Snark/rant

[beagle]

It was a uniquely frustrating experience. First, of course, you have the fifteen minutes of abysmal elevator "music" while you're connected to an actual human being. Finally, "Mike" picks up and says that he's looking forward to us working together to solve the problem. (Naturally, "Mike" is outsourced.)

Just been through this joy myself. I was with NTL (now renamed Virgin Broadband). Every few months the cable modem was go into a "searching for upstream channel" state. Would spend hours on the phone and end up with them offering to send someone to my house to fix it. The problem was consistently that that someone had reconnected the cable in the street box to a faulty amplifier, but they'd still want me to stay at home in order to fix it.

I was continually getting letters from BT asking me to switch back to them. After hanging on to calls to India for 45 minutes only to be told that was the wrong queue for that particular order number, and after getting my email ignored I dumped the BT idea. If that was the pre-sales service I dread to think what post-sales is like.  I'm now with Eclipse who are the best rated consumer broadband here. Not only did they conect the ADSL service 4 days ahead of schedule, they answer my email quickly and from onshore.  More strangely I'm getting a better bandwidth on ADSL than I ever got on fibre optic.

It makes me wonder if these managers of large companies ever impose metrics on how many people are driven away by bad support.  My guess is they can easily quantify support department costs but not benefits. Years ago I remember reading a practical management book which said every boss should regularly ring his own support lines anonymously to see how customers are treated.

[Alpaca]

108F? Botanical Gardens? Sounds like Tampa, FL.

[Pachyderm]

Got a letter from the TV Licensing people. the usual "You owe us money" one.

Informed them that I had no need of a TV licence, as there was no TV, video, recordable DVD or anything requiring a licence at the address. All well and good, and I was told this information would be entered into the computer. Swift, efficient, and as far as I knew, the end of the story.

But, no. One month later, repeat letter arrives. I call, explain, give the dates of contact etc. "Oh, yes, sorry sir, I will amend the records in the computer". Fine.

Another month passes. Third letter. And a fourth the next month. This one in red. "You owe us money, cough up, or we will take legal action". Call again. Not polite this time. "We will need to visit the premesis, to verify..."

Fine. Make an appointment. I might be out, you never know. "Oh, that's a different department. The Inspectorate will do all that, we just put information into the compu(click)... Hello? Hello?"

Didn't hear another thing. 6 months later, got a TV, so got a licence. Now I have to tell them that I won't need one next year...Joy, rapture and happiness.

[Griffin NoName]

I dumped the BT idea. If that was the pre-sales service I dread to think what post-sales is like. 

I've never had anything but really good service etc from BT Broadband and good reports from others who use it. But no experience of them trying to persuade me to switch back to them as I've always been with them.

NTL on the other hand, nothing but bad reports..... didn't know Virgin had swallowed them.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Nah. Ours is probably less interesting then Tampa's. All low water usage. Lots of things like desert willows and such, since this area in naturally a desert in the summer time.

I have DSL, and we've never had too much of a problem. Only had to call them once, and the service was ok. Periodically, our whole ares loses service though, which sucks. Doesn't happen all that often, though.

[Swatopluk]

Got a letter from the TV Licensing people. the usual "You owe us money" one.

Informed them that I had no need of a TV licence, as there was no TV, video, recordable DVD or anything requiring a licence at the address. All well and good, and I was told this information would be entered into the computer. Swift, efficient, and as far as I knew, the end of the story.

But, no. One month later, repeat letter arrives. I call, explain, give the dates of contact etc. "Oh, yes, sorry sir, I will amend the records in the computer". Fine.

Another month passes. Third letter. And a fourth the next month. This one in red. "You owe us money, cough up, or we will take legal action". Call again. Not polite this time. "We will need to visit the premesis, to verify..."

Fine. Make an appointment. I might be out, you never know. "Oh, that's a different department. The Inspectorate will do all that, we just put information into the compu(click)... Hello? Hello?"

Didn't hear another thing. 6 months later, got a TV, so got a licence. Now I have to tell them that I won't need one next year...Joy, rapture and happiness.

They are equally bad over here and bet on people not actually knowing the law. They defy even direct action by the executive on behalf of innocent TV non-users. They even threaten jailing.

[Alpaca]

So, since I actually started interacting with real people on the internet again, and found that I still enjoyed it immensely (at least here, in the Monastery), I figured I'd try popping onto the ol' instant messenger that I haven't used in a really long time.

To my incredible delight, upon login to what was once MSN Messenger, now "Microsoft Messenger" or "Windows Live Messenger" or whatever the hell it is now, I found that my entire contacts list had been wiped.

Thanks, Micro$oft!

[Griffin]

Griffin NoName tWofS here, using my puppet Griffin.

Snarl.

Booked a hotel with Internet. Told no Wifi. Cable. All rooms. Fine, I got cables.

Sure enough rooms have cat5 network sockets : 1 for telephone and 1 for modem.

But. What they meant was no Broadband. Only Dial Up. It used to be ADSL networked, but it got lost in a hotel takeover. So it is back to unplugging the telephone.

But. It's not just Dial Up. It's Archaic Dial Up. I've spent the last 8 hours adjusting my modem, and dialling up a variety of services, getting every error in the book. down, down down, to almost zero baud rates, different insanely antique protocols.

Finally I am here.

If only I hadn't forgotten my bluetooth dongle, or if only the Monastery was cell phone friendly.

Anyone fancy designing a cell phone forum interface ?

[Alpaca]

Anyone fancy designing a cell phone forum interface ?

Apparently, someone already has. It's just a matter of getting it over here.

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?wap
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?wap2
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?imode

EDIT: More excitement!

http://toadfishmonastery.com/forum/index.php?wap
http://toadfishmonastery.com/forum/index.php?wap2
http://toadfishmonastery.com/forum/index.php?imode

Now it's just a matter of getting them into wrapped mode.

[Griffin]

Anyone fancy designing a cell phone forum interface ?

Apparently, someone already has. It's just a matter of getting it over here.

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?wap
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?wap2
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?imode

Ace !! TY alpaca.

[Alpaca]

And note the edit! Works for Toadfish, too!

[Griffin]

Personally, I think unwrapped is probably enough to see on my cell phone ! but for the sake of completeness yes wrap wrap wrap.

Of course, my cell phone claims it is selecting the best format, so it ought to have guessed the address 

Incidentally, this site is working faster on dial-up than it does on broadband     (or is it because I am further north of the equator?).

[Alpaca]

Are you sure that when you're on your broadband, you aren't going through a hundred proxies to match the hundred email addies?

[Sibling Chatty]

My "support" story.

Call Verizon. Tell them their yearly replacement of dead DSL router is upcoming, as our DSL routers die at the one year mark, like clockwork. They deny this. I insist it's so. They deny, I insist. Lather, rinse, repeat...

Stop the Verizon Guy when he's in town...Hey Verizon Guy, it's time for my router to die again. He goes to the little Verizon Building (about 700 sq foot building, no windows, one door) pops the door open, pulls out the last one I sent back and hands it to me.

His 15 year old son takes them, repairs them and he trades them out. Otherwise, Verizon has a 3 week wait.

Now, if they could just get my phone line to work consistently...

[Alpaca]

I have a disassembled router on my desk...

I think I was using it to plug in the remains of an ex-optical mouse on my desk into a wall socket.

Whee! Nerd!