Nattering on the phone

PhoneCoPhobia - the Fear of Calling AT&T

This morning, there was a downed phone line in front of our house. My husband suggested that I call the phone company to report it, and I started to hyperventilate.

The last time I called to report a problem with the phone, I found myself kneeling in the rock bed on the side of the house, unscrewing the cover on a little gray box so that I could check the dial tone on the thingy outside - working as fast as I could, because if I didn’t get that cover off and press 1 if there was a dial tone and 2 if there wasn’t, I was going to have to start all over.  Thank goodness the box was the problem, because I was sure that the next automated instruction would be to strap on some climbing boots and shinny up the utility pole to check out everything up there.  I could only imagine what the little voice would want me to do for a downed line.

Seeing my panic, my husband suggested that I try reporting it over the internet.  That sounded much more manageable, so I went in and fired up the computer.

A few screens into it, I realized that this had some similarities to the automated phone process.  One, I would be significantly older before I finished.  Two, by the time I got through their trouble-shooting diagnostic process, I’d be qualified to hang out my own phone repair shingle.

Before the system would yield the top secret e-mail address for my particular problem, I went through eight screens of questions.  Finally, I got to choose ‘repair’.  Excited, I realized I must be almost there.  And then I got these three options:

• Open or check status of repair ticket online
• Help yourself: technical support -High speed internet
• Help yourself: customer support - Wireless Service

Now, do any of these sound like they apply to what I need to report?  I didn’t think so either.  And for crying out loud and heavens to Pete - why, after all this, are two of my three options to ‘help myself’?

Just when I decided that the phone line could stay down for all I cared, I recalled the priceless wisdom of a not-so-ancient philosopher/technician.

“Call the help line and keep pressing “0″ until somebody talks to you.”

It works.