A Quiet Day

It’s quiet around here this morning*.  No phones ringing from unwanted unidentified callers, no WiFi internet connection, no Cable TV.  None of the noise that we take for granted – SiriusXM music on the PC, no news, no Judge Judy, no fear-mongering about weather.  

FIOS is down.

We were able to call the Verizon Customer Service number on my wife’s I-phone.  A computer-generated woman’s voice wanted to have a dialog with me, but kept saying “I did not understand what you said.”  I guess we are in one of those near “dead” zones that Verizon never mentions in their TV ads when they are showing robust coverage to mobile phones in this area.  

We managed to get though the sequence of steps required to test the line.  Verizon assures me that their network is up and running, so the problem is with me.

I have performed all the tests and steps that the homeowner can do.  I have rebooted set-top boxes, reset the Wi-Fi router, unplugged and re-plugged the phone system.  

Nada, nada, nada.

The customer service line at Verizon is worse than a root canal.  You have to engage in an otherworldly dialog with the computer pretending to be a real woman.   "For security purposes" it asks you information that you cannot know unless you have your last month’s bill in hand.   I believe this is a stalling technique to make you get off the line and call back later, starting the whole process again.  It does not give you any alternative to answering the impossible questions "What is the three digit number on your phone bill?"  (since everyone knows they have to have their bill in hand to make this customer service call).  

Instead of hanging-up to go search through my bill drawer, I recalled the advice of a friend who, whenever she is confronted by an automated voice system, says “Agent!”  When I did this, the system responded with a clatter of beeps and boops>  Then I got the “We are experiencing a heavy volume of calls, all of our agents are busy with other customers, your call will be answered yadda yadda yadda. " 

Finally, after a 20 minute wait on hold (subjected to the worst quality of recorded noise/music ever heard by humans**) I got to talk to a live person.  She assured me that the problem was not with the Verizon Network (so why are you having a heavy volume of calls at 8am???) 

After making me check that everything is plugged-in, she finally agreed to send a technician sometime between now and Easter***.  I really didn’t have any choice but to hang-out here all day waiting. We've already been quiet here since about 8 PM last night.  

BTW, I missed the much anticipated season premiere of “Fargo” on F/X; since the DVR  didn’t work either!

My theory is that there are only two employees at Verizon; one answers the phones and the other does service calls.  This is the only explanation I can think of for the inordinate wait times.

=====   

The Tech arrived at 3pm.  He seemed to know what he was doing.  He determined that a power surge had fried the humma humma board.  He replaced the board, used my bathroom and then left for the next gig.

Voila, we were back on-line.  

In retrospect, we agreed that it was actually not so painful to be un-connected for a few hours.  We did not miss any news: There is still a missing airplane somewhere in the Ocean, there was a bombing last year at the Boston Marathon, they still have not found a cure for psoriasis.  I got a lot of paperwork filed away, backed-up my PC, did laundry, started writing my memoir (working title: “What I learned about Semicolons.”)

Last night, they repeated “Fargo” on F/X, so today, I do not have much to complain about. 

Have a nice day. 

Footnotes

* This was actually written yesterday, but could not be posted until I got my Internet connection back.

**Music sounds choppy when mobile signal strength is low.

*** OK, actually she said “sometime between now and 9pm.”

Verizon is Not Totally Dysfunctional

I acknowledge that most most of my previous posts about Verizon have been to complain. In the interests of fairness I need to mention that there is one thing Verizon does that is pretty good.  If you need to upgrade your FIOS set top box, they are amazing.  A few months ago, we decided to upgrade our hi-def box to a DVR.  I went online, and despite their clunky website, I was able to order a DVR box.  They said it might take two weeks for the new unit to arrive.

Installs like butter

Surprise, it came two days later.  I followed the simple instructions to hook it up and voila it worked! It took less than ten minutes. Smooth, like butter!  The old unit goes into the same shipping box for return.  They give you a return shipping label.  You take it down to the UPS store, ans as you place the box on the counter you wonder if it is going to be  hassle, but the guy says "Ok you're done. I do a hundred of these a week. Have a nice day."

Kudos to the person(s) who designed that process.    The DVR works very well too, especially now that we can fast-forward through all the comercials.  Now, we can record a half hour show and watch it later in 15 minutes.  I like that.  The DVR interface is a bit clunky, but like using your GPS or Cell Phone messaging,  you eventually get the hang of it.

Last week I replaced the 15 year old GE 25" TV with a new Panasonic 32" flat screen.  (Costco, $319 tax free).  It was time to replace the old Low-Def set top box.  I went online, muddled my way through their clunky interface, and finally managed to order the upgrade.  Two days later the new box arrived.  This time the set-up took twenty minutes because I had to use what they call manual activation, meaning I entered a code that they had sent me and then  waited twenty minutes while the main office programmed the box remotely.  No hassle on my part.  Today I will take the old box back to the UPS store.  Mission Accomplished!

