I don't know what SBC stands for, but I suspect something along the lines of Sonofa Bitch Corporation.
We still don't have our DSL up, and it looks like it might be a week from Friday if we are lucky and the planets are aligned properly.
Every time I have had to deal with DSL service, even when I was a Sales Engineer for an ISP, people act like DSL service is some sort of magic instead of a simple, predictable service.
One of my favorite things about dealing with DSL service (and this is not limited to Sonofa Bitch Corporation), is getting to tell my story over and over again to many people who cannot do anything for me other than transfer me elsewhere.
On Monday morning, I spoke with Melinda. She seemed knowledgeable and helpful, and assured me that she had made copious notes in the system, that anyone could help me, and she would follow up with me on my cell phone by Tuesday afternoon. Then, she fell into a black hole or joined the witness protection program or something because I never heard back.
Tuesday, I called back to try to find Melinda. No such luck.
I did get Antoine, however, whose job it is to make me tell my whole story and then transfer me to another department.
After 13 minutes, I got to speak with Janie. I told my whole story again, and Janie transfered me to "a specialist".
After 25 minutes, I got to speak with Kelly. Kelly seemed to know what I was talking about but couldn't tell me anything more than what I already knew.
I decided to give it another day and check back to see if my order had been placed.
So today I called the number suggested by Kelly.
Did I mention already that Sonofa Bitch Corporation has the most irritating voice recognition menu ever? It has a woman's voice, and it pretends that it is not a voice recognition system. It makes "Hmmmmm..." statements and other annoying life-like comments. Then, when it does get what you are saying (about 35% of the time), it says, "Ah! Orders! (or whatever), Let me transfer you to Orders!!!"
When it recognizes your command, it acts as thrilled as Melissa Gilbert in that Helen Keller movie when Helen finally catches on to the concept of language.
So when I called today, I repeatedly went through the voice recognition system, each time experiencing the emotional highs and lows of the system, only to get a recording stating, "We are experiencing high call volume right now and cannot take your call. Please call back later. We hope this is not an inconvenience." Oh my gosh! How did the person recording that (and it was a real person's voice) not break out into laughter?
Like a rude teenager, there wasn't even an option to leave a message.
High call volume? Well I'll just redial. I have plenty of time, since I cannot surf the internet on this stinky dial up!
After eight minutes on hold, I got Beth. I told my whole story. After 17 minutes, Beth told me that a manager was working on it and that she would send that manager an email to call me. That call was 21 minutes.
Time passed and no call, so I called back again, got the rude teenager message, and redialed.
After eight minutes on hold, I got someone, who asked for my whole story.
After 17 minutes holding in complete silence, hold music comes on! Wha...? Why then?
At 31 minutes, another Beth comes on the line. She knows what she is talking about. Turns out that our order was put in on Monday for yet another wrong phone number. That call was over an hour long!
Someday, we hope to have broadband again, and I am confident that we will. I would like to point out that, to date, in spite of incredible frustration with the situation and service, I still haven't yelled at anyone yet, but I am thinking of kicking people, crying, or maybe being mean to puppies.
