SBC Saga: Day 3

Have I mentioned my hatred for SBC Yahoo here? Have I? I can’t remember. The rage, you see … it’s burning away my mental faculties.

Yesterday, you’ll remember, somebody from SBC’s DSL support center called the home phone and talked to my wife, despite the fact they were supposed to call my cell phone. They promised to send a technician out, believing the problem was our home security system blocking the DSL from connecting. So I spent all afternoon and evening at home, waiting. Not that I really had anything else to do, but that’s not the point. I waited. At a little after 8 p.m. the anger lulled for a moment, so I called them. Went through the bullshit automated stuff you have to get through before you can talk to somebody with half a pulse (and the automated voice is STILL telling me it’s a dial-up account associated with my phone number).

Surprise! There was nothing in my records to indicate they’d promised to send a technician to my house. Let alone do it without charging me the $150 service fee.

How’s that for customer service?

So I talk to the guy through gritted teeth and he also says he’s sure it’s the security system. He gives reasons that sound valid. And he tells me I have to call the security company for a filter that will fix the problem. I just got off the phone with the security company. Their first response was that SBC needs to come out and put the filter on. I explained that SBC said it was the security company’s problem. So the security guy tells me to call him back when I get home this afternoon and he’ll walk me through the process of opening the control box and putting one of the filters/splitters that SBC included with the DSL modem on the line. Will that filter work? Probably not. Why would it? If the security company has to come out and fix it, it’ll cost me $35.

Have I mentioned how much I hate SBC Yahoo? If the resumes I’ve been sending out had gone from a different e-mail account, I would so cancel this whole mess and get a cable modem. I HATE SBC YAHOO!

In other news, a cold front came through late yesterday afternoon. The temperature dropped from the mid-80s to the mid-60s in less than an hour. It rained. Today it was cool enough I wore a long-sleeved shirt and a light jacket. The wind is still howling from the north and the sky is overcast. I love it.

Finished another chapter of Ulrik last night and introduced another new character. This is turning into the closest thing to a political thriller I’ve ever done. I’m going to have to create a flowchart just to keep track of the alliances in the Pack. When the SBC thing settles down I’ll do a post on how I plot my novels. Outlining versus just writing has been a popular topic at the cons this year and I’d like to hear more about how the rest of you writers go about it.

Here’s the latest word meter for Ulrik:

22,605 / 100,000 (22.0%)