A pox on monopolies
I have not had Internet access for FOUR DAYS! Streamyx (my ISP) sucks ass!
Then why am I still with this ISP, you may ask. Because they're a bloody MONOPOLY, that's why! Now I'm on prepaid dial-up -- also under the same ISP. I did say they're a monopoly, didn't I?
Ooooh I am so annoyed. I have called and called and called their customer service. First they said their servers were down and there was a national outage. Then they said half their customers still couldn't connect to the Internet. HALF?!?!?! How unacceptable is that? Then this morning they said that everything was back to normal. If everything is back to normal, why do I still have no connection?!?
I share this subscription with four of my housemates, so there are now five very pissed off people in this house. One of them is a freelance web designer who needs to send out her work, and another has a boyfriend in the UK -- goes without saying that the fastest and cheapest mode of communication would be via the Internet.
One of my friends said, "I had a similar problem a few months ago. It took Streamyx one month to fix my connection. Lesson learnt: keep harassing them about it."
I replied, "There's no way I won't be harassing them about it, coz if I don't harass them, my housemates will harass me!" :P
And why is it my job to harass Streamyx? Because the account's in my name, of course. I do want to note, though, that their customer service people are unfailingly polite and try hard to be helpful. I appreciate this because, after coordinating registration for a seminar in August, when I had to field phone inquiries every five minutes, I realised that if I ever try to work in a call centre, I would soon be growling, "Yes? What is it NOW?!"
Ever since then, I've viewed my mobile phone as a nuisance. Each time it rings, I have to suppress a strong urge to pick it up and throw it at the nearest wall. Like, "Leave me in peace!" Well, except when waiting for calls from the Streamyx technician, that is. 