I hate SBC

SBC has an exclusive contract with my apartment complex to provide phone, DSL, and cable (DirecTV, actually). No other vendor can come in, other than the satellite providers if you want to put an antenna on your balcony. This stranglehold on the complex is unfortunate (and should be illegal, in my opinion!) because no matter how bad their customer service is, the customer is stuck.

When I placed my order for new service (all 3 services mentioned above), I was given my new phone number and told the TV would be installed some time between 8 and 12 on the 2nd, followed by DSL on the 5th. Two days later, they left me a voicemail saying they incorrectly gave me a business phone number, and my new number is such-and-such. No problem. I hadn’t given it out anyway.

Predictably, on the 2nd, since the window was 8-12, he showed up at 11:55. He was so interested in my Tivo, we didn’t spend much time checking out DirecTV. We just checked to see if there was a picture, and since there was, he went on his merry way. About 2 hours later, when I actually started trying to use it, it was clear something was wrong. Press a button on the remote or on the box, and it would take up to a minute to respond. I called customer support, who said they’d send someone out the next day (Saturday) between 8 and 5 to give me a new box.

Saturday, at 4:30, I finally called to see where this dude was. I was tired of being cooped up in the apartment all day with no internet (because that’s not due until the 5th). I was told he was there at 1:30, but no one was home. Well, I don’t know what crack that dude was smoking because I was in the apartment all day long. Bastards. “We can send someone out on Monday, between 8 and 5.” God, I hate these people. Eventually, I started messing with the DTV box myself and found that 2 of the buttons were mashed in and didn’t “click” when pressed. I monkeyed with them for a while and got them popped out. Hooked the box up and all was good. I canceled the support call.

Oh … somewhere in all of this, I asked about HD channels. It turns out that the dish on the roof of the apartment is round, not parabolic, so I can’t have HD. They don’t have a scheduled date when they’ll swap out the dish. It could be tomorrow, it could be 2010. They just don’t know. Fantastic. I hate these people.

The 5th rolls around, and I still don’t have DSL at the end of the day. I call to find out what’s going on, give him my phone number and it’s got someone else’s name on it. After a little discussion, I give the guy the original business phone number they gave me by accident. Sure enough, that’s what they provisioned. Sales never told the DSL people they changed my phone number. The fix? A brand new order … with a 1 week delay. No DSL at home until the 12th now. At the risk of being redundant, God, I hate these people.

Publishing

I figured out the problem with MovableType (the program I use to create this blog), so now I'll be able to post the entries I've been saving up ... coming shortly. It's been hard to work on it, since I don't have DSL in the apartment yet. Stay tuned for my rant about SBC.

The new place

In my hunt for an apartment, I discovered I had 2 choices for living in Irving or Dallas … pay more money than I really wanted to, or live in a shithole. There really isn’t any middle ground. Not that the apartments here are all that expensive, but now that I’m consulting instead of working a full time job with a guaranteed paycheck, I thought it would be a good idea to keep costs down.

Oh well, so much for that. I moved into a nice place because I couldn’t stomach the shitholes that I looked at.

The apartment is nice, and is mostly set up by now. It’s a 2 bedroom, with the 2nd bedroom being storage for now. I need to find a way to store the massive amount of books, CDs and DVDs I own so I can use the guest room as a real guest room. Speaking of which, if you want to force my hand by coming to visit, please do! I’ll even buy a bed for the room (unless you’re Jeff, in which case I’ll make you use the air mattress again.)