The Qwest Concludes

I'm not sure if my DirecTV/Qwest woes have been the most compelling tale I've told here, but it does seem a few people have taken an interest. (Thanks for your long distance attempts at a diagnosis, Kindralas!) So here is the final (probably) chapter in the tale.

I wasn't feeling too great Friday night. In fact, as of today, I'm full-blown sick and feeling miserable. So I figured I'd try to sleep in Saturday morning, despite the 9:00-1:00 window of my TV appointment. I had the Apologetic Supervisor's assurance that I'd get a call 30 minutes before the technician arrived, so I figured that would give me the time to wake up and get ready.

Still, I decided to attach a note to my door before I went to bed. It read simply: "You were supposed to call me before you arrived."

I woke up on my own around 10:00, and went out to run some errands that needed doing, leaving that note attached to my door. Around 10:30, I did indeed get a phone call. It was the technician, but he was calling to inform me he was running behind schedule, not that he was on his way. Ignoring the likelihood that he probably wouldn't have called me at all if he'd been on time, I asked if he'd please call again once he was on the way. I completed my errands, got another call about 11:15, then headed home.

Then, at 11:30, he showed up, and the stupidity began.

Here was another guy who didn't think to bring a step ladder or anything. Another need for me to offer my chair for him to stand on. He looks in the box outside my building and says, "wow, there's nothing in here! Nobody in your building has HD yet."

I know, I tell him. There's a satellite on the roof for it, but I'm missing the SWM module (and the splitter for the building, should anyone want to follow later on the trail I've painfully blazed these past few weeks). "You have that with you, though, right?"

"Sure. We'll get you hooked up, no problem."

It took about 45 minutes, which seemed maybe a little long to me, but whatever. Then he brings the HD box into my place, we plug it in, and start it doing the automatic software update.

Nothing.

He restarts the box. Nothing.

He checks the signal readout from the satellite transponders. Three satellites in range. Every one of them, only the even numbered transponders providing any kind of signal. All the odd numbers are dead. Two of the satellites are thus showing up "Failed" in the settings, and the third isn't providing enough of a signal to really do anything.

He goes back out to the box for a half an hour. I get a phone call from my friend. "Are we still on for that movie at 2:30?"

Well, it's about 1:30 now. I'm getting a bad feeling here... but let's say, probably, okay? I'll call you back.

The guy returns. No change.

Back out to the box, and back into my house, another three or four times, during which he tells me he's replaced every part he's just installed. He's tested the dish, too. This should all be working. "I'm going to call this other guy. He's in the area, and might be able to come by."

Now, Apologetic Supervisor on the phone told me she was sending what sounded like the Lord of the Technicians. So I'm not exactly sure who this guy is going to call for help. But I let him make the call without comment.

I'm told this "other guy" has to finish up his current job, but he'll probably be here within 45 minutes, is that okay? "Did you have plans?"

I tell him I did, as a matter of fact. But faced with the choice of scheduling a fourth appointment and losing a third Saturday to this crap, let's get the guy over here.

So I call my friends and cancel the movie, and then we sit down and wait.

The second man arrives about 2:30, and it's the same guy from a week earlier. He's at least the one that told me exactly what parts I needed to make sure were brought for my install, so maybe he'll know what he's doing. (Of course, he's also the same guy who apparently isn't trusted by the company to actually just have those parts on his truck, so maybe I shouldn't get my hopes up.)

The two of them go back outside together and go through the box, the new guy apparently double-checking all the first guy's work. They come back in to my television three or four times, restarting the box, and looking for the magic to happen.

Still nothing but even-numbered transponders.

It's past 3:00 now. Other friends call, friends who come by weekly for game night. Do I want to grill burgers tonight? They'll bring them, I just need to get buns and such.

Sure, I say. I'll make a grocery run as soon as these people leave.

3:30 rolls around. Still no progress.

3:45, my friends call back. They're in the area, actually. They'd thought they'd be running all these errands, but it didn't take long. Can they come over early?

Sure, I say, but I haven't gone to the grocery yet. The Tweedles are still here not hooking up my TV.

Said Tweedles return not long after. They've gone over everything, and they don't understand what it could be. So they're going to schedule another guy who knows more to come out and take a look at it. In the meantime, they can leave me hooked up with "MFH1" instead of "MFH2."

Meaning...?

"Well, you'll get about 9 or 10 HD channels."

Ah.... this would be that "ain't it special you get ESPN" package you tried to sell me on last week?

Perhaps because I was too busy thinking of the rant I'd scream at Apologetic Woman when I called her on Monday, I didn't tell them not to bother. So they set about screwing these two giant boxes on the back of the DVR. Then they fire the sucker up.

And still have only even transponder numbers, and a non-functioning TV box.

15 more minutes of messing with that, and then my friends arrive. Now they get to sit there in my kitchen waiting and watching along with me, all of us held captive and unable to just leave and go about our lives.

It's just past 4:00, and now they tell me they're just going to put everything back how it was, and get this higher power to come in. They're going to call him up right now.

I'm thinking I'm going to just tell them all to shove it, but maybe now having my friends sitting there keeps me from launching into the full-fledged rant I'm really feeling inside. So, the workers call this guy, and start chatting with him on the phone. They go back out to the box.

Five minutes later, they come back inside and try the HD box. Voila! No half-assed MFH1 signals, no missing transponders, it's all working.

In short, these two idiots farted around for five hours before calling this guy who took five minutes on the phone to tell them they probably had a damn wire crossed or something.

They left shortly before 4:30. I had my HD, at last. But another Saturday was blown, this one more completely than the last.

Not having Apolgetic Woman's direct phone number, I called the Man Below Her today and told him what idiots the techs were, and how they'd wasted five hours screwing everything up. He assured me he'd let his supervisor know.

But naturally, I never got a call from her.

Man, do I miss Comcast.