Back in Civilization. Thanks, Comcast...

The BBQ Pit
1

…you bastards.

The internet is a very important thing to me. Veerrrrry important. Not only do I get to come on the SDMB, but it’s also how I get my news, weather, community information, recipes, entertainment and games, music, reviews on tons of stuff (movies, products, books, restaurants, etc), access to LexusNexus and WestLaw, email, information about school, register for classes, and so on so forth ad infinitum.

I mean, come on, do any of you really think you could function effectively without the internet anymore?

Well, that’s just what I had to do since Saturday morning at about 9:00. We have a cable modem, and I woke up to the unpleasant surprise of NO BLINKING LIGHTS. Those little lights connect me to the world!

So I called Comcast up. The lady on the phone connected me to Earthlink, even though my account is actually with Comcast. (that was the first mistake; I actually should have been speaking to Comcast, like my husband did later after I completely lost it and hung up on the stupid Earthlink lady)

I tried to work my way through the dialogue tree. Nowhere was there any option that said, “If you have just lost contact with the world and are now spinning into non-existence, please press 3.” No, it was all account information and setup stuff. I tried every button I could think of for what seemed like half an hour, until I finally gave up and pressed 0.

But 0 wasn’t enough. Oh, no. Some smarmy recorded bitch came on the phone to tell me that for my “convenience” they had to have more information from me. So I lost it and starting screaming and punching 0 over and over.

I guess they have a lot of people who do this, because eventually the same bitch said that they would connect me with someone but it would take a while. So I sat there, steaming, for eternity while fuzzy piped music played gratingly over the phone. Is it just me, or is the wait music for these things always staticy and fuzzy? Do you think they do it deliberately?

So finally this woman comes on the phone. She sounded like she was from India, and she was reading directly from a sheet. Not to be a bitch or anything, but I really hate talking to support people whose natural tongue is not English. It is so hard to communicate, and one of the things you must do to solve a problem is communicate precisely and completely.

She told me I had DSL. I said, “I am looking at a cable modem as we speak.” She didn’t believe me. I have to persuade her that I was NOT LYING when I said we did indeed have a cable modem.

This was after she had me read all the labels off the thing and tell her what brand it was. Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, don’t you think she could have realized what the hell I was looking at from all this information??? How thick do you have to be to hear someone say “This is a Toshiba cable modem, model number XXXX” and then accuse me of having DSL??? What the hell – does she think I call internet people up for fun and then tell them I have a cable modem, just to get my jollies???

She told me I lived in Illinois. I told her, “I live in Ohio.” She told me I had just recently moved there. Nope, been here for 2 1/2 years. I was LYING about that too, right?

Even though I told her that I had disconnected the line and power SEVERAL TIMES, well, she didn’t believe me about that either, and I had to do it again. Then she had me type shit into the computer, and DIDN’T BELIEVE ME when I told her what error message came up on the screen.

I hung up after that.

What a fucking goddamned bitch. What a horseshit company, what a bastardized version of customer service.

All I wanted to do was tell them that I didn’t have a signal, and that I wanted them to come out and check the lines. Was that too much to ask? Apparently. I guess they don’t trust that you have two brain cells to rub together to keep warm. I guess they really don’t think that I have a cable modem sitting right on my bookshelf, that I do know how to type crap into the computer, and that I do know how to remove and replace cables.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

And you know what really burns my ass? My husband called them an hour or so later and they didn’t give him any shit at all. He talked to Comcast – the lady never transferred him. They said they would send someone out on Monday.

Am I just sensitive, or is this blatant sexism? It always seems that service people never give him the shit they give me. I would like to think I am at least as capable as he is of determining that I have a fucking cable modem and that I don’t have any fucking signal coming in and yes I do know what the fucking cables are and how to replace the motherfuckers, BITCH.

The guy hasn’t arrived yet. I am sitting here at school gratefully surfing the internet on my school’s wifi. He is supposed to be here today. I may change my service tomorrow.

Can anyone recommend a decent internet service?

