Pen-Elayne on the Web

For Whom the Bell Tolls

I wasted 4½ hours this morning sitting on the stoop of our new apartment, waiting for Godot Verizon to come and turn on/test the phone line. I arrived at 8:00, called at 10:30 to see what was up and was told "we told you between 8 and 12," called again at 12, was told I'd be called back on my cell within five minutes, called again at 12:30 and was told all the technicians were out to lunch and they'd call me back at 1. It's almost 1:30, I'm still waiting for their call, and I've pretty much missed a day of work. To add insult to injury, the customer service person who spoke to me during that third call said I might not even need to be there, the techie might be able to turn on the line from outside the apartment. I still want to be there to test the phone jacks inside, though. So I'm back home, about to go to the kitchen for some breakfast, grateful it was a nice day outside, and utterly unsure of what to do when they call back, since it may only be a 10-minute drive with a car but I have to allow half an hour for bus travel time... Update: They called at 2:30 to reschedule because they'd had "an unusually large volume of repair calls, and we're obligated to do repairs before we do new installations." All well and good, but you know, they're the phone company, they couldn't have called me by noon to let me know?