Thinking is out of fashion. Brains are dead gray lumps of matter. They have no use, but are merely taking up space inside our skulls. How do I know this?

Last week Charter turned off first our cable box, then, our telephone. Eventually they re-provisioned the telephone and some hours later, they fixed our cable box. Since then, our phone has been wonky. It rings, but when I answer it, there’s just silence. Or I call and I hear someone pick up, but all I hear after that is … nothing.

It’s intermittent. Sometimes, it works, other times, not. And we all know that an intermittent problems is the hardest to pin down.

My best friend and I had a whole afternoon of trying to talk to each other by phone and only because we are both very determined, stubborn women did we finally connect. Her cell phone will not speak to my landline and it doesn’t matter who calls who. Something is broken.

Today, I tried to get an appointment with my oncologist. Not only is it that time of year again, but I have a hard thing in one breast that I need to make sure isn’t serious. I don’t think it is. I think it’s scar tissue. Adhesions, if you like. However, I can’t simply ignore it. I had to make an appointment with my oncologist at Dana-Farber.

No answer at the front desk, so I left a message to call me back. They tried, but could not get through. I called them again, but I couldn’t get through. Eventually, I got through using a different number — and they got back to me using sheer persistence.

With utmost reluctance and trepidation, I realized I was going to have to call Charter. Again. I had no way to know how many calls I had missed. I couldn’t continue to ignore the problem.

The call went surprisingly well. I got through to an agent in record time … a couple of minutes, even including my usual hostility fueled interface with the robotic telephone interference system. I got a fellow who found my account and quickly ascertained that the phone was not holding the signal after connection. He said there was no point in trying to fix it remotely. He would have to send an actual human technician to see what’s wrong. Holy expletive, Batman! He also said he’d put a note in the record so the tech would know to come even if I didn’t answer the call, being as I wasn’t consistently able to receive calls.

Two hours later, the phone rang. I could see it was Charter Communications, but surprise! Only silence from the other end. I took courage in hand and called them back. After getting a person — navigating the robot was a little more difficult this time — I got a young lady. I explained they had called me and I needed to know why. Eventually, she ascertained that it must have something to do with my appointment with the technician for the day after tomorrow.

I said, yes, indeed. Our phone was only intermittently able to receive calls, which is why we needed the technician. She explained that the technician’s have to call to confirm the appointment, or they won’t come. I took a deep breath and pointed out that the guy who is coming is the telephone technician whose job it is to fix broken phone service. And that there should be notes to that effect in my file.

She averred that this was true. She said she would try to make sure that the technician — THE TELEPHONE REPAIR TECHNICIAN — understood that OUR PHONE ISN’T WORKING PROPERLY and he could not rely on getting telephone call through to us.

“Do you have an alternate phone number?” she asked.

“Not really,” I replied.

“Because he will need to call you.”

“The phone is broken. He’s the phone technician. Don’t you think he should be able to put these two pieces of information together? Wouldn’t that suggest that calling me might not work out?”

“I suppose,” she said, tentatively. I could hear the doubt in her voice. She wasn’t entirely clear on how these separate pieces of information were related.

“Seriously, just tell him to come. Don’t call. Just show up. I promise, on my honor, we will be here. I cannot promise the phone will ring, or if it rings, that I will hear anything when I answer it. Because that’s the problem. That’s why he’s coming. That’s what he is supposed to fix.”

And that’s where we left it. Is it me? Am I expecting too much? Shouldn’t the guy coming to fix the phone be able to deduce that there’s a problem — some kind of malfunction — involving the telephone. Their telephone service. Ergo ipso, calling to confirm the appointment might not work out?

Are they putting something in the water? The air? Is this one of the effects of global climate change, the stupidization of humanity?

Categories: Communications, Customer Service, Humor, Technology

Tags: Charter Communications, customer service, humor, stupidity, Technical support, Telephone