No Internet Means No DoodleKisses!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Last week, I was in the process of putting all of our Holiday stuff away and Tuesday, I worked most of the day de-constructing Christmas. In between that tedious task, the dogs and I went for two long walks in frigid temperatures and I even cooked dinner. All in all, a productive day and I was looking forward to kicking back and relaxing after dinner and checking out the happenings on DoodleKisses. Back into our bedroom I went, along with Fudge and Vern, both tired out from their walks and ready for bed, and the night looked so promising until I turned on my computer.  It turns out, somewhere between my husband checking his emails and me walking back to the bedroom, our Internet and phone service had gone down and nothing I did could get it back working and believe me, I tried everything.

 

Whenever this happens, there are a series of steps I follow religiously to try and get the computer working again. First, I scream at the top of my lungs, “I can’t get on my computer!”  I hate living in the country!  We are moving back to wherever stuff doesn’t stop working.  Start working, you “fill in the blank” computer NOW.”  If none of that works and since I have never believed in “suffering in silence,” I repeat all of the above over and over again until someone else in our home yells back,  “For god’s sake, you are giving me a headache. Stop yelling and I will go take a look.”  Unfortunately, I have been unable to train Fudge and Vern to go in search of our modem if the computer goes down when I am home alone.  It was really just happenstance that I realized long ago that loud noises cause faster action than quiet requests for help in our household and it has been my saving grace in many a crisis. 

 

What happens next is someone goes down the basement and fiddles with the modem while I shout encouragement from up above, “it is still not working!....how much longer?...hurry up…this is taking forever….I am trying to get on DoodleKisses….IT IS STILL NOT WORKING!” until someone yells back that silence is golden. Once in awhile, the computer comes back on, but more times than not, I have to call the Internet provider, which is my least favorite thing to do.  I don’t have a lot of patience and in fact, when patience was being passed out, I am sure I missed out because I was trying to find a faster line. So, when my husband came up from the basement to say nothing was working and he couldn’t fix it and I realized I had no Internet for the night and was at the mercy of our provider, according to my family I overreacted. All I said was I was jonesing real bad for DoodleKisses and my husband said I might want to go easy on watching Celebrity Rehab in the future.  My daughter said I was scaring her and she wanted her old mom back, the one she had before DoodleKisses.  I hate when they gang up on me about my Internet activities and I almost told them I was this close to tuning someone up, but then I remembered the last time I told them that, they started calling me Tony Soprano and Big Tuner and that did not go over well with Crazy Laurie, another name they mentioned.

 

Next, I got on the phone to seek help and what began next, was a descent into hell.  For anyone who has ever tried to reach a live person at their cable company, I think you will agree that they have their customer service set up so that most people eventually give up and disconnect the call and decide prayer might be a better option for help. It is like being in a cornfield maze with no way out….push one for this, push two for that, I am sorry I don’t understand responses at that high of decibel level, please try again….until I find myself screaming into the receiver, “LIVE PERSON NEEDED BEFORE I HAVE A HEART ATTACK!” Usually, the automated response back is, “Please continue to hold. We appreciate your business,” and at that point, I start dreaming about what I would like to do to the person who invented the automated operator and since I am sure it was a man, my dream usually involves gloves and me saying, “please press one, if you would like to bend over and cough….please press two, if you would like me to repeat option one.”  I also imagine when I’m done, I would conclude the painful session with, “Are you satisfied with the service you received today?” or “when you are done crying, would you mind taking a brief two minute survey to rate my service?”

 

Luckily, after finally reaching a live person and hearing that the next appointment available was in two days, persistency paid off in the end. In desperation, I made the appointment, but then called back and after being transferred to someplace in New England and then because I used the word idiot and that operator deemed me loco, I am guessing Mexico, because the automated responses were all in Spanish, I hung up and regrouped. I realized in order to get results, I had two options, 1) the squeaky wheel gets the grease or 2) you catch more flies with honey.  They don’t call me Squeakers for nothing and I went with option one. In the end, our service got fixed the next day and the first thing I did when the serviceman left was log on to DoodlesKisses.  Absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Laurie, you could have just borrowed DH's IPad......

[BG and Gavin]

I use another tactic - I get my DH to put on his deep, directive cop voice and get on the phone to them.  Then I stand beside him and cue him on what to say.  "Tell them this, did you say that, don't forget to include this, be tough."  Until he raises his eye brows to me and makes a motion like he is handing me the phone and then I promptly shake my head and back away.  I don't like confrontation, but also am not one to back down on important issues including one of principle. Glad you nailed them Laurie!

[Deanna & Desi & Cori]

Isn't it funny how I was able to spend more than 75% of my life thus far without internet (or cell phones, or iPads, or ???), blithely living my life in technological ignorance, but now having the internet down causes me to go into a panic or rage or both??  I really hear you on this blog, Laurie!  I also live in the country and the internet possibilities are pretty bleak.  For awhile we had DSL, but since we were "at the end of the line", DSL stood for Damn Slow Line.  We switched to an over the air wireless provider - a local company called Garlic.com - which is somewhat better, but still not great.  If I need to do something "fast", I have to drive to my office 30 minutes away.  Anyhow, great blog (again!!!).

[Leslie and Halas]

How horrible!  I'm glad you were able to smooth-talk them into helping you in a more efficient manner.  Ning networks (like DK) aren't very iPhone or iPad friendly, so there are times when I follow discussions, but I can't comment.  I find that incredibly frustrating, so I can't imagine what not having DK at all would do to me.  Luckily, Ning seems to have made a couple of changes that should make it easier for me to have full access, including chat, on my iPhone and iPad, so that will be nice.

[Linda, Webber and Seda]

Laurie, if you really get desperate, and hungry, you can go the parking lot of a MacDonalds where they have free wifi.  I did this going cross country so I could check in with DK.  Now, if there is no MacDonalds, this might not be helpful.  Love your blog.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Another hilarious blog, Laurie, and I can really relate! When we lost power for 4 days last summer, no light, no air conditioning, no refrigerator or freezer, no way to save all the food in the refrigerator and freezer, no way to keep any new food or beverages cold, no stove, no microwave, so no way to heat anything either, the very worst part of all of it was no DK! It was like being stranded on a desert island!

I can live without food, ice and light, but not without DK!

[F, Calla & Luca]

Welcome back!! You have hit on one of my favorite rants. I too have figured out the squeaky wheel gets some attention. I know my account at a nameless service provider is labeled B@#$@ on Wheels, a moniker I am proud to wear. I know because the automated voice eventually says, "I see from your account that a customer service representative can help you rather than our automated system." 

My provider is for phones, wired and wireless, TV and internet so I have had lots of dreaded opportunity to call them. Once when a tree fell from my neighbors property and took down the cable line an idiot kept asking me all sorts of random questions like had I had any construction done lately until I had to shout, having told her politely previously, that the tree brought down the line.

I have learned through eons of this that the best way to get service is to give up the standard route and write an email to the CEO. It took my lots of research last time I did this to find the new email address format. I believe they changed the format just to foil me. But alas for them I worked it out. After you write to the CEO, using titles like Customer Disservice, you get all sorts of phone and email responses from lesser but still significant employees the next day and they often send a human being (imagine that!)  out to fix the problem.

At any rate glad you are here so that you can make me laugh at things that ordinarily make me angry.