Even more clever than copy editors

...are the people who work at Washington Mutual, apparently.

Those of you who know me know full well how I *hate* bad customer service. I've experienced plenty of that, and ripped plenty of new assholes, and generally gotten my way.

But I think today is the first time I've experienced illiterate customer service.

Because I am anal retentive about my checkbook, I check (no pun intended) to see when checks are cashed. Today I was surprised to hear that WaMu (as they call themselves) paid my credit card a whopping $1, even though I wrote the check for $100.

The customer service rep (boy, is that a misnomer) told me - and I am not making this up - that "the zeros were really hard to see."

Were they hard to count? Were the words "one hundred and 00/100" really hard to read as well, or was the person who processed the check illiterate?

Never mind the 2+ hours I spent on the phone trying to figure out the situation with WaMu and my credit card company. Never mind the fact that the first rep at my credit card company sounded like she was on crack, and the second was virtually silent and unhelpful. (Thank you, third guy, who actually helped me - I told your manager what a rock star you were and if this had happened while I was single, I'd have practically blown you to show how grateful I was.)

Never mind the extra $80 I spent in the form of an extra payment because WaMu can't get its ass together in time to give the card company the extra $99 before it's too late and all hell breaks loose, at least temporarily, with my APR, fees, etc.

Never mind all that...what I want to know is, how do I get a job where I'm not required to read?