Most people I know would same I’m a pretty nice guy. I can be trouble at times, but by-and-large I’m a nice dude. Especially when I comes to customer service representatives. Man, those people have it rough. I get really frustrated when I hear people ragging on offshore call reps or anybody else that deal with moronic customers who demand perfection. But there’s a point at which I stop being a nice guy.

There’s a point at which I snap, I lose control. Like a mother bear and her cubs, it’s not a good idea to come between me and that which I cherish beyond any mortal. It’s not a good idea to come between me and my….Internet. It is for this reason that I write. I won’t berate you with the details, I’ll just inform you that Cox Cable is one of (if not chief) the worst customer care groups I’ve dealt with in Oklahoma.

Okay, so I lied. Get ready for a detail hailstorm.

Sunday, I move my stuff over to my new apartment. It’s the Holiday weekend, I’m cool with the fact that no one is picking up any phone any time soon. Alright, so I plan. I go to bed at 8pm Sunday night in preparation for the attack. I’m not kidding, I mean serious business when I work with my Internet. When my Internet is in danger I will run 14 miles through sleet and snow, run barefoot across hot mall parking lots, and lift Volvo’s just for a minute or two of that high speed goodness. So I’m ready for this trivial task. When 7:30am rolls around I make the call. It goes something like this:

• Cox: Hello
• Ray: Hello! I need to switch my internet over from my previous apartment to my new one.
• Cox: Alright, I need your pin.
• Ray: What pin?
• Cox: The pin on your bill, for the account, I need it to authorize the movement of the account
• Ray: Uh, no bill. I just moved, everything is everywhere and simultaneously nowhere. Everywhere I turn is a vast space filled with trinkets, baubles, dioramas and food. Can I get the pin sent somewhere or give you some other information? I mean I know everything about me. My mothers maiden name, the credit card used to make payments, my social security number, my blood type, the number of cheeses in my refrigerator, my secret passcode-handshake-dance?
• Cox: No, just the pin. Just check the bill, it’s on the front of the bill.
• Ray: Ohhh, well I don’t have my bill available. Let’s just assume, for the sake of this completely ridiculous and hypothetical scenario, that I shredded my bill by accident. What do I do? Can you email me the pin on my Cox email account?
• Cox: No, I can’t give the pin out. I could call you on a Cox account phone, do you have one of those?
• Ray: No. IDEA! Can you call me on the phone number registered with my Cox account and give it to me over that number? Will that work?
• Cox: No, it has to be a Cox phone. Sorry, sir.
• Ray: That doesn’t make any sense, aren’t both numbers equally linked to the account?? You have my phone number that I own, or you have my phone number that you own. Either way, it’s my number and it’s worked so far in identifying me.  Isn’t that the point to keeping information on file? Is there any other reason that you would use my phone number…except to call me on it?
• Cox: Sorry, sir. I can’t do that.
• Ray: Okay, well we’re at an impasse, Ms. Cox. What shall we do?
• Cox: You can come down to the corporate office and request the move with two valid forms of I.D.
• Voiceover:At this moment I’m swimming in murky pools of non-logic, so I cling to the only reality within my field of perception. “YES!”, I shout emphatically, “YES! That I can do. You see, Ms. Cox, I have both a car and two forms of ID. This is entirely within my reaches. You’ve given me hope!”

Now, this hurts my chances of getting cable in the same day: my original hope. However, I think that even if I lost cable for one night, that would be alright. My only goal is to maximize my options. I continue and call 2 other customer reps for other companies, both of which reaffirm my faith in customer service and capitalism.

I proceed 6 miles to the Cox center and request my service get changed. That went something like this.

• Cox:Hello
• Ray: Hello! I need to switch my internet over from my previous apartment to my new one.
• Cox: Alright, what’s the old address?
• Raymond: %address_old%
• Cox: New Address?
• Raymond: %address_new%
• Cox: Okay, by the end of the day! Wait tomorrow….yeah, tomorrow…end of the day.
• Raymond: Darn, I was hoping for today. Wait, that’s it?
• Cox: That’s it!
• Raymond: Where does my PIN come into play?
• Cox: What pin?
• Raymond: Didn’t I need a PIN or 2 forms of ID? I didn’t need to drive 12 miles round trip? This is worse than what happened to Abraham, you know that! At least he got to keep his son. I still don’t have Internet.
• Cox: Eh, not so much.
• Raymond: ……….

At this point I show great restraint and honor. So I don’t. But when 3 o’clock rolls around I ask myself where the dude is.  I call, here’s the abbreviated version. “Should be working man! I’ll send to to tech support….Yeah, should be working. Nope, I’ll have to send a technician. Tomorrow? (me: ARRRRRGH) Oh wait! They haven’t come yet. Give them until seven!” How did you not know whether your own technician had done the job or not? Okay, so I’ll wait.

I notice the power gets shut off in the old apartment, so now running the wireless from there isn’t an option any more. I move the modem to my place and get no signal. I wait. I talk to Bryan. I wait. I consider talking to Bryan again, but stop myself.  Then I try again. By some sort of mysterious magic…the signal has changed…and yet this change comes without the ability to access the internet. What could have happened?

Apparently….apparently, the technician untrapped the line and let the connection through. HOWEVER. I guess it’s not policy to give a courtesy knock on the tenents door to let them know you set it up. So there was no point at which I could say..”It’s up? Wait, no it’s not. Could you look at this?” No. No point. So what did he do today? What did the guy do…today? He cost Cox money, and me time. And sanity….don’t forget…sanity.

So what’s the final damage? Thursday afternoon between 4 and 7 I will be getting the visit from a technician. Thursday. In my big book of Internet outages, I saw it written that a Monday-Tuesday was alright. Worst case stretches over Monday-Wednesday. But because of 3 poor phone support reps and a technician with somewhere better to be I am now out of cable for 4 days.

Do I realize that there are children starving around the world? Do I realize that I have enough food to last me for a month in case of emergency? SURE. But what I hate is that something tragic like me not having my Internet could have been avoided with some simple steps and better business planning. Plus, the money I would normally donate to starving children is now going to me finding otherways of getting my internet access and writing this blog post.