Enforced Blogging Haitus ... Thank you, Time Warner :(

It's been a rough few weeks on the blogging front.

We moved. We decided to change internet providers, to save a good bit of money.

Unfortunately, we chose Time Warner, a company with the worst customer service we've seen ... ever! And that includes experience with ATT, Verizon, and Century Link. And that's sayin' something!

A Time Warner guy came by the new house early on, and asked if we were interested in their services. I compared prices, talked with Adam, and we agreed we could do without internet access at home for a week and a half, to enjoy their lower prices. We'd have to wait until Dec. 11, Wednesday afternoon, for our appointment to get internet hooked up.

Adam stayed home, waiting all afternoon. He'd talked with TWC the day before to verify that he would be home. I drove off to Bayboro to run errands for 45 minutes. And when I returned about 3:00, I found a little white note hanging on the outside house door. It said, "Sorry we missed you!" Signed: Time Warner.

ARGH!

I went inside, holding the note, and asked Adam, "What IS THIS??" We were both irate. How could the service guy miss us? Adam was HOME. Adam told me: he'd been on his cell phone, talking to Anna. Another call came through from an unknown number. Before he could take it, the call was gone. A message was left ... it was the Time Warner guy, saying he was sorry to miss Adam, and asking him to call back to verify Adam was home. Adam tried to call the man's number; it was a watts line (??) -- a number that only receives calls from land lines. DOUBLE ARGH!! So Adam can't call him back. But he called the 1-800 #, and they told him to call the service guy (um, whom he can't call, duh) and he could still come over. Sigh. Yeah, right.

And then I came home and stormed in the house.

Adam was in a rage against all internet access. I said, "Oh, I'll call these people!"

I called the same 1-800 #. A smarmy woman talked with me. She kept saying she was so sorry that we were having trouble with their service, but there was nothing she could do. She explained that it was their company policy to call customers ahead of time to guarantee they were home. If the tech did not talk to a live person on the phone, THE APPOINTMENT WAS AUTOMATICALLY CANCELLED AT THAT POINT. Did you hear that idiocy? If you can't take their call, or your cell phone loses the call, or your reception blinks out for a second, your appointment is cancelled. And you can't call the guy back, because even though he requires you to talk with him, he has a phone that won't take your call!

TRIPLE ARGH.

At that point, the nimble, quiet service tech still drives to your home, where you sit patiently waiting for him inside (as you have for several hours) and, without knocking on the door, carefully hangs the little note on your knob. He would never dream of actually checking to see if a human were actually at home.

Never.

That's against company policy.

I gave that smarmy woman a piece of my mind, I'm sorry to say. She asked if there was anything else she could do for me today, and I said, "GET ME WIRELESS INTERNET TODAY!!!"

We got another appointment for this morning. Adam sat outside, starting at 7:00 AM, in freezing weather, to ensure he wouldn't miss the tech guy. When he arrived, we discovered that there's no buried cable running to the house yet, so that will need to be done first ... and that won't happen until next week ... so our enforced dearth of internet will continue. And my bad blogging behavior will continue as well.

I'm sorry! Please don't forget about me!