Zeno's Bar & Grill

I don't believe for one minute his name was Eric. Not that it really matters. The customer service stank and that was that.

My Vonage phone service cut out this week, sending me into a four day tizzy. I have never had such abysmal customer service--and if you know me, you'll know I'm not the type to get quickly outraged over something like that. I actually (gasp) raised my voice to the third person, after a total of four hours on the phone and purchasing a new device hadn't resulted in any improvement in my situation.

Weirdest of all is the fact that each of the Indian representatives had an American sounding name. The first was "Matthew," the second "Eric," and so on. I must say, I think it's extremely unlikely that these gentlemen, who struggled with English and had heavy accents, were christened Matthew and Eric by their parents.

This must be Vonage's attempt to fool their customers into thinking that they aren't outsourcing their customer service to another country. Sorry, guys. It's not working.

Seriously, how do you suppose they came up with the names? Was there some kind of research committee for identifying the most WASPy sounding monikers that would be likely to assuage their angry customers? How can they possibly think that something like that would make a particle of difference when you're being taken through the same ineffective troubleshooting for the umpteenth time?

That's what I was thinking: Yeah, I'm boiling mad, but hey, his name is Matt, so I like him.

Frankly, I don't care whether they come from the North Pole or Timbuktu and are named Joe, Bob or Prakash. I just want my phone to work.

--Melanie