I should have listened to my brother-in-law. He warned me about how awful this service is. But I didn’t. I decided to go for it and switch my cable and internet provider to someone besides Time Warner. I should mention that I have never had any real issue with Time Warner. My beef with Time Warner was with my internet. It was never as fast as I thought it should be. For instance, it would take me a while to load a short, 30 second youtube clip. I would click the play button and click it again to pause it. I would wait a few minutes till it loaded enough for me not to run into any buffering issues. My cable never went out. The only time it did go out was during some brown out. Kind of pissed me off. I was going to watch an MTV tribute on VH1. I missed that but I did get to witness another show. It was right in my own backyard. Click here to read about that crazy night.
Back to the topic. It was last month when I was supposed to get U-Verse installed. The man came on time. He arrived and walking in, he first wanted to know where the phone line was. I wasn’t getting phone service, so I perplexed as to why he was so interested in that. He went outside and came back in a short time later. We had a problem. So wiring wasn’t hooked up correctly. He isn’t trained in that field and wasn’t able to fix the problem. The people who are trained were not able to make it out that night. They can fix it later (I wasn’t needed to be present. They can fix it outside, not inside). Two weeks go by. I was upset with them not being able to hook it up the first night, I decided to wait and weigh my options. I talked to my brother-in-law and he begged me not to go with U-Verse. He warned me that it will be a huge mistake and I am walking into a life time of problems and headaches. Not to mention, slower internet and a higher price.
It was Monday (12/05) when they called again asking if I still wanted the service. I don’t know why but I said yes. They said they can have someone out here at 9am. Early but I was okay with that. I’ll be up to get it installed. It was just a little after 9 when the man arrived to hook it up and get my cable switched over to the company they claim is worry free and above all, better than all the rest.
Wrong.
Guess what time he left? Just take a wild guess. I’ll wait…
Give up? 6:30pm. For the love of God! He was there for 9 1/2 hours. WTF? By noon, I was getting pretty fed up with this shit. Sorry for the language but I was. I didn’t have many things to do that day but that is besides the point. It shouldn’t take that long to get something like this up and running. You plug a few cords in, show me how to use a remote and then you’re off. Except for me, it took more than just a simple tutorial on working a remote. He starts up the box and is explaining to me the simple, ‘so easy a monkey can use it’ guide and walk through. When he came to the recording process, we hit a snag. Guess it was nice of him to explain how to record. Honestly, the large, red button that says, “Record” isn’t very self-explanatory. If he never showed me this step, I would have run into the issue myself and would have had another headache to deal with.
“Joe” said it could be the box. He went to his van and grabbed a new one. We hooked it up and started the process all over again. The DVR booted up and the TV was playing. He hits ‘record’. We get an error. The DVR was not found. I found it. It’s on the entertainment center. Open your eyes. He is confused. He says,
“Hmm…Yeah this box isn’t working either. Sometimes these boxes get tossed around and dropped a lot. That’s why it’s not working I bet.”
Really, dude? Did you just tell me that your company treats their equipment like crap? This should have sounded some kind of alarm and told me to tell him to get the eff out and let me stick with Time Warner. I can deal with the slow internet. I just don’t want to deal with what is about to make this an even worse night ahead of me.
If anyone remembers the blog for the movie “Snakes On A Plane”, you may remember when he posted a video of a Comcast employee taking a nap while he was on hold.
I didn’t go through something like that but the man did fall asleep at my apartment. I captured just a bit of it. He wasn’t out long but that doesn’t matter. He shouldn’t have fallen asleep. I don’t sleep at my job. He did wake up and talked to another technician on the phone. This guy also couldn’t figure out the issue. How many people does it take to fix something like this? A lot I guess. Joe was hungry after his nap so he lets me know he is going to leave and grab some food. I was hungry too and was craving some McDonalds. I couldn’t leave so I sat at home and watched “The Usual Suspects” while he was eating and I sat there, waiting for some sign that he was going to fix this problem and be on his way.
Coming back, he figured he would try another box…then another box. We are four boxes in and still the issue hasn’t been solved. It’s after four and he is till there, still taking on the phone with numerous people trying to solve it. Each tech told him to reboot the device. You know, if it didn’t work the first time, I doubt it will work the next or the next time after that. But that is about all they did.
It seems as the sky grew darker and my eyes grew heavier, the goal was getting reached. The man he was speaking to explained to him to try yet another box. Cheese and Rice! Another box? Something is obviously wrong. It’s not the effin’ box. Fix whatever it is and leave. I would like to relax some. Maybe take a shower and finish laundry. To make this long story short, the DVR finally kicked in. Not sure what did it but the guy on the other end of the phone must have flipped that switch.
Joe handed me a form to sign and let me know that they may call me and ask how well it went. Not wise, Joe. I won’t be given you anything but maybe a 5 hour energy drink. You ruined my night. You ruined my day. I know it wasn’t his fault. He explained that to me many times. I heard a lot from Joe. I learned about his wife and something about a race card being pulled. That don’t matter. His wife was good at her job. Joe could take some lessons from her. Maybe she could have fixed my problem in two shakes of a lambs tail. But she wasn’t there. It was Joe. Joe spent the day with me. He spent 9 1/2 hours hanging at my apartment. At least I provided him with a place to sleep, unlike some people and a certain man and his pregnant, virgin wife.
Skip forward a few days. Today opened yet another can of worms. I went to watch a show I recorded but turning on the TV, the screen was frozen. Reboot. The gear screen that Joe couldn’t seem to get to appeared with no problem on my screen. Maybe that’s a good sign. Maybe it will work with a simple reboot.
Like Hell it did! I ran into another issue. I have a BRX (big red X) with two gray dots below it. I acted like Joe and rebooted my DVR and modem several times before I called AT&T for some real help. Joan picked up. She thanked me for already trying the reboot. Said I saved her some time. I was put on hold for some time before she came back to tell me the box is shot and is basically a POS. Guess what Joe told me is true. They do treat their equipment like crap. God, I made a huge mistake switching to AT&T. I am now waiting on a tech to come out and replace the box…again. I hope 6 is a magic number. If not, I am sure I’ll be contacting AT&T about how shitty their service is. Lets hope Time Warner welcomes me back. If not, I am SOL.
pitweston
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