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She Said, Z Said: In Verizon vs. Cox, We All Lose Patience
Z: I had the greatest idea in the universe last month.
She: Chocolate-covered chocolate with chocolate sprinkles?
Z: I was sick and tired of paying $150 a month for our Cox cable, Internet and phone service, so I found a Verizon/DirecTV deal for $95 a month – plus a free Netbook!
She: Why the exclamation point? Do you get a commission?
Z: Not after my experience. It turns out that saving $50 a month can be very expensive, when you factor in the Excedrin, Zantac, Xanax, and the plaster and paint needed to repair fist- and head-sized holes in the wall. Cost of entry is brutal.
She: New phone, TV and Internet services? What could possibly go wrong?
Z: The shocker to me is that DirecTV turned out not to be the problem.
She: I liked my installer guy, even if he did take four hours to do it. It’s not like I needed that Friday anyhow.
Z: I should have known we were in trouble when I got six identical e-mails on the day our service was supposed to have started, all saying that our service had started.
She: Especially since — shockerooni — our service hadn’t started.
Z: So I called, and they said a technician would be out before 5 o’clock that day, to do something outside the house.
She: No technician.
Z: So I called the next day, and they said a technician would be out before 5 o’clock.
She: No technician.
Z: So I called the next day, and waited on hold for over a half-hour. No, really. They didn’t have any technicians available to not show up that day, so they scheduled him to not show up the next day.
She: Then he went and disappointed us, and showed up.
Z: But he didn’t know what to do. “Uh ... I’m a line guy, not an install guy. You need an install guy.”
She: If you had taken my idea, and invented something chocolate, you wouldn’t have had any of these problems.
Z: So I called again, and got another appointment, only this time we needed to be home for it. They said the guy would be there between 8 and 5. I laughed, thinking they were joking. They didn’t get it.
She: I always thought, “We’ll be there between 8 and 5” was a punch line to a bad service joke.
Z: Apparently, there is no irony in telephony.
She: Given that the technician didn’t show up, I think there might be.
Z: That last technician not showing up after we were home all day was the final straw. I did what any angry white male would do in this situation, and wrote a scathing e-mail. And — I’m not ashamed to say it — I came this close to blogging about it.
She: You’re so manly. Be still my heart.
Z: Surprisingly, it worked. The very next morning, the area manager called, apologizing profusely. Within an hour after that, a comically obsequious technician was at our door, and an hour later, we had phone service.
She: It seems like you found the right e-mail address.
Z: My favorite part of the e-mail was after my name, I put our phone number, and then in parentheses, “Not that you can reach me here.”
She: That makes me hot.
Z: I am a hunter gatherer.
She: Do you want to share how you spent the entire weekend trying to set up our new wireless router? Whatever that is?
Z: Sigh. Fine. I’ll be over here, working on a way to deep-fry chocolate.
She: Yes, dear.
— When Leslie wasn’t waiting for the Verizon guy to make the phones work, she was actually — shocker to anyone who has ever tasted her “cooking” — developing new recipes. Seriously, she is a finalist in the YMCA’s Campaign for Youth Soup Contest fundraiser. The taste-off is 6 p.m. Monday at State & A Bar and Grill, 1201 State St. For a $15 donation, you’ll have the opportunity to taste the final soup recipes and help out a great cause. Then you can complain about the soup to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Comments
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» on 03.02.10 @ 11:41 AM
I too have had major problems with phone service in santa Barbara. You would think that having competition would improve service, not make it even more complicated and even worse!
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