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... and it appears my ISP loves fsckin' me, too.
Our (phone and) internet connection went out on Thursday afternoon (around 12 noon to 1pm). Given our nyetwork at home tends to be somewhat picky about matters of temperature, and also given Thursday was a fairly sultry and humid day, I figured the most likely problem was that one out of the modem or the router had decided to throw up their little hands in horror at the heat, and collapse. It's happened before, and Himself keeps them in a cupboard without much air circulation in the hottest room in the house (his bedroom). So I opened the cupboard, and being unable to reach the silly things (they're up on a shelf) I decided to wait for Himself to get home.
Once he got home, he did a few diagnostics, determined the problem wasn't with the router or the modem, and also determined (by the highly technical expedient of picking up the phone) that we didn't have a dial tone. So, pick up the phone and call up our ISP.
We're using iinet in WA. Just so's people know.
So, phone up the ISP, using Himself's mobile phone. The account is in my name, so they have to speak to me. Okay, yeah, we have a problem, we'll get tech support to call you back. Tech support calls back (on my phone) and we go through a half ton of diagnostics including removing all connections from the phone sockets and so on. Yeah, definitely got problems, we'll report this to Telstra, they'll send a tech out after "a maximum of" three to five working days.
Right. So, at that point, I'm looking at the earliest arrival from the Telstra tech being on Tuesday, which means I'll have to head in to the Spearwood Centrelink office to submit my fortnightly form in person. Annoying, but vaguely acceptable - and while I do like the internet, I'm not going to disintegrate into a twitchy heap without it.
Himself... well, he's a different question.
Friday, I get a call from iinet - the technician from Telstra will be out between 8am and 12pm tomorrow, 1st of February. This makes me blink a bit, because that means they're working on a Saturday, which as far as I'm aware isn't something the Telstra technical types do. But I pass on the message to Himself.
Saturday arrives. I'm up and dressed by 8am, just in case, but not really expecting anything. We leave the front door open all morning, and wait around for the nice tech from Telstra to appear. I maintain my position of scepticism, since quite frankly I think the ideal staging of "Waiting for Godot" would involve Vladimir and Estragon waiting on having their phone fixed by Australia's telephone infrastructure maintainers (yes, Godot is alive and well, and working for Tel$tra). Noon arrives and vanishes in the distance, with no sign of Godot the Phones.
Himself decides to talk to the ISP some more. Explains situation to them, with reference to the whole question of "where is this Telstra tech again?" and gets told that yeah, Telstra stood us up, and expect him on Tuesday after all. I shrug, having expected this. Himself gets even more twitchy. The withdrawal symptoms are kicking in, and he's missing his fix of internet.
Himself phones up the ISP - the first time he tries to get through to their technical support section, and gets told there's over an hour's wait, so he leaves a message asking them to call us back. Can they fix us up with a temporary dongle (the equivalent of a nicotine patch for a recovering smoker, I suspect). Oh yes, come on down to the shop in Subiaco and pick one up. So he does this. "It'll be fine once you get it home" they tell him. He gets home, hands it to me, and we plug it into Orac (my laptop). Install all the software, browse through the various user agreements, hoping I'll notice if one of them ever includes the words "bind over your immortal soul" as part of the click-through (or indeed "first-born child"). Complete lack of internet connection. By this time it's about half three.
Phone iinet again. Oh. Well, it must not have been activated yet. Wait another couple of hours, and it should be okay by about half past five.
Half past five comes along. The internet is still not working. Himself has a muscle jumping by his left eye and he's pacing from one end of the house to the other. But heark, it is the sound of my mobile going off. It's iinet tech support calling us back from earlier today! (remember, we placed that call around midday). They take a look at things. Activation issue with dongle. Should be fine by about half past seven. This call was enlivened by the child on the other end of the phone suggesting we stop by their website to find out when the activation had taken place... Himself was very nice, and didn't chew the kid's leg off, merely pointed out this was a trifle difficult since we didn't have internet access.
