June 10, 2021

...and the ugly.

I had planned to be back in Missouri last Thursday evening, after a week of finishing up all of my Kansas business. Our internet was to be installed on Friday morning, so I needed to be there the night before. 

This was thrown off a bit on Tuesday, when I got a call from Fed Ex freight saying that they had a "Carrara countertop" that needed to be signed for on Thursday afternoon in Missouri and could I "help unload it?" and "Can an 18-wheeler get in there?"...No and maybe. I hate when they ask questions about driving/turning accommodations. I have no spatial awareness. I don't know that particular driver's skill set. I have both overestimated and underestimated Scott's skill set in this area in the past and it's never ended well. 

So, instead of packing up slowly on Wednesday and loading up on Thursday morning, I packed like a crazy person on Wednesday, loaded everything Wednesday night, and shoved everyone out the door early Thursday morning. I was ready for Fed Ex and a nap by noon. 

When Fed Ex called to say they were on their way, it was probably 3pm. I don't even remember. I just know they showed up before 5pm and could not (could not) fit in the driveway, so he parked just flat-out on the road. 


I walked down there, leaving two angry dogs and angry Wells waiting at the window. Eventually, I had to go back for Wells and took the following picture while holding an almost-3-year-old.

The older man who was driving showed me the two boxes. Two boxes. I ordered one. After already buying two of these vanities, I knew what it was supposed to look like. This did not look like that. 


I have no idea, still, what the boxes contained. They weren't what was on the packing slip. The packing slip was correct and the item was not. 

Anywho... The driver couldn't get enough cell phone service to call his home location to see what to do with them, but I knew you could refuse a Fed Ex delivery if you catch them before they leave. So, he took the oddly-shaped boxes with him and then drove off down the (narrow) road to find a spot to turn his truck around. (I admit I couldn't watch to see if he ever came back up the road. I'm assuming he did.)

That was the first day I spent waiting around for nothing. 

The next morning, I had our internet installation appointment. I made this appointment over a month ago, set it up for a certain day, and planned to be in Missouri on that day. It was all intentional, friends. 

With 20 minutes left of the two hour appointment window, the tech called and said yeah, we can't hook you up today. 

Apparently, being pretty rural in population, there were not enough remote connections for this many people in the neighborhood. He said the engineers would put more remotes in and then they could connect me. He said it would be done in less than 30 days.

I was appalled, with angry tears of frustration because: 1. How is that my problem? 2. You being woefully unprepared to do your job is not my fault. 3. I made this appointment a month ago, therefore you knew you needed a connection for this house. 

He said someone would get back to me on it within a couple of weeks. 

That left me with no internet, no furniture, a toddler, two dogs, and little to no cell phone service. We needed the internet for communication. Every phone call I've had to make from this house has been standing in the middle of the yard, talking loud enough for the neighbors to hear me. 

That was the second day I spent waiting around for nothing. 

However, I did call another company (standing the yard) and they promised to hook up satellite internet on Monday. It would cost a little more than the first company but they were: #1 actually willing to do it and, #2 had all the taxes/rentals rolled into the plan. The difference would probably be about $20-30 more a month. I will pay that for good business practices/decent customer service. 

Monday came. 8am-11am was my appointment window. 

10:00am: Someone from the company calls and asks if I've heard from the technician. I had not. She says they can't find him. 

10:45am: She calls back. Says she's moving me to the 11am-2pm appointment window and said we'd hope for the best. 

Noon: I call the vet and reschedule the dogs' vaccine appointments that were supposed to be that afternoon. I had had a plan of sorts for my day. No more. 

12:15pm: Company calls back and says that they cannot find their technician. They are sending someone else but it may be 7pm before he can get there. 

6:53pm: New technician arrives. He has to put up a satellite dish, drill a hole in the wall, hardwire the connection, get everything to work, ETC. 

9:53pm: We have internet. His frustration was evident because he had to do a lot of adjustments, but he was super kind. I noticed him taking a smoke break or two by his truck and Wells asked me "why is the engine on fire? go help!" because all he could see was the cloud of smoke. 

I asked the man what happened to the other technician. He said no one knows but he had to take on all of his jobs for the day and I wasn't even his last appointment. He left about 10:15pm.

I don't even know how good this satellite internet is, really, but it's a principled thing for me now, so hopefully AT&T is hooked up out here in the country or something by the time this contract is up. (I am so tired.)

As for Fed Ex, they called me on Tuesday and asked if I had any contact info for the company who sent the package last week because it's still sitting at their facility and they cannot get a hold of anyone to do the return.*

I will give credit to both the Fed Ex driver and the internet technician. They answered every single one of Wells' questions with good humor. 

*Update: they called me yesterday to ask why I sent the vanity top back and "was there something wrong with it?".

5 comments:

  1. I feel bad for the technician who had to take in all of his colleague's jobs. Also kind of worried about the original technician. I hope he's okay!

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  2. Good grief. I don’t know why these simple things always turn out to be a headache. When we had internet set up in our house, they had to run a whole new cable and turned into a whole morning project. As he was leaving, he discovered that our laundry room was flooding. I think that was the day before I backed out of our very narrow garage, banged up the garage door track and knocked the window off my car. Moving is the literal worst. We had so many other major things go wrong, too. I don’t know what it is about moving that makes everything implode.

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  3. OH I am IRATE for you. What a clusterf***

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  4. you should have just kept it & then told them to send you the correct one - you send me something, it now becomes mine - get it right the first time. GAH
    Side note - I'm watching Fed Ex back up in my drive right now. Ironic

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  5. Ugh I hate companies like this. We had a similar situation with internet here and we aren't rural. It took 7 days, us complaining daily, cancelling things to be here and no shows, for a guy to finally show up and get the job done in 10 min.

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