Blitzkrieg

As promised/threatened, this morning I made my call to Qwest to address the "issues" that came up over the weekend.

It took nearly 45 minutes and 3 phone calls, but Qwest and I have reached an understanding: Qwest will give me proper technical support; in return, I won't leave any more of their employees walking around with only 1 ass cheek and feeling like they could pass a watermelon without noticing.

I remained calm, polite, and courteous. I also remained obstinate, insistent, and adamant. Along the way, I gave a couple of Authority Figures the trouble ticket numbers that I'd been issued, so that they could see what all had transpired. I also offered a couple of genuinely helpful suggestions -- one of them being that if a caller says they're running Linux or MacOS, immediately bump them to level 2 tech support so that they aren't jerked around by the front-line script-reading dolts.

I just mentioned that I had to make three phone calls. The first got me some tech support weasel that was as willfully ignorant and unhelpful as the bundle of boobs I had to deal with this past weekend. The second phone finally got me someone with the willingness to actually address the underlying problem of Qwest's lack of support for Linux (and Macs, I expect) -- and resulted in me being forwarded to someone with the horsepower to actually issue me a replacement modem. Sadly, that person didn't quite grasp the concept that because I initially called the problem in on Saturday, I considered that to be the start of the promised 3rd day arrival of the modem. Since that person's supervisor hadn't arrived at work yet, I ended the conversation and made my third, and final, call. I was able to get the person on the other end to understand that I was not merely unhappy, but thoroughly disgusted with Qwest. I suspect that my comment that I was blogging about the process and perfectly willing to terminate any services through Qwest in favor of digital telephone and Internet with the local cable company (Bresnan) may have influenced them.

The bottom line is that I will (theoretically, anyway) have a replacement modem in hand tomorrow (it's supposed to be shipped Overnight), at no cost to me.

Why, yes, I can be an asshole -- but only for the forces of Good, I assure you.