Girl vs Qwest

On the evening of April 4th, I was sitting here minding my own business, just watching "Celebrity Apprentice" and wondering what Lil Jon looks like without his sunglasses and why no one has smacked LaToya Jackson into next week when the doorbell rang.  Normally, I don't answer it because it is most likely someone trying to sell me something I don't want or particularly need.  But every now and then I think "What if it is a lost or hurt child and I don't answer?"  So, I answered the door to find Cute Young Qwest Guy (CYQG) on my doorstep, who was here to convince me to bundle my services.  (Dear Universe:  Thank you for depositing a cute, single guy on my doorstep.  I know beggars can't be choosers but next time if you could just make him about a decade older or at least old enough to rent a car, that would be awesome.  Seriously.  What am I supposed to do with a 23 year old?)

I was already thinking about bundling, but being the master procrastinator I am, I had just never gotten around to it.  So this was very convenient for me.  After convincing CYQG he could do much better than the girl he has a crush on and all the drama that comes with her, I agreed to bundle my services.  Being that I already have Qwest for my home phone and DirecTV for my cable, the only thing I really agreed to was switching my Internet.  Piece of cake, right?

Due to my schedule, I set it up to have them come out and switch over my Internet on 4/15.  I made arrangements to work from home that morning so I could wait for the tech to arrive sometime between 8:00 and noon.  I was lucky-the tech arrived around 10:00.  It turns out he was unable to do the work-I was using a cable modem with Comcast and Qwest needed a phone jack.  It turns out that my office is the only room in the house that did not have one.  So I had to reschedule the install.  The tech said he would take care of that.

On Tuesday, the 19th, I hadn't heard anything about rescheduling, so I called to do it myself.  I was told the appointment had been rescheduled on Friday and was scheduled for 8:00 - noon on Thursday the 21st.  Um, okay.  And you were going to tell me this when?  So I explained I had to work on the 21st but had the 22nd off and asked if it could be switched.  After a brief wait, I was assured the appointment had been changed. 

When I got home on Wednesday after a belated birthday dinner with a dear friend and her family, I had a message waiting for me on my voicemail.  It was from Qwest calling to confirm my appointment for Thursday the 21st.  Of course, at 10:00 at night, I couldn't exactly do anything about this, but my hope was that it just didn't get changed in their system as to when the automatic reminder was supposed to go out.  Yeah, not so much.

I called bright and early Thursday morning and explained that I had called Tuesday to change the appointment but got an automatic reminder on Wednesday and just wanted to confirm I was on the schedule for Friday.  I was cheerfully informed I was on the schedule for Thursday.  I explained that didn't work for me and needed to know if I could move the appointment to Friday.  She was able to do that for me and then asked if she could help me with anything else.  I told her no and that I wasn't happy.  I said that they had come out on the 15th like they were supposed to and I appreciated him being on time.  I said that I understood that it's not Qwest's fault and they had no control over where the builder did or did not put phone jacks in my house.  But what I couldn't understand was why when the appointment was rescheduled no one from Qwest thought it was necessary or could be bothered to call and let me know and when I did call to reschedule how the change did not make it to their system.  I ended by saying that not one but two failures to communicate in one week was simply unacceptable.  She said she'd make notes to my account as to what had been going on.

I came home around 1:00 for lunch and to let the dogs out and lo and behold, had a notice on the door saying I had missed the Qwest technician.  The number on the notice was not one I had called before so when I got back to work I called to verify I was on the schedule for Friday.  She looked up my account and said it showed I called that morning to change it.  I corrected her that I had actually called Tuesday and had to call back that morning because I was at work and could not be at home to wait for them.  She verified I was on the schedule for Friday.  Then she said there was a note that the tech was going to try to swing back by Thursday afternoon to see if he could just get the job done that day if that would work for me.  Big sigh.  "I.  Am.  At.  Work.  I cannot be at home today.  So no. That will not work for me."  She took me out of the rotation for Thursday.

Friday morning, I got a call around 8:30 that I was first on the list and the tech would be at my house in about 20 minutes.  "Great!" I thought, "they are making up for pissing me off."  And then the tech arrived.  He said he was here to install my Internet for me.  "You're installing a phone jack, right?" 

"If you need me to.  Do you need me to install one?"

"Yes.  That is why the work couldn't be done last week."

"Someone was here to do this last week?"

Sigh.  The good news is the install went quickly and efficiently and I now have wireless Internet in my house. (Yea!)  Yesterday, I was able to do something I have not been able to do for 5 1/2 years:  watch a ball game and do genealogy research at the same time.  I love that!  (Other than the whole pain in the ass ancestors who don't want to be found part).  I don't have to choose between my hobbies anymore.  It almost makes up for the frustration of all the miscommunication of my teleCOMMUNICATIONs company.  Almost.  But not quite.