I just got off the phone with customer service with Virgin Mobile tonight (Tuesday). Prior to posting this I spent a very angry 20 or 30 minutes tweeting about the evilness of Virgin Mobile. I ranted and raved about how their customer service is evil, lame, sucks - you name it. Ever since I’ve owned the phone I’ve hated it, but I have suffered through bad service, including nearly two hours to simply get the phone activated last year. Then I found out the phone didn’t have an alarm function. This month there was a billing snafu, leaving me on a plan I hadn’t signed up for. I won’t bore you will details. But I will admit it wasn’t pretty.

I want to see their customers leave in droves. I want to leave. Like any disgruntled, cheated and frustrated customer I want to tell the world about my horrible experience and about how I was treated and cheated and then I want to stomp off into the sunset. Does it do any good to do that? Probably not. The great Virgin Mobile Cell Phone machine will grind on and I’ll be out my $50 forever. Customer service “gave” me 500 minutes…but it’s not the unlimited plan I have or wanted. And they won’t put me back on that plan until I pay them ANOTHER $50. Am I happy? No. Not in the least. And I will bore everyone I know with the story until I feel like I have “gotten my $50 worth” of bitching out of it. They will suffer because I’m simply adding to the internet chatter about them. One snowflake won’t break a branch, but enough snowflakes can bring down the tree.

So I’m grumpy. And cussing. And stomping. And scaring the cat. And not getting any work done. All said, I’m not very sweet, not very nice, not very sane, or not very even tempered right now. I’m using bad language. This too shall pass - the emotion, but not the memory. I’ll hate Virgin Mobile services until I find another service with a plan I like. But I don’t want the hassle of transferring my phone number, or buying another phone, or changing all the info on my emails, websites and ebooks. It’s a pain. And that’s the problem. Companies count on the weight and difficulty and the energy it takes to overcome the inertia to actually move, or act or do something; but so does “The System.” So they don’t bother giving good customer service. They don’t have to. And that’s depressing. And it reminds me of something else….

It takes a lot of energy to get out of homelessness, out of poverty, out of a bad relationship, out of an addiction. There’s a lot of inertia to overcome to get off the street, or out of any place we are where we don’t want to be. It takes a lot of energy to overcome the fear, hate, and loathing of a job we hate. It takes a lot to quit eating and start exercising. It takes overcoming the inertia. It takes taking a small step - any step.

I asked a friend about how they deal with the things that anger them and she said, “Eat.”

She’s right. That’s how we deal with life, with anger. We stuff it. We sublimate it. We eat. We rage at each other. We take out our frustrations on other people. We allow the anger to distract us. And we stay blocked. We stay stuck. We stay impotent. Raging at customer service does no good. Saying thank you, and then getting online to find another company works. Divert the anger. Channel the energy.

The energy exists. Whether we’re angry with Virgin Mobile, or our spouse, or our boss, or our kid’s teacher, or the system, or our politician, the solution is the same. Channel the energy into action - not into anger. So now I have a goal. Find another company - one whose’s plan includes ease of payment, clear payment options, an easy to navigate website, good customer service and a cellphone that comes with a freaking alarm function.

So while I didn’t get my $50 worth of calls, or my unlimited plan back, I did get some great insights. I’ll have to remember to thank Richard Branson in the intro to my next book.

(Update an hour later: Boost Mobile offers UNLIMITED calling AND TEXTING, AND web access AND walkie-talkie for $50. Virgin Mobile? $49 gets you unlimited calling, and that’s it. You pay an EXTRA $10 for texting. But wait, here, see for yourself, $50 vs $73. Click on the graphic below for a larger view with prices.