My Last Entry

And so it’s here…my last entry before it all ends. I’m kind of in a hurry because I’ve been really busy getting a bunch of stuff ready and everything so I almost hesitate to write this now but if not now…

Again, this will be a politics free zone for the last entry.

Actual MSNBC Headline: Clay Aiken reportedly expecting a baby

The article’s almost as freaky as the headline. You see, doctors…you know, I’m not going to rephrase this story. It increases a creepy guy’s creepiness factor by at least eight points.

My AT&T Story

As previously promised, I’m finally going to tell the AT&T story from a couple weeks ago. I was transferring my utility accounts and insurance and everything and one of the things I had to do was cancel my home phone.

See, in an effort to save money, I had decided to either rely solely on my cell phone or bundle phone service with Charter (which is what I ended up doing). Either way, I wasn’t going through AT&T anymore. So the goal was VERY simple…I was going to call and cancel my home service effective 5-19.

Oh…and when I was looking through my bill, I noticed that Gwinnett was getting a 911 service tax. Well, that’s a problem because I haven’t lived in that county in over three years. I’d been in Cobb for that time and I was in the process to moving again so I wanted to make sure my 911 service was going through the right county.

So that meant I had two goals: 1) Cancel my home phone effective 5-19 and 2) make sure that if I were ever to call 911, the call would be routed to the right place. I was expecting the call to last about five minutes, maybe ten at the most.

I called and spoke first to Terri Chambers and she told me that in order to process my two requests, I’d have to go to three departments, none of which were associated with her job description. First, because I had combined billing, I’d have to go to that department so they could uncombine my bill, then I’d be transferred to a department that could cancel my home phone service and finally I could be sent to the wireless department to check on my 911 service question.

The idea that I had to go to three departments to ask a simple question about 911 service and cancel my home phone service was ridiculous…and also something that I thought might make a good story, so I made sure I took very complete notes of the call.

I spoke to Ms. Brown in order to stop the combined billing. I was told that in order to set up draft payments again, I’d have to contact a different department or go online.

The next person I spoke with was Rachel Smith and she explained that the 911 service tax is based on where the cell phone was first registered and that the call is routed based on your current location. I had to be put on hold for a short while for her to confirm this and then she transferred me to the department that would cancel my home phone service.

I instead was transferred to an automated person where I went through a series of prompts until I reached Akeelah. I said that I was trying to cancel my home phone and she told me that there’s no record of my phone number in the AT&T system. I explained that I had just ended combined billing and maybe that was the reason she wasn’t able to pull it up. After trying a couple different search methods, she finally asked me what state I was calling from. I answered that I was calling from Georgia and it turned out that Akeelah was in Arkansas, outside my region.

I was now getting frustrated. I’d been on the phone with this company for 20 minutes up to this point. She said that she’d transfer me the Georgia region and she waited on hold with me to make sure I got a hold of the right person.

Ramon was the next rep I spoke with. Akeelah briefly explained what I was looking to do and dropped off the line. Ramon asked for my phone number and asked me to confirm the last four of my social security number. When I did, he told me that I was incorrect. He asked for my address and again, my answer was incorrect. He asked me for my pin number and I had no idea what my pin number was (or that I even had a pin number). Turned out that Ramon entered in the wrong phone number. He tried again and we went through the verification questions and everything.

He then went into a whole spiel about why I shouldn’t cancel the service. “Bad guys have cell phone scanners and will steal your information,” he warned as he retold a couple horror stories that allegedly happened to people he allegedly knew…allegedly. He offered to give me a lower price for service, transfer service without a fee and give my number “a vacation” so that I wouldn’t be paying for it but when I started up service again, I could keep my same number.

But here’s the thing…my old phone number hadn’t done anything to deserve a vacation. I’m not likely going anywhere this year and I’m sure as hell not giving my phone number a chance to travel somewhere exciting. Second, as I’ve mentioned before, I’ve had a problem with collection agencies calling that number looking for someone who isn’t me. They were calling between four and six times a day, so I was looking forward to getting rid of the number. (Though my new number also is associate with some deadbeat cocksucker, so I’m still getting calls that have nothing to do with me…I’d like to make a really nasty statement here about a topic better left alone, instead, I’ll just keep my mouth shut)

Ramon finally relented and allowed me to end my home phone service but not before ten minutes or so worth of a call. He gave me a confirmation number and transferred me to the department where I could restart my draft payments. I’d been on the phone for 34 minutes at this point.

I went to an automated message again and after going through the prompts, I reached Ms. Lee (no relation to Bruce…I don’t think). She told me that she couldn’t help me restart the draft payments because she only handled commercial accounts but that she could transfer me to the person who could help me…and she transferred me right back into the automated system that had led me to her.

