Mood:
irritatedTopic: ramblings
Ok so I get off of work at 5pm last night and bust ass to get home ASAP in case "Rob from Qwest" is there waiting for me. He's not, so I sneak in the apt and start cleaning whatever I can to make the place look decent (yes...I do have a problem lol).
Anyway, Rob comes by at about 5:15pm. I open the door and jokingly forewarn him about not having the cleanest apartment. He doesn't say a thing, just walks in, puts his equipment down on my futon and turns to look at the television. I just so happened to have "Fear Factor" on tv and he paused for 4 or 5 seconds to watch it. I know it's not a big deal, it's just strange that this man enters my apt, doesn't say a damn thing, and gets mentally sucked into a tv show. Don't worry, the strangeness continues...
He asks me "is anything else plugged in?" I assumed he was referring to electrical stuff because he had to do something that either involved pulling some plugs or potentially blowing a fuse or something. I start to mention the surge protector that the computer is plugged into and then turn to the tv to mention all the electrical stuff plugged in there...
"No, I mean like a telephone..."
"Oh," I said, "yeah I have a telephone right over here." I then pointed over at my telephone.
He then asked if my phone line was connected directly from the wall to the computer, and I informed him that my phone line actually was rewired through my surge protector (that way, if an electrical surge hits, it doesn't blow the DSL box that I don't own). He informs me that he has "never seen a DSL connection work after being filtered through a surge protector." Well, mine worked just fine for over 3 months, and I told him that. Doesn't sound like he believed me. So he unplugged it from the surge protector and started testing the phone line.
Long story short, we checked the wiring to see if it was bad, then we checked the wall connection to see if it was bad. The original wall phone outlet I had used successfully for 3 months aparently was not getting a dial tone anymore (maybe once or twice did I have a slight connection problem to the internet...99.9% of the time tho it worked fine). He then tested the outlet that my phone has also been working just fine for 3+ months...you could hear (through his equipment/instruments) a dial tone that had hissing/interference on the line. So, apparently I've gotten DSL from an outlet that doesn't have a dial tone, and have been using my home phone on a line with a bunch of static. Yet, before Rob showed up (and two days before that) I never had any trouble with DSL or my phone. At this point I asked "well maybe we should try connecting my DSL box to the line with static that my phone used to be plugged into. "No that wouldn't work," he said confidently. "You're lucky you can even make a phone call with that line."
He mentioned to me a couple of times how he would "have to get back there and look at it." "Back there" meaning getting to the phone outlet that is kinda hiding behind an end table, lamp and whatnot. So I offered to move the table if he needed to "get back there" as he claimed.
"Well, I'll have to charge you," he said. After a few questions such as "why would you guys charge me just so I can get DSL connection back?" he mentions that the charge would be $100! $100 just so I can continue to spend nearly $70/month for my phone and DSL?! That's ridiculous!
I told Rob what I thought of this and he kept claiming Qwest would go out of business if they gave away stuff like that for free. He claimed that their computers show that the DSL is "working fine" up until it reaches the box outside, and that it is something inside the apt that is causing the static/bad line.
I figured that Qwest must have the following philosophy:
If something causes a main phone line to go out (affecting multiple customers) Qwest will fix it for free (or sneak it into the phone bill as hidden fees perhaps?). This way, they don't lose a chunk of business.
If, however, it only affects one customer (such as my case, where only my apt appears to have been affected) they will make the resident pay for it. If the resident doesn't pay for it, they will only lose that one customer instead of a chunk.
It's too bad that the execs at Qwest don't know simple business concepts: let's assume it takes Rob an entire hour to fix the problem (I doubt it would even take that long) and he's paid $20/hr (I would hope they don't even pay him that much). Qwest would then be out $20 for labor. Hell, we'll even through in another $20 for the very slight depreciation of his equipment and perhaps new wiring for the apt. So, Qwest is out $40 now. What do they get in return? Well they get to keep me as a customer for one. My happiness wouldn't be measurable monetarily, but my business would be. Every month they would get $60 - $70 from me that they otherwise would lose. In ONE month they would have made back what Rob fixed. Even if it truly costs them $100 (assuming they only charge me exactly what it costs them) then by month TWO I would have paid them back. Each additional month is now profit for them.
Instead, I told Rob if it was going to cost money I'd check with the landlord. If they wouldn't be willing to help, then I would just go with cable internet (it's only a little more $ than DSL, and I wouldn't have to pay $100 to fix anything). I know it wasn't Rob's job to try to keep me as a customer of Qwest or "sell me" on anything (and I can definitely testify that that's TRUE with Rob) but he just shrugged and said "ok." So I helped him out the door.
Out of curiosity I went back to my DSL box and hooked it up to the old phone line (with the static issues). The modem did it's checks and whatnot and within a few minutes: BOOM, the INTERNET LIGHT WAS BACK ON!!! I clicked on the internet explorer button and sure enough I was online.
So much for paying $100 huh? Ridiculous...
Now I have to check my phone bill to make sure the SOBs don't charge me for Rob's visit. If anything, I should be charging them for wasting my time...
