AT&T drove me completely crazy. Then along came Frank

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I used to do it without thinking.

It always worked perfectly well.

If I had to take a trip abroad, I'd go to the AT&T website. 

I'd then buy an international data plan and believe that I wouldn't use more than the number of GB specified.

Your device isn't eligible. Go away

Why would I expect this time to be any different? Yet suddenly the AT&T site decided I'd become inferior.

When I replied in perfectly human terms, the robot claimed it didn't understand me. I verged toward the irate.

"Please go away, dear robot," I howled. "You've been promoted beyond your capabilities. You are, if I might be so bold as to suggest, an utterly pointless halfwit created by bean-counters to encourage customers to go to Verizon."

Look, I paraphrase that quote. This was driving me toward conniptive convulsions.

Human says, hello, it's got nothing to do with your device

Suddenly, it was as if the robot identified my screams. Or, rather, understood that it had made me so apopletically volcanic that I ought to be transferred to a human.

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This turned out to be no ordinary human. This turned out to be Frank.

I began by praising Frank's existence and explaining the frustrations I'd just experienced. Frank seemed to understand. "Yeah, our roadblocks aren't fun," he said.

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