Exorcising the Teledemons and the Priests of the Blue Temple
Sunday, April 4th, 2004 12:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flwyd28 days ago (March 6) I called 1-800-244-1111 and ordered telephone service for my new apartment. The fellow I talked to was quite helpful and nice to talk with, and informed me that I should have service by the following Thursday, March 11th and that DSL should be up and running by the 15th. This $4.75 per month LineBacker service essentially insures internal phone wiring -- the phone company is responsible for all outside maintenance, but a person's jacks are his responsibility. LineBacker provides inside repair work free of charge. I was in "I have a job that pays well, I'll buy anything" mode, and what's $5 for a few months when I spent over $600 between Safeway and Super Target two days later? On the off chance my lines might have a problem I said "sure, why not?" That was perhaps my wisest business decision of the month.
On March 10th I bought a cordless phone at Office Max and plugged it in, on the off chance Qwest had hooked things up early. Not surprisingly, I got no dial tone, but I figured that would allow the battery 12 hours to charge. It's not like I'm a huge fan of the phone, so I wasn't anxious to call anyone.
On Thursday evening, I picked up my phone and still had no dialtone. I got home pretty late after Shadowfist at Valhalla's so I figured they might be delayed (this is the phone company, after all). On Friday I called my number from work and got persistent ringing. Perhaps I failed to activate the answering machine functionality of my phone, I figured. Back at home that evening, I still couldn't get a dial tone. Thinking it might be a phone issue, I tried with my modems in the other jack. No dial tone there either.
And then I discovered the Fundamental Phone Service Dilemma (FPSD): How do you call the phone company to tell them your phone doesn't work?
After a neighborhood-exploratory walk and hike to take a look at Golden in the daylight, I headed off to the 9 & ¾ meeting and finally to the Colcannon St. Patrick's Day concert, where I was offered a futon and learned that the potato is the buffalo of Ireland. They use all the parts. I stayed at my folks' house that night, but thought Qwest customer support didn't operate on Sunday, so I figured I'd sort it out during the week.
Calling from work on Monday the 15th I was informed that the service wasn't due to be activated until March 22nd. Falling were my hopes that telecom deregulation and Qwest's Spirit of Service meant it wasn't just old Ma Bell in a new bright blue dress. But okay, the guy I ordered from said there might be some issues, since the building already had service. I'd been building a list of phone calls I needed to make (e.g. Indra's Net re: DSL), but was putting off until I could call from home. Putting off making phone calls is a skill at which I am especially experienced, so this wasn't a big problem.
The project I'm working on had a deadline for handoff to marketing on Tuesday, March 23rd and required continued hard work to fine tune data for the demo. So even though I still didn't have a dial tone, I didn't have time to swim through the Qwest customer service maze until Thursday. Not that it mattered; working from 8am to 10pm means a home phone is mostly useless.
So on Thursday, March 25 I explained my lack of a dial tone and was connected with a technician. She said her computer showed that service was working up to the building, but they would send somebody out the next day to check on things. The next evening came and I still didn't have a dial tone.
On Saturday morning, I spoke with a friendly woman with a Texas accent who, when I explained my problem, said "So what you're saying is you ain't got bupkiss." Accurate enough. She connected me with Roxy, a technician, who said there was a note that a service professional had gone out and inspected the connection to the building and found it satisfactory, but no one was home (duh, I was at work). I assured her that I had no dial tone. She informed me they could send someone to check the status of my jacks, but I would have to be home for a four-hour window. There were openings on Sunday morning afternoon, but I had a meeting, so declined to make an appointment, hoping to work from home for a portion of a day during the week.
The beginning of the week wasn't a good time to work from home without a phone. And since I had plans for all my evenings, I didn't need a phone until Saturday, so I agreed to be home from 8 to noon this morning.
Round about quarter to one I was saying "Four hour window my ass!" and wondering how helpful it would be to walk down to the pay phone at 7-11 and complain about how Qwest's Spirit of Service needed more service and fewer evil spirits. Just then a middle-aged man with a Mexican accent, a shiny metal tooth, leathery skin, and a belt full of tools rang my doorbell. After asking me to plug a small device into my phone jack, he was soon up a ladder prodding at various wires inside the box on the side of my building. "Ah, here's the problem. It's not connected at all." After clipping and plugging wires there, he drove around to the alley, climbed the telephone pole, and connected my line in that box. He then drove off and connected my line in the metal kiosk a few blocks away and returned for his device. I told him it had a green light, which he said meant it was working. I invited him in to look at it; he asked for plastic bags to wrap around his muddy boots. Conveniently, I have a genetic defect which causes me to save bags from any shopping I undertake, so he trooped in resplendent in politeness. He said I should be all set; I picked up my phone and was greatly comforted by a dial tone. I called my parents' house; never before have I been so comforted by the lady saying "The line is busy. For only seventy-five cents..." He was about to leave, but I said we should probably check the jack in my bedroom, just in case. I plugged my modem in and still had no dial tone. Riiiight. Remember what I said about LineBacker in the opening paragraph? This is where it enters the story, providing me about an hour of repair service for less than $15 (I figure I'll cancel after three months).
