Outsourcing is the root of all evil

[azurite]

Or at least one of the roots of evil. Yesterday everything was just fine and dandy. It was pouring rain outside, but I was nice, warm, and occupied-- Stargate SG-1 on the TV, Internet at 100MB/s in front of me. I decided to reformat the Peach Girl 2-chapter fic I have yet to finish, "My Song," because the lyrics that the fic is centric on ("Wo Yi Ran Xiang Xin Ni Hai Ai Wo," or "I Still Believe That You Still Love Me") reminded me of the fic. Well, so I went to all this trouble of reformatting and everything, and right as I upload the docs to the Document Manager (thankfully, they're still there, so I'm officially uploading them to FFnet now) my 'Net dies on me. I figure the comp is just being whacky, so I try again... and again...

Eventually, I decide to restart. Still nothing. Maybe it's because of the storm? I run a check using the SBC Support Tool, and my comp fails all of the connectivity tests. I call Tech Support. A woman claiming to be something like "Sarah" or "Michelle" answers the phone, but her accent is 100% thick Indian. I have nothing against Indians or whatever, but OUTSOURCING!!! YOU CAN TELL!! Gr! After a long and drawn out conversation involving near-freezes, canceled virus scans, defaulting of my settings, and so on, still no luck. I'm supposed to call Dell and ask them what's up with my NIC card.

Dell (also in India) tells me that SBC must have installed this "Realtek" adapter card, and is not using the Broadcom 440x 10/100 one that came with the computer. But, it's verified, and I have to call SBC back. So I call THEM back, and this time someone named "Ilene" answers, but after she puts me on hold, I get cut off. The cheesy guitar music snaps out of range, and I'm left listening to silence for a good 3 minutes.

It was so late, and I was so frustrated by then that I just gave up. Apparently this all ties into my computer resetting my IP address or something, because ones that start with 0.###... or 169.### are "default broken" IPs. But because I'm not a "static customer" of SBC, my IP changes every 6-7 hours, and... I don't know what that means, but I still can't connect to the Internet, and I don't know why. It's pissing me off. If it doesn't work when I get home, I'm going to be very angry when I call SBC back.

Anyway, so I'm here at the Collabatory... taking a quick break before all hell breaks loose and I attempt to finish Media Notebook 2-1, on magazine specialization vs. radio formatting. I have to turn it in before I leave campus tomorrow afternoon. I've gotten Vilma to take notes for me in Geography, and Sarah to take notes for me in Journalism, so I should be all set. I'm going to take the short story quiz (on yet another morbid piece Davidson selected, this one called "Abji Kharnom") on Monday before class. Teh yay!

The rest of today will consist of a mall trip to get gloves, gold pins (if necessary at this point, I might just do the gold ribbon thing for shoulder straps), and see what the kiosks have in terms of bamboo potted plants (something Scott wants to give as a b'day present to someone), and maybe score a few books at Borders. HG#4 and BESM, if I can. Also, a manicure. When I go home, I'm going to highlight my hair, and... then yell at Tech Support more if the comp isn't back and ready.

Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to go home, make the cookies for Scott's family/mom, get my things together, and then wait for Scott to come over around 5ish. He's going to help me put together the last bits of my costume (snaps and wings and the like) and then we'll go around 7:30-8 to Hollywood, and then south to San Diego.

Yay!?

Comments

[shalilajupiter.livejournal.com]

If all you have to do is release and renew your IP address that's not hard at all. Just click on start, click on run, and type winipcfg into the the text box. There should be something that comes up called an IP configuration box. Make sure that the correct modem is selected. Click on the release button, click on the renew button. Voila. IP address is reset.

I know this because we had to reset the IP every once in a while at my old place and we still do and it's probably for the same reason.

Also, make sure that everything is set to obtain automatically under the network settings in control panel.

Do me a favour though. Don't yell at the person on the other end of the phone. Remember, they are trying to help you, and getting angry at the person on the phone isn't going to help. Yes, it is frustrating when things don't work and you try lots of things to get it going again, but remember, the person on the other end of the phone is just that; a person. Don't make someone else's day bad just because you're frustrated. If they're not helpful, tell them that. Ask them questions, make them explain things if you need to, but don't take out the frustration on them.

I know I've had to call my cable and phone companies numerous times over billing issues, but not once have I become angry at the person. The reason for that is I like to think about what it would be like if the situation were reversed. What if I was the person answering the phone? I think I would be rather upset if someone called up to yell at me about a problem that I personally had nothing to do with.

And even if you are angry, please explain to the poor person stuck on the phone that you're not mad at them. They will appreciate it.

Gek

[azurite]

Thanks for all the kind advice, but after about five or six calls to India (and that was the primary thing that pissed me off, not so much the issue itself), I was finally informed that water in the underground wiring disrupted the line. Now if only they could have told me that to begin with...

Re: Gek

[shalilajupiter.livejournal.com]

Yeah. The water issue does suck, but it is the sort of thing that the people working at the outsourcer wouldn't necessarily know right away.

I'm glad that you figured out what the problem is though.