i can only call you if you live in my amoeba

When we moved to St. Louis, I had expected to call the phone company and get the phone turned on within a day or two. This was the how it worked at the last two places I've lived, and I saw no reason to expect it would be any different here. So, D. called up the phone company and requested local service only, at which point we were told it service wouldn't be turned on for at least another week. That was strike #1. Although D. specified we wanted local service only, the guy repeatedly asked him if we wanted long distance or if we wanted to sign up for DSL. I'm sure it was just part of his job to do so, but damn, it was irritating. Strike #2. Before D. hung up, he asked what our local calling area would be, as we weren't sure if it would just be the area code we live in or parts of the suburban area codes. As the phone guy told him, he started frantically typing and by the time he was done, our local calling area looked something like this: Locust Page Stratford Kingshighway 3rd Main Richmont Jackson Westville I'm making the names up because I don't remember which streets they really were, but when we looked them up we were horrified. Our local calling area was 28 blocks in the shape of an amoeba, with us located towards one of its top left arms. That was definitely strike #3. After much searching on the internet we did find that AT&T could provide local service instead, and I have nothing bad to say about them. In fact, I love AT&T because they gave us local calls to our entire area code and cheap DSL. I won't name the first company, but they provide phone service in St. Louis and I just want to say, people, don't get sucked in. Say no to the amoeba.

why i'd hate to work in customer service

When we moved into this apartment, we signed up for DSL and got rid of the cheap dialup we'd been using over the summer. To do this, we signed into our account and clicked on 'cancel your account', which took us to a page with an 800# to call to cancel said account. So, D. called the number, and got an automatic message telling him the web address for account cancellation. At this point if we had still been using dialup I would have been pretty irritated, what with all the disconnecting and the reconnecting. Once we got to the cancellation site, the first screen requested that we select one of about 12 reasons why we wanted to cancel the account. D. clicked on the "have DSL/cable modem/etc" option, which took us to a page saying: "Connect 5x faster with dialup premium!!!! This does not apply for uploads, downloads, images, or anything useful. [click here to keep your account]" We tried out all the other options, and for every reason you selected for cancellation, you were taken to a new page full of exciting reasons to stick with their service. So, we chose "other", which opened a blank box for you to enter your reason. D. proceeded to fill the box in as follows: I hate the way your little ad screens sometimes don't disappear and then cover up 23.8% of the viewable image. Also, your ads with sound are extremely irritating. I keep getting in trouble for looking at porn when your stupid noisy ads wake my girlfriend up. But thanks for being cheap. And that pretty much sums up our feelings towards the dialup, right there. Those few months without high speed internet were like our own little form of purgatory.