I have exactly one (1) lifehack for every adult thing and that is “admit your ignorance to customer service people”
no, seriously! I know how nothing in adult life works, but I have learned it by calling up the customer service division of whatever agency I am having a problem with and then just asking about whatever the problem is, emphasizing my complete lack of knowledge about the thing.
my actual literal script for these interactions: “Hi, my name is [name].This is my problem: [problem].I don’t know how [adult thing] works.could you explain how [adult thing] works?”it fucking works every time.
me: I keep getting conflicting information as to whether my therapist is covered by my health insurance.I don’t know anything about health insurance, so this is very confusing to me.could you explain why this might be happening? health insurance customer service: it’s because your normal health insurance is X company but your mental healthcare is subcontracted out to Y company, and Y covers your therapist but X doesn’t. just always bill Y when you go to your therapist and you’ll be fine.
me:I accidentally put the wrong date to pay my credit card off and I’m afraid it will post before I get paid.this is my first credit card so I don’t know what I’m doing.could you tell me when it will post? customer service person: it will send a message to your bank today, but your bank won’t respond to it until tomorrow when you get paid, so you’re fine. and even if it does bounce, the fee is only $25 and you qualify for a waiver.
me:I went to an urgent care place that said they’d take my health insurance, but now i have a big bill.I don’t know how billing works:can you explain why the amount is so much for such a routine trip? customer service person: it’s because you were out of network at the time. however, since your insurance hasn’t covered the cost of care, the urgent care people should refund you for the cost of the services you paid for. me: [gets actual check in mail for the $200 I spent on testing my pee]
I would not recommend this method for retail (for the love of god, do not tell a sleazy car dealer that you don’t know how cars work), and sure, sometimes you have to speak to the manager or threaten a credit card chargeback or whatever you need to do. but 99% of the time, speaking nicely and admitting to needing help has worked wonders for me, and means I don’t have to stew in terror over doing some adult thing Wrong.
This 100% goes for appliance support as well. If you dont have your instructions or don’t understand how the appliance works or have forgotten the customer service person will CHEERFULLY go through step by step if you admit you don’t know and don’t shout. Usually we can solve the issue, unless you cut your dishdrawer in half so it’ll fit on your boat then i can’t help I’m afraid.
that… that sounds like an awfully specific example 👀
Anyway my stance on fiction and online harassment is shaped by the fact that I had unrestricted access to the local library from about the age of 8 and read quite a few books with fucked up content that I might have been a bit too young for and that caused absolutely no long-term damage to my mental health; meanwhile I was bullied mercilessly by my peers for several years and I’m still dealing with after-effects of that.
“The Pyramid Guy from the opening credits literally has no significance to the show and never will. He’s just a generic image made to look mythological or spooky like most things in the intro.”
Doctor Two-Brains (Squeaky??) for @harlowthedog33 and Beck–Wordgirl for @piratesforstardust And these are the last WG requests! Thank you all for participating, it was very fun to draw them! <3
