Still Don't Exist

How is it that the internet / phone company can send you an email with your new address clearly written across the top, asking for a rather large amount of money to be paid to them so they can come and connect your new property onto their grid. …. yet they still can’t book you an install date because you don’t exist in their system.

I gotta say, I’ve met some wonderfully helpful people in the local retail store for the un mentioned internet provider…. they too cannot understand that their company will gladly take a large payment for services from you, with an invoice which has your new address on it…. but they can’t find you in their system because you still don’t exist…. Although they do see that we have been paying for full services for the past 3 months even though we don’t have any services. We were told this was the best way to be able to keep our same phone number….. which they then ‘accidentally’ gave away. Interestingly enough though, every one does seem to agree that that is really stupid…. Not sure where we are with that one yet.

However, as nice as the local people have been, the phone people are so disappointing…. They are like that donut that looks like it’s going to taste so good…. so you think “ok, I’ll splurge, I’ll throw some extra calories to the wind and get that awesome looking donut.” Then you eat it and before it’s half done you think. “It wasn’t that good… what a dissapointment… what a waste of those calories I really shouldn’t have eaten… and now I have… and I feel awful…. and I just drove past a really heavy lady sitting on a bench on the side of the road and I’m going to look like that if I keep eating donuts and it wasn’t even worth it!!!!"

You call their number, which puts you on hold for 10 minutes and then connects you with someone from ‘Winnipeg’ or ‘Victoria’ who is happy to help in any way they can. So I go through the whole story…. it’s getting rather long at this point, and they say “I see there are some notes here on your file and we are waiting for……….. before we can move forward.” Then I tell them that those things that we were waiting for have happened or we were told they were going to happen but didn’t. Then they always say the nicest things like “I will look into this for you and I promise I will get it sorted out for you.” Then for that wonderful moment, they are the donut… looking so good…. They say they will get back to you, but they don’t. Now they are the disappointing donut that doesn’t taste any good and you’ve just wasted another 30 minutes of cell time even though you are already way over your minutes for the month.

Then, trying to be optimistic, every few days you think…. I’ll try again, surely Matt from Winnipeg has talked to ‘Kevin’ from Victoria and ‘Ryan’ from Vancouver by now…. maybe they are just waiting for one more little nudge and all the dominoes will fall into place. Then you find out that Matt doesn’t know Kevin or Ryan and that their supervisor doesn’t even know them…. they can't find the link between all these people, who have been putting these ‘notes’ on your file and they are not even sure what department any of them work in… and that email that ‘Colin’ asked me to send is feeling creepier and creepier.

I think I’ll just send the internet / phone company my latest cell phone bill…. Technically they won’t be able to send it back to me, because I don’t exist.