Between Cox Cable and Centurylink today, I became extremely agitated.

Centurylink sent out a person that is NOT the 2cd tier person they said they were going to send out.  Just another technician who couldn't figure out what was going on.  He comes in after his "investigation" and tells me that there is nothing wrong with the lines.  I sit him down at my kitchen table and do the speed tests on both my wired desktop and my non-wired laptop and show him  CenturyLink's "approved" speed test.  On both of them, they show around 5,000 mbps.  Then, the number started going up as I kept refreshing.  Then back down. And up. And down. 

He went outside to make a phone call and came back in and told me of some "division" in their company that keeps a running log of my speeds - according to their system anyway.  I said thanks, obviously, he wasn't going to be able to do anything.  I informed I would be calling CenturyLink again and discussing this with them.

Meanwhile, Cox cable comes out.  The supervisor ends up coming out and bypassing the worthless worker who obviously just wants the easy way out - drilling a hole through my front wall - and we discuss this situation.  It's for George's work and his work is paying for it, yes, but it's MY house and I don't want a hole drilled through the front wall of my house.  

So the guy walks around and suggest to run a trench along the side wall in front of my house through the block fence and then under the house, to the rear of the house and install an interface there.  Sure, I said, that sounds great.  But remember, I tell him, that you are going to have to crawl underneath the house and feed the line up through the bottom of the house through the wall. Okay, he says and that's that.

Back to Century Link.  I call them back and just go for the throat: the manager this morning tells me that they are sending out a 2cd level tech and that they WILL take care of this situation and they do not.  I go through the Philippines yet again and then to an American operator who wants to argue.  Your manager, please.  She rambles on. Manager, thanks.  I'm just not going to go into the extreme amount of talk that went back and forth, too much and after having to have had deal with 2 of the same kind of company at my property today?  I'm just done.  

I was very blunt with the manager that I got on the phone, I will say that.  Promises not kept.  The same things stated from every manager, every time: it's GOING to be fixed.  The same outcome: it ISN'T fixed.  It turned into an ugly conversation, but only because she was hedging and hawing.  Blame shifting, I told her to her ear she didn't care and it was obvious.  It was too  late to call corporate, they had already closed, but rest assured they WILL be getting a phone call first thing in the morning.  This woman claims both a high level tech and a supervisor are showing up tomorrow morning at 11:00 am.  Yes, lady, that's all I have to do in life: spend quality time with your freaking employees. I'm on VACATION.

Back to Cox.  The worker comes back several hours later.  Like about 6 hours.  He obviously does not want to get under the house to do the install.  George is telling them no, it has to be under the house.  Time passage.  Supervisor shows up, they are in his bedroom and George is speaking loudly enough for me to hear the conversation, he eventually directs them to me.  I am already peeved about this on-going, non-abating situation with Century Link and now I have to deal with THIS?  

They come out and start talking.  No, I am not going to allow you to drill a hole through the wall in front of my house, that's that.  We go through the options.  We agree that they can run a line through the side of the house where there is already a hole, but the line is still going to have to run through the floor from underneath the house.  We have this discussion for 10 minutes and then they look at me blankly.  Huh? We don't understand, we are running a hole through the front of your house, right?

I will admit that I became hostile at that point.  I have JUST discussed with them - PLAINLY - that the line is going through the side of the house.  I pointed to the side of the house when I said that and I asked them if they understood that means by the gate? Yes, we get it, over there.  I had had this SAME discussion with this supervisor 6 hours earlier, we did a walk-around the entire house.  We both saw the places where this was going to be done.  Now they are attempting to talk me into having a hole in the front of my house again!

FREAKING MORONS.  I must have told them 10 times - NO HOLES THROUGH THE FRONT WALL OF MY HOUSE.  George told them several times over as well.  Unbelievable!!!  I got up out of my chair and looked the supervisor in the eye: There are not going to be ANY holes drilled through the front wall of my house, do you UNDERSTAND this?!!  IF YOU DON'T WANT TO DO THE JOB, WE'LL BE HAPPY TO CALL COX CABLE AND ASK THEM TO SEND SOMEONE OUT THAT WILL!!  

That was the end of it.  Their tones changed completely.  They are subcontractors.  They work for Cox, that is their life-blood. They lose that they are screwed.  They don't want people calling Cox telling them that their subcontractors don't want to do the required work.  They want to take the easy way out and don't care what the homeowner wants. 

Yup, the worker eventually crawled under the house - it's a 65 foot crawl - drilled the hole, pushed the cable through, done.  Was it that hard?  I have been under there numerous times, all the way to the front. Fun, no, doable, yes, but miserable? No.  The guy was standing there attempting to tell George that it would be at least 130 degrees underneath my house.  I just laughed. It's WAY cooler under my house than it is outside!

It's done. Cox is anyway. I guess.  I'll have to go out front and inspect the damage and see if they screwed up any of my plants with their install. 

Century Link?  Ongoing story.

You wanna know what blew my mind? I had my Verizon Hotspot out here while they had internet shut down checking whatever.  I ran a speed test on it, the first one came back at over 16,000 mgps!! The second went  down to 12,000, the 3rd went clear up to the 17,000 range.  NO, it doesn't always work that well, but yes, I was pressing buttons and it was moving right along from one site to another.