the computer screen.
Really. If I were a large company - like IBM - calling, you’d insist on speaking to the ONE person whose name is on your screen? I don’t think so.
I explain to him that he knows that we aren’t pirating the software - I have the disk in my hand and it’s registered to Adobe. He also sees that the other software was registered - to the same address. It is also my address. Customer Service guy #1, with the same information, could talk to me but Customer Service Sexist Asshole can’t?
I take a deep breath and again explain that it is my computer. The company belongs to me and my husband (the company name does appear in Adobe’s records, by the way). I am trying to reinstall. I just needed the number. No. He can only give it to my husband.
I ask him whether he would appreciate it if someone spoke to his mother or his grandmother this way. He says that he won’t respond to comments about his personal life.
And this is the thing. Do you really thing that they would have treated LawDaddy the same way if he called and I had been the one whose name was on the screen? Of course not.
August 16th, 2007 at 9:08 am
it seems odd that he kept using the term “husband”. “registered owner” seems a better choice of words.
August 16th, 2007 at 9:24 am
Kind of my point.
Customer Service guy #1 knew that I was not LawDaddy and did not have a problem giving me the initial info - which makes me believe that this “company policy” stuff was a screen for Customer Service Sexist Asshole to be rude. He clearly said “husband” - which is why I brought up whether he would allow someone to talk to his mother or grandmother that way.
If they had started by saying that I wasn’t the registered user, it would have been another story.
And, at some point, I asked him to conference LawDaddy in on the call (LawDaddy’s idea - we were on IM during the call) and CSSA said no.
August 16th, 2007 at 10:57 am
Sounds like a rude, sexist Adobe CSR. Did you get his name/ID number? I would have hung up and called back to try to get someone with a better attitude on the line. And if he wasn’t willing to conference LawDaddy in, then he obviously was just being a dick to be a dick. Grrr.
August 16th, 2007 at 10:59 am
oh man… I imagine that there is going to be a follow-up post to this one… (I’ve been spending the last hour unintentionally eavesdropping on LawDaddy’s phone call)
August 16th, 2007 at 11:01 am
[...] You Got Something To Say? Is Adobe sexist? [...]
August 16th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Madgirl -
ask and you shall receive… See follow-up post!