I then reached Ms. Burgess and I explained that I wanted to restart my draft payments but she said that she only handles residential accounts and that I needed to talk to the department that handles wireless issues, the department that answered my 911 question from earlier in the call. She stayed on the line with me to make sure I got a hold of the right person.

We reached Sierra Shelton and Ms. Burgess said I was looking to establish my draft payment system and then dropped off the line. Ms. Shelton asked me to go through all the verifying information again. Then she explained that actually draft payment is something that the residential department handles and that I really should go back to them to set up the payment system. I said that I’d already been to that department and that I just wanted to get this done because I wanted to have my account automatically pay the bill without having to write a check or wait for the bill to be mailed to me. “I love [draft pay] because it’s convenient. You guys love it because you get your money on time. We all love it and I don’t want to lose it. Is there some way we can get this done without me being transferred through the entire AT&T system?” I asked.

She reluctantly said that she could set it up for me but said that my previous account’s information couldn’t be carried over, so I had to re-provide the credit card information and everything, even though I’d already had it on file with them previously.

She asked me to verify the mailing address that I was moving to and it turned out that while I had told a previous rep what the new address was, it wasn’t entered into the system correctly. They had my service address at my new place and my mailing address at my old one. Ms. Shelton corrected that and said that everything was set up to start the draft payment system but that it may or may not take up to a month…and I may or may not get a bill at me new apartment and regardless of either situation, I’m still responsible for paying the bill and will be charged late fees for missing the bill due date, even if a bill isn’t sent to me. I asked what the due date would be and she said that she couldn’t tell and that I’d have to call back closer to the due date for that information.

And that was it. I wanted to find out about my 911 call coverage and cancel my home phone service and it took 56 minutes to do this, the vast majority of which wasn’t spent on hold. It was due to the strange bureaucratic processes in place and the delegation of services that make one stop service virtually impossible. The two requests had to be split in several ways and then I was mis-transferred a few times and wound up in the wrong spot through the automated system a couple more times and it just was awful. The people, for the most part, were nice but the system in place is awful.

Surprise Story!!

If you’re like me, you like reading gross stories about freak things and then reciting them to other people to gross them out. Well, here’s the perfect story for you. This nine year old girl in Greece was complaining of stomach pains. So her parents took her to the doctor, where a growth was discovered inside of her…and it was a fetus with a head, hair and eyes. Was she pregnant? No…she had absorbed her own twin while in her mother’s womb, something that happens once every 500,000 live births.

What’s on TV Right Now

I’ve been studying non-stop for the past six hours or so and I have it on one of those digital music channels where they just play music but no actual videos. Right now, Hall and Oates’ “You Make My Dreams Come True” and I’ve never liked that song but it reminds me of a line in a story I wrote called ‘Toys: The Drew Walker Story.’

One character is talking about how great the 80s were and how that era is just as relevant today as they were then. He starts with Huey Lewis and then brings up Hall and Oates and says, “It’s like the greatest songwriting pair in history—Hall & Oates. Their songs are just as relevant today as they were when they came out. Sara is still smiling, that other girl is still a maneater and neither Hall nor Oates can go for that. No can do.”

My Hero

I don’t have a hero exactly but if I did, it would be Albert Einstein because he told us what E equaled. Before him, everyone would say, “E does not equal MC Squared” but Einstein changed everything. He made it happen. Late in life, Einstein hung out at bars and guys would ask him, “Hey, Al! What’s E equal?” And he’d tell them. It was great. So, he’d be my hero.

Mr. McNabb Update

I was studying earlier tonight (or last night, depending on your view) and I heard the sound of something like a dustbuster outside my door. I looked out my peephole and it was Mr. McNabb (who may or may not have a first name) and he was shirtless. Have you ever seen a senior citizen with a hairy, stretched out tattoo? I have and I think I’ll be seeing it every time I shut my eyes. If I’d understood that’s what happens to tattoos when you get older, I never would’ve…for fuck’s sake, I’m gonna hafta wash out my eyes again. Will this nightmare image never go away?

And Finally…

You know, I don’t really know how to end this. So, I’ll show you a funny clip and maybe you’ll laugh and if you’d laugh, well, that’d be good. This site was never as funny as I wanted it to be. Maybe if this last clip makes you laugh, you’ll think the site was funnier than it really was. And if that’s what you’re left with and that's how you remember me, well, that’d be good.

This clip was a Super Bowl commercial from several years ago and I searched for it every now and then but the only line I could remember was: “Blowed Up…Oh my!” Turns out ‘blowed’ is actually spelled ‘blow’d’ When I figured that out, I found the clip and here it is.