who wants to hear me complain about EVERYONE

Good morning, world. This morning is softly sunny. The coffee is good, and I’m enjoying it immensely.

Yesterday was not just any day, but a Monday. Brian was home all day. Generally, he’s not bad on his days off, as long as he’s occupied. However, the thumb stitches wipe yard work and household maintenance off the table and he’s stuck watching TV.

But the cable is out, and thus there’s nothing but daytime talk shows.

I literally told him at least four different times that if the Internet is out, the TV is out. And that was before the tech showed up to attempt repairing it.

Notice I wrote attempt.

According to our neighbor, someone down the road was also getting AT&T fiber installed while we were at the Compound on Sunday. The same tech we had on Thursday was back to work on things yesterday. He looked at the pole and the lines for a while before he came inside. For reasons unknown, the install down the street took our line out of the box. There’s room for it, but we need to specifically request to be put into a different port. He gave Mom a phone number to call and wrote down what she needed to specifically ask for.

I don’t pretend to understand the cosmic intricacies of fiber optics. I just pay attention when the tech tells my mother who to call and what you ask for. When the shit inevitably hits the fan, someone needs to have a fucking clue.

Yesterday, I reached that point where I had to take the phone away from my mother because she was becoming THAT person. She was making me ridiculously anxious.

She called the number and it asked for a 4-digit passcode. She entered her account’s access code, which seemed the logical action but didn’t work. I told her to call the regular customer service line that the first number directed her to and not mention the access code unless it came up.

I can not get my mother to understand that angrily yelling full sentences at any automated phone menu doesn’t work. She won’t completely listen when the cable service tech and I tell her what she needs to ask for. For example, I suggested “just say ‘representative'” when I heard her start arguing with them menu. Instead, she gets testy with the system and snaps “get me a customer service representative because I need…. ” She made this whole ordeal last way longer than it needed it to be.

She processed half of my directions, as usual. She called customer service, argued with the menu for five minutes, then tried to get the rep to change her password.

I eventually determined the number the tech gave us is an escalation line. The passcode is to keep the general public from calling it directly, and the tech should have one but doesn’t. I told her to call the second number – the customer service line – and to request what the tech told her to.

Eventually, she has another live representative. She’s getting shuffled between departments because she’s only explaining half an issue. Additionally, she’s still worrying about and bringing up the passcode.

After listening to it all for 20 minutes, I was anxious and high enough to take the phone from her. At this point, the rep is trying to transfer Mom to the loyalty/retention department because she’s mentioned the word “cancel”. I explained what the problem was, and exactly what we needed. The rep looked up our service tickets and saw the latest notes from the service tech. He put me on hold for a while …

… But he was good. About ten minutes later, we got the formal request for the new port. We should have someone here this morning to put the fix in.

And all this while Brian is home all day insisting if he just tries the cable once more it might work this time, even though we’ve been going through this what seems like every 3 hours for 24 hours now.

No, the WiFi isn’t back. The fiber is out.

No, the cable isn’t going to work. The fiber is out.

No. If you ask about it again I’ll block porn at the router level.

Today, the service tech should be here before noon. Mom and I are supposed to go out for the monthly ladies’ luncheon this afternoon. We should get back just in time for the fun of the septic guy to pump us out.

I’m going to go medicate and do my thing before the squad shows up.