Well, readers, there are 2 primary reasons that I haven't been posting lately:
1) I am sick. I've had a nasty cold for about two weeks now. It's slowly (and I mean slow like molasses in January) getting better, but I still have a few coughing fits a day and am keeping the Kleenex handy.
2) Our internet was on the fritz for the better part of the past 2 weeks as well. We never knew if/when we'd be connected or for how long. It was terrible. Even more terrible if you'll recall that I work from home. 99.9% of my job is done online, so no internet = no worky worky.
The cold was so bad at one point that I couldn't taste anything for 2 days. Of course, this had to coincide with my brother-in-law's wedding, so I couldn't taste a damn thing while we were there. Actually, let me take that back. For some reason, I could taste Mountain Dew. Or maybe I just know the taste so well that I imagined it. Either way, that was a pleasant surprise.
The internet was so bad that I have had to take 1 hour unpaid time off, 2.5 hours paid time off, had to work from 9:30 until 11 one night, and we decided to ditch AT&T all together. Seriously, it was a clusterfuck.
I think it all started on May 24th. While working, my internet was suddenly going goofy on me. One second I'd be connected, the next -POOF!- No internet. Since we had U-Verse, that meant our cable was out, too. Beautiful.
On Wednesday evening (the 25th), it seemed our internet was done for. We called AT&T and they sent someone out on Thursday afternoon (the 26th). The first guy got to the house and, of course, the internet was working. He determined that this was an outside problem and he was an "inside guy," so he went to take a quick look around outside and then pawned things off on an "outside guy." He evidently determined this magically, as he never once went downstairs to check the modem/router, didn't even look at my computer or TV, and was here for a total of 15 minutes. I should've called bullshit when he told me it was, "probably the wind" that was interfering. I mean, we live in a freakin' wind tunnel. It's ALWAYS windy on our street, and for 6 months we haven't had any issues... Ok, mister. It's the wind.
Heard next to nothing about the outside guy from that afternoon, but since the internet seemed to be mostly working, we let it go. AT&T called on Friday to ask if things were working and, again, things were - at the moment. We left that Friday evening for the wedding and weren't back until Sunday afternoon, at which point we realized that our internet and cable weren't working. Period. We called AT&T, and they actually sent a guy over that Monday morning (even with it being Memorial Day).
Once again, when the new inside guy got there, everything was up and running. However, this guy actually took the time to look around and see what was what. He didn't like the wiring we had, and re-did some of it for us. He ran a ton of tests, went downstairs to check things out, and was really nice about everything. He, like the first guy, said it was likely an outside issue, but actually gave a better reason than "the wind" for the culprit. He said it was likely water getting into the line somewhere between the house and the end of the street. He put in a ticket for the outside guy while he was standing in our kitchen still, and away he went.
Hubby left to hang with some friends, and I found myself suddenly without internet again. Joy. Hubs called to tell me that the outside guy was on his way to check things out, so I just played with my puzzle and other non-internet things for the rest of the day.
On 5/31, that Tuesday, I couldn't get online until almost 10 AM. So much for internet getting fixed, eh? Hubby called Time Warner to get an appointment to get their internet services, but couldn't get an appointment until Friday. Oh well. I got booted off AT&T around 2:45 and couldn't get on again until 9:30 that night. I worked until 11 and called it a night. Thankfully, my boss was super understanding about the whole thing. Phew. We called AT&T again that night (prior to getting back online, so maybe around 8:30 or so). We went through the normal stuff (re-setting the modem, etc) and eventually, somehow, got things back up and running, but the lady said they'd send someone over the next day.
No one from AT&T ever showed up on Wednesday. I managed to get working right away in the morning, but got booted around 10:30. Back online at 1:30 and worked until 7. Ugh. Thursday I somehow got to work through the day without issue. We thought maybe it had been fixed, but agreed it was too little too late.
We were wrong anyway. Connection crapped out on me again on Friday. I told my boss I'd make up the lost time on Saturday, after TW had come and connected us. That would've been great, except no one from TW ever showed up on Friday... What. The. Fuck. Hubby called to inquire, and it turns out they had us down for an appointment for Wednesday, 6/8. UGH. We got it changed to Monday the 6th, but still. I wasn't able to make up the time for work, and we had virtually no internet or TV for the whole weekend.
Now that we're all set up with TW, I am a happy little clam, kids. Having internet that doesn't crap out every few hours is a beautiful thing! I do miss the DVR set-up with u-verse, but the fact is that they had almost 2 weeks of notice that we were having issues and never actually fixed anything. It was clearly a localized problem, but had they been competent enough to do something about it the FIRST time they sent someone out, maybe they would've kept us as customers. Oh well. Their loss. A-holes.
Annnnnnnd that's enough ranting for now. Riki out.
