Veridiots! (mild)

The BBQ Pit
1

The family slept late on Saturday morning. At about 10:30, everyone was downstairs finishing up breakfast and it became evident that Dweezil was not feeling well. He’d been running a bit of a fever off and on for a couple of days though we’d thought he was better. I figured it would be a good idea to check with the pediatrician’s office while they were still open (they have Saturday AM hours), to see if he needed to be tested for Bacon Lung. Especially since he was supposed to leave for Boy Scout camp the following morning.

Picked up the phone. Absently dialled the number… Hmmm, no ringing.

Typo Knig chimed in with “Oh, I forgot to tell you - the FIOS is out”.

Oh, now you tell me, after you sit and watch me dial a dead phone? No problem, that’s why we have cell phones. I get through to the ped’s office, nurse says “don’t bother bringing him in, knowing it’s flu won’t change how we treat it anyway”. Then off to phone Verizon. Thank heaven we have unlimited night/weekend calling on the cell phone - we were on the phone with the support person for over half an hour, while he checked on stuff and had us unplug / re-plug the network box in the basement, all to no avail.

And several times, after being on hold, he’d come back with “OK, now I have permission to call a technician” (or some such). Wha? the phone people have to ask permission to elevate??? End result: they’ll send a technicion, but “sorry, it won’t be until tomorrow morning”. Phew, I was afraid “until… THURSDAY” would be the answer.

Now, FIOS is not just phone, but TV and twitch internet, so we were cut off. And we didn’t know how to access our voicemail from an outside number. Whyh should we? we never use it! And we had no way of looking up that info - they don’t provide it in the phone book.

So I went out shopping with Moon Unit, then to Panera to use the wi-fi for a brief email check and to find Verizon’s voicemail instructions. Only to be greeted by web pages that say “Sorry, Verizon doesn’t offer that service in (your state)”. Repeatedly. Right. Finally found the information on a THIRD PARTY website. Got home, dialled the voicemail system, changed our greeting to “FIOS doesn’t like us, call our cell phones”. I suppose I should change that now.

Next morning, I glance outside at 8:30 and see two Verizon trucks. Pop out, the tech has just checked the box into our house and it’s fine, so he has to go to the main box. 10 minutes later, he’s back, and tells me “your line got unplugged at the main box. I don’t want to point fingers, because sometimes it happens by accident when they open the cover, or possibly someone unplugged the wrong line”.

So the upshot is we were without all outside communications for 24 hours because SOMEONE was messing with the main box and unplugged us.

I wonder if I can negotation a couple extra free months on the DVR as a result. This should be an interesting phone call coming up.

I will give them this much: it was fixed the next day. When Manhattan Cable did something strikingly similar in 1992, it was nearly 2 weeks before they sent someone out (who found that someone had capped off the cable to my apartment, out in the stairwell).

2

I don’t know, I’ve got it on good authority from a Ninja that FIOS is the best.

-Joe

3

Don’t believe it; it’s the Ninjas that go around disconnecting people’s FIOS boxes. I know 'cuz a Pirate told me so.

4

What’s FIOS?

5

Perhaps you should ask a ninja?

-Joe

6

Don’t really have anything to add but this:

As someone who has every single Zappa album ever recorded (including the boots), as well as a veritable shitload of video, I love your username.

:slight_smile:

7

We’re enjoying our FIOS, but Verizon is still a telco. I’m surprised they didn’t:

  1. Deny we had a problem at all.
  2. Insist the problem (that they just said didn’t exist) could only be in our house wiring.
    2a. Although it was working at 9:30 and not at 9:31 when nobody was near the wiring. :rolleyes:
  3. Send an email greeting to Opalcat.
  4. Push the “home wiring maintenance plan” for extra money each month.
  5. Test something and utterly deny they tested anything - even when I can see the signals.
  6. Fix the problem and claim that it was working the whole time.

The typical telco nonsense that led a co-worker of mine to coin the term “Veridiots” many years ago. (I’m Mama Zappa’s husband, BTW.)

Shoot - Verizon actually got our FIOS installed correctly the first time. Not so much for friends of ours, who had no phone for a week while Verizon got its act together.

I was shocked they were at all polite on the phone. Heck, their tech was downright obsequious. Around here Verizon FIOS is competing with high-speed internet via cable “TV”, and Verizon seems well aware we have a choice. :smiley:

FIOS is Verizon’s fiber optic network for home services: phone, Internet, and TV. This is the first problem we’ve had, pretty fantastic for a telco!

ETA: First problem, and fixed politely and on schedule! The Veirzon tech even admitted it was Verizon’s fault. :smiley:

8

We got FIOS a couple months ago at work, and it certainly wasn’t a trouble-free installation; we had to call them back a couple times before all the internet, phone and fax lines were working correctly.

9

Verizon’s name for a fiber optic connection running all the way to your house for your residence’s sole use, as opposed to stopping at some earlier point (a box on the curb, a building elsewhere in town, etc.) and the fiber optic connection’s bandwidth being shared among a group of people.

10

Mmmm…Bacon Lung.