Phone line

It took me two or three calls to not get put through to the wrong part of the automated system. Having done that, I spoke to a woman who told me that (a) the lack of a dial tone on the DSL-and-data line isn't a billing issue, and (b) the $3.45/month we're paying for inside wire maintenance is just for the main line. She then said that she couldn't waive any charges for a technician visit because they hadn't charged me yet, and I'd have to talk to the repair people. I told her that they'd told me to talk to billing.

She then suggested a solution: sign up now for the wire maintenance for the data line, and wait five business days. Since it's a second line, we can do this. So I'll swap hardware between the two lines for the next week, and call for a repair next Monday.

This isn't going to be a satisfactory solution for many customers--most people won't be prepared to wait five business days to get a phone line fixed. But it'll work for us.

Phone line

It took me two or three calls to not get put through to the wrong part of the automated system. Having done that, I spoke to a woman who told me that (a) the lack of a dial tone on the DSL-and-data line isn't a billing issue, and (b) the $3.45/month we're paying for inside wire maintenance is just for the main line. She then said that she couldn't waive any charges for a technician visit because they hadn't charged me yet, and I'd have to talk to the repair people. I told her that they'd told me to talk to billing.

She then suggested a solution: sign up now for the wire maintenance for the data line, and wait five business days. Since it's a second line, we can do this. So I'll swap hardware between the two lines for the next week, and call for a repair next Monday.

This isn't going to be a satisfactory solution for many customers--most people won't be prepared to wait five business days to get a phone line fixed. But it'll work for us.

Surveyed

I just had a nice chat with a man who called taking a political survey. He asked for the "male head of household," and when I explained that wasn't possible right now, for the "female head of household." So I answered a lot of questions about politics, including recent and upcoming elections. I told him flatly that some of the questions weren't meaningful, that some metaphors should be taken out and shot, and asked, given that we have absentee ballots, why he kept saying that "a lot of people were unable [sic] to vote in" specific recent elections. (I think, though, that they've been instructed not to suggest that people had chosen not to vote.)

A lot of the questions were of the form "Party X says Y about themselves. Does that make you much more likely, a somewhat more likely, or a little more likely to support them, or does it make no difference?" When he got to one about the Republicans opposing same-sex marriage and "abortion on demand" [not a phrase I'd heard in a while] he told me his form wouldn't enable him to put down that it made me less likely to support them, and tried again to get me to choose one of the options given. So I explained that I consider their positions un-American, and that it makes me less likely to support them, and that if his form won't handle that, put "refused to answer." Near the end, he listed slogans used by each party and, again, much more likely to support through no difference. On almost all of them, my answer was "that's a meaningless statement, so it makes no difference."

Another oddity was that, after saying he was going to list some "people and organizations" and ask my opinions of them, he asked about political parties, Senator Clinton, and then "gay marriage." My reaction was "that's not an organization," but given the available options, I said I strongly approved of it. In fact, I approve of same-sex marriage to the same extent, and with the same reservations, as I do of mixed-sex marriage, but I'm sure their forms and data-crunching aren't subtle enough to handle that.

Surveyed

I just had a nice chat with a man who called taking a political survey. He asked for the "male head of household," and when I explained that wasn't possible right now, for the "female head of household." So I answered a lot of questions about politics, including recent and upcoming elections. I told him flatly that some of the questions weren't meaningful, that some metaphors should be taken out and shot, and asked, given that we have absentee ballots, why he kept saying that "a lot of people were unable [sic] to vote in" specific recent elections. (I think, though, that they've been instructed not to suggest that people had chosen not to vote.)

A lot of the questions were of the form "Party X says Y about themselves. Does that make you much more likely, a somewhat more likely, or a little more likely to support them, or does it make no difference?" When he got to one about the Republicans opposing same-sex marriage and "abortion on demand" [not a phrase I'd heard in a while] he told me his form wouldn't enable him to put down that it made me less likely to support them, and tried again to get me to choose one of the options given. So I explained that I consider their positions un-American, and that it makes me less likely to support them, and that if his form won't handle that, put "refused to answer." Near the end, he listed slogans used by each party and, again, much more likely to support through no difference. On almost all of them, my answer was "that's a meaningless statement, so it makes no difference."

Another oddity was that, after saying he was going to list some "people and organizations" and ask my opinions of them, he asked about political parties, Senator Clinton, and then "gay marriage." My reaction was "that's not an organization," but given the available options, I said I strongly approved of it. In fact, I approve of same-sex marriage to the same extent, and with the same reservations, as I do of mixed-sex marriage, but I'm sure their forms and data-crunching aren't subtle enough to handle that.