Chapter 2 The Repair (Wo)man

 

It’s 98 degrees here in Winston-Salem, NC, which doesn’t make waiting any easier. And you will remember the repair man is scheduled to come between 1 and 5. How could you forget?

 

Did I mention that Time Warner Business Class guarantees a four hour response time. But that’s when your internet is down, which ours isn’t at this instant. I do know that intermittent problems are very difficult to solve. So I wonder, “Is Time Warner sending it’s best repair man?”

 

So many thoughts—and the longer I wait the cheekier I become. But we writer-types are easily amused. “May the ilk of human kindness drip from my hot lips,” I silently pray.

 

At 3:44 we get the call: The repair man is on his way.

 

Just before 3:50 Darlene shows up. Ah, a repair (wo)man. I tell her the problem’s intermittent and that it’ll take the best to fix it. When I ask if she’s the best, she doesn’t answer.

 

Darlene was very nice and seemed to know what she was doing. She took readings inside then changed the exterior hardware—at the house and on the pole—including connectors. She explained that they appeared to have moisture in them, which could have responsible for our loosing connectivity.

 

When she came back inside, she said the reading went from 0 to 9. I don’t know what units she was measuring, but she said ours was now at the maximum, where it should be.

 

Then we asked about bandwidth.

 

Now Darlene is a patient woman. She has to be. She was on the phone on various calls for over an hour. And Time Warner Cable is rude to its repair technicians. They cannot get a direct connection to any person at the “office.” No, they, too, must listen to “Hello, please listen carefully because our options have changed.” She pushes one: Technical support. Then another voice says, “please listen carefully because our options have changed.” This time the right answer is four. She pushes four and listens to music. It may or may not be the kind of music she likes. She doesn’t say.

 

Darlene is polite but she thrums her foot. She stayed past quitting time without any ugliness. She asked questions—lots and lots of questions. But we do not have the bandwidth we are paying for.

 

Darlene left at 5:10 pm. And if we loose our connection at any time this evening, we will start over at chapter one.

 

 

 

Chapter 3 The Phone Call To Dick, What We’re Paying For, and Perhaps, The Modem Has Problem

 

Bill calls Sales in Greensboro, hoping to find out what Darlene can’t—what’s clearly stated in an e-mail dated September 26, 2006.

 

The woman who wrote the e-mail, and who solved a similar problem just less than a year ago, no longer works for Time Warner—imagine that!—but Dick, to whom Bill’s spoken before, does. And Dick has access to records that Darlene doesn’t. Seems they keep records in two places, and if you don’t have “the need to know,” you never will. Or maybe, even if do need to know, you won’t.

 

Seems also that the contract that we had ran out in July—that the bandwidth we’d been getting no longer exists. Ah, but we are grandfathered in—to something. We are somehow special. And for a $10.00 a month increase, we can be have more bandwidth than we did before. We agree, and Dick performs his magic. We are happy.

 

Only the magic doesn’t take. We have less bandwidth than the former, now non-existent class into which we now cannot be. (Yes, that’s passive voice. In times like these, a bit of passivity, is a good thing. So is a bit of humor.) Bill calls Dick again, checks a web site, then calls Dick again.

 

Dick says, “Maybe the modem’s bad. Did they change the modem?”

 

“No, “ says Bill.

 

So it’s chapter one again, only this time Bill does the calling. Bill talks to Annie. Annie is nice. Dick has revealed to Bill the words that inspire Tech Support to action, and Bill uses those very words.

Oh, I forgot to tell you about the recordings and Bill pushing one and then four, but you will remember that quite easily. (But did I tell you, just as an aside, that Sales has ads rather than music, when they put you on hold?)

 

A technician will come sometime between 8 am and noon tomorrow.

to be continued in the morning . . .