Oh Lighten Up Already!!

Okay, so the last few posts have been pretty heavy so I think maybe it's time for something a little lighter.


Customer Service.


I love the fact that every company in the country has farmed their customer service and/or tech support call centers out to the farthest corners of the planet. (Sarcasm, friends. That was sarcasm.)


Wednesday afternoon, my Internet all of sudden quit working and the first wave of panic set in.


Did I forget to pay my bill? (again?) Is there an outage in my area? (again?) So, before I investigate anything at all on my end, I call tech support.


And I get "Peggy." For those of you who don't know "Peggy," here's a link to some of her commercials. She's a riot! Discover Card - Peggy with USA Prime Credit Commercials


And I spend an hour - most of it on hold - trying to figure out that "edriss burr" = address bar and that I need to type the following "edriss" in the "burr" to get to the modem set-up page. 


Unplug, reset, check the wall jacks, take the filter off. There IS only one wall jack and there also is no filter because there is no phone service. It's a DSL only line.


Silence.


Because, if the procedures on her little step-by-step computer screen don't solve the problem or if, like her, you have a not-so-firm-grasp on the English language, or if the customer's set-up varies one iota (like mine does) from the vast majority of customers (most people in my area have both home phone service and DSL service on the same line, thus requiring the aforementioned filter) she has NO clue what to do next.


Except schedule an appointment for the service technician to come out and check the lines and jacks. For $85. Tomorrow. Between the hours of blah blah blah dee blah blah.


GrrrrrreeeaaAT! Click.


I decide to make one last check of all the cords and jacks. Just to make sure.


And.....


Low and behold.


There was - in fact - one cord that had come loose from the jack. Yep. An hour and 20 minutes with "Peggy" only to find out that I am in fact a big dork who panicked when faced with the prospect of going 18 hours without Internet and did not check all the connections as thoroughly as I should have. 


Yeah. Probably should have done that before I called "Peggy."


I really hate it when that happens!