:mad:

2

My girlfriend seems to get the run-around all the time and it never happens to me. For example, I’m selling a bunch of books on Amazon.com and I ship using Media Mail. Sometimes she has the car, so I get her to drop by the post office. They give her crap about “Is it REALLY books? You know we can OPEN THIS AND SEARCH IT!” and on and on and on. Me? I get, “That’ll be $9.25”

I have EarthLink DSL and we’ve had no problems with it, aside from a few small connectivity difficulties in the beginning, but they were working on some of their equipment.

3

Don’t take this the wrong way, but it might just be you. I have noticed with friends and family that some can deal with service people, and some can’t, regardless of sex. For example: Mom can, dad can’t, sister can, brother in law can, I can (erm, usually, provided it’s not Sprint PCS), girlfriend can’t, etc. It’s more about being able to remain patient when confronted with utter bullshit than it is about gender.

Remember that you were losing your temper even before you were able to talk to a person. Screaming at the phone tree is not going to put you into a mood conducive to dealing with people. Perhaps your husband was simply more tactful.

However, the fact that you’re not good at dealing with the bastards doesn’t mean that they aren’t still bastards.

4

Nope. Not blatant sexism at all.

I do know, however, if I’d been without my cable modem as long as you have I’d be curled in a fetal position in beneath my computer desk, rocking back and forth, clutching my cable modem and willing those pretty, flashy lights to please, please, pretty please, fucking please come back on.

But that’s just me.

5

It was the damned squirrels! They chewed through my cable line! Can you imagine? They look so cute but they obviously had it in for me. Maybe it’s a step in their world domination.

But it’s back now. I feel a lot less stressed.

It probably was just me being sensitive, but I think my panic and anger had to do with me being removed from the electric teat. But it was still their fault for transferring me to Earthlink, where I had no business being, so nyah :stuck_out_tongue: to Comcast.

6

Elysian, I’m as umbillically connected as the next guy (or girl) but try and remember that there’s an outside world. It’s hard, I know, it was for me, but you’ve got to get out from in front of the computer, and if the net don’t work, that’s the perfect time.

7

Without making a point about whether outsourcing is bad or good, I will say that many low level (the first people you talk to, and I am NOT ragging them) tech support types are required to read from a script, and deviations are not tolerated.

So if I work for ABC Outsourcing, which may involve doing TS for several companies, even if I know your problem, I may not be allowed to take any initiative to help you.

Yes, this sucks.

I do a lot of computer work on the side for friends, family etc. I have found that if I have a problem with first level TS, I say “Yes, I am a tech over here installing DSL for my customer, and could you please escalate this call to Level 2, or tier 3, whatever, as we are not getting the problem resolved.” (In a polite way, of course)

Generally the next level people will have more experience and leeway to help.
Even if you aren’t a tech, just saying that and knowing enough to say NO to “You must reinstall the OS” can go a long way.

Plus, you can get the tech on your side, as it were. "Yeah, dude, I was goin to a manual network config, because I don’t want all the BS on the install cd, so can you just give me the ip and mailservers, I’ll config and ping it, blah blah…

The tech feels like “cool, somebody I can work with”, and everybody’s happy.

Believe me, it works, and I do this all the time for less computer savvy friends.

8

I doubt it’s sexism. It’s just a total crapshoot whether you’re going to get a technician who knows their ass from a hole in the ground. My standard tactic, once I’ve recognized that I’m talking to an idiot or uncooperative person, is to click the receiver button down in mid-sentence (so they assume I got cut off accidentally and don’t tag my account with a note about me getting pissed and hanging up – not sure if that would ever happen, but better safe than sorry), and then call back immediately and talk to a different person. I’ve literally gone from someone saying “sorry, there’s an area-wide outage, and there’s no way to fix that problem until tomorrow” to someone who said, “hold on a minute … ok, try it now” and everything worked.

Some of the people who answer phones are simply grossly misinformed, technically incompetent, or unwilling to do anything other than follow a script. Hanging up and calling again not only gives you a chance of talking to a non-idiot, but punishes the company for hiring idiots by socking them with another costly call (and the calls are expensive – one call can completely eat their monthly profit from you in lots of cases).