Lost Verizon

As you read earlier, I made it safely to Pittsburgh and had a pretty successful move, all in all. In fact, in some respects it was one of the smoother moves I’ve ever made. The movers showed up, they did a great job, and my wonderful Mom, Vivien Leigh, did a terrific job helping me pack. (OK, OK, so she did most of the packing--insert sheepish grin where appropriate--while I, I dunno, contributed procedures and mayhem at my old job.)

It didn't hurt that the head mover was handsome and polite--so rare these days--and that he and his crew showed up on time, delivered on time, and didn't break or damage a thing.

Other plusses for this move included my terrific landlord in Mysteryburg, PA, coming up to say goodbye on moving day and paying me my deposit back early, trusting that I'd left things in good order (I had); hiring a cleaning service to take care of the tidying after I moved out (an excellent idea, Viv!); staying in a hotel the first two nights I was in town (another great plan, Viv!, in order to unpack as necessary but being able to leave it all behind at the end of the day; and prompt delivery of internet and cable TV services by the Comcast conglomerate.

To top things off, I splurged and added HDTV and a DVR to my suite of questionable luxury services and have been enjoying counting the pores on the faces of Hollywood actors and actresses ever since. Whee!

The only snag in the move--and it's kind of a biggie, at least to me--is that I have been unable to establish local telephone service. Yes, yes, the boy can digitally record every episode of Footballers' Wive$ into infinity, but he can't call 911 should he catch his dinner on fire. It's a world of misplaced priorities, and I'm the one left holding the keys to the Maserati, but unable to afford gas, tires, or windshield wipers.

Oh, I'd like local phone service, of course. At 45 and counting, I'm by no means one of those street-cred, know-it-all-and-then-some Gen-X, Y, or Z-er types, who doesn't want to be oppressed by something as old-skool as a landline. You know the type--prefers xtreme! service offered via a cell phone and maybe a Blue Tooth, that pagan-looking, earlobe clip-on that allows you to talk to yourself in public without the authorities being called. Forty cents a minute for overages when most landlines cost you under 10 cents to call Europe! Maybe the call will go through--maybe it will drop! Any maybe your messages will be delivered a day or two after they were recorded--and yet, despite the extra prep time, still completely unintelligible, with only every fifth word being heard!

Wow, how cool and edge-cutting is that?

Well, it's definitely on the edge, alright--the edge of reason. But, hey, while we're at it, neck deep in shitty phone service and all, let's tank up on Red Bulls and get some dangling bits and pieces tattooed and pierced! Let's wear flip-flops in the snow and not buy any medical insurance because we're trying to save our money up for a video iPod and unlimited, copyright-infringed downloads! Let's pretend we're independent young adults who favor binge-drinking and living on our parents' dime! Or 40 cents!

Or something!

God, I'm sorry, but these days I pretty much begrudge anyone under 30 (with a few notable exceptions for people I actually know who are aged 30 or below) for being incredibly vapid and letting the global money-harvesting industry cater and market to them. They may indeed be Children of the Digital Revolution, but I'm an Analog Old Fart and not going away easily, despite the incessant Cuisinarting of my gray matter with pop-up ads and spam.

Be that as it may, though, the real culprit here, the real viva hate-monster, the ultimate object of my derision, is Verizon, the alleged phone service provider for Pennsy and many other states, but which is actually probably owned by AT&T (and aren't we all?), a subsidiary of Satan, Inc. Verizon, the Anti-Christ. Verizon, Lord of the Telephone Underworld. Verizon: No One in Their Space Can Hear You Scream (or hear a dial-tone, for that matter).

So what brings forth the ire of Archrapper Licious? Let me count the ways. Hell, let me count the days.

* * *

Sometime in early June, when I finally found an apartment to move into in Pittsburgh, I contacted Verizon about establishing phone service in Pittsburgh. No time like the present to get a jump start. I would have a local number in place before I arrived in the 'burgh and have service started on July 6th, the day I moved in. No? Not the first day? But it's a Friday, that should be OK, you should just have to flip a switch somewhere, right? No, my little fly, Verizon will need an adult to be on-site in case they need to get inside the building to check out your box. (Figuratively speaking, I'm sure.) You must understand how the web of Verizon works, said the giant corporate spider.

So, it has to be a weekday and an adult needs to be present. How about Monday the 9th? Perfect! We'll have someone out there between the hours of 8 am and 6 pm.

Uh, thanks for your raging specificity, Verizon. Still, it is hard to miss a target like that.

Monday the 9th comes and goes and yet there is still no dial tone on any of my phones. I call Verizon, and they assure me, Mister Barrett, that phone service has been turned on. "We took care of that from here, just turned it on. No technician needed to be sent out to the address."

Much as I expected.

