Sunday, July 19, 2009

Can You Hear Me Now?

For the past month or so we've been having problems with our phone. There has been static on the line and it can be very difficult or even impossible to hear the other person. I called Verizon. They had someone come to the house the next day to fix it.

The repair man came to the house. He did something with wires. He told me it was fixed. He left. That night my husband called. I answered the phone. I couldn't hear him. I could only hear horrible static.

I called Verizon the next day. A different repair man came to the house. I explained what had happened earlier. He did something with the box outside of our house. He thought there was a problem with the connection from the street to our house. He put a new wire to connect the house to the main line at the street. The wire stretched across our yard, over the side walk, over the garage doors and came down on the side of the house. This was only supposed to be temporary. Someone would be out by Friday, last Friday, to put the new wire underground.

Someone did come out last Friday. I wasn't home at the time. He called my cell phone to let me know he was at the house. He asked what needed to be done. I explained that repair man #1 had come and thought the problem was fixed but it wasn't. Then repair man #2 came and fixed the connection but left a wire stapled over my garage doors, across the sidewalk and across the yard. Repair man #3 wasn't too happy to hear this. He said, "So I'm here to put the wire under the ground?"

"Yes." Shouldn't he know that already????

"Well I don't do that. I'll have to put a work order in for that."

"Oh, well how long does that take?"
"That depends." (That's never a good answer.) "First we need someone to come out here and let us know where the utilities are so we don't dig them up. Then we need someone to come here with a tunneller."

"Oh. So that's not going to be done today, like repair man #2 said?"

"No."

Today is day #11. Here's the front of my house.

Do you know how much trouble 2 little boys can get into with a wire across the front yard???
Repair man #2 left his stapler here for us to remember him by.

9 comments:

Michelle said...

Yikes. I'm surprised that's ummm legal. So have you started calling every three hours to see when someone will be out yet? Or talked about how your child fell and skinned his knee but thank GOD it wasn't broken? ;)

TALON said...

Oh, the joys of stellar customer service! We had this same experience once a few years ago. The line ended up running across the road. The repairman seemed to think this was fine. Needless to say our connection didn't last long. They sent someone else out to reconnect it and, again, the line got severed. It took two weeks to get the line buried properly. Needless to say, I got a huge discount as I ended up basically not having phone service for 3 weeks in total which they planned on charging me for.

I couldn't help giggling at the stapler. I'm sorry, but I couldn't help it. But I've felt your pain - I really have. I hope they get it buried properly for you in record time (and without any injury to your boys!).

Elizabeth said...

Hey, at least you got a stapler out of the deal.
I agree with Michelle, call and tell them of the hazzard and that it would be a shame to have to sue over a major injury...just threaten...it should light a fire under them there tushies! Oh, and make sure they don't charge you for the stapler on your next bill!
Pax.

Mark said...

Not a great experience, ugh! They can do better!

betty said...

what a shame! but are the calls at least least staticky?? they should be fixing it ASAP, I agree that it is definitely a hazard! seems like a weird fix too for some reason

hoping it gets resolved soon

betty

girlytwins said...

Oh goodness that has to be some sort of hazard. I hate home repairs ugg! Hope it gets better soon. And in my opinion your hubby just scored a new staple gun :)

Mama Goose said...

Stuff like this makes me so mad. I mean seriously, leaving that wire across your yard is ridiculous. What a pain, but that is a very nice stapler! Hope they get their act together soon!

Heidi said...

Ha! I loathe the waiting around for phone people, TV people, any kind of utilities people because they always say things like we'll be there between 9am and 3pm and show up 2 minutes before 3. It makes me crazy!!

Snaggle Tooth said...

Are you kidding me? That is unbelievable!
I hopre you can hear well soon!