04/26/2010

Charter has really left a bad taste in my mouth over the years. They pretty much had a monopoly in Kingsport for cable until Direct TV got popular, and most residents there still use them for their internet services. The services aren’t bad, but I’ve found that they are rather secretive about their price policies, often springing something on you out of nowhere that makes your bill go up without notice. Getting set up is sometimes a hassle as phone operators and as in my case recently, online chat operators, treat you like a moron and getting tech support while you have service is just as big of a pain.

Not long ago, I posted in a haiku that we have recently been forced to use Charter for our internet services. Someone from Charter took the time to comment on that blog, apologizing for our agony and very kindly offered to assist us in any way that we need, which is certainly cool, but this has still been an extremely painful process. It started out by Comcast, who we were using for cable and internet, and who we were extremely happy and satisfied with, informed us that unfortunately they do not service our new location. After several days of research, calling, emailing and chatting, I also found out that not only does Comcast not service our area, but neither does TDS, AT&T or Knowledgy, all companies who service a ton of people in this area. All of the sudden, I’m out of options, and to Charter we go.

I chatted with an online “specialist” about getting a package set up and was subjected to a 3/4 automated “chat” with someone who obviously needed the pre-typed jargon since they had a hard time constructing a coherent sentence. I actually saved the transcript, but will not share it here as it is really unnecessary, but quite hilarious. The operator continued to not go along with what I was telling him, kept trying to sell me more services even after I made it perfectly clear that I was not interested in such things, and by the end became sloppy with what he was actually typing, became rude and closed out the conversation with “good buy”…Either someone didn’t pay attention in spelling and grammar or they left the conversation to bid on something on eBay.

Anyway, we have been out of our apartment since Friday and had packed the computer up late Thursday night. Without the internet at home, it’s extremely difficult to not be productive. What if Facebook gets out of hand? If I don’t have internet, who will be there to make sure it stays calm? What if my spam folder gets crammed full of Viagra ads? Who will delete them for me? The answer? No one. Charter comes to activate our internet tomorrow evening, and it cannot come soon enough.

Here are some photos from this weekend’s “moving”