Today the Youngest returns to school as a Sophomore. High school will still be a learning experience for him this year, considering due to Covid, he actually only physically attended about two months of school last year. It is nice that things are returning to "normal" and he is actually in a classroom setting versus trying to stay awake staring at a screen all day (like me).
This past week has been a learning experience, in regards to myself and family. Late last Monday, around 11:15pm, our internet decided to shut off. Well, the Youngest had woken me up saying there was an issue, and I stated to just reset the modem (our usual cure for the crappy internet we have). He said it was a different problem, and he had tried that already. Our service is through Centurylink, and is a on DSL type system versus a cable one. Well our modem indicated that the DSL was not connected. I had him go check the house phone line (we keep the land line for emergency use) and of course there is no signal. At the late hour, I mentioned it could be some vehicle accident took it out, and things should be restored by morning.
Tuesday morning, I'm up at 7 to check the line. It has not been fixed. A call is placed to the Technical Support and after 30+ minutes of being on hold, I hear them pick up the line - and hear nothing. I' doing the "Hello? Can you hear me? I can't hear you" thing for a couple minutes, and then they hang up. Not off to a good start. I return the call, and again after 30+ minutes, they pick up and I actually hear something like "Thank you for calling" and then it cuts out. I again repeat what I said before, with them cutting in and out. After several more minutes, I hang up. I get on my phone and using our data package, try finding maybe another number to get help at since this one is having issues. I end up at a Centurylink site that I can 'run diagnostics' on my line and so try that. Of course it comes up that there is an issue, and cannot be properly completed. It gives me an option about scheduling a technician to come out.
Now, I am not paying for a tech to come out and enter my house. The minimum charge is $95 to come in my house, plus additional fees for services/equipment/parts. Especially when I know it has to be something on the outside of the home, meaning their responsibility. But I looks to see when is the earliest to get an appointment. Friday between the hours of 8:15am-4:15pm. I kid yo not. Four days out, and have to be there all day. I set the appointment, and make plans to try to call the tech support line again.
At this point, I am beginning to lose my patience. I'm starting to get angry. What if I get a Project start this week, but have no internet? I can't work. In a sense, I'm lucky I am not on a project currently. I don't have a laptop, so it is not like I can just go to a family/friend's house and use their internet. I have been working on this issue for about three hours at this point. I'm trying to figure out any idea that could be the cause of the outage. I even called the 1-800 to pay the bill (it was like a few days past the actual "due date" but not in 'cut-off' status). I drove around the neighborhood to see if any one from the company was working on a box around there. I posted on the local "neighborhood app" - and got only one reply that they were not having issues.
Finally, I decide to call the tech line again, and this time ask for billing. To make sure they got the payment, and verify that service will be restored. you guessed it, another 40+ minutes of being on hold (later in the day, so more people calling for the crappy service this company gives). I get through to a 'live' person, who is in another country and working from their home (because I could hear what sounded like a Grandmother yelling at a grandkid in the background). No, my account is in good standing, and was not turned off due to late payment, etc. I explained my issue, and they said I have to talk to tech support. I explained that the callas made previously are not connecting properly. They would do an 'internal transfer' to tech support. Fine. Another 45+mintes, I actually got a connection to tech support where we could actually hear/speak to each other.
I spent another 15 minutes explaining to them what happened, what steps I had done to make sure it was not something simple on my end. They said they would "test the line" and after a few minutes, agrees with me that there was an issue with the line, and a tech would have to be scheduled. As they are checking to see the earliest time available, she says, "Oh. There is one already scheduled for Friday." I explain (again) what I had done, and needed someone sooner (also after explaining several times I work from home and need service ASAP). No can do. Friday was the earliest we could get a tech. By this time, it is afternoon here, and I am beyond frustrated with this company. It seems every 3-4 months we have some issue we have to go through with them, and it has been a problem on their side of things, but as a customer I am the one to have to suffer until the problem is fixed. The only other option I have to go to another company (Cox Cable) but they would have to run cables, etc, as this house has never been wired for cable services.
So, no internet for basically four days. The Wife and I have phones that connect, and I know I used mine very sparingly. Our mobile phone plan currently has us limited to XX amount of data usage, split amongst four phones, so I don't want to go over too much. But by Thursday we were notified we were already over the limit. I say it was the Wife, as she watches/listens to YouTube videos while she is doing things around the house, and she sure didn't change that habit. It's not an issue when the phone is on wi-fi (which was out too obviously).
Four days. Limited internet access. I handled it like a Pro, I think. I didn't worry about social medias. Obviously I didn't blog, and sadly, couldn't read others. I have like two games I play on my tablet, and both are offline capable, so wasn't hurt there by not being able to get online. Granted, I couldn't play my big game, World of Warcraft, but had a couple other options of games on my desktop. Overall, speaking only for myself, I was good. I survived.
Friday arrived, and by 2pm, I am frustrated again. No calls, or texts, or anyone showing up yet to fix the problem. I have been somewhat worried all week that a project would be starting, and I would have to turn it down because of no service. Where is the tech? I use my phone to re-check the scheduling, and now it says between 8am - 6:30pm. Okay, longer I have to wait. I call the tech line, and yes, after 40+ minutes, I am able to verify that yes the tech is still scheduled for that day. Sigh.
By the time 6:25pm rolls around, I'm done. I had plans for that evening out with a couple of buddies, and I was about an hour late already. I leave the house, letting the Wife know if they happen to call me, I'll let her know, and that I would be calling tech support Saturday morning to find out what went wrong (as well as probably letting them know how I felt). I head out. The Wife calls about 7:30pm. The tech had shown up at the house (no previous call/text to me) and needed to look at the junction box for the phone. It turns out, it is behind the back fence, and over behind the neighbor's yard. I'm guessing it is a "shared" box, and probably handles the lines of 2-3 houses (I'm guessing).
Looking out from our backyard, there is a brief area between our fence and an Army of Engineers cement canal, which has a park on the other side. I think there may even be a sidewalk on our side of the canal. But there is no gate from our yard to access the back area, and I personally see no need for it. The Wife lead the tech to the neighbor's yard. Now the Neighbor's house is empty and has been for at least the last 2-3 years. Long story short, she is dealing with court issues and her insurance company. Either way, her gate through the back fence was locked, but the tech was able to step-up (onto what I don't know), look over the fence at the box, and say "Yep there's the problem".
Turns out some asshat decided to bust the box open and strip all the wiring out of it. The tech said he could run a temporary cable from another box (a few houses over) and restore of immediate service until a crew could get out to fix the issue. However, more than likely the asshat would come back by and just steal the cable as well. So, a 'work order' would have to be written up, and it would probably be a couple more days to get a crew there to fix the problem properly, and secure the box (hopefully) better to prevent a repeat. Another two days???!!!?? Sigh. FML. I tell the Wife well, at least the problem is found, it is not our responsibility, and it would get fixed.
Saturday while I was out running some errands and whatnot, I get a picture from the Wife. About 3:30pm Saturday, the crew had been by and fixed the box, so internet was restored, and the Wife had only noticed that her phone had connected to the wi-fi because it had beeped evidently. So life could return to "normal" here at the d00d residence. Sunday, I spent most of the morning sleeping in, then started catching up on things I had to go five days without - mainly catching up on blogs, book sites, and yes, social media. I even got a couple hours in of Warcraft, and watched a couple episodes on Netflix. And helped you waste time reading this long post about my last week.
PeacE
