“Mr. Kenefick?  I have discovered that there is definitely a problem.  The soonest we can send a tech out is December 6th.”
“The soonest you can send a tech to fix internet service for Hamden is December 6th?”
“Yes.”
“You aren’t making an appointment for me personally, this is for a tech to fix the problem at the Hamden office?”
“That’s right.”
“You can’t get someone who works for your company in Hamden to go to the Hamden office and fix a problem with the Hamden node for eight days?  Are the phones broken?  All I want is to talk to someone who can take a look at the Hamden node and see if traffic is being choked off by a dying router or a bad line.”
“Sir, it seems to be something with a fiber optic line, but all we can do is give you the date we have here.”
“That seems VERY unreasonable.  If you were a customer, would eight days of no service be acceptable to you?”
(10-12 seconds of silence)
“I don’t have to answer that sir.”
“And I know why you won’t, ma’am.  OK, so to recap: you found an issue with my local office and you’re saying that no one will fix it before December 6th?”
“You could try to speak to local dispatch about it, this is all we can do at the national center.”
“How do I speak to local dispatch?”
Call back, hit 1 for cable TV service and they’ll connect you.”
“OK, I’ll do that.  Thank you...bye.”
“Thank you for choosing Comcast.”

(dialing)

“Hello and thank you for calling Comcast.  You have an appointment scheduled for December 6th.  If you need to rescdule, press one.  To cancel this appointment, press 2.”
Are you fucking kidding me?  I have an appointment?  What the hell is wrong with these people?
(I press 0)
“Please verify the last 4 digits of your home telephone number”
(I press 1)
“For cable television, press 1.  For high-speed...”
(I press 1)
“Your call is being transferred”
(muzak)
Thank you for calling Comcast, my name is Marjorie...”
(We do the “verify your account” dance)
“I hope you can help me, marjorie.  Here’s a weird one for you...)
(I explain the whole thing, with times the service slowed down, packet response times, traceroute results, the light cycle codes, “Tequila’s” bungling of the call just minutes earlier)
“Mr. Kenefick I’m so sorry.  Let me see if I can speak to someone who might be able to help and I’ll be right back.  If we get disconnected I promise I’ll call you right back.”
“OK.”
(muzak)
“Mr. Kenefick?”
“Yes?”
“Hi, sorry for the wait...I finally got someone who new what he was talking about...Ispoke to Dennis, and he said you need to clear out your browser.”
(I let out an enormous sigh of frustration)
“Marjorie, if that’s the answer Dennis gave you...I’m sorry but he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  There is a problen at my local node, and I just want to talk to someone who is sitting in a building in Hamden where internet traffic gets routed to the net at large.  Can you perhaps connect me to Dennis?  Maybe if I explain this to him...”
“I’m sorry all I can do is connect you to our High-Speed Internet division.”
“Marjorie, I’m literally one bad answer from cancelling my service.  Why can’t I speak to some technician who actually works in my zip code?”
“The technicians are all in the field.”
“No, I mean an IT tech.  Someone who sits at the local branch and runs the machines.  There has to be a person who sits at the local office and...Oh nevermind.”
“Sir, I realize this is frustrating, but if you clear your browser...wait, do you have a router?  You mentioned that before.”
“OK, now I’m going to lose my temper, Marjorie.  I mentioned YOUR routers.  The ones that take traffic in here locally and bring the internet into the comcast.net network and distribute it to the customers.”
“Well, it could be your router.”
“How could a problem with my router explain why it takes 15 minutes for the local office to assign my modem an IP number? The light cycle codes, remember?  Besides, I unplugged the router and plugged the modem directly into my computer.  It cannot be my router.”
“Oh.  Well, I don’t know what to say, Dennis says there’s no problem.”
“Well, not that I trust her as far as I can throw her, but Tequila told me there was a bad fiber line in Hamden.”
“I don’t know anything about that, I’m sorry.”
“Marjorie, I think Dennis lied to you when he said there are no problems.  I think that this company has decent cable service but horrible customer service and you probably aren’t going to be overcharging me for “professional grade” service much longer.  I’ll wait to see if this clears up on its own...if it does, and I didn’t have to...what did Dennis say?  “Clear out my browser?” If I do nothing and the service starts working again, can you make Dennis call me an apologize for wasting my time?”
“I wish I could sir.”
“Well...thanks anyway.  I know this wasn’t your fault, I apologize if I was a jerk to you.”
“Oh not at all, I know how frustrating these things can be.”
“You have no idea.  It sucks when you know what the problem is and no one will listen to you or tell you the truth.”
“Again, I’m sorry Mr. Kenefick.”
“Me too, Marjorie.  Have a good day.”

(dialing)

“Welcome to the new AT&T, formerly known as SBC.  How can I help you?”
“Can I get DSL at my address, and do you have customer self-install kits?”
“You can and we do...would you like to sign up?”
“Yes I would, ma’am.  Yes I would.”

Let me say this plainly...FUCK COMCAST.  COMCAST SUCKS.

The punchline?  20 minutes after this post was written...service was back at full speed.  I didn’t do a damn thing.  I didn’t even restart the modem.

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