There’s been a little slowdown in posts lately due to a nationwide phone company that provides my DSL. It has now became quite comical as I will receive broadband service from a different local company in the morning.

A week ago my DSL went out. After 5 hours on the phone talking to no less than 16 different people it was finally understood that my service was disconnected in error. At that point is where the “great customer support” took over. Apparently, the phone company as they stated “Can Not Just Flip A Switch and Restore Service” even though that is how it got turned off in the first place. A trouble ticket was created to restore the service at this point.

The next day I received an automatic call from the phone company saying they had a service person come out and do a line check which resulted in them discovering a problem with the line. After a call back they told me the problem was that there was no DSL service on my line even though this was verified before the trouble ticket was issued.

So now a new trouble ticket was created to reconnect the service and was to be expedited. The next day I get another call telling me that after a line check on the latest trouble ticket problems were found with my line, repaired and that DSL was now working, which it still was not.

This is where it became more entertaining than frustrating. I got an older gentleman named Charlie in the technical department. Charlie was a hoot and brightened my day up a bit. After reading the voluminous information regarding my recent problems he came back with “What the hell is going on, are all this people a bunch of numbskulls.” Charlie was the only person so far that understood what was going on. My service was disconnected in error, the company sent out someone to check the line and there wasn’t service on it which was already known, a second trouble ticket was issued to do the exact same thing for the next day and there was an order now to upgrade the speed of my service.

Now as Charlie put it: Why the hell haven’t they reconnected you, why the hell did they do 2 line checks for the same thing when it was already confirmed the the service was disconnected and who was the dummy who put in an order to upgrade your speed which what the hell would matter since you don’t have service in the first place. I had a smile on my face at this point.

Charlie issued a reconnect order immediately and sent it to an office that expedites fixing these situations when the company has made a mistake. Feeling a little more confident that this would finally get resolved, Charlie and I parted ways. I wish Charlie was the person taking care of this from that point on.

The day that this was all suppose to be resolved by noon came and went. I called again and was assured that it would be done by 5pm which came and went. I called again and the technician assured me that the order was marked to be completed by 5pm and it was now 7pm. He would get in contact with the correct office and get it fixed before they closed at midnight. As you’ve probably can guess that didn’t work out.

The next day between getting online at various places, having friends and family relaying online info to me by phone and trying to keep a half dozen businesses looking like they were seamlessly operating to my customers, I plotted my options. At this point it is 24 hours from the time the service was to be reconnected.

Today, I made the arraingments to have broadband connected from a local company who will have me up and running in less than 24 hours of contacting them. Finally, after over 10 hours on the phone talking to 22 different people, I had to give up and accept the fact that the company I have done business with for 25 years was never going to get my DSL reconnected. With a solution on the way and myself accepting that the giant phone company gave up on me, I received a phone call from the phone company. Was my DSL reconnected? No, but my service had been upgraded to a higher speed.