Re: Arghhhhhh!!!, below, spoke too soon. Phone company can't fix the DSL internet access problem until there are no clounds in the sky within a hundred mile radius, apparently. They call it "storm damage", and since the outage only affects the data lines of a couple of folk are not interested in fixing it until they are good and ready. Totally frustrating. It only "up" about two or three hours a day - on average - and there's no predicting just which hours those might be.
So posting, etc., will be lite until it's over, or when I switch over to another provider on our return from the UK in early May.
Cannot believe the low level of customer service communications am experiencing with SBC! What total failures! All they would have to do is phone me, but they apparently no longer believe it is important to do that. Losers!
Friday, April 14, 2006
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Who ARE these people?
Ran into this story and headline on MSNBC's web site today, courtesy of the trusty old MSN Explorer home page, and immediately thought, "Don't they know how to spell 'razed'"? Meaning 'leveled'? 'Cause after all, we all know that many flood-damaged homes in New Orleans have to be eventually demolished and rebuilt, right?
But no. Lo and behold the authors of the story and headline did mean "raised", as in 'elevated'. They just didn't seem to "get" that a major and repeated portion of their story was based on a homophone that could be confusing to many readers.
UPDATE: MSNBC themselves must have realized the problem, because since I first read the story they have added a new sub-headline about "hiking" the houses one to three feet.
Who ARE these people at MSNBC? And how did they get this far along into so-called modern "journalism" without displaying more awareness of nuances in the English language? Am I the only one who sees a "gap" in the information related by this story and it's execution in prose?
But no. Lo and behold the authors of the story and headline did mean "raised", as in 'elevated'. They just didn't seem to "get" that a major and repeated portion of their story was based on a homophone that could be confusing to many readers.
UPDATE: MSNBC themselves must have realized the problem, because since I first read the story they have added a new sub-headline about "hiking" the houses one to three feet.
Who ARE these people at MSNBC? And how did they get this far along into so-called modern "journalism" without displaying more awareness of nuances in the English language? Am I the only one who sees a "gap" in the information related by this story and it's execution in prose?
Arghhhhhh!!!
For over six weeks now have been telling the phone company something is intermittently wrong with the DSL line. For over five and a half weeks nothing happened afterwards, other than the intermittency got worse and worse and worse and ..........
Finally, last Friday saw somebody working on the line about 5 blocks from the house and shortly after received a phone call from someone whose grasp of the English language was of apparent short duration. After many attempts I finally understood, "Yes, something is wrong. Our repairman can't fix it. We have a 'contractor' scheduled to work on the problem next Wednesday. Thank you for choosing - "(you get the picture).
In all fairness, at odd times every day the DSL would come up - however briefly - but not stay up. It just bounced and bounced and then dropped off again as if into a deep well. Never to be seen again until the following day - but only during a time when it wasn't raining or storming outside. Hmmmm. Could that be a clue?
Anyway, today is Wednesday. Around noon the DSL line mysterious came up - staggered for a few minutes - and has now been up longer than at any other period during the previous month - for almost six hours. And still no phone call telling me it is "fixed", or IF it is fixed, or anything. Whoever in the phone company is in charge of customer service must have retired about 10 years ago and was not bothered to be replaced. Because they obviously don't care a fig for their customers. When we get back from our London holiday I think their DSL line will pretty quickly (at least by their standards) be replaced by a cable modem.
Not so cheerful
Finally, last Friday saw somebody working on the line about 5 blocks from the house and shortly after received a phone call from someone whose grasp of the English language was of apparent short duration. After many attempts I finally understood, "Yes, something is wrong. Our repairman can't fix it. We have a 'contractor' scheduled to work on the problem next Wednesday. Thank you for choosing - "(you get the picture).
In all fairness, at odd times every day the DSL would come up - however briefly - but not stay up. It just bounced and bounced and then dropped off again as if into a deep well. Never to be seen again until the following day - but only during a time when it wasn't raining or storming outside. Hmmmm. Could that be a clue?
Anyway, today is Wednesday. Around noon the DSL line mysterious came up - staggered for a few minutes - and has now been up longer than at any other period during the previous month - for almost six hours. And still no phone call telling me it is "fixed", or IF it is fixed, or anything. Whoever in the phone company is in charge of customer service must have retired about 10 years ago and was not bothered to be replaced. Because they obviously don't care a fig for their customers. When we get back from our London holiday I think their DSL line will pretty quickly (at least by their standards) be replaced by a cable modem.
Not so cheerful
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