On April 1, AT&T played a cruel joke on me. Exactly when I wanted to call my mom, when she had — for the first time in months — requested that I call her, my phone service went down, and I couldn’t make or receive calls. The DSL was still up, though, so at least I could tell my mom that I was trying to call her.
AT&T’s self-help instructions included a step that involved removing the DSL modem to plug in a phone directly into the outlet. I even used the oldest phone I could find [1], one that draws power from the phone line. Of course, the only result was that my phone service AND my DSL were down now.
When the self-help guide didn’t fix things, I filed a complaint online. AT&T’s response was:
Thank you for using AT&T Online Repair. The repair system is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later, or contact the Repair Center at one of the numbers below for further assistance. We apologize for any inconvenience. Residence Repair Center: 1-800-246-8464.
What exactly was my problem again? OH RIGHT, I CAN’T MAKE ANY DARN CALLS.
Fortunately, a friendly neighbor let me use his cellphone to make the local call to my calling card, so my mom and I managed to have a brief conversation.
I guess now that I got up at noon, after three hours of sleep, it’s back to work. I also have movie tickets for tonight. I need to arrange a time… without using the phone. It feels like a game of “The Incredible Machine” [2].
