Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Basic Telephone Repair 101

Yes, it's true. I still have land line telephone service. I even have a rotary dial telephone in my garage. I also have a telephone in my kitchen and one in my bedroom. Three phones and not one of them is working right now. No dial tone. No one can call in. I can't call out. I have no idea when useful information stopped appearing on my telephone bill. Sometimes I have trouble even remembering who's is charge of my land line. It used to be Mountain Bell. Then it became Pacific Bell. Then SBC Global waltzed into the picture. Now I make my checks out to AT&T. I just spent some time looking at my most recent bill from AT&T. Forget that I pay way too much for what I get. That's nothing new. What irked me just now is that nowhere on that bill is there a telephone number to call if my phone isn't working. Didn't that used to be a three digit number that everyone knew? My bill gives me the number to call if I want to "Bundle Today" and the number to call if I have questions on my bill. I also see a separate number to call if I want Tariff Information, whatever that is. Nowhere, though, is there a number to call if I can't call. Come to think of it, perhaps AT&T is unaware of the fact that I have a cell phone.
That's okay. I went to their website. Luckily for me I have not 'bundled' otherwise I'd probably be unable to access the Internet, too. On the AT&T website I easily located the 'got problems' tab. After giving essential information and tabbing along through cyberspace for several minutes I came to an absolutely astonishing page. AT&T was telling me how to go to their box (located near my electrical meter, or in my basement, or down the street somewhere), open their box, unplug stuff, plug in stuff, and do all sorts of things in order to determine the nature of my problem. AT&T was telling me how to do its job.
If my cell phone doesn't work, I go to Verizon and get another. I do not receive instructions on cell phone repair.
If I can ever contact AT&T, I'm going to cancel my land line.
Of course, such a cancellation will doubtless require my taking special classes in order to learn the correct way to dump AT&T.
In the meantime, don't bother to call me.

1 comment:

Marnie said...

Amusing article, but true. The number used to be 611 but I don't know if that's it anymore. Of interest, I needed microwave repair. I couldn't reach anyone by phone, but I could on line. In fact, I scheduled a repair visit. Likewise on my washing machine. The internet is here to stay - the phones are old fashioned.