September

I have now been back at work for five days. And I have been bloody EXHAUSTED at the end of each of those five days – even though on one of them, the kids were there for only an hour! I know lots of people begrudge us teachers our summers off (which is without pay, by the way, unless you join the twelve-month payment plan. Then the school board keeps part of your salary each of the ten months that school is in session, and pays it out to you in July and August. And in return, THEY keep the interest that has accrued on YOUR money during those ten months in which they didn’t pay your your full monthly salary. Quite the scam they’ve got going there, isn’t it? I didn’t sign up for that plan. I want every penny of interest I can get these days!), but even those people have to admit that it’s hard to get back into your regular work routine after as little as a couple of days off. It’s REALLY hard after eight or ten weeks off.

But I’m always happy to go back to work in September, as I’m one of those odd people who actually enjoys her job. Like most teachers, in September, I’m generally full of enthusiasm, energy, and bright ideas. I find the kids endlessly fascinating, and I have lots of patience with them in September. I mean to make this year the best year ever for every kid I work with, and in September, I’m looking forward to making a positive difference, either big or small, in each of their lives.

Yeah. In September.

So, come talk to me in June. It just might be a different story then.

Mistakes were made

Well. Further to yesterday’s post …

I psyched myself up and made yet another phone call to that other cable and internet company that had contacted the company I deal with to terminate my service. I HATE making phone calls at the best of times, and this one was no exception. I wasn’t sure what, if anything, they could tell me, and I wasn’t sure who I should even speak to – a regular service rep? A manager? Someone in the fraud department?

But the guy I spoke to (a regular rep) was very nice. He listened carefully to my story, allowed as to how this situation WAS quite odd, and asked my for my address. I gave it to him, and he put me on hold for just a few minutes while he checked their computer records. When he came back, he had two questions for me: what was my name, and did I live in a duplex?

So I told him my name and said I actually lived in a triplex. Ah, he replied, then this is what I think happened.

It seemed that they had indeed received a call on August 6 about switching service from my company to theirs – from one of my neighbours in the triplex. He couldn’t tell me which one, for security reasons, but he chuckled as he said, “Well, you know it wasn’t you, so that leaves only two other choices, doesn’t it?”

I laughed too, then he told me the rest of the likely scenario. Someone must have keyed in the wrong address, so it ended up being mine instead of that of the neighbour who actually wanted to change their cable and internet service. And although the real name and phone number would not have matched the address that they now had, no one would have necessarily checked that, because the company goes by the address first and foremost. He said theoretically they should always check to ensure that everything matches, but people being people, it didn’t happen this time. It was extremely unusual, but very possible, he said.

So basically, it really was a mistake that my service had been terminated, a mistake of one little number. I don’t know which service provider actually made the mistake, and honestly, it doesn’t matter now. It has been rectified, and I doubt that I would ever get any more information than I now have.

But now I wonder which neighbour it was and if they really DID get that change in the end. And how on earth would I bring that up in conversation over the back fence? “Oh, hi. Just wondering if you tried to change your internet provider recently – because you really screwed me around when you did! My service got cut off, not yours, so you just might want to check and see which company you have now …”

Nah, I’m going to let it go now. It’s enough to know that nobody is out to get me.

This time.

Terminated

A very weird thing happened in Pinklea-land this past weekend. It’s been dealt with now, but I still can’t quite figure out why it even happened.

Saturday morning, around 10 am, I fired up the old laptop to see what was going on in the world of internet. As you do. But I had no internet. I mucked about with my modem and router and the laptop itself. Still no internet. Okay, I thought, the service must be down right now. No worries, I’ll try again later.

Later came and I tried again. Still nothing. It occurred to me to check my tv, to see if I had cable or not. I did not. So everything was down, not just my internet. No worries, these things happen. I’ll try again later.

Still later (like four hours later). Still nothing. During this time, I was on my phone, using up precious LTE data minutes, trying to find out if there was indeed a service outage in my area. I couldn’t find any info, and usually I can (yay Twitter!), so I was getting a bit frustrated that it might be just my service. I knew that as much as I dreaded it, a phone call to my service provider was looming.

And when I did phone, guess what! I was informed that my internet and cable service had been terminated as of August 13 (and this was already August 22) AS OF MY REQUEST.

Pardon ME? Stunned, I explained to the phone rep that I had requested no such thing, and if I did, why would I be frantically calling now to find out why I had no service? It didn’t make any sense, and it didn’t matter because I definitely wanted to keep my internet and cable on, so would they please reconnect it ASAP?!?

The rep verified my name, address, phone number, and other security info, and confirmed that yes indeed, it was certainly MY service that they had been told to terminate, as apparently I was changing to a different service provider. Uh, no. Not true, I told him. I have asked for absolutely no changes to my service, you have disconnected me quite erroneously, so please reconnect me ASAP!

The rep seemed to believe me, but couldn’t understand how this could have happened. HE couldn’t??? I couldn’t either! Had someone impersonated me? Did someone have my confidential information? Was someone trying to piss me off or – shudder – get revenge on me for something I’d done to them? Was this an honest mistake – a mixup of name or address or account number?

The rep said he wasn’t able to reconnect me himself but he didn’t seem to know what else to do. He eventually messaged another department that, from what I understood, would look into this and phone me back, but he couldn’t tell me when or what they could do to resolve the issue (how about reconnecting my service???). I sighed and thanked him and hung up.

And then an hour later, still dissatisfied, I called back. This time, I got a different rep who seemed to know a lot more. He quickly checked my file, complete with the notes that the previous rep had added, and he agreed that this was totally bizarre. He also had no idea what happened, other than that another service provider had told them that I was switching to them and so my current service should be terminated as of August 13. But he also checked with his service department, and then told me that as my actual wires had been disconnected at my house, a service rep would have to come out to reattach them AND luckily, he had two appointments available for the next afternoon, Sunday. I took the earlier one, between 1 and 3, thanked him and hung up.

Then the first, original rep I’d spoken to called me back. He told me the name of the other service provider who had contacted his company. They said that they had gotten a call on August 6, supposedly from me, that I wanted to switch to them, at which time they contacted my current provider to stop my service as of August 13, which was when this new companay would start providing my internet and cable. Of course, these companies all cooperate with one another in these situations, so my current provider would have no idea that it wasn’t actually me who had asked for this, so they did it. He informed me that if I wanted to dig further into this, I should call that other service provider and see what they could tell me.

So, Sunday morning at about 11, PG suggested that I try my internet, because he thought he’d heard someone outside the house earlier, opening and closing the metal box that contains the various connections, so he wondered if it had already been done.

It had. I had internet and cable again! Then the service rep who’d come to the house phoned and asked if everything was working again. Yes, yes, yes! I exclaimed. I thanked him for coming so early to do it, too, as that kind of service is unheard of. He said it turned out that the wires had NOT been physically disconnected, so he’d just called someone in his department to flip some remote switch to turn everything back on – which is pretty much what I had originally thought needed to happen anyway.

But we weren’t quite done yet. My email wasn’t yet working. So I had to make one more call to the tech department, because there was one more remote switch that needed to be turned on. That was done quite quickly and easily, so about 24 hours after I first discovered that I had no internet or cable, all my services were restored.

But the big question remains: how in the hell did this happen??? Was it a malicious trick on me? If it was, I have to admit that I’m concerned that someone could claim to be me and have one of my services cut off and NO questions were asked by either of two different companies. And if it was a simple mistake, did no one – again at either of two different companies – ensure that names matched addresses and phone numbers and confidential account info?

At least my services were reconnected relatively fast.

But it’s still a very weird thing to happen.