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Phone fiasco

Remember on old T.V. shows when some character would make a phone call and they would just pick up the phone and talk to Mabel or Hazel or whoever the operator was and ask to be put through to whomever and Mabel or Hazel would do so immediately often with a little bit of polite chit-chat while they plugged and unplugged long black wires?

Why can't our phone system still be like that?

Here is the story of my feud with Bell Canada, our extremely incompetent, rude and utterly frustrating phone company...

A year ago this last May, while we were still in our old house we had a problem with our phone line...heavy static and such.

So, I called the phone company to report it and request a repair. They asked if someone would be home when they came three days later. Well, yes someone would be home.

So, they don't show up.

I call and they say that they were overscheduled so they would have to come two days from then.

Now, the heavy static has now changed to occasional dead line.

They need someone to be home in case the problem is in the house. I say someone will be home...but only until 2. They say ok.

No one comes. Until 2:20.

I call back and they say that someone came and I say yes, but I told you no one would be there after 2 and to just move onto the next person on your list.

We do this for 3 (THREE!!)weeks. Them scheduling appointments and then just not showing up. I make 30 different phone calls to different people in different levels of management and all of them tell me that they are doing the best they can...I have absolutely no phone service for the last 7 days of the 3 week period.

I finally call the Vice President of Customer Service or some sort of asshat title like that and talk to the rudest woman I have ever seen. I tell her that I have three small children who I am compelled to leave at home with a babysitter WITH NO PHONE SERVICE while I go to work, and that if something were to happen because we do not have phone service Bell Canada will be responsible and they will pay in one way or another. She tells me...

"Ms. Customer, you do have alternatives, you know, there is no need to get confrontational."

I say...

"Alternatives? Really, Ms.
Stupidhead? And what might those alternatives be when I'm laying in bed at night and someone is breaking into my house? And I have no phone service. Which alternative would you have me use then?"

I know she wanted to say that I could use a cell phone, but she thought better of it...probably just as well.

So, another week goes by and two more appointments are missed and I am finally standing in my driveway on a Friday afternoon being told over the phone that once again the repair guys will not be coming out as they were overscheduled and my appointment has been bumped. I scream ( and I mean scream!!!) into the phone...

"You will have a repair truck in my fucking driveway in the next 20 minutes or I swear to god I will paper this fucking province with emails and letters like you have never seen. I will tell my story to every newspaper, television station, radio station, ham-fucking radio operator I can find. I will notify the Better Business Bureau, every politician from here to Thunder Bay and every fucking person I have ever crossed paths with in the 38 years I have been alive will know about how much your company sucks and when I am done with that I will remove every single thing in my life that ties me to you. If I have to revert to communicating with fucking smoke signals I will do it because I simply should not have to deal with such assinine, ridiculous and fucking lousy customer service. You might as well red-flag my fucking account now, Jeff because I will be your worst nightmare unless I have a repair truck in my driveway!!! You now have 18 fucking minutes to get one here. You better get working on that Jeff because I am about at the end of my rope and you really don't want me to go there."

15 minutes later I had not one but two trucks in my driveway.

They discovered there was a short in the buried line in our front lawn, they flagged it and painted the grass. They hooked us into the neighbours line temporarily and said someone would be back on Monday to dig it up and fix it.

A YEAR went by with us having a phone cord draped all around the perimeter of the backyard fence. A frickin' year.

And when I called back to ask when they were going to fix it...they had no record of it because they purge old repair reports from their system every so often. And they couldn't fix it much before May anyway because the ground is not completely thawed.

I'm sure all of you heard me scream but at the time just didn't know what it was.

Anyway, they eventually did come and fix it just before we moved...and we moved and really I hoped that was the end of my feud.

Until last Tuesday when I notice heavy static on our line and you could hear a separate line in the background.

I called for repair.

They want to know will someone be home in case it's an inside problem. Yes, yes someone will be. (I know it's not an inside problem because we can hear a whole separate line, but whatever)

Somebody comes to fix it...he tells the hubby he will call back in 15 minutes to be sure but never calls. The static appears to be gone so we're happy.

Until Thursday when I try to get online and can't because the static is so heavy. I call again.

I tell them that someone has already been out and told us it is an outside problem. She says, "Will somebody be home in case he has to get in because it's an inside problem?"

*groan*

Yes.

Some guy finally comes out at 7pm works for a bit....our line is completely dead now. He tells me that it is a problem at the pole and someone will come back in the morning to fix it. He gives me a work order and everything.

Friday...no one shows up.

We call late Friday afternoon and are told that since we missed the appointment on Thursday we will have to wait until Saturday for someone to come out.

Missed what appointment, you jackelope!?!?! I actual spoke to your guy, I am holding the work order in my hand as we speak.

It's like I'm talking to a wall.

"Someone can come out between 8 and 11 on Saturday. Will someone be home in case it is a problem inside your house?"

I give up.

AS it turns out someone came out Saturday morning they fixed it..they didn't need to go in our house and they told us that we may very well have this problem every year, something about wasps and their nests.

Does anyone out there know anything about how to send smoke signals?

9:51 a.m. - 2006-09-25

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