Saturday, November 15, 2008

Me, the Comcast Internet Technician

I feel like a completely un-technical moron today. OK, I have never thought of myself as exactly 'technical,' we still have a stereo with an 8-track player and a record player, and we have had Internet for less than a year. Getting up this morning to find there was no Internet connection was particularly frustrating. I re-started the computer and nothing happened. My next step was to call Comcast, and hope and pray that I got a patient and understanding service rep.

After spending several minutes going through the usual automated menu, you know how it goes,
"Press one for English."
beep
"Press one if you are a Comcast customer, so we may ignore your call and spend our time trying to obtain additional customers."
beep
"For cable, press one. For high speed Internet, press two. We need to know which customer service rep NOT to send you to."
beep
"For problems with your Internet, press one."
beep
"If you are experiencing Internet problems, press one. We could not decide how best to word this question, so we thought we would put it into the menu numerous times."
beep
"If you cannot get onto the internet, press one."
beep
"For problems with your internet service, press one."
beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
I kinda thought that pressing one for a longer time might speed the process up.
"For connectivity issues, press one."
beep

Finally, a voice came on. Yay, I finally got to talk to a person! Well, not so much. I got a nice, recorded message, saying that they would re-something my modem, which should solve the problem. Afterwards, I would need to re-boot or something my modem and router, and they would walk me through the process. However, whatever they would do to re-start the modem would also interrupt my Comcast phone service, and disconnect any calls being made. Basically, they were going to hang up on me to figure it out on my own, and I don't even know what the heck a modem or a router is!

The phone disconnected, and I waited a few minutes and tried to get online again. Still nothing. I called back and got to the same menu, did not press one for connectivity issues, and waited till I could press seven for a customer service rep. Instead, I got another recorded message telling me to either unplug the modem and reset the router, or unplug the router and reset the modem, I have no idea. But I was supposed to do it in a certain order, and then do something else, and all I could think was, what the heck is a router?!?! I finally got mad, hung up on the automated message, and decided if I couldn't figure it out myself, I would call my Brother the Genius. He would be able to walk me through it, and the slight amount of teasing I would receive for being so incredibly inept would be nothing compared to the automated menu again. I shut down the computer and found a little black box next to my monitor and started un-plugging things. I had the whole thing unplugged and some of the little lights were still on, so I found a little reset button and pushed it. Accomplished. I then went to the back of my computer and looked at the little cords back there. I knew the monitor, keyboard, and all of those, so I found one that looked like a little phone cord thingy and unplugged it for a while, then plugged it all back in and started the computer. Viola, I have Internet! I am a freaking genius. I have half a mind to call Comcast and bill them for repair service to my Internet, but I don't want to go through that automated menu again.

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