Barbara J. Hamby

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What are They Thinking

I wrote this rant last night, but couldn’t get on line to post it. Tonight by hook or by crook, and with Al’s assistance, I was able to dial up. I don’t have enough energy left to write another blog entry for today, so this will have to do.

Sometimes I have nightmares that are horrifying or, at least, terrifying. But those nightmares can’t hold a candle to the things that have occurred lately in daylight in my little sphere of operations. Some might call these events a comedy of errors, but it “Ain’t funny, McGee,” as Fibber’s wife Molly used to say. If you’re under fifty, look it up on the web.

I just spent all afternoon trying to get hooked up on DSL. I also spent nearly $100.00 on two wireless antenna attachments that are useless until our DSL is activated. Whoever took my order to move the phone service did not order a move of the DSL service at that time. I told that person we had DSL service with their company. When I called the local office this afternoon, their computers, without which they are totally crippled, were down. Tomorrow morning, if their computers have recovered, they will call and let me know when DSL service will be reactivated. I didn’t yell at the gal who was so helpful and apologetic about correcting the error, but I’m sure my blood pressure went up 10 or 20 points.

By the way, before I learned the local computers were playing hooky, I called an 800 number that came with the DSL modem and hopped on the merry-go-round of chatting with a disembodied voice. Very few of the questions “voice” asked applied to my situation. If any of my answers didn’t match the pre-programmed possibilities, the question was repeated. Give me a break. Let me talk to a human being, preferably one who speaks understandable English and is somewhere within 3,000 miles of here.

And, on that note, several deliveries that were received during the course of this move, were handled by a pair of men. One of the two seemed to be a muscular American, who spoke clearly. However, the other man, an immigrant from somewhere did most of the talking, speaking rapidly in a heavy accent.

What are their bosses thinking? And why do we put up with it? Obviously, the CEO’s who are making obscene salaries do so by downsizing employees and replacing them with tape recordings and non-Union workers.

I am old and tired. I guess the young people are too heavily loaded with debt they must work hard to support to have the energy to protest this kind of treatment. What a sad story. What a daymare!