So there you have it.  Verizon is not Totally dysfunctional after all.  So never let it be said that I am not fair and balanced, (even though I think their website is clunky :-)

Verizon vs Customers

The thing you need to know about Verizon is that it is not a big company, rather a bunch of smaller quasi-integrated companies.  I say quasi-integrated because they do not seem to talk to each other.  It is almost like a governmental agency in that it is difficult to communicate with and often dysfunctional.  Verizon's three main arms Phone, Internet and TV pretend to be a single company, but any time you need to do something you bump into the reality that they are islands with very flimsy bridges between them.  The website is maddeningly slow and unintuitive.  Go ahead and try to get your cellphone pictures downoaded to your PC -- you will see what I mean. 

Hmm, you say, A communications company that does not know how to communicate with its customers?  How can this be?  As an analogy, just think of the federal/state government.  They are always talking about "what the people want,"  but in fact the pols and their minions  that work in those organizations have little concern for their constuituents except during an election year.  They see the continuence their office as the raison d'etre of their activities, at the expense of ethical concerns for public needs.  This is how companies behave when they have a virtual captive market. 

I am not taking sides in the current labor dispute between the union and the company's management.  I hate both sides.  I hate the management because they have the clunkiest, least customer-friendly internet presence of any company I have the misfortune to deal with.  If you call them for help there are no human beings in any process that takes less than 30 minutes.  If you stay on the line and work your way through a bewildering array of autmated attendant menues you can finally talk to a person.  Who has the time or patience for that!
Why can't they get some decent web designers in to fix their unusable 1990's designed web pages?

I hate the union too, because they are willing to throw the innocent customers like you and me under the bus because they cannot settle the contract with management.  They are willing  to hold you and me  hostage to their demands for heavily subsidized health care, job protection for incompetent union members, and other benefits.  Why should we -- who pay our own health care costs and have no benefits - be sympathetic with a bunch of pampered union members, looking for more free stuff? 

Strike?  If I were Emperor, I would just find some people who wanted those jobs at the current wages and benefits.  I think there are a lot of them.

So a pox on all of them. 

Notes from the lagging edge - 1

Last week, we learned the answer to the question, "What happens if your cellphone becomes immersed in water?" If you have not already experimented on your own, you might want to review the following potential results:

A. Nothing happens, cellphones are designed to be waterproof.
B. The cell phone still works, but it sounds like you are calling from an aquarium.
C. The cell phone still works, but you lose your contacts list.
D. All Cell phone functionality ceases, Il est mort. (if you'll pardon my French)

The correct answer is, of course, D.

...because the geniuses who design mobile technology apparently do not have access to indoor plumbing, they don't go on boats, and don't carry bottles of water around in their purse that might leak and cause the cell phone to become drenched.

Now, if you or I were designing a device that was small and portable, we would make it waterproof, because we know that human beings often drop things, and gravity sometimes makes things fall into inconvenient places. We understand that a device that is small enough to fit in a pocket, will someday go through the laundry.

That's the practical approach. But if you are really smart, you don't waterproof the device, because you know that you can easily sell a new phone to the forgetful, irresponsible, hapless wet-phone loser.

Anyhow, one of our phones got wet last week. It was time to upgrade anyway. Both of our bare bones Coupe 8630's were at least 3 years old. Ancient by today's standards of functionality. Heck, they were primitive when they were new: no camera, very limited graphic processing, mundane ringtone options. The dry phone had started "pocket dialing" phone numbers on the contacts list at random.

So we reluctantly decided it was time to go down to the Verizon Wireless store to get the screwjob over with.

[As mentioned previously, I am a prisoner/customer of a loose federation of businesses that call themselves Verizon. Once you get hooked into FIOS (TV, Internet, Land phone), you might as well get their wireless service too. This way you get one big, consolidated incomprehensible bill each month, instead of several unconsolidated incomprehensible bills.]

They upgraded both of our old low tech phones to the new low-end model. It's an LG Accolade. One of the reasons I chose it was the review that said this model "...isn't the best camera phone, but it succeeds where a cell phone should." As far as I am concerned, my phone is for outgoing calls. I never turn my phone "on" unless I need to call for take-out Chinese or pizza from the car.

Go ahead and try to call me, you will get my voice mail encouraging you to leave a message on my land line. I do not text or take pictures. I have email and a blog (!) if I want to type some words, and I have a Canon digital camera if I need to take a photo.


What is the deal with ringtones anyhow? Why would you want to disturb everyone at the bar with your dumbass favorite song that everyone knows you paid extra for and of course you are very slow to drag out the phone because you want everyone within earshot to know how cool you are, but they are thinking answer the phone you moron and shut off that lame Yanni ringtone.

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