My Time Warner cable went out on a Saturday. I reported it, they said Wednesday to get a tech out, I grumbled but what can you do, and then went outside where I mentioned it to my neighbor, wondering if their cable was working. He says yes, but that TW had just (like I saw the truck drive off) left after fixing something, mentioning that the first thing the tech tried hadn’t worked - the timing of which lined up really well with my outage.
Long story short, the tech disconnected my cable in the process of fixing the neighbor. I called TW to tell them that my cable was broken because their tech had broken it. Since I needed it for work, I thought it was reasonable that they either turn that tech around to come fix his fuck up or send someone else.
The customer service rep disagreed (and reasonably didn’t have the authority to do that), as did his manager, as did his manager (I had to call in Monday to access that level of management). Late Wednesday, a tech showed up and spent more time walking to and from the cable access pedestal in my backyard then it took to hook things back up.
It took 10 years or so, but when Google Fiber came to the neighborhood and left what was then Spectrum and will never go back.
When I first moved to NC I rented a condo and got Time-Warner Cable. Later when I bought a house I called TWC to arrange to have my service transferred from the condo to the house, requesting that it be done on a specific date. I was assured that there would be no problem keeping the service active at the condo until the date I requested. The next morning I turned on the TV to find out that I had no cable service. I called to complain, and was told that, despite the fact that they were able to disconnect my service by apparently flipping a switch, they could not restore service at the condo without scheduling an appointment for a service technician to come out and do something at the connection box.
Oh, I forgot another one about Time Warner/Spectrum: they refuse to remove my deceased father’s name from the account. It’s been over 19 years, and each time Mom has requested a change, she’s had the same response - they would have to effectively close the existing account and reopen it in the new name, leading to a service interruption of up to 3 days.
Agreed. And I do know that some churches actually do good stuff; a local church (not her own, surprisingly) built a ramp for my sort-of-grandma, and expected only a very tiny donation in return.
O_o Whoa. I’ll stick to the food bank and the animal shelters!
The monopoly that supplies natural gas for home heating and my water heater never ceases to piss me off. In the distant past, for example, when a bill was overdue and they were threatening hell and damnation, they also were incapable of accepting credit cards. Their solution? Wire them the money via Western Union. The only other use I’ve ever heard of for Western Union money transfers was to wire funds to Nigerian princes to cover their expenses so they could send you several million dollars for safekeeping.
Anyway, they (the gas company) doesn’t do that any more, but they continue to be a nuisance to deal with. I’ve been getting lots of mail from a mysterious new company that I didn’t even bother opening for months. Turns out, the gas company has spun off a new entity to run their non-gas business such as hot water heater rental. The last few mailings I received were awesome warnings about how incredibly overdue my account was – an “account” I never even knew I had.
Great! Yet another monthly bill I have to remember to pay, because for some reason the gas company found it convenient and profitable to spin off a new business, and to hell with the customer now being forced to track multiple bills. There was surely a more intelligent way to organize this.
Just to add to the fun, looking over the last invoice from these new fuckers that I never asked to be involved with, there is a “paper invoice fee” of $1.25 per month. I never asked for paper invoices. I never asked to deal with these fuckers in the first place. The gas company hasn’t sent me paper invoices in years, so why would this new spinoff assume I wanted them? And there’s no obvious way of opting out, short of calling them and I presume listening to elevator music for an hour or so while being assured of how awesomely important my call is to them.
Yesterday, for the second time in two years, I hit a pothole in the city (St. Louis; I live in the county) and popped a tire. Besides needing to change a tire in the dark after a long day, I had to cancel a day of lessons today and spends $685 replacing two tires and fixing my alignment.
Today the city announced that they have a $42 million budget surplus. Not because of good money management, but because they can’t manage to hire people to fill certain critical positions. Things like certain infrastructure projects with no one to complete the work.
Try checking their website to opt for paperless. They’re usually desperate to have everyone go paperless. You’ll have to get a login and then check your account options.
Like the good, well-trained pup that I am, last night I dumped the last of my recycling into the recycling bin and wheeled it out to the curb. Because it was Wednesday night, and the recycling is picked up Thursday morning. I thought it rather odd that no one else had put out their recycling.
Then I went back to the computer, feeling like a good pup who deserved a nice bone or a treat. Until I looked at the Windows calendar for some reason, which informed me that it was Thursday night, not Wednesday, and the recycling truck had come and gone.
I went back and brought the recycling bin back, feeling (correctly, I believe) that I’m losing my mind. Getting old sucks.
Good thing the recycling bin is huge, but it’s already nearly three-quarters full because I didn’t bother taking it out last time.
I might try that but it may be more hassle than it’s worth. The only thing these fuckers do for me is bill me for a rental water heater that’s probably been amortized ten times over by now. Wasn’t my choice – that was the setup when I bought the house.
