~Friday~ I worked from home today, and this is what I said about it in a Facebook status update:
Most of my day was consumed with editing our organization’s annual report to the chancellor.
Late in the morning, I got a response from gotriangle.org regarding their erroneous sign that I discussed in Monday’s blog entry, and about which I had sent email to them on Wednesday. In my email to them, I put a link to this excerpt from Monday’s blog entry that I created just for them, and which included this Google maps diagram I’d created for Monday’s entry:
This is the response:
| John,
Thanks for letting us know about this error, we will get it corrected. Thanks too for your detailed diagram, it was very helpful. Sincerely, Transit Planner |
Late in the afternoon, the UPS man rang my doorbell with my new modem from Time-Warner. There are so many customer service issues involved in what ensued that I can hardly stand the thought of recounting them. However, you know I’m going to, and when I’m done most likely email it to their customer service department:
- An instruction sheet in the box referred to an installation CD that was included, but there was no CD in the box.
- After following the instructions, I was unable to connect to the Internet, at which point I reviewed an email they’d sent me when I’d requested the upgrade online, which said, “Once you swap your equipment, please give us a call at 1-800-TW-CABLE (1-800- 892-2253) so that we can re-activate your service.”
- Reluctantly, I called, and was connected with a voice response unit that asked me to input the phone number associated with my account, which is still my old landline number. It found me and then asked me questions trying to ascertain what my problem was, none of which sounded anything like, “My new cable modem is not working.”
- It must have recognized the keyword “connected” when I said it, and it said, “Let me make sure I heard you right, ‘You’re having trouble connecting to the Internet. Is that correct?'” and after I confirmed that it put me in the queue to talk to a representative.
- After holding for about five minutes, a lady came on who asked me for the phone number associated with the account, then my name, then the address of my service, and then the last four digits of my social.
- Now since TWC recently sent out (I’m assuming) a gazillion emails to their customers telling them they’re getting new, faster service free, by swapping in their modem for a new one, you would think customer service would say, “Oh, yeah. I know how to do that.” But no. She tried to help me and eventually said, “I’m going to have to transfer you to our National Help Desk.”
- The National Help Desk rep started off with, “Hello, how may I help you?” Uhhh… Do you have my call record? Did the person who transferred me tell you why she was transferring me at all? I told him I just got my new modem and it’s not connecting to the Internet. He asked me for the phone number associated with the account, then my name, then the address of my service, and then the last four digits of my social. After ten minutes of trying stuff, he said, “Oh, I’m going to have to transfer you to our Account Services department so they can activate your account.”
- Meagan, evidently in Account Services, asked, “How can I help you?” I started off by saying that this was the third person I was talking to now and that I was frustrated, to which I received no acknowledgment of how yes, that must be frustrating, or anything, or I’m sorry or anything, and so on, so I carried on, “I just got my new modem and it’s not connecting to the Internet.” She asked me for the phone number associated with the account, then my name, then the address of my service, and then the last four digits of my social.
- She tinkered for some time, and eventually said, “I’m going to have to transfer you to our High Speed Cable department, so they can activate your modem.”
- She transferred me, and then all of a sudden, the hold music stopped playing. I looked at my phone to see that I had been disconnected. I went back and repeated steps 2 and 3. You know I was steaming mad now with the time I’d wasted on this, not to mention the number of minutes of my 400-minutes-per-month (which I share on the family plan) that I’d already wasted on this and with no end yet in sight.
- When I finally got to a human, and did all that explaining and providing all my account information yet again, the person eventually said, “I’m going to transfer you to our National Help Desk.” I just screamed at him, “NO! Do not transfer me back there. I’ve already been there and I’m not getting into that loop again. I was talking to someone named Meagan in Account Services and she was connecting to me to what she called the High Speed Cable department when I got disconnected. Can’t you look back at my record and reconnect me to where she was trying to send me?” Oh my god, I was fit to be tied at this point.
- Eventually I got connected to a guy named Kim (not sure if that was his first or last name), but he was finally someone with empathy. I explained to him what had taken place so far, and he expressed a sincere regret for my experience that you would expect from a customer service person, and he said, “I’m going to open up a case and escalate you to our Level 3 Support group. He made sure I knew that my case number was 6372551 before he transferred me gave a quick history to the Level 3 Support person before transferring me.”
- I’m pretty sure the Level 3 Support person that took my call was named Chris, and although he wasn’t empathic, he was knowledgeable technically and got right to the multi-step process that had to be done to fix my problem. He activated my new modem, and although we were unable to ever get it working hooked up to my desktop, we switched to my laptop and got it working there.
- Over an hour-and-a-half after my modem arrived, I finally got connected. Needless to say that at this time, I am completely dissatisfied with Time-Warner Cable, and my next step is going to be to shop around for new service.
I got to the gym at about 7:00, where I did 225 ab crunches, followed by 40 minutes—instead of my usual 30 minutes, to make up for my aborted session yesterday—of cardio on the elliptical machine.
I arrived at The Borough at about 10:30, where I congratulated Liz on her win as “Best of the Triangle” bartender in this year’s annual survey put on by The Independent.
I didn’t realize that one of their drinks was so popular, which I’ve only ever heard of because it was the one that my friend Jennifer Wig ordered for her birthday recently when I treated her to a drink of her choice. However, I did remember how much it was a pop, and all I could hear was ka-ching ka-ching ka-ching with the number of times that different people around me ordered it.
| How Do You Q? ………….8.00 Stoli + Stoli Citros + Stoli Ohranj + Stoli Blueberi + Stoli Razberi + Stoli Vanil + sour mix + grenadine + soda |
At a little before midnight, I headed over to Legends, got in free after witnessing this very heavy guy complaining because the doorman told him he was parked in an illegal spot close to the door. “It’s the only one available this close,” he said in disgust, to which the doorman replied, “Well, it’s in a fire zone.”
As it usually is, the show was pretty good, and the crowd went wild when Kirby Kolby came out dressed as Lady Gaga and did Born This Way.
Since I could also get in free at 313, I stopped by there, where I thought it was Latin Night, which I thought was confirmed by the three Hispanic guys hanging out front when I got there, but inside there were about ten people total, none of whom were Hispanic. One of them was “Possum,” and we talked for just a few minutes and then we both left.
I walked back to my car, which was parked in front of Flex, but resisted the urge to drop in there and drove my ass home.