"But I have no dial tone," I said.

"On any phone line?"

"On any phone line."

"We can send out a technician to take a look at the line tomorrow. Will an adult be on-site from 8 am to 6 pm to let the technician in the building should he need to look at your equipment?"

"Yes, and by the way, who is Mister Barrett? I think you have my name wrong in your database."

"Your name isn't Barrett?"

"No," and I give the rep my real last name, which is close to Barrett but no cigar, cigarette, or Tiparillo. I had service carried over from my account in Mysteryburg, so I'm not quite sure how my name changed from one account to the other over the course of the transaction.

"I'll make that change in your record, Mister Barr--I mean, Mister B------."

Thank you.

Tuesday, July 10th, arrives and a technician does indeed show up. There are now two adults present, myself, my Mom, but there is still no phone service. The tech walks around the building several times, notes that the signal from the nearby phone pole is on and working but that the signal is not getting to the building. I show him the Verizon FIOS box in the basement, and he states, "Yep, there's your problem. You've got fiber optics installed. You don't have any copper wire service anymore. That's a different department."

So someone else will need to come out to take a look at this?

"Maybe. I'd call the repair number first. Funny, there's no record of fiber optic service in this apartment. This is apartment ----," and he reads off a confusing list of numbers and letters that makes my place sound like an illegal sublet of an illegal sublet in an extremely dodgy part of Queens.

"Well, it's the first floor apartment," I say. "There are only two apartments in the building, and I have the one on the first floor."

"Hmm, well, according to our records, there are two apartments on this floor."

"You can see that's not the case, though, right?"

"Yes, but our records state otherwise."

I call Verizon again. "Well, Mister Barrett--"

"It's B------. I asked that the record be corrected yesterday."

"Oh, OK, I'll take care of that right now. Mister Barr--I mean, B------, we can fix your problem, but we'll need to send someone out to install copper wiring and phone jacks. That will cost $91 (or something) for the first hour, plus an additional charge for each jack."

At those costs, you have to wonder if the "jacks" Verizon is offering solely relate to phone service. Is Verizon secretly a front for a Heidi Fleiss-owned and operated business venture?

"Wait a minute," I say. "I have jacks already. There's fiber optic in the building. Can't I get phone service with the existing set-up?"

"Oh, yes, of course. I just thought you wanted copper wire service."

"I just want phone service. I don't care if it's delivered through copper or fiber optics."

"Or a string and two tin cans," my Mom chimes in the background. Green Acres is indeed the place to be at this moment.

"We can do that. I'll need to cancel the old order, though, and place a new order for fiber optic phone service."

"How long will this take?" I ask.

"That order won't show up into the system until maybe Wednesday. Possibly Thursday."

"Will an adult need to be on-site from 8 am to 6 pm to let a technician into the building should he or she need to inspect my box?" I ask.

"Yes. You should call back, however, to find out when the tech will be on-site."

Wednesday the 11th I was busy. After all, I have a new job I should spend sometime at and Vivien Leigh had to get back to the airport and Kansas somehow.

So, like the Gen Z wannabe we all know I secretly am, I live life on the edge myself and wait to call Verizon on Thursday morning.

"We should have this taken care of later today. We can just flip a switch and turn it on from here," the rep says. "I assure you, Mister Barrett--"

"That's B------!" I explain again, exasperatedly. "I keep asking that my records be updated. There's an error in your system. Could you fix it please?"

"Yes, I'll be happy to. This [meaning one assumes phone service, but who can say?] should be fixed by 3 pm today."

"Great!" I say. I like assurances!

I'm home by 4 pm. Still no dial-tone. I call Verizon again.

I should stop for a moment here to explain that each time I call Verizon, it's not just a simple, "Oh, I'll call Verizon and get this straightened out" kind of deal. It's involved. I mean, really involved, to a byzantine level of departmental and phone-tree bureaucracy (good god, the phone trees! somebody make wood pulp out of 'em, please!) that would make the IRS weep bitter tears of jealousy. You rarely get to talk with anyone right away, but communicate to a a female voice that represents Verizon's "helpful automated system" or some such crap, who is constantly asking you which number you're calling about, asking you questions about your problem and giving you options to choose (unfortunately, "I just want a goddam dial-tone, bitch!" not being among the selections), looking up your records, and then finally saying, "Let me put you in touch with an agent to resolve your problem."

The agent then proceeds to ask you which number you are calling about, your name and address, the nature of your problem, and then needs to take the time to look up your records. So, obviously, it's efficiency gone mad at Verizon.

