2004-03-14 - 2:29 p.m. phoneless You know how the technological advances in my life have been turning against me as of late? What with the iBook recall, and the fax and printer breakdowns? Well, it actually managed to get worse. Last Sunday, my phone line went permanently dead while I was using the Internet. I spent all day Sunday trying to determine if there was an issue with my equipment (had my phone, modem, or answering machine suddenly gone caput too?) or if it was something SBC would have to come out and look at. I called the repair line to have them check the line, but they couldn't determine if it was an equipment or line problem. Best of all, they told me that if they sent out a technician and it turned out to not be an outside line problem, my phone bill would be charged an unnamed sum that could not be determined at this point for both the service call and the repair. As a renter, not an owner, I'm actually not personally responsible for the phone box or inside wiring. Thus, I'm not too excited about paying for such service calls. I tried for the rest of the day to get the on-stie property manager to answer the phone. I ended up leaving him two messages, each slowly enumerating the bad phone number, and asking him to take care of getting a repair person (SBC or otherwise) out, at the property owner's expense. I asked him to call me back and leave me a voicemail message. These things should be simple, but they're not. The property manager called me back on my in-house business line, not the voicemail #, thus causing me to leave him a nagging "I haven't heard from you..." message. He got a clue and left a message on the voicemail assuring me he'd have it taken care of the next day. Thanks to never speaking to him directly (did he even live at the phone number he gives out?), and my faith in any human's ability to write down a phone number, I was shocked to come home to a $75 bill and a still dead phone line. You see, neither the repair person nor the property manager had my correct phone # written down. AND the repair guy tested my working business line, but not the non-working residential line right next to it in the wall outlet. The bill helpfully stated that there was no problem at all with my business line. The repair person had also pulled out my computer from the wall (to gain better access to the phone jack?), and left my scanner dangling off the top of it by its cords. To top it off, the property manager was going out of town, so I'd have to reschedule with the phone company myself for a Saturday visit. I haven't been as mad as I was then for a very long time. Our story has a strange ending. On Wednesday night, as I was leaving the apartment to go out to dinner w/a friend, an SBC van pulled up. I walked over to it to see if they were, for some reason, there about my line. Yes, they were. The repair guy was going to look at the phone box to see if there was something he could do now to fix the problem, rather than coming by for "the appointment tomorrow." Huh? "My appointment isn't tomorrow," I said witha scowl. "Oh, did you change it?" he asked. "No." He flipped through his little calendar and said "Your appointment isn't the 13th?" "My apointment is the 13th," I replied, "but the 13th isn't tomorrow, it's Saturday." By this point, I think even he could tell I was getting very pissed off. I asked him if he needed to be let in to access the phone box. He assured me he didn't, so I went on my way to grab some dinner at the Pub. I came home and the phone worked again, thus restoring me to my usual routine of too much Internet usage. This was the best week to have such follies happen though -- I was out every night from Sunday onward, soaking up the unseasonably warm, sunny weather. This weekend has been spent catching up on errands and chores around the house, and watching the cat play with the shadow from the oscillating fan moving across the stripes of sunbeams and blind shadows on the floor. Of course, he's begging to go outside and play. These pesky birds keep flying past, making all sorts of Springtime racket, and seem to be pushing him over the edge... Tomorrow night is a special Yeah Yeah Yeahs show; be on the lookout for some photos if all goes well. any comments? (0 so far) previous - next recently on almostgoldsf... in defense of an email box I came to do battle with SPAM - 2008-05-17 hello 2006 - 2005-12-31 Happy Thanksgiving - 2005-11-14 bon voyage - 2005-11-05 October already? - 2005-10-09