Lately, the world of services seems to be crashing all around me. Although products are still working fine, these services have been failing at an alarming rate and leave me wondering: what will happen next? When I think about it, everything started with one phone call in the beautiful city of Charleston, in South Carolina.

Franziska and I were spending a wonderful long 4th of July weekend enjoying the area. Apart from visiting places mentioned in the book titled 1000 places to see before you die, including the excellent Magnolia's restaurant, we strolled around the downtown streets and visited a wonderful plantation. Our stay at the Sheraton was perfect, until the night where our room phone rang at 5AM. Both of us did not understand what was happening at that time, being in deep sleep. The second time it rang, I jumped out of bed and swiftly grabbed the phone. At the other hand, no one, but music. Raging, I complained by immediately calling the front desk about the call and demanded for a free night stay. Even though they specified it was not a wake-up call, they did not know where the call came from. Nonetheless, their relaxing and peace of mind service failed and we got one night on Sheraton.

A few days later, I went to the Wolf Camera retail store at the North Point Mall to develop a 35mm film. No, I haven't switch to a digital camera yet - I still find the current digital SLR models to be a little bit too bulky and heavy compared to the traditional ones. Half an hour after leaving the film, I went back to check the status of the development process - I was running out of things to do in the mall. Unfortunately for me, they were experiencing problems with their machine and told me to come back sometime later that evening. So long for the 1 hour photo development. I came back 2 days later only to find that the machine had fully eaten my wonderful pictures. All the beach souvenir pictures from Trinidad, gone. All the time spent to take magnificent pictures, thinking about the shots, caring about the light, wasted. Even though Wolf Camera has all my information on file, including my development preferences, they never took the time to call me to apologize or to explain what happened. Instead, I had to go to the store, find out by myself and perhaps go back home with a free roll of film instead of my Caribbean pictures. Nothing can replace those pictures, certainly not a free roll. Don't these companies have insurances?

Then today, I come back from work hoping to find my latest package from Amazon at the front door. Instead, I found hot air. So I got on the USPS web site to check its status. Once again, the service had failed by not being able to deliver for an unknown reason. Calling Amazon customer's service got me a small 5$ rebate after a few minutes of wait and a small argumentation with their representative, a guy that did not seem to care at all about the reasons why the package never got delivered, as if Amazon would wash their hands off after the items had left their warehouse. However, Amazon should remember that by being an Internet service, the only way to get products from their warehouse to my doorstep is with a carrier. Therefore, no mater who did the error, Amazon or the carrier, they should be worried about not being able to get ordered items to their customers. Would customers buy from Amazon if products cannot delivered? And if the delivery fails, wouldn't it be a good thing to investigate to try to prevent the situation from happening again? Otherwise, how can I know my re-ordering process won't fail? As of now, nobody knows. But in a few days, there better be a box on the doorstep.

Our lives greatly depends on services. And when those services do meet the purchased expectations, complain and get what you deserve. Great companies should not require you to complain, but anticipate your discontent and bring solutions before you even ask for repair.

Now.. I don't want to become paranoid, but I'm somewhat afraid of having my car's breaks (pads and rotors for those interested) replaced. What if this service also fails? What if the mechanics do not assemble the parts correctly and leave me with a time-collision vehicle, one that could hit and seriously injure someone on the highway by not being able to stop? Of course this is a little bit far-fetched, but unlike a night's sleep, unlike wonderful pictures, unlike great books, my life cannot be initiated a second time.