The customer is always wrong

 The machine sprang to life with the push of a button, as expected, and then it forced out a giant exhalation of air and an anemic stream of hot, brown water. 

Not even a mouthful.

"Well, this is a fine how-do-you-do," I said to myself, with all the expletives I could muster and none of the yesteryear-words my grandmother would have used. 

I tried again. Pushed the buttons and waited: this time only drops drip from the device.

The fancy new coffee maker was on the fritz, and, I'm not ashamed to admit, it put me on the proverbial warpath. Trying to get a decent cup of coffee before you've had a decent cup of coffee often leads me to dark places. Not to mention, this would be the second machine, just over its warranty date, to decaffeinate unexpectedly. 

 "This doesn't make sense," I told the air around me as I unplugged and replugged the device, and then opened and closed the levers. How could this be a user error? I questioned myself as I continued this costly experiment pressing the two buttons in various combinations and speeds as if the coffee elevator would arrive at my crazy floor any faster.

Trial and error here was just literally a waste -- two inches of coffee would cost me $4 in supplies.

Rage momentarily clouds my rationality.

You know ... because we've all grown accustomed to buying new because repairs are just as costly and twice as inconvenient. 

Showing me no other solution besides taking my credit card to the store and starting from scratch, after which I will grouse about the latest in a string of disposable appliances I've managed to drag to the edge of the driveway muttering to myself about "highway robbery." 

"Or ... you could google the problem and see if anyone else has run across it," said the boy with a smirk. 

A quick internet search sends me to the page of people just like me who have indeed had this very mishap dampen their mornings. And they found solace and some degree of success running warm soapy water through the chamber a few times.

I try it to no avail. There is little build-up to remove, and subsequent test pours continue to squeeze out progressively less volume.

The interwebs show me how to find the one-eight-hundred number of the manufacturer, so I call it, pleased to find that the service number reaches real, live human beings 24-hours a day. Apparently, they have applied the happy-hour sentiment -- about it always being "quitting-time somewhere," -- to the expensive coffee machine world. Someone is always waking up to a cup of disappointment. 

The voice that greets me after a moment on hold is scripted to within a dry monotone. Her helpfulness is debatable. She can't believe I am unable to locate my account number or the receipt that would verify the age of my machine. She instructs me how to find the serial number, and as I turn the machine over, water drains onto my feet.

This is not going well.

I just want a simple answer to my problem, and she has a whole menu of steps to lead me through for the next 12 to 18 minutes of a call that might be recorded for quality purposes.

"First, you will need a paper clip and an unused toothbrush. ... I will wait."

I tell her I'm fresh out of toothbrushes.

"She insisted. You will need a soft brush of some sort. I will wait."

I could tell I was already a disappointment.

Not only was I a luddite customer without the sense God gave a goat when it came to basic problem solving, and I was also incapable of following simple directions.

"Next, you will need hot water ... almost to the point of boiling."

"I'm in an office without hot water," I stammered. I'll have to do this later. What's the next step?"

"You don't have a microwave?"

I imagined she was mocking me to the other service techs while she muted her end of the conversation. 

"I .... didn't think of the microwave," I stammer, fully intending to come up with all further supplies she tells me I need, without exception. If I am not successful, I will pretend otherwise.

 

"Run the machine until there is no longer water in the reserve chamber."

I hum while the machine chugs along, slowly spurting scalding water out its spout into the empty container. It all goes as planned until she asks me an open-ended question: "How many times did you depress the button?"

"Six," I said with improvised confidence because I wasn't keeping track.

"The chamber only holds four," she says with derision. "I'm going to have you reset the device to factory specifications, and then we will do some tests with used coffee capsules.

The reset was all of holding one button down for a count of five seconds.

"You are going to have to count slower than you are used to for this to work."

When she asks me to press the button again, I can tell that the output volume has also been restored to its original factory setting, Yet her belief in my competence has not changed.

I pretend to carry out her request of filling three separate cups to test the serving consistency. "They all look the same to me."

"They should all be 4.3 ounces ... are they?"

"And so they are. Exactly."