I woke this morning to find that I was completely unable to get onto the internet. I am one who tends to find myself faced with two choices in such situations: 1) pause for a moment of rational thought and search for the likely cause before acting, and 2) fly into a rage and start hammering on any keyboard or accessory, cursing a) Apple, b) Spectrum (although I usually forget and curse Time-Warner first), c) Netgear, which is the maker of the router I have currently installed and d) the Universe for singling me out for special attention. One result of my inevitable choice of option 2, is that I start trying all the simplest actions first, re-trying everything three times, turning various apps or devices off and on again and the like, logging off and back on. The last thing I ever want to do is actually begin contacting the suppliers of the elements of the internet in my supply chain - said Apple, Spectrum, Netgear and any other corporations I can think of. Why so reluctant? Well, the 45 minute holds; the Muzak I must sit through; the press 1 for an option I don’t want, press 2 for an option I want even less and so forth until I reach the wait for the next available agent/associate/servant of god default; then “we are having an unusual volume of calls so your wait may be longer than usual” (Has it ever not been?); “your call is important to us so please stay on the line”; “you may be able to solve your issue by going to our website” (which is just the thing I can’t do and is why I am on the line in the first place). All of these might be some of the reasons why I don’t do the corporation contacting in the first place, which would be sensible enough if I didn’t know that inevitably I will have to make these calls eventually to actually solve the problem. This call will be rendered even more painful and heartbreaking since all my knee-jerk turnings off and on will have made it necessary to restore a shitload of connections for which I will need to remember passwords established years ago and long-since forgotten. Occasionally I will reach a point where I must answer some security questions. I am OK with these when they happen to be favorite teacher, father’s middle name or mother’s maiden name. But often they only present options that never happened in my life. Today Netgear wanted to know the name of the first Netgear product I ever used. Do people actually keep track of shit like this? I don’t even know the name of the current Netgear product I am using.
Once I had ruined every connection I have ever set up, I realized the fact that my telephone land line was also not working took the onus off Netgear and Apple and the Universe and placed it squarely on Spectrum because they are the people who supply me with both internet and land line phone. So I needed to call Spectrum first. Without internet, however, how was I to find their telephone number? I dread calling from my cellphone because I live in a shady dell that somehow makes cellular service very unreliable and calls tend to be slightly less clear than they were on that string and two cans I used in the 1950s. The person at the other end of my call will keep telling me that I am cutting in and out or some such thing, and if I drive to a nearby hilltop to call, I will not have with me any of the vast list of numbers, passwords, username, dates, historical data, and verses from the Bible that I will be asked to supply in a tone that implies that every other human on Earth has these items lodged firmly in his or her active short term memory. And I realized that I had cancelled my cable this month and retained only the land-line and internet services, but I have not yet turned in my cable box (no one ever told me I needed to, but duh…) and I was busy girding my loins for an epic battle in case the change in service and retention of my cable box was going to be an issue in getting my service back. When I finally was fully prepared for battle, I finally searched around a mostly unused desk in a rarely entered room where my cable wires come into the house and there found a piece of paper with the old Time Warner contact number which, when I tried it, actually worked. The long recorded message (after pressing 1 for English and clearly stating my problem for the computer at the other end so that it might direct me to the correct follow-up pre-recorded message) informed me that the service in a large area was currently down and that I could request that the company call me when it is back up. This message took longer than necessary, of course, because I had to listen to all the sorrow and self-loathing on my behalf that this outage had caused the company which, one gathers, has caused them to take even longer to return to service since workers must do their jobs while fighting back tears.
I just hung up, but now I am thinking I must go through all the recordings again because I did not select the option to be called when service is restored. That gives me something to do with the second half of my day. That and undoing all the messing around with links and devices that I surely bollixed up before I finally called. Life is good.
Once I had ruined every connection I have ever set up, I realized the fact that my telephone land line was also not working took the onus off Netgear and Apple and the Universe and placed it squarely on Spectrum because they are the people who supply me with both internet and land line phone. So I needed to call Spectrum first. Without internet, however, how was I to find their telephone number? I dread calling from my cellphone because I live in a shady dell that somehow makes cellular service very unreliable and calls tend to be slightly less clear than they were on that string and two cans I used in the 1950s. The person at the other end of my call will keep telling me that I am cutting in and out or some such thing, and if I drive to a nearby hilltop to call, I will not have with me any of the vast list of numbers, passwords, username, dates, historical data, and verses from the Bible that I will be asked to supply in a tone that implies that every other human on Earth has these items lodged firmly in his or her active short term memory. And I realized that I had cancelled my cable this month and retained only the land-line and internet services, but I have not yet turned in my cable box (no one ever told me I needed to, but duh…) and I was busy girding my loins for an epic battle in case the change in service and retention of my cable box was going to be an issue in getting my service back. When I finally was fully prepared for battle, I finally searched around a mostly unused desk in a rarely entered room where my cable wires come into the house and there found a piece of paper with the old Time Warner contact number which, when I tried it, actually worked. The long recorded message (after pressing 1 for English and clearly stating my problem for the computer at the other end so that it might direct me to the correct follow-up pre-recorded message) informed me that the service in a large area was currently down and that I could request that the company call me when it is back up. This message took longer than necessary, of course, because I had to listen to all the sorrow and self-loathing on my behalf that this outage had caused the company which, one gathers, has caused them to take even longer to return to service since workers must do their jobs while fighting back tears.
I just hung up, but now I am thinking I must go through all the recordings again because I did not select the option to be called when service is restored. That gives me something to do with the second half of my day. That and undoing all the messing around with links and devices that I surely bollixed up before I finally called. Life is good.
