Jaci Dawn

I had a major brain fart this past month. I actually thought I could switch Internet Providers and save $20 a month for a year and I could be happy with that choice.

I had been debating this change for several months with my dear husband (who is pretty cool about whatever decision we were going to make) and my techie brother and my son. Nobody really was very helpful because there isn’t much to be helpful about:

Do I trade in the one Evil Entity (CenturyLink) for another Evil Entity (Comcast)?

Nobody had conclusive answers. they are both Evil. But my Qwest – er, CenturyLink – wireless modem keeps locking me out and Comcast had a better deal on the table, so I caved and called the cable company. I didn’t even have to wait on HOLD. In less than 10 minutes, we were signed up for Comcast’s “high speed internet” (the salesman never did tell me exactly how fast that high speed internet is) and their phone system. The new modem would be arriving via FedEx by Monday.

Tuesday afternoon I came home with a clanging migraine in my head. The new modem had finally arrived and was waiting to be installed. The instructions that came with the modem were generic and not specific to the modem we got. The manuals weren’t manuals at all, but some sort of advertising pamphlets with lots of reminders to call 1-800-XFINITY if we had any problems at all.

We muddled through the instructions and hooked the modem up.

Nothing.

The phone still worked because I still had not called CenturyLink to tell them we were jumping ship. So we had a phone but no internet.

And I had a migraine.

I called Comcast to activate service. They have one of those wonderful automated Voice Activated systems that we all love so much. I told it OPERATOR and it said, cheerfully, “So you want to speak with an associate? Is that correct?”

Then it put me on hold with a little recording that everyone was already busy and the wait was estimated to be about ten minutes.

My migraine made me hang up. I’d just call in the morning when I felt better.

Here’s a short synopsis of Wednesday:

6:50AM – voice recording that Comcast high speed internet is experiencing technical maintenance and if you are having a problem connecting, this is why. Please call later.

Because I am a good employee and I do not make long personal calls at work, either by cell phone or work phone, I waited until I was home to make this call. Besides, I was slammed at work and didn’t have time to make any personal calls. My husband doesn’t have access to a phone during work hours and he doesn’t do this sort of thing, anyway.

6:30PM – I call and get a live person. Yay! Greggor verifies I am who I am and looks up my account. “Hm. That’s interesting. Wonder why… I need to look into this. May I put you on hold?”

Sure. Why not. He can’t be gone for five minutes, right?

Fifteen minutes later (and I-don’t-know-how-many-replays of Flight of the Bumblebee later, there was a little click on the phone and the music changed. A feminine voice intoned, “All of our representatives are busy. Your expected wait time is over ten minutes.”

Say what?

I hung up and redialed, thinking that Greggor accidentally lost me. Someone else answered and I explained that I was talking to Greggor and he lost me. Instead of offering to reconnect me to Greggor, this person asked me all the verification questions again. Then she said, “Oh. I work in CABLE. You want INTERNET. Please hold while I transfer you.”

Cue:  “All of our representatives are busy. Your expected wait time is over ten minutes.”

I hung up and redialed. I pressed all the right buttons in the automated Voice Activated system, indicating that I wished to activate a new service and I was calling about high speed internet.

Repeat the above.

I hung up and redialed.

Repeat the above.

I sort of went off on him. Hung up. Went upstairs. Cooled off. Tried again. Got the voice message: “All of our representatives are busy. Your expected wait time is over ten minutes.”

I waited until 9:00PM when I figured volume would be down. Got through to someone named Isabella. She had a soft Hispanic accent. I explained to Isabella what I told the outsourced Entity. Isabella believed I was irate and did her very best to help me. She worked in CABLE (are we sensing a trend here?) but she didn’t try to put me through to the internet people. Instead, SHE looked up my account and she did it while I was on the phone. It did not take her 15 minutes, but took her less than 5.

“Oh. Your work order is not completed. I can’t do that. That has to be done during regular business hours. You will have to call back during regular business hours.”

For the record, Isabella deserves a raise. And a promotion. Comcast, get that woman off the phones and put her to work where she’s appreciated. She had the courtesy to tell me what I needed to know, even if it was unpleasant news.

I called Comcast from work this morning.

Repeat this scenario: “Hm. That’s interesting. Wonder why… I need to look into this. May I put you on hold?”

Sure. Why not. She can’t be gone for five minutes, right?

Fifteen minutes later (and I-don’t-know-how-many-replays of Flight of the Bumblebee later, there was a little click on the phone and the music changed. A feminine voice intoned, “All of our representatives are busy. Your expected wait time is over ten minutes.”

ARE YOU SERIOUS???

I acquired permission to call Comcast one more time on the work dime.

One can always hope, right?

I got this nice man, Pat. Pat listened to me as I explained how many people I had spoken to since Tuesday night and all I wanted to do was activate my account so I could have Internet and phone. And then Pat said he was in CABLE. But he understood how angry I was and he would personally make certain I got through to the RIGHT person. So he transferred me.

I waited about three minutes before someone picked up the transfer. Pleasant woman who listened to the whole story and then asked me to verify everything. And as I rattled off our phone number, she said…

“You’re in Oregon?”

“Uh – yes.”

“They transferred you to SEATTLE. I am in SEATTLE and I cannot access Oregon accounts. I can’t help you.”I hung up.

Here’s the summary of the past 3 days:

1. I have no computer at work and no idea when I will get one. My boss took a vacation day and let me use hers today. She may do that again on Monday. She has lots of vacation days, so this does not hurt her at all.

2. We have Internet, but it’s through CenturyLink. I promise to never lose my mind over this again. 3. I came home tonight and Don had hooked up the CenturyLink modem. But our phone line is now down. I put in a service request with CenturyLink. You know how that goes. (See my links above for those stories).

4. I have a root canal scheduled for tomorrow morning. On my way to the endodontist, I will drop off the Comcast modem and get a receipt for it. I’m not sure which is more painful: dealing with Comcast or going in for the root canal. I am certain you do not want the gory details on the latter but it involves peeling back the skin on my jaw and going in at the root from the bottom and then stitching the skin back in place.

5. I’d sooner have the root canal than deal with Comcast Customer Service again. And I thought I hated CenturyLink (Qwest).