Yesterday was 8 March 2007, the day where the phone company and the satellite dish company were scheduled to come out for repairs between 8-5.
I took a day off of work for this. That means a day that I could have been out relaxing, or spending time with my family was wasting on waiting for repair people. How much is that time worth to me? A lot of money if you use my billable rate from my work.
So, we'll start with the phone company. You may recall from my last post that we couldn't get a repair appointment for two weeks. I had them forward my home phone to my cell phone because my phone was dead... and they forwarded it to a car dealership. I got that resolved, confirmed my 8 March 2007 appointment (you have to confirm day, month, year with these people... don't let them tell you "friday" because to them, that could be any friday from now until 2010), and told them that although my phone worked better now, even with the annoyingly loud hum in the background, chances are that at any moment it would stop working.
The appointment was for between 8-12. In my last post I mentioned that fact that hell would freeze over if they actually showed up between those times, and as you guessed, there was no need to bundle up and start a fire... they didn't show.
At 5:20pm when I called them, they said "oh, your appointment is for 9 March 2007". No, no it wasn't. She looked again and said "oh, I'm sorry, yes, your appointment was for today, but we couldn't make it out there." That's all she said. She didn't say why nobody called us to say they couldn't come out after we scheduled this two weeks in advance. She didn't say IF anyone was going to call us to reschedule. She didn't say why as a PHONE COMPANY they couldn't CALL me to let me know so I could go back to work and not blow 8 hours of vacation time.
She then says "we can come out tomorrow... is that good for you?" NOOO. "oh, what time tomorrow would be good for you". I tell her 5pm. She says that she'll make our appointment from 3-7, but tell them to be there at 5pm... so you know how that's going to work out.
Next I call the Satellite Dish company. Oh, your appointment is for the 9th. No, it was today. She looks. Oh, yes, we have the appointment for today, but the local repair company has it for the 9th. Hmmm. Yeah, that's a head scratcher. She apologized and asked when it would be convenient for the repair person to come. I tell her Saturday between 8-12. Ok, she makes the appointment. Three hours later, we get a recorded appointment reminder of our Friday 9 March appointment. NOOOOO. We call and correct that.
So, at 8:15am, when I get a call from the repairman who is on his way.....
He calls his dispatcher and calls me back and says they changed it to Saturday between 8-12. I try to call the dsatellite dish corporate office to make SURE they had the appointment right... except now my phone doesn't work. I call on my cell... that disconnects. Luckily we have a business line, which still sorta works except it has static and a hum, and I manage to call them and confirm for the 50th time...
This afternoon I get the automated call from the satellite dish company saying that the installer will be at the house between 8-12, and I need to pull out the entertainment center to make sure he can install the components. Sigh... won't he be surprised.
By the way, its now 6:17pm and no phone company.
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