Smudger Snippets
Created | Updated Mar 9, 2006
I suppose it's because I have so much time on my hands these days that all these memories come flooding back to me.
Stage Two
Well here I am again sat here in front of this screen and still no internet connection despite the promise from the company who supplies my connection that a technician would come today to repair it. I suppose I should have known better than to believe them when they promised three days ago that one would be sent, and yet I still went ahead and phoned them to ask if he would arriving with a new modem. That was when they even denied that they had said a technician would be sent, yet the funny part of this whole situation was that I bragged to a friend of mine just last week there what a good service provider I had!
Oh they listened to me alright as they sent me jumping through all the same hoops that I had done the last time I called their help desk and they even went as far as to suggest that I had been on line all weekend, even when my modem was switched off, due to there being no signal coming from it. It was at that point my temper kicked in and I started to shout at them - a mistake, I know, but when someone is calling you a liar it does tend to be the normal reaction. Anyway, after going through all the hoops of unplugging this and clicking on that, they turned round and told me that the fault was with my computer and not their modem. So here I am, day six of having no internet connection, my only hope now is a friend of my stepsons who was the person who actually built this computer for me but, I must admit, he is a hard chap to track down.
My stepson has also tried his best to help and did, in fact, call the provider again today for me and went through all the same procedures again, but to no avail. I have tried not to be angry, yet I know deep inside that I still am. I think it's because I am feeling shut out and away from all my cyber friends that I usually contact while I am on line. It is funny in some ways as my wife is always having a go at me for spending too much time on my computer but, as I tell her, it is all I have really. I cannot go out much due to my disability and even when I do I cannot walk very far or even have a drink as I am on strong medication and pain killers.
One thing I do know now, however, is that if I ever do get back on line I will not take it for granted like I used to. The old saying of 'you never know what you will miss until it has gone' springs to mind. I have even considered cancelling my whole contract with my present provider, but that would mean cancelling my telephone and television services as well and that would only bring more hassle to an already frustrating situation.
The hardest part of this, so far, has been listening to all that jargon and totally useless information from those so-called help centres. Having talked already to a few of them it seems that they are all trained to say exactly the same things and manage to read it off parrot fashion. Sometimes I wonder if that entire multi-choice menu they put you through, even before you get to actually talk to one of them, is worth it.
So I guess if my stepsons' friend cannot solve this problem, I will have to go through all the hassle of changing over providers - not a thought I care to look forward to - yet I suppose having a choice to pick from is a good thing. I would have thought, however, that a company as large as that would have been prepared to help rather than lose another customer, but then again maybe I am still using the old-fashioned values that I was brought up with. So maybe this market of competition is a good thing really, but then again when I think back to when we changed over our gas and electricity provider a few months ago and all the hassle we had with that, makes me think twice about it.
At the end of the day, however, I am still sat here at my favourite place, but cannot do my favourite things like chatting away to all my cyber friends from the world over. I might as well switch this off and go watch some television...
