(before I begin, GO CARDINALS — the Wacha Win last night was sweet to watch)
The coffee is slowly beginning to move through my veins right now like a shot through an IV. This is one of those mornings usually experienced on a Saturday, my head ready to burst from the strain of the work week, my body beginning to relax and the poisons leaving my system, a hangover of sorts. If the coffee does not do its magic, then this is going to be a long work day, one spent wading through the fog looming inside my brain. There are several large tasks waiting for me, expedited by customers who waited too long to perform the task of asking me for what they need from me.
Of course, the nail in my head could be a result of my being a buzz saw last night. Lately I have been snoring so much that Miriam has mentioned it to me as I pass her sleeping on the couch on my way out the door. She mentions that I was so loud that she couldn’t come up to bed. Her excuse is legit but weak since she rarely sleeps in the same bed with me any way, a blessing of sorts because it gives me free range of our bed, opportunity to spread out and really own the real estate. Ahhhhhhh.
My quest as of late has been to solve the internet woe in our household. There are few options besides Comcast in the area I live in, ironic to me since I live in the Chicago suburbs. Shouldn’t EVERYTHING be ready at my beckon call? A few years ago, I subscribed to Clear internet and phone, a wireless internet brought in through an antenna/modem set in my window sill. The service is reasonably priced and has been very good up to around August, although a lot of the summer is was bad due to interference from our air conditioning unit. Since August, internet is either unavailable or dial up slow, non-existent if more than one device is taking up bandwidth in our house. Since we don’t have cable TV, we watch a lot of Netflix, so sometimes it has been pretty frustrating if one is tired and just wants to chill with an episode of Breaking Bad. All that considered, I have been trying to find another internet provider.
The TV and internet business far outdistances the car sales business or anything else when it comes to the sleaze race.
Providers have been narrowed down to two choices, besides the one I currently use, mainly by their ability to provide internet service to the area I live in. Oh, there are the expensive satellite providers, but I am on a PT Cruiser budget. My choices are narrowed down to biting the bullet and subscribing to a TV provider like DirectTV or Comcast. Since I have had customer service issues with Comcast, I am trying to make Comcast my last choice. It’s probably my best choice, however.
So I called DirectTV last Tuesday evening, asked for a quote for internet service. From the moment I answered the phone I was amazed at how unprofessional the environment was, the sales person on the line powerless and uninformed, toiling in what sounded like a large room of people on phones. I imagined her sitting at a table much like someone at a telethon. She was pleasant but tied to a system designed to suck the blood out of a potential customer, the leech method of sales that attaches to a host and won’t let go, seeking to remove everything useful from its victim, a parasite that exists for itself and nothing else. I was told that I could not get an internet quote unless I placed an order with DirectTV. Once I placed that order, I would be directed to a bundle specialist who could make the internet order.
I hesitated. No way did I want to make a commitment. All I wanted was a price, something I could use to make my decision. Not only that but most providers were giving me the “we’re sorry but we can’t provide service to your address”, so I wanted to find out if I would get the same story from DirectTV. But I placed the order with a promise that all I had to do was call DirectTV to cancel said order. I still hesitated but did it, the person on the line soothing me with promises that cancelling was going to be a non issue. Order placed, I talked to the internet person, who told me that dish internet was not conducive to playing first person type of internet games through PS3 or Xbox or WII. Uh oh. It’s not that big of deal to me, but it would be to my son. Of course, I was also hesitating because I knew my son would be addicted to TV once we got television service. We have one TV. I would never get to watch TV because a fourteen year old male would be controlling the TV. So would a 17 year old and 51 year old female.
So I placed the order with the understanding that I could easily cancel.
This blog is getting long, so I will condense the rest of this story. Let’s just say that cancelling was not so easy. The person I tried to talk to with my cancel request was less professional and even more clueless than the original sales person, even more of a blood sucking leech. After this experience, used car salesmen are going to seem like Jesus Christ. I could write a whole blog just about that phone call. I don’t know how I remained calm, but I did, the person on the phone treating me like I was a terrorist when I became tired of the tap dance and said “Listen, I don’t want to answer a bunch of questions, I just want to cancel an order that I was told would be a simple process.”. It was said firmly but quietly, but the person dropped her phone and walked to the other side of the room. I could hear her complaining to her supervisor about me, the supervisor returning to the phone for the rest of the call.
Such a scam. I found myself thinking that I was glad I was getting away from such an unprofessional outfit. There must be a trail of scum leading to and from their sales offices. Terrible.