After going through this process a number of times, you learn (depending on which Verizon number you call--Customer Service, Repair, Fiber Optic Service, Resolution Center, etc.) that you can say the word "agent" and be transferred to a person to discuss your problem, bypassing the phone tree and, at least theoretically, speeding up the resolution of your problem. Regrettably, screaming the word "AGENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" into your cell phone does not speed up the contact--probably because the scream is dropped out by inconsistent cell coverage.

No matter, though, chances are you'll still have to endure several bars of Zamfir's pan-flute rendition of Celine Dion's lachrymose monstrosity, "My Heart Will Go On," the theme from Titanic, before being connected to an allegedly living, breathing, sentient being. At least with the music you know you're near the Devil's lair, though.

It should also be noted that just about whomever you talk to will try to shill you additional services--FIOS internet, FIOS TV ("I guarantee you, Mister Barrett, it will be available in Pittsburgh by the end of the month/summer/fall/year, so why not sign up now?")--in addition to your already non-functioning telephone service. Thus, I would guess that Verizon has a crack sales team, yet a butt-crack-worthy problem resolution program.

"How may I help you, Mister Barrett?"

"That's B------! There's a mistake in my record. Could you fix my name NOW?"

"I'll be happy to make that correction, Mister Buh-buh-Barrette."

Oh, great. So now I'm a freakin' hair clip. This is as bad as when my old medical insurance company had me listed as female in my records, so that pretty much anytime between 2004 and 2006 whenever I went to the doctor's for a health care matter, I had to assure the medical professionals that I indeed was not a transsexual. Now neither the name nor gender on my birth certificate is trustworthy.

I explained again that I still had no dial tone.

"We can send a tech out on Friday, but you should try this first." While I put on shoes and gathered up a rubber-handled Phillips-head screwdriver, the rep explained to me that I should go outside and tempt fate on a cloudy day upon damp ground, unscrew the cover of something called the "Network Interface Thingamabob," attach a phone ("not a cordless but a corded") to each one of the jacks in the box (no pun intended!) and see if I get a dial tone.

Let alone a listing in "News of the Weird" in the City Paper when I'm electrocuted mid-test. I kinda felt like the child audience in that parody of Dora the Explorer that appeared on Saturday Night Live this past season. The Dora clone gives out an increasingly bizarre and complicated list of instructions to the children in the audience, and when there is the slightest hint of hesitation on the part of her young charges to carry out her plan, she screams, "Don't question it! Just do it!"

Of course I do as instructed, but, alas, no dial tone.

"Well, Mister Barrette, we'll send out a tech tomorrow to get this resolved. Will an adult be present from the hours of 8 am to 6 pm should the tech need to get inside your building to examine your equipment?"

* * *

I was there, but the tech was not. Or, rather, when I called at 6 pm to find out where the tech had been all day (admittedly a passive-aggressive move on my part--so sue me), I was told he had been there at 2 pm, but couldn't locate the problem outside the building, never bothering to knock on my door or ring my bell in an attempt to make actual human contact.

"You still don't have a dial tone, Mister Barrett? On any jack?"

"No," I said, too world-weary to even correct my name at this point. I'm just figuring if I play my cards right, some schmoe down the street named Barrett will end up paying all my phone bills from here until the world is felled by global warming and a killing bureaucracy. Which, come to think of it, isn't such a good deal, because both seem like a distinct, just-around-the-corner possibility.

That is, assuming I ever get phone service through Verizon, which is looking highly unlikely at this point.

The reason being that, rather than being in Verizon Hell, I am now stuck in some sort of Telephone Service Purgatory, where according to Repair this is a Customer Service problem and according to Customer Service this is a Repair problem, and then according to Repair, it is a Fiber Optic Service problem, and then according to Fiber Optic, it is a Customer Service problem. Or maybe a Repair problem.

Regardless, I can only seem to deal with it Monday through Friday from 8 am to 6 pm with an adult present at home, although Repair and Fiber Optic are on duty 24/7, and I "should feel free to call back anytime."

What, to chat? To wish a pox on your children and their descendants? To add my name to the no-fly list for making terroristic threats to a phone company employee?

I will call back, alright--to cancel my service. Or non-service. And I will start to explore the wonderful world of Comcast Digital Voice or Vonage. Hell, at this point, I'm even considering joining the Xtreme! Crowd and tossing out my landline in favor of having a cell phone permanently attached to my head, Blue Tooth, Saber Tooth, Snaggle Tooth, and all. From here on out, it's just me and every 14-year-old girl (or every gay man over the age of 14 . . . ) talking inanities into a device that looks like it was used as a prop in Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space.

I still may not get through to 911, I still may pay 40 cents a minute when I go over my plan, but let's not think in negatives. Most importantly, I will have succumbed to (or perhaps I mean, become a sucker to) the Digital Revolution.

Power to the inculcated people!

Yours truly,

Che "Mister Barrett" Guevara.