Finally! My apartment has been wired with secured wireless cable internet. Let me assure, this feat was not easily achieved.
So I call my local cable company and say, “Hello good sir. Would you please connect me to the internet at a reasonable price? I’m just a young college student seeking a connection to the world.” They tell me, quite bluntly, that the cost for standard internet is $44.95 a month plus $25 for installation, but just because I’m so charming it’d be $34.95/month for the first year. I say that’s absolutely overpriced, but just as well, and hang up immediately after receiving my time block for August 26th. Then, as soon as I go back to stitching my dress, my mother says, “I didn’t hear you say wireless internet…”
Thanks for reminding me after the conversation, mother.
So, I call back, and after another 10 minutes on hold, I get hold of an operator.
Excuse me, I just ordered, cable but I’m not sure if I made it clear that I wanted wireless internet. Is that what I’m getting?
No.
I am then told, “Oh, now that you are getting wireless there will be an additional $4.95 charge per month for the wireless router, and instead of that $25 installation fee, you’ll have to pay $49.95 per computer. He’ll ve there August 22nd and Have a good day!” I angrily, but meekly, accepted the additional charges.
Several days later, I theatrically re-inacted the conversation to my brother who replied, “I don’t understand. If it’s wireless, what is there to install? Can’t you just connect your computer with the key code after they put in the router?” I rubbed my chin and pondered on that long enough to remember I don’t know anything about technology, and promptly phoned the cable company, relaying my brother’s concerns to them. Rob, my customer service representative said
“Oh, well it’s a disc they install on your computer.”
“A disc? Why do they have to install a disc when it’s wireless internet. I can just connect without a disc.”
“Please hold ma’am.”
3-5 minutes
“Hello ma’am? Well from what has been explained to me, the disc is virus protection that guaruntees that your computer will be protected while on your wireless network.”
“So I’m paying fifty bucks per computer for virus protection?”
“Yes. From what has been explained to me.”
“What if I already have wireless protection?”
“Well this guaruntees it.”
“How do you guaruntee it?”
“Well ma’am I can have you connected with a technician and he can explain it to you.”
“Well is that all it is? Virus protection?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“So, can I keep that hundred bucks and not have it installed”
“Yes ma’am, if that’s your choice.”
“Okay thanks.”
Click
So a week drags on, Friday comes, and my time block from one to four ticks on by. At 3:30 I recieve a call.
“Hello Ms. Mason? Hi. I just wanted to let you know that your installation is going to be a little late. Our guy got held up at another job and he’s the only one who can do the wireless internet so we can’t send someone else. He should be there by 4:30 okay?”
“Okay.”
4:30 comes and goes, ever so slowly. At 4:55 I call back
“Oh ma’am sorry he’s still held up at another job. It’ll be another thirty minutes.”
“Okay.”
Thirty minutes ticks away. I call back.
“We’re sorry but the voicemail box for this number is full. Please try your call again later.”
Twenty more minutes and I’m pissed.
Now, my oldest brother is a cable man and I know how these types of services can be. Lots of waiting. And I can wait. I have sympathy dripping out of my ears for cablemen and the number of jobs they’re made to accomplish in a day and the shit they’re made to put up with. I get it. It sucks. But after one and a half hours of waiting after the initial 3 hours of waiting, I’m a little on edge.
I called the company customer service line. After ten minutes on hold, they hung up on me.
Level of irritablity increases three bars.
I spend another ten to fifteen minutes on hold and finally get a hold of Aiyanna.
“Hi. I ordered wireless cable and my time block was today from one to four o’clock. It’s now six fifteen. I was called at 3:30 to be told that the cable man would be a half our late. 4:30 comes and goes, and still no cable man. I call a half hour later and they tell me it’ll be another thirty minutes. Thrity minutes gone, still no cable man. Now, when I try to call I get not answer and I can’t even leave a message because the voicemail box is full. Now I don’t know if he’s coming at all. So can you please tell me whether or not this man is coming because I don’t appreciate being dicked around and I’m a little past annoyed.”
Within the next minute the cable man is knocking on my door and Aiyanna is telling me I get a $20 refund. Woopee.
While I was and am still annoyed that I sat around waiting for five hours and fifteen minutes, I suppose I can accredit the events to fate, because within ten minutes of the cable man arriving, my oldest brother, a cable man, calls me. He tells me that that fifty dollar installation has nothing to do with virus protection and everything to do with securing my network by enrypting it (or something like that). Not installing a fucking disc, Rob. After about forty-five minutes of my brother hammering technical cable terminology into my metal plate for a skull, cable man, hearing my struggles says, “You know, I can just show you how to do it, it’s not that hard.”
Woot! Not only does he show me how to do it, but he, more or less, does it for me. So I hustled a hundred bucks out of the cable company: not that he cares because the cable man doesn’t see a dime of it anyway.
Then, as we were saying our farewells and chuckling over my inability to comprehend computers he gives me his phone number and tells me
“You can give me a call if you have any other questions. Or if you need any other help I can come back over.”
I, in my incapacity to recognize overt flirtation, say “Oh Thanks!” and tip him five bucks.
With Alotta Love,
zee zee cakes
Stumble it!