Rental Service Skills (RSS).

Rant, on. Having become a bit of a car-renting maven of late, given that my driveway currently sports only transport of the two-wheeled variety, I was struck by the recent spate of poor experiences I've had with car rental places. I've been double-billed twice. I've had reservations lost. I've been told there was a quarter tank of gas when there was only an eighth. And my past couple of days with Enterprise, also sometimes known as e-cars, deserved a report card of, well, E. Not quite an F, given some of the efforts to placate me, but mighty close.

With a slogan like "We pick you up", you'd think that they'd, well, you know, pick you up. Now, I'm not talking from Tuktoyaktak or anything here. Merely a three-to-four-minute drive farther than my house, but down the same road. There I am, trying to squeeze in getting the rental between appointments and calling from my father's office downtown. The manager answered the phone and told me they were too understaffed to send anyone. And that I should have contacted the downtown location if I wanted to be picked up there. After going back and forth to explain that I was really only a smidge farther than where they usually pick me up. I don't usually like to complain, but I told her that I would try to find a car rental downtown or maybe make it up to her location by closing time at six (it was around 4:30). She said that she might be able to do a pick-up around 5:30 but, frustrated by this point, I explained that if I was going to have to walk up to her location, I'd have to start now. Nothing like stress to make you a bit melodramatic.

Then the fun started. She offered to send a cab, saying it would be there at five. At 5:10, my father pulled out his phone and called the cab company. Interesting -- no car even ordered. When he called Enterprise and spoke to the manager, she tried to insinuate that the car had been ordered, but kind of knew the gig was up when my father continued the questioning (he is a police officer). A car was soon sent and we were upgraded to a monster of a vehicle -- a Dodge Durango. (Grunt, grunt, hear me roar.) Upon seeing us, she tried to explain it away by saying there had been a misunderstanding in communication. Just stick to honesty, please. I was late where I was going, but was now riding in style.

As if that weren't enough, the manager happened the next day -- of all days, places and times -- to go into the one of three insurance offices my mother works in to toot Enterprise's metaphorical horn. She didn't know what she had coming. When my mother wouldn't have it and explained that she wasn't happy with the service, the e-cars manager backtracked a little bit, trying to pawn off the poor service on another of her staff. But she offered to comp. the Durango for the two days. And gave a free one-day rental to be used another time. Saved from an F.

One small, last detail when I returned the vehicle: the manager welcomed me back with a tentative, and likely false, smile, apologized for the misunderstanding and said that her staff person would explain the rules for pick-ups to me so that we didn't have it again. Teetering toward an E-minus again. He explained to me that there's a road past which their location doesn't pick up. Of course, where I was downtown was about two blocks BEFORE that road. "Well, it's still downtown -- next time, just let me know and I'll have one of the other locations pick you up." Funny enough, when arguing about it in the first place, this was never an option presented to me. No, that would have solved the problem. Rant, off.