Ernesto determined:
After we moved the fridge most of the way back I thanked Ernesto profusely and plugged everything back in on my computer desk. Somehow fixing the phone jack changed the properties of space in my room. My desk had been at a diagonal to the walls since it was too long to fit between my dresser and the wall. But now it will fit flush. My USB cable also now seems to reach further, allowing a better position for my printer.
I have since spent the rest of the day online, catching up on some of the parts of cyberspace that I don't get to at work. (Hopefully, this means more frequent journal entries from your favorite Jesus look-a-like.) This was particularly well timed, as it allowed me to listen to the biannual pledge drive Grateful Dead Special on KGNU, a station whose signal is sadly unavailable in most of the Denver area. For the record, my 56k modem couldn't keep up with the mp3 stream, but I haven't had any problems with Real Audio.
For the last several months, Qwest's "Spirit of Service" ads have been all over television. These absurdist works feature people getting overly excited about receiving their phone bill, hoping a telephone ringing during dinner might be the phone company, and making a platter of hors d'oeuvres and a kiss for the service guy. While I'm not looking forward to receiving my bill, nor the ensuing argument about why I shouldn't pay for several weeks of service that wasn't provided, Ernesto absolutely made my day. His spirit was strong and his service was excellent. This priest of the Blue Temple successfully exorcised the teledemons and made me one happy camper.
It is now 3:40am on Spring Forward Day, one of my favorite artificial holidays, and I'm scheduled to play TITAN at noon in Boulder with a meeting with my parents before hand to sort out my taxes. (Beware the Ides of April!) So it looks like I'll be getting a little more than five hours of sleep. But what's a Dead special without a late night?
If you'd like my phone number, post a comment and I'll email you. Email, of course, will remain the best way of getting in touch with me, especially during non-absurd hours.
On March 10th I bought a cordless phone at Office Max and plugged it in, on the off chance Qwest had hooked things up early. Not surprisingly, I got no dial tone, but I figured that would allow the battery 12 hours to charge. It's not like I'm a huge fan of the phone, so I wasn't anxious to call anyone.
On Thursday evening, I picked up my phone and still had no dialtone. I got home pretty late after Shadowfist at Valhalla's so I figured they might be delayed (this is the phone company, after all). On Friday I called my number from work and got persistent ringing. Perhaps I failed to activate the answering machine functionality of my phone, I figured. Back at home that evening, I still couldn't get a dial tone. Thinking it might be a phone issue, I tried with my modems in the other jack. No dial tone there either.
And then I discovered the Fundamental Phone Service Dilemma (FPSD): How do you call the phone company to tell them your phone doesn't work?
After a neighborhood-exploratory walk and hike to take a look at Golden in the daylight, I headed off to the 9 & ¾ meeting and finally to the Colcannon St. Patrick's Day concert, where I was offered a futon and learned that the potato is the buffalo of Ireland. They use all the parts. I stayed at my folks' house that night, but thought Qwest customer support didn't operate on Sunday, so I figured I'd sort it out during the week.
Calling from work on Monday the 15th I was informed that the service wasn't due to be activated until March 22nd. Falling were my hopes that telecom deregulation and Qwest's Spirit of Service meant it wasn't just old Ma Bell in a new bright blue dress. But okay, the guy I ordered from said there might be some issues, since the building already had service. I'd been building a list of phone calls I needed to make (e.g. Indra's Net re: DSL), but was putting off until I could call from home. Putting off making phone calls is a skill at which I am especially experienced, so this wasn't a big problem.
The project I'm working on had a deadline for handoff to marketing on Tuesday, March 23rd and required continued hard work to fine tune data for the demo. So even though I still didn't have a dial tone, I didn't have time to swim through the Qwest customer service maze until Thursday. Not that it mattered; working from 8am to 10pm means a home phone is mostly useless.