I have a handy desk speakerphone and I’m quite accustomed to listening to it play elevator music while I surf the interwebs! The elevator music is periodically interrupted by assurances of how incredibly important my call is to whoever has me on interminable hold due to insufficient call center staffing, sometimes alternating with an announcement that whatever the hell it is that I want can probably be done on their website, so the cheerful disembodied voice on the speakerphone asks why don’t I just fuck right off and do that? I’m quite used to all this.
Maybe not suitable for this thread, but I had to call the Canadian government recently, regarding a question I had about my Canada Pension.
To my great surprise, after pressing 1 for English, I did not get the familiar hold music punctuated by recordings of, “Your call is important to us.” Instead I got a familiar ring tone, then, “Hello, this is Jason, how can I help you?” A real live person!
Well, long story short, Jason helped me with my question, navigated me through the web screens that proved the answer to my question, and solved my problem. Thank you, Jason!
You certainly deserve a Bloody Caesar, Jason! And so do your superiors, who have made sure that Canadians’ calls are answered by real people, and promptly!
I recently filed a bunch of tax documents with the Canada Revenue Agency and had some questions. I also signed up for web access to my tax account and due to their incredibly rigid security managed to screw something up and needed the access reset. In all cases my experience was just like yours – the agents were knowledgeable and helpful.
Also, many years ago I had a very convoluted tax problem that made my brain hurt just thinking about it. It’s much too complicated to explain here but the essence of it was that I was being charged a significant amount of tax on a certain transfer of funds, which was correct under a strict interpretation of tax law but completely illogical under the special circumstances of my unique case. After I explained this in a letter to the CRA, within a month or two I got a new Notice of Assessment showing that the tax was reversed. I was truly impressed by the ability of this massive bureaucracy to understand logic written out in ordinary English (not on a government form) and make an appropriate, rational decision.
God help me. I’m trying to subscribe to local newspaper digital edition. I want to give them money but I am getting the biggest run around. Apparently I have two accounts. One was leftover from my print subscription with daily delivery, I canceled delivery in the 2010’s. The other account I guess I created using gmail for a digital subscription. It’s been maybe three- five years since I’ve subscribed to the digital news.
Now I can still log in to either account but then I go to subscribe I get a message that says now wait a minute here you need to use your google account to subscribe. I login google/gmail it’s says now wait a minute you need to use your email account to subscribe.
Customer service resets passwords yet I get the same messages. They send me to a problem solving customer service email. Four emails later it’s obvious they are not paying attention and keep repeating themselves. It’s not my password, I can log in I just cant subscribe using either account. What is so difficult! The last email claimed to be assisting me and offered the same customer service number I first called. They want to sign me up over the phone. But cannot tell me which account to use to monitor the subscription. Finally I directed them to just please delete my accounts. Ffs I’m done with mlive.
Is this a paper that is now part of the USA Today network? Because I could have written that post, if not for the fact that I stopped giving a damn a year ago.
Maybe? Idk it’s mlive, aka Grand Rapids press aka other Michigan newspapers. Once a year or so I get the bug to want to subscribe. Futile. This year I went big and pursued it to the ends of the earth stopping short of writing a letter to the editor. And the CS reps are especially noisome. I was providing my email and every time I spoke he interjected huh huh, I say let me finish huh huh what I’m saying then I huh huh will listen huh huh to you huh huh
Also. This week my new coworker quit. Her start date was 8/23.
#1 I dicovered the dehumidifier I keep in the bedroom, is leaking. There was a puddle all over the floor. Fortunately, it did not reach any outlets or any boxes.
#2 Yesterday and today are Rosh Hoshanna. I attended online services. Then, I decided since I had all this free time and so very many boxex I should declutter. Things were going well, then I bent the wrong way and my back really started to hurt (See my recent thread Ow My Spine!). I pushed forward. Then, before I saw the ouddle but after I had emptied the tank on the dehumidifier, I was putting it back on the floor. It slipped out of my grasp. Instinct kicked and I dove for it. This was a huge mistake and put me in too much pain to continue.
The pain did not go away or get any better after an hour with a heathing pad… It was just as bad when I woke up this morning. It lasted, well basically until now. This was a day I had genuinely been looking forward to. During my time at the rat hole, I was constantly down and had no energy to clean. In my new apartment, I have energy. I still have too much stuff in my place. I really did want to spend today decluttering.
Walked outside my back door to take out a bag of garbage and then to take the can out front. One of the visiting neighbors behind me parked in front of my house & started chirping their car alarm to be an abusive Ahole.
< cue loud laughing from their garden party >
Q: What kitchen substances can I throw onto their windscreen and hood to make their trip back to NY less pleasant? Maple Syrup? Drano?
Tempting. If it could be done discreetly, it would be the house they were visiting.
Mel Gibson had some ideas about surrounding houses with chains and firing the rooves.
The elevator music is periodically interrupted by assurances of how incredibly important my call is to whoever has me on interminable hold due to insufficient call center staffing, sometimes alternating with an announcement that whatever the hell it is that I want can probably be done on their website, so the cheerful disembodied voice on the speakerphone asks why don’t I just fuck right off and do that? I’m quite used to all this.
