Internet is for wussies, anyways
July 29th, 2005 @ 13:52 by NormMonkey
From the pain-hurts-head-pounding-aargh department:
When we last left our [lame] hero, he was thrashing in the mighty jaws of the phone company while simultaneously receiving forty lashes from the DSLSP. He was desperately hoping for salvation on Sunday the 31st.
The pain continues YESTERDAY.
I got home last night and found in my mailbox another note from the phone company saying that they had been by to check my DSL. The technician ID was the same as the previous note from the Monday visit for the Tuesday appointment (that makes sense, right?) and the handwriting is practically identical so this must be the same guy. The note says, “need access to prem[ises] to test inside”. Ya don’t say. Hrm, just like last time. Well, at least I still had a dialtone. That was the first thing I checked when I saw this in the mailbox. Once bitten, twice … as much pain?
I didn’t even bother trying to call the phone company, for I knew that Emily the helpful automated hose beast voice-response attendant would be waiting to politely deflect my call at all costs rather than let a human operator listen to my problems. Instead I called my DSLSP to describe the latest instalment of my lack-of-internet problems and to ask what I should expect on Sunday, given that said appointment appears to have been (un)fulfilled earlier in the day. No callback.
TODAY
This morning I decided to try and call the phone company directly. I knew going in that this would be foolish since the division that my DSLSP deals with is not the same thing as the phone company’s internet service division, nor their phone service division, nor is it a division I can have human contact with in any event as I’m just a lowly customer and my DSLSP is this division’s client, not me. Why so many divisions? Don’t they know that old saying? United, we stand. Divided, we become a large conglomerate corporation many levels removed from actually providing good customer service.
I called anyways. Why did I call? First, I wanted the phone company to understand that they have a scheduling problem. Secondly, I wanted to schedule an appointment for a quasi-related matter: the interface between the phone company’s wiring and my house’s wiring1 is a bug-and-spider-infested nest of loose wiring that remains from when my house was originally built in the ’70’s, and I was hoping they could send a tech. out to re-wire said junction box with a more modern, *solid* connection of wires.
As before the phone company doesn’t have any record of what their other division’s technicians have been up to, but they listened to what I had to say, and they logged a request to have one of their techies visit my place to see about the interface box. Dollars to doughnuts the techie will come by a month early, look at it sitting on the outside wall, and leave a note saying “need access to prem”. Either that or they’ll show up and say, “It works. Leave it alone. Don’t disturb the spiderwebs, they provide conductance.”
Then, in a surprising move of real customer service, the agent gave me the number for the people at the untouchable division! Then he transferred me to them! After I recovered from fainting (this had no impact on the call because I was in a hold queue the whole time, including when the paramedics had to take me to the hospital, give me smelling salts, and the whole walk back), I talked to their agent who was sympathetic about the appointment screw-ups. The agent confirmed that there’s still an appointment listed for the 31st but couldn’t do anything else because I’m not the client, my DSLSP is. However, in another surprising move, he gave me the number for the phone company’s DSL testing centre! Whoah! If I didn’t feel like everybody I talked to were trying to turn me into Somebody Else’s Problem[TM] I’d faint again.
I got through to the testing centre, who politely informed me that I’m a lowly customer and I shouldn’t be calling them at all. However, while I had them on the line I was able to confirm all of the details, including that the last test they did showed a really bad connection and that there was an appointment scheduled. I was also able to give them the technician ID for my two mismanaged appointments and asked them to please let somebody know about the scheduling problem.
Finally, I called my DSLSP again to reinforce my request for a callback to let me know what’s going on with the Sunday appointment. I asked them to please, *PLEASE* let their representative on the telco side know that there’s a scheduling problem and that it’s really bad for customer relations. They called back later this afternoon and told me that Sunday’s still on.
We’ll see.
1 Around here the phone company is responsible for the wires up to a certain point where they meet your house. There’s a junction box there. Everything beyond the junction box is your own problem.