(My own response by this point in the saga was along the lines of "I'm just going to sit here and pretend you didn't say that very silly thing; because so long as I pretend you didn't say something that mind-bogglingly stupid, I don't have to ask you to get your manager so I can ask them whether you came to the job with this level of silliness, or whether it's actually the result of careful training." Junior was lucky he was dealing with Himself.)
You'll never guess what happened at around half seven! Yup, that's right, the internet STILL wasn't working, the dongle STILL wasn't active, and Himself was getting into fine form. He phoned iinet back (and used up the last of the minutes on my mobile plan; thanks sweetheart! All the more annoying because the only way I know of getting more time on the plan involves logging into my bank's website and sending the phone company money electronically) and they told him things would be all fixed by midnight.
We still didn't have internet this morning. Dongle was still as dead as a dodo. Still hadn't been activated. So around ten am today, Himself emerged from his slumber, checked the status of the dongle (still dead) and phoned iinet AGAIN. This time he pulled out all the stops - he stayed on the phone, and he TALKED AT THEM non-stop for about fifteen minutes straight, laying out the full story and exactly what he wanted out of the transaction (working internet) and precisely what he wasn't going to put up with (any more put-offs). He talked non-stop until the phone drone on the other end of the line realised they were dealing with a far-from-happy camper and got their manager to pick up the call. Said manager was able to get the damn dongle authorised (finally!) and we now have temporary internets.
And himself is no longer twitching and shaking... as much. The connection is via Orac, so he has to figure out a way of getting Orac and his PC to talk to one another (and share the internet connection nicely). But that's minor stuff.
I have no fewer than four copies of the iinet technical support customer satisfaction survey in my inbox (I'm tempted to forward them on to Himself so he can have the joy of replying to them).
Oh, and I've worked out an update for that lovely quote by Susan Ertz: "Millions long for immortality who don't know how to cope with an internet outage."
Our (phone and) internet connection went out on Thursday afternoon (around 12 noon to 1pm). Given our nyetwork at home tends to be somewhat picky about matters of temperature, and also given Thursday was a fairly sultry and humid day, I figured the most likely problem was that one out of the modem or the router had decided to throw up their little hands in horror at the heat, and collapse. It's happened before, and Himself keeps them in a cupboard without much air circulation in the hottest room in the house (his bedroom). So I opened the cupboard, and being unable to reach the silly things (they're up on a shelf) I decided to wait for Himself to get home.
Once he got home, he did a few diagnostics, determined the problem wasn't with the router or the modem, and also determined (by the highly technical expedient of picking up the phone) that we didn't have a dial tone. So, pick up the phone and call up our ISP.
We're using iinet in WA. Just so's people know.
So, phone up the ISP, using Himself's mobile phone. The account is in my name, so they have to speak to me. Okay, yeah, we have a problem, we'll get tech support to call you back. Tech support calls back (on my phone) and we go through a half ton of diagnostics including removing all connections from the phone sockets and so on. Yeah, definitely got problems, we'll report this to Telstra, they'll send a tech out after "a maximum of" three to five working days.
Right. So, at that point, I'm looking at the earliest arrival from the Telstra tech being on Tuesday, which means I'll have to head in to the Spearwood Centrelink office to submit my fortnightly form in person. Annoying, but vaguely acceptable - and while I do like the internet, I'm not going to disintegrate into a twitchy heap without it.
Himself... well, he's a different question.
Friday, I get a call from iinet - the technician from Telstra will be out between 8am and 12pm tomorrow, 1st of February. This makes me blink a bit, because that means they're working on a Saturday, which as far as I'm aware isn't something the Telstra technical types do. But I pass on the message to Himself.
