Last Monday we were having problems with the internet connection at our Central Texas home. I had to leave Monday evening to get down to my workplace in South Texas, so Tuesday my wife had a service technician visit and fix the problem. It turned out to be a faulty router.
But that Monday evening when I got to my South Texas apartment the Internet connection there wasn't working. I called the local ISP, which unfortunately is Time Warner. After slogging through their 'customer service' (*cough gag choke*) phone voice response system, I finally got a real live person on the line. He was helpful enough, and after about an hour of various tests we figured out that the problem was with the modem. It was a relatively new modem that Time Warner gave me about 2 months ago to replace the previous one, which was working fine, but that's another story.
Unfortunately, Time Warner couldn't send a service technician out until Thursday morning. I asked if I could just drive to their local office and swap out the non-working modem for a new one. I figured that if it worked, it would save Time Warner a service call, plus get me up and running much quicker. If it didn't work we'd have the scheduled service call as a back-up.
Evidently Time Warner isn't interested in efficiency or customer satisfaction, because this idea wasn't acceptable to them. To his credit, the service rep on the phone was supportive. Together we pushed the proposal through three levels of management, all of whom said "no," but none of whom could give a good reason, other than "that's not the way we do things."
So I went to bed Monday night with no Internet connection, but comforted myself with the thought that I'd go into my office in the morning and catch up on things.
Wrong again, modem-breath...
Tuesday morning I could not get online from my office PC. Fixing this involved successive visits from the university's tech support team. Most of them are students working part-time while they go to school. They may be whizzes when it comes to social media, but they're a little inexperienced when it comes to basic network telecommunications. We eventually got online late Tues. afternoon, just in time for me to toddle off and teach my evening class.
Afterwards I went back to my Internet-less apartment and pondered various conspiracy theories, all revolving around why some nameless, faceless government agency wanted to deny me Internet access. That was three different connectivity problems at three separate locations. It couldn't be coincidence. There had to be some hidden malignant force acting against me. What were 'they' trying to hide? What were 'they' afraid of?.
Wednesday I had a number of errands to run and a bunch of papers to grade, so I didn't go in to the university. I started off the day somewhat antsy, jonesing for the Internet. But by midday I had settled down and was even enjoying the lack of connectivity by Wednesday evening. I finished grading the papers, caught up on some reading, listened to some music, and generally puttered around without worrying about emails, blogs, etc. It was actually quite liberating.
All good things must come to an end, however. The Time Warner service technicians have just left. It took two of them to install one modem about the size of a paperback book. They also had to go back and forth from the apartment to their truck three times.
It was almost like they were working for the government...
Leftish.
2 hours ago
5 comments:
If they didn't have a supervisor on site, they weren't Govvies :-) Glad you're back up and operating!
NFO - reminds me of the story about a crew of city public service workers who got to the job site and discovered they'd forgotten to bring their shovels.
They radioed back to the dispatcher, who told them "I'll send out another truck with the shovels. In the meantime just lean on each other."
Monday we had some surface dirt work done, just finessing some spots where silt has gathered, directing water away from the foundation, etc. Cut right through the fiber optic line that was, maybe, 5 inches below grade. I called Verizon customer service and had gotten through all the voice prompts and was on hold to talk to a real human.
When my FIOS was installed, the tech gave me his supervisor's card with cell number and told me to call him if I ever needed something. As I waited, I dug through the kitchen junk drawer, found the local guy's number, called him, left a message - he called right back, told me to text him my address. I did and he texted back a few minutes later that he had created the ticket and someone would be out that day. The other phone was still playing the customer service hold music and the occasional message that hold times were exceptionally long due to the weather in the NE. Like that matters to me in Texas.
Of course, now I have a fiber optic line above ground, as getting the crew out to bury it takes a little longer.
Here in Bergheim we use a local company for phone and 'net services. Their customer service staff is located locally, answer the phone, and typically resolve things either the day they're reported or the next day.
The difference between small local firms and giant national ones is like night and day. That's one reason I love living where we do.
LOL- Probably true :-)
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