So on Thursday, March 25 I explained my lack of a dial tone and was connected with a technician. She said her computer showed that service was working up to the building, but they would send somebody out the next day to check on things. The next evening came and I still didn't have a dial tone.
On Saturday morning, I spoke with a friendly woman with a Texas accent who, when I explained my problem, said "So what you're saying is you ain't got bupkiss." Accurate enough. She connected me with Roxy, a technician, who said there was a note that a service professional had gone out and inspected the connection to the building and found it satisfactory, but no one was home (duh, I was at work). I assured her that I had no dial tone. She informed me they could send someone to check the status of my jacks, but I would have to be home for a four-hour window. There were openings on Sunday morning afternoon, but I had a meeting, so declined to make an appointment, hoping to work from home for a portion of a day during the week.
The beginning of the week wasn't a good time to work from home without a phone. And since I had plans for all my evenings, I didn't need a phone until Saturday, so I agreed to be home from 8 to noon this morning.
Round about quarter to one I was saying "Four hour window my ass!" and wondering how helpful it would be to walk down to the pay phone at 7-11 and complain about how Qwest's Spirit of Service needed more service and fewer evil spirits. Just then a middle-aged man with a Mexican accent, a shiny metal tooth, leathery skin, and a belt full of tools rang my doorbell. After asking me to plug a small device into my phone jack, he was soon up a ladder prodding at various wires inside the box on the side of my building. "Ah, here's the problem. It's not connected at all." After clipping and plugging wires there, he drove around to the alley, climbed the telephone pole, and connected my line in that box. He then drove off and connected my line in the metal kiosk a few blocks away and returned for his device. I told him it had a green light, which he said meant it was working. I invited him in to look at it; he asked for plastic bags to wrap around his muddy boots. Conveniently, I have a genetic defect which causes me to save bags from any shopping I undertake, so he trooped in resplendent in politeness. He said I should be all set; I picked up my phone and was greatly comforted by a dial tone. I called my parents' house; never before have I been so comforted by the lady saying "The line is busy. For only seventy-five cents..." He was about to leave, but I said we should probably check the jack in my bedroom, just in case. I plugged my modem in and still had no dial tone. Riiiight. Remember what I said about LineBacker in the opening paragraph? This is where it enters the story, providing me about an hour of repair service for less than $15 (I figure I'll cancel after three months).
Ernesto determined:
- Someone did improper work on my phone jacks.
- The jack in my kitchen leads to another jack behind the fridge.
- The fridge had to move so he could rewire that jack.
- The wires were crossed in the jack in my room.
- The jack in my room wouldn't work; it had a bent pin.
After we moved the fridge most of the way back I thanked Ernesto profusely and plugged everything back in on my computer desk. Somehow fixing the phone jack changed the properties of space in my room. My desk had been at a diagonal to the walls since it was too long to fit between my dresser and the wall. But now it will fit flush. My USB cable also now seems to reach further, allowing a better position for my printer.
I have since spent the rest of the day online, catching up on some of the parts of cyberspace that I don't get to at work. (Hopefully, this means more frequent journal entries from your favorite Jesus look-a-like.) This was particularly well timed, as it allowed me to listen to the biannual pledge drive Grateful Dead Special on KGNU, a station whose signal is sadly unavailable in most of the Denver area. For the record, my 56k modem couldn't keep up with the mp3 stream, but I haven't had any problems with Real Audio.
Epilogue
For the last several months, Qwest's "Spirit of Service" ads have been all over television. These absurdist works feature people getting overly excited about receiving their phone bill, hoping a telephone ringing during dinner might be the phone company, and making a platter of hors d'oeuvres and a kiss for the service guy. While I'm not looking forward to receiving my bill, nor the ensuing argument about why I shouldn't pay for several weeks of service that wasn't provided, Ernesto absolutely made my day. His spirit was strong and his service was excellent. This priest of the Blue Temple successfully exorcised the teledemons and made me one happy camper.
It is now 3:40am on Spring Forward Day, one of my favorite artificial holidays, and I'm scheduled to play TITAN at noon in Boulder with a meeting with my parents before hand to sort out my taxes. (Beware the Ides of April!) So it looks like I'll be getting a little more than five hours of sleep. But what's a Dead special without a late night?
If you'd like my phone number, post a comment and I'll email you. Email, of course, will remain the best way of getting in touch with me, especially during non-absurd hours.
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Date: 2004-04-04 06:13 am (UTC)