Saturday arrives. I'm up and dressed by 8am, just in case, but not really expecting anything. We leave the front door open all morning, and wait around for the nice tech from Telstra to appear. I maintain my position of scepticism, since quite frankly I think the ideal staging of "Waiting for Godot" would involve Vladimir and Estragon waiting on having their phone fixed by Australia's telephone infrastructure maintainers (yes, Godot is alive and well, and working for Tel$tra). Noon arrives and vanishes in the distance, with no sign of Godot the Phones.
Himself decides to talk to the ISP some more. Explains situation to them, with reference to the whole question of "where is this Telstra tech again?" and gets told that yeah, Telstra stood us up, and expect him on Tuesday after all. I shrug, having expected this. Himself gets even more twitchy. The withdrawal symptoms are kicking in, and he's missing his fix of internet.
Himself phones up the ISP - the first time he tries to get through to their technical support section, and gets told there's over an hour's wait, so he leaves a message asking them to call us back. Can they fix us up with a temporary dongle (the equivalent of a nicotine patch for a recovering smoker, I suspect). Oh yes, come on down to the shop in Subiaco and pick one up. So he does this. "It'll be fine once you get it home" they tell him. He gets home, hands it to me, and we plug it into Orac (my laptop). Install all the software, browse through the various user agreements, hoping I'll notice if one of them ever includes the words "bind over your immortal soul" as part of the click-through (or indeed "first-born child"). Complete lack of internet connection. By this time it's about half three.
Phone iinet again. Oh. Well, it must not have been activated yet. Wait another couple of hours, and it should be okay by about half past five.
Half past five comes along. The internet is still not working. Himself has a muscle jumping by his left eye and he's pacing from one end of the house to the other. But heark, it is the sound of my mobile going off. It's iinet tech support calling us back from earlier today! (remember, we placed that call around midday). They take a look at things. Activation issue with dongle. Should be fine by about half past seven. This call was enlivened by the child on the other end of the phone suggesting we stop by their website to find out when the activation had taken place... Himself was very nice, and didn't chew the kid's leg off, merely pointed out this was a trifle difficult since we didn't have internet access.
(My own response by this point in the saga was along the lines of "I'm just going to sit here and pretend you didn't say that very silly thing; because so long as I pretend you didn't say something that mind-bogglingly stupid, I don't have to ask you to get your manager so I can ask them whether you came to the job with this level of silliness, or whether it's actually the result of careful training." Junior was lucky he was dealing with Himself.)
You'll never guess what happened at around half seven! Yup, that's right, the internet STILL wasn't working, the dongle STILL wasn't active, and Himself was getting into fine form. He phoned iinet back (and used up the last of the minutes on my mobile plan; thanks sweetheart! All the more annoying because the only way I know of getting more time on the plan involves logging into my bank's website and sending the phone company money electronically) and they told him things would be all fixed by midnight.
We still didn't have internet this morning. Dongle was still as dead as a dodo. Still hadn't been activated. So around ten am today, Himself emerged from his slumber, checked the status of the dongle (still dead) and phoned iinet AGAIN. This time he pulled out all the stops - he stayed on the phone, and he TALKED AT THEM non-stop for about fifteen minutes straight, laying out the full story and exactly what he wanted out of the transaction (working internet) and precisely what he wasn't going to put up with (any more put-offs). He talked non-stop until the phone drone on the other end of the line realised they were dealing with a far-from-happy camper and got their manager to pick up the call. Said manager was able to get the damn dongle authorised (finally!) and we now have temporary internets.
And himself is no longer twitching and shaking... as much. The connection is via Orac, so he has to figure out a way of getting Orac and his PC to talk to one another (and share the internet connection nicely). But that's minor stuff.
I have no fewer than four copies of the iinet technical support customer satisfaction survey in my inbox (I'm tempted to forward them on to Himself so he can have the joy of replying to them).
Oh, and I've worked out an update for that lovely quote by Susan Ertz: "Millions long for immortality who don't know how to cope with an internet outage."
