So last night I was supposed to do all sorts of things on the internet like look at porn fix Pat’s blog, but I was unable to do anything, because stupid Comcast had some sort of stupid “global connectivity problem” that they were “aware of” and “trying to fix”.
Actually, I haven’t had any serious problems with Comcast so far, and in comparison to Qwest, they’re shining examples of efficiency – but that didn’t make it any less frustrating to be unable to check my email all night.
Submitted via an email form to Comcast this morning:
This morning I ran the Comcast install CD wizard on my macintosh. It’s running OS 10.3. When the wizard was finished, the internet connectivity was working great, but for some reason, it changed my shell prompt. Previously, it was displaying Hosaka:> – which is the name of my computer. Now it displays c-24-19-225-21:> – which is the letter C followed by the dynamic IP address that was just assigned to my computer.
I use my shell prompt all day long for internet work, so while this is a cosmetic change, it is important to me. I could not find how to change it back, so I called 800-Comcast for tech support.
When I called at about 11am on Monday, November 1st, I was connected to John, who gave his service ID as 62410.
John was EXTREMELY unhelpful. After describing the problem to him, his first reaction was “That is clearly not an IP address”. After I explained that nothing else had changed on the computer, and that the wizard had clearly made this change, he told me that there was no way the wizard did this, since all it does is configure the IP (not true, by the way, the mac wizard does several other things, including creating a new location profile). When I persisted, John informed me that they don’t support OS 10.3, and that I should contact Apple tech support instead.
When I asked John to transfer me to a manger or someone else, he refused, and informed me that the managers were only there for payroll, and deferred all tech discussion to the “training and experience” of the guys on the floor, like him.
When I asked him to transfer me to someone where I could lodge a complaint, he told me I could find the information on the website. I asked him if he could just transfer me, since I had already called the number on the website, and he got sarcastic and asked “Are you talking over a website right now?”
I’m disappointed both in complete unwillingness of the phone support guy to try to find a solution, and in the fact that the wizard made this kind of change without giving me a way to set it back.
Edit: About twelve hours later now, and I’ve just added my wi-fi router to the mix, which assigned a new IP address to my computer, which seems to have fixed the problem, meaning it was a temporary thing. Thank goodness, since I was not looking forward to calling “tech support” again. Long story short: everything seems to be working now, no thanks to Comcast.
I haven’t felt much like blogging lately, but lots has been happening.
Annie’s last week of work ended on Friday. Now she can focus on packing for the next week, and continue looking for a job in Washington.
My work situation continues to be strange, but I don’t feel like getting into that. Email me if you want details.
We went to go see Shawn Of The Dead with Eric, Jill, Jeff and Sean, and it was awesome. I also saw Resident Evil 2 a week or two ago, so it’s like Zombie Movie Month or something.
Yesterday Annie and I drove up to our new apartment and signed the paperwork and wrote a check for first-month’s rent. The lease agreement was about five pages long, and a little worrying, but I didn’t see any obvious dangers in it, aside from the danger of signing a six-month lease when I’m about to lose my job. Our apartment is in surprisingly good condition. Probably because the apartment manager lived there before us.
Qwest continues to suck rocks. I did a bit of math and found out that as bad as they suck, it would save us $50 a month to go with a landline and DSL instead of a cell phone and cable internet, so I was giving Qwest a chance. They were supposed to be able to tell me on Thursday, when the landline got connected, whether I could get DSL. On Friday, I found out that I cannot get DSL. For some reason, they CAN get it in the manager’s office, but not our apartment.
The good news is that after I complained to a manager, she agreed that I shouldn’t have to pay for the landline connection, since I was only getting it for DSL, so I shouldn’t be charged at all for anything in Washington.
Our cable internet is getting installed on Sunday, but the only timeslot available is from 2-6pm, and we’re not arriving until at least 5pm. Luckily, Mrs. Stockman graciously agreed to hang out at our apartment during that time so someone would be there when the cable guy arrives. We left her some folding chairs, a CD player and our tiny little TV to test the signal with.
Packing is proceeding at a good pace. We’ve already completely packed the dining room and my office, and Annie’s office is half-done. Over the coming week, we’ll be doing one room a night, and should get everything done in time to start loading the truck on Sunday morning.
Today, Mrs. Stockman is cooking brunch for the family and is then taking us to buy a new mattress set. My mother-in-law rules.
Anyways, I should quit typing now, because Oskar will be here soon, and I want to be ready to steal a few minutes with my studly nephew before the rest of the family arrives and wants to see him. Which reminds me I still need to post my photos of the boy… I’ll do that when I get home.
You really have to hand it to Qwest. They’re finding all new ways to take customer service to unheard of depths. I’ve had some horrible service before, I’ve had people hang up on me, I’ve had people be rude to me, I’ve had people lie to me, and I’ve dealt with general incompetence. But what happened today is a whole new low.
Qwest cannot tell me for sure whether DSL service is available without installing phone service, which will cost me a $31 setup fee. I have no use for a landline, except for DSL. So if DSL is unavailable, I’m going to cancel the landline. If this happens, they will not refund me the installation fee. But they also cannot tell me for sure if DSL is available.
In summary, they expect me to pay them $31 just to find out if DSL service is available. Continue reading
I’m sure you all have heard my rants about Qwest before, so I won’t repeat them. Suffice to say that since I’m moving, and I need my DSL up and running ASAP, I started to get the ball rolling three weeks early.
Long story short, it turns out that the problem this time isn’t with Qwest. They are offering very fast and reasonable service to move my existing phone service to our new apartment. The problem is that the apartment they gave us is the one their manager used to live in, and whatever phone company she had hasn’t turned off phone service in the apartment yet, even though she moved out on the first of the month. When told that they needed to turn off service ASAP because another tenant was moving in, they suggested that the new tenant just use the existing phone service for awhile. So the apartment is currently battling with them and calling every day. Currently, service is supposed to be off by Friday. If it’s not off by Tuesday, the apartment manager assured me that they would just give me another unit instead, so that I can get my DSL turned on in time.
So that’s a little frustrating, but at least the people I’m dealing with (Qwest and the apartment managers) are being good about it, it’s this mysterious other phone company that’s causing problems. Of course, I’m not going to start singing Qwest’s praises just yet. All I have so far are promises, which sound good, but this wouldn’t be the first time they’ve lied to me.
So what’s the good news? Turns out we paid Last Month’s Rent when we moved in, so our landlord returned our final rent check and was really nice about it, rather than being a jerk and just cashing it, since we obviously forgot. So we have $750 more than we thought, which will come in handy when my employment runs out.
Oh also, I went to see Resident Evil 2 last night with Eric and Jeff, and it was excellently bad. Loved it. Rocket Launcher Zombies = good.