I sit forlorn in a local coffee shop, in the death throes of internet withdrawal. For a couple of days, my access at home is totally kaput, and for the previous five it's been intermittent and marginal. I'm told there's no hope until at least Tuesday. And with the economy as it is, I can spend only so much on latte.´ So my posting and commenting will be sporadic at best.
Meanwhile, let me say as respectfully as possible: Verizon online services is the worst example of customer service on this planet and likely all neighboring ones. It sucks beyond anything I'd thought possible. Several times a day for nearly a week, I've been on the phone with them. I've been disconnected at least half of the time, with no callbacks (helpfully, they always ask for a number to call back on should we be disconnected. We have. They haven't.) Grinding my teeth, I've listened as a robotic female voice tells me most problems can be solved by going to their website. THEIR WEBSITE. While I have no access. Pacing in a rage while she goes through a now memorized list of options, speaking words into their inhuman option tree, I've been given erroneous information several times. One "expert" managed to reprogram my router so it is now totally defunct. I've been given numbers to call that don't go to the proper place. This is a PHONE COMPANY ferchrissakes. They are absolutely awful, unimaginably so. They couldn't provide poorer service if they made crap their gold standard. Each conversation begins with the same apologies, the same requests for the same information, and ends, after an hour or two of fruitless effort, with the words "Thank you for choosing Verizon and have a nice day."
Some day I'll invent some sort of zapper that vaporizes the person on the other end of the line. Even if I make it so that it only works for Verizon tech support and customer service, I'll make a billion dollars. Until, hopefully, they are out of business forever. It's no exaggeration to say that this experience, customer-service-wise, has been the worst I've ever suffered, by a factor of a trillion (and since that number is tossed around like a wiffle-ball of late, light as a feather, let me point out it's actually a very big number.) Until this week, I'd never have believed a company that provides such poor support could survive. But then, I'd never have imagined a person as superficial and so obviously a fake as Sarah Palin could generate loving crowds, either.
Verizon is my cell phone service provider. When you get your hands on the zapper, please let me borrow it for a weekend.
ReplyDelete(Just make sure not to call me on the phone when you want it back. I can get kind of trigger happy.)
Hello Sid,
ReplyDeleteI sympathize with you completely. We have Comcast service (cable TV, broadband and digital voice or landline phone) and it has been mostly reliable. Verizon installed fiberoptic cable around our neighborhood, but we decided not to sign up. We do have Verizon cellphone service which has been quite good.
There are times when I wish I could go back to rotary telephones which real people usually answered and typewriters (some older writers still use them even now). At least we don't have to retype the whole page and there are no more carbon paper smudges on my hands.
One young gal I met when we visited NYC was amazed when I told her that in the early 1960s, we were happy when a letter got from NBC, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, NY to another Manhattan office the next day (if the document was mailed before 3PM). There were no faxes or email -- but if you had a RUSH, you could call a messenger who would take it by hand on his bicycle for FAST SERVICE. That seems so quaint and antique now!
Stay cool -- and I'll send you a hug, too. If it's any comfort, we are also experiencing great financial and psychological pressure about our investments (now down about 25 - 30%) and the real worth of our home (we'd like to downsize but got no offers on our current residence this summer). All we can hope for is good health and some security in this latter stage of life. Unless of course you have a relative who will be leaving a fortune to you in the near-term future.
Warm regards,
EK
Sid, don't know how to tell you this, but your poor service is because you come across as an egotistical jerk. Doesn't mean you are an E-J, but perception IS reality. I'm one of those guys people just naturally like, women especially. My Internets never goes out, I get free refills without asking, and my Cafe'Mocha never tastes suspiciously like human urine. Come on over to the bright side Sid!! Crack a Smile, don't cost nuttin, :)
ReplyDeleteFrank
Please make the zapper a combo style that will also work with Dell support representatives.
ReplyDeletegod, drackman, you've become such a bore. your comments used to be clever, now they're just lame. You come off like you're about 12.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry Sid--Obama will fix it. He promises.
ReplyDeleteBC
Whats with these Homies dissin' my Girl. Why do they gotta front?
ReplyDeleteWhat did we ever do to these guys, that made them so Violent?
Sid, why such hatred for Governor Palin? Its not healthy I say! In fact I like Barak, if I ever need someone to charm a Cobra he'll be at the top of my speeddial. Just curious if you've had any personal dealings with the Pitbull.
Sid - I feel your pain. I've been lucky with Cablevision - when I'm down, the neighborhood is down. Generally restored quickly. But for those few hours, I struggle with my dependency.
ReplyDeleteJust a thought - if you like lattes - Starbucks offers 2-hours of free wi-fi a day if you use their Starbucks card. You get your lattes and 'net too! Comes in handy when yer on the road!
Frank: verizon = Palin = nonsequitur much? But what the heck: I don't know Sarah, and in that I consider myself fortunate, struggling as I am with the current internet issue. Don't need more aggravation. I believe I mentioned a commenter here who knows a guy who was a classmate of hers in college in Idaho, and who says they used to "get high and fuck like bunnies." If true, that raises her in my estimation. What I find so repellant about the woman is her campaign of "real" Americans vs the rest of us. Of divisiveness as strategy. That's so Politburo. It's offensive, destructive, and will, were they to win, leave us much further from being able to work to solve our problems. She is therefore, in short, a shameless bitch. Maybe she needs to get back to getting high and getting off more.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite Internet/cable tech support call was when the rep told me that I needed to unplug my teevee in order to make sure the cable modem completely shut off. At that point, because I'd been through at least a 30-minute wait, I just told her that I had done it in order to get her to continue. Then she told me to wait 10 minutes for everything to reset and call them back.
ReplyDeletep.s. The verification word is "deraters." That's the first almost-real word I've seen.
Well Sid, if we're into unverified sources I know a guy who knows a guy who knew your Wife in college and said he used to inject her with Heroin, and have anal sex with her. I wouldn't call her the "B" word though.
ReplyDeleteShalom, Frank
P.S. I know you'll censor this:) we've got a pool goin at MDOD to see how long it takes ;)
:pat pat:
ReplyDeleteOf course saying it ruins the surprise, but such a phone zapper was the linchpin of an old Edgar Wallace whodunnit.
Frank: guess you missed the "if true" and that it raises her in my estimation. Nor have I said such a thing in a post, only in response to you. It's at a level I figured you could relate to.
ReplyDeleteSid,
ReplyDeleteI think that was the most poetic 'I hate my ISP and they should die' post I've ever read.
I admire that.
Had I written that post it would have read like this:
@*(#@&*%$(*%^*#$&(#*&*$#^%*#%&!@
(spoken like a drunk sailor on leave)
Speaking of drunk sailors on leave, who let Drackman off the ship?