Certifiably Me!

Someone said “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

I don’t know who said it first. If you ask Snopes, you’ll get Ben Franklin, Rita Mae Brown, or Albert Einstein. No matter who said it, I've pretty much done the same thing over and over and hoped for different results, but no such luck.

That means, I must be certifiably insane. I know this to be true, because every day for the past four or five days, I’ve been on the phone attempting to sort out my internet issues with Not-Qwest-Anymore, a.k.a. Century Link, a.k.a. those fucking idiots.

They hate me. Even their pre-recorded guy who gets to answer the call first and make me jump through all those hoops of “If you are calling about your internet, say ‘internet fo’ shizzle, my bizzle of the jabberwocky underwear head.’ or press 1940938509w8493xb3.”

Then comes the long wait on hold, or as I’ve renamed it, the incessant droning about their wonderfulness while he calls me ass cow over and over. “Do you want great internet and excellent phone service? Ass cow, you can have it all!” Yes, I know he’s really saying “ask how” but after the 50 billionth time of hearing it, it has become Ass Cow, which is what I want to dress up for next Halloween.

But I digress.

After the endurance test of being on hold, they get serious. The recording guy has “run a test” on my line to see if everything is working. It takes him mere seconds to do what the live technicians take 3 – 5 minutes to do. Personally, I think they’re taking the time to trundle down the hall to take a piss or get some coffee, or whatever it is they drink in Jakarta or whichever country the customer service people live in.

Which is why they get so frustrated when YOU STOP FOLLOWING THE GODDAMN SCRIPT. See, they all say the EXACT same thing every stinking time I call them.

Every. Time.

Every time I call, I get to jump through the EXACT same hoops. Yesterday I started yelling. The tech on the other end yelled back, but had to back down because I really didn’t care for that. I’M not the one fucking with her life, her company has pretty much bent me over and screwed me instead, but I can cancel my service and still pay my bills. She cannot. HA! Take that, Bitch!

What…?

Ok, so they say “try unplugging the modem, count to fifteen, then plug it back in.” My favorite part of that is while I’m doing what they want and counting to fifteen, they get impatient and say, “I’m still here, have you unplugged the modem and plugged it back in?” Jeebuz, dude, gimme a minute, ok?

They have me unplug this or that, “can you plug the phone into a different jack?”
“No,” I tell them for the fifth time, “this is the only one that is currently working.”
The online tech said, “We show that you have other phone jacks in your home.”
I said, “They don’t work, and even if they did, I don’t want the phone plugged into them, because I want the phone in the living room. The modem must also be in the living room because that’s where the outlet is and it’s a central location in the house.”
“But,” she insisted, “you have other jacks--”
“They ARE NOT WHERE I WANT MY PHONE! I WANT MY PHONE IN THE LIVING ROOM.”
She got quiet after that. She finally said, “We can send out another technician –”
“Oh no you don’t,” I said, “I will not have any more technicians come out to my house.” “But ma’am, the technician can repair-”
“No! No technicians. The last one who came out here busted my computer when he dropped it. I will not allow any more of your bumble-footed nincompoops to cross my threshold, got it?”

She finally got it. She promised a technician would come out and they wouldn’t even have to come into the house. They would just fix the phone box on the outside of the house, but they just ask that there not be any dogs.
“No problem,” I said.

I called them again tonight, because when I called my parents, I was suddenly no longer online. I jumped through the same hoops, yelled at the same people, and got the same results.

Although I may have come up with a solution. I will buy a line splitter, attach a fucking filter to it, and hope for the best. Perhaps I’m not quite so crazy after all.

Naw, just kidding. I’m still crazy.