Karma For None

I think my good karma ran out yesterday as I was forced to call Charter about our Internet connectivity issue. Sure as fuck, every home shopping channel came in clear and crisp but I couldn't even get to the DNS server. Do any other Charter subscribers read this? Have you ever called them? Holy Zarquon's knees! I had to wade through about four menus before I could punch a button to indicate I had Internet connectivity problems. Then I wasted a good 20 minutes with this new funkadelic voice-recognition self-help troubleshooting system with a Genuine People Personality. You get this soothing woman's voice that asks you a series of questions, prompts you to take various actions, and makes you respond by yelling an answer into the phone. It basically has you power cycle your cable modem, router, and computer. After each step, you have to blurt out "yes" or "no" or "continue".

"Do you see your cable modem?"
Yes.
"Is it buried in Stevie's closet beneath a pile of Becca's clothes which also has the effect of contracting the wi-fi antennas?"
Yes.
"Should I calculate your personality problems to ten decimal places?"

So I (im)patiently give the system some answers while sitting there ready to go ballistic because I've already done all this shit. Then it asks, "Do you know how to open a command prompt?" Yes. Then it proceeds to tell me how to do it anyway. The end result was that I wasted 20 minutes yelling at a computer. Now, I don't have a problem yelling at computers but it was someone fucking else's computer! I yell at my own, thank you, I don't fucking need to be yelling at mega-maxi corporation's computers.

"Are you an IT professional who has already excuted all of these steps which I have detailed over the past 20 minutes?"
Yes.
"Did you try to TiVo Letterman last night?"
Yes.
"Did it stop recording just before Son Volt was to play so it could instead record a re-run of MTV's Pimp My Ride?"
Yes.

After the din of my screaming had died down, I was put through to a human being. About 10 seconds into my explanation of my problem, CLICK! Disconnected. Oh, that was as mood enhancing as having a hot poker shoved in my eye. So I got all Zen and took a few deep breaths.

"It's only the Internet," I said to myself. A cup of coffee later I felt all relaxed and called again. I cut my time in the automated voice-recognizing hell by lying on a couple questions and generally taking the shortest route to getting a fellow member of homo sapiens on the other end of the line. And I got a friendly gentleman named Kevin who listened patiently to my rambling before running a couple test hoolies. These determined what I already knew - my cable modem kept dropping the signal and the line is in need of attenuation or whatever the hell you do to coax. He arranged to have a cable guy come out on Thursday. Poof! Done. A 5-7 minute call turned into a 30+ minute ordeal. Thank you the marketing division of Charter Communications.

Today is a day. Nothing particularly interesting has happened so far. I'm going to be grabbing lunch with Marv so we can satiate our hungers and I can grab the video camera he is delivering. After lunch I am off to the regional office to hit on help out a couple users of the fairer gender. Lovely Linda called me up and gave me the damsel in distress routine so of course I volunteered to get out there ASAP and lend a hand. Plus it affords me the opportunity to give some sweets to Kim & Julia, the tall Russian hottie. I must remember to have Ed tell me how to say "good day" in Russian again.