Monday, September 7, 2015

Time for TeleCommies. Time For Telecommies

Time for TeleCommies. Time For TeleCommies!

"...for information about childcare options if there is a teachers' strike, check out the school district website....  "

RantWoman musing: sure, probably works for the people who listen to this radio station, but what about the people who listen to other media and / or do not have access at home to the internet??? How are they getting the message? Are other radio stations giving a number to call for info? Do parents have ways to sign up for text messages? Crap! If Little Sister were out of commission for some reason would Brother in Law whose grasp of school issues is iffy or RantMom or other grandparents and after school supervision have a clue...? RantWoman asks on behalf of LOTS of families who patch after school supervision together LOTS of ways: spouses whose English is imperfect, grandparents, older siblings, neighbors...

RantWoman, can you PLEASE try to chill out...?

Sure. But just out of curiosity, why were there exactly NO telecomm companies or programs related to internet access at last weekend's Seattle King County Resource Fair??? And RantWoman means either in sales or as potential employers????

RantWoman, can you PLEASE try to chill out or maybe next year put together some guerilla marketing approaches or...?


Time for TeleCommies. Time For TeleCommies!

Assuming one has the requisite telecomm connections and wants a digression, this episode selected as humble effort to cheerlead for Irrepressible Nephew's ventures into the world of High School Football, American football, not soccer!





Or
Insert into video clip a couple decidedly older figures moving unevenly, erratically, unruly grey and white hair, lumpy but obviously female physique, different intonations for "Eh-oh," a custom RantMom Sunday supper, and whole torrents of RantWoman exclamations, utterances, and general vituperations!


Dear Beloved Telecomm Provider.

Look, it's one thing to mess with RantWoman who is kind of a tough customer anyway, but WHY ya gotta mess with the Prayer Chain????

Somehow the woman at the top and thus the entire prayer chain at RantMom's church has gotten entangled in the "people are having problems all over connectivity maelstrom." The Prayer Chain!. That spiderweb bulwark of mutual support against the ravages of hearing loss, creeping dementia, and general urban meanness! That ambivalent HIPAA meets the prayer chain privacy realm of medical provider staffperson and patient whose mothers go to the same church! That zone of family technical support and cheerleading where RantWoman seems to go virtually every time she dines at RantMom's. As if RantWoman does not have enough to do trying to help RantMOm sort out her landline / DSL / cable and TV-viewing preferences / mobile constellation.

If RantWoman did not already have enough to do, MAYBE she would call up beloved telecomm company and ask them whether somehow everyone's technical difficulties have anything to do with replacing possibly outdated equipment, upgrading capacity broadband. RantWoman unfortunately has too much to do and the too much to do is NOT improving in the presence of telecomm challenges! But could BelovedTelecomm Company PLEASE get connectivity for the prayer chain back in order?



Time for TeleCommies. Time For TeleCommies!
And Meanwhile
Dear Beloved Telecomm Provider No. 2

RantWoman is not charmed. RantWoman spent a certain amount of time browsing your site thinking about a wifi hotspot separate from her Smartphone. RantWoman is amused that such devices are "free" on your site with a 2-year-contract. RantWoman is further amused that if one goes to online retail or big box, the needed devices can be had for $50 without any contract. Finally, RantWoman is amused that somehow it dawned on her: RantWoman does not need to do any of those things. RantWoman can make her Smartphone a wifi hotspot and see how quickly that burns data allotment.

Special thanks for Facebook cheerleading from RantWoman's college housemates; housemates all helpfully said "watch the data cap."

Just for grins RantWoman at one point tethered both her laptop and her Kindle Fire to her phone for less than an hour. On the same day, RantWoman listened via her tethered Fire to ONE 45-minute mp3 file. These two exercises together used up about 1/6 of all the monthly data aallotment RantWoman wants to pay for.

Ix-Nay!

RantWoman has figured out a bookkeeping step for her mobile phone plan. RanWoman will meditate further about whether she wants more data via this funding stream. An interesting exercise but with other tasks ahead of it in line.



Time for TeleCommies. Time For TeleCommies!
And now finally we come to connectivity within RantWoman's household.

RantWoman after previous misadventures was promised telephone AND internet on September 2. When this had not occurred mid afternoon, RantWoman called Beloved Telecomm Provider. Please envision audible eye rolling. Please envision both a phone call and another chat transcript. Please envision somehow a direct dial number of tech support which RantWoman somehow called too late in the day and had to get routed to the regular dial in option.

Please envision RantWoman actually getting through the process of setting up her DSL modem only to learn that some piece of the connection still requires an in-person visit by a technician to something in RantWoman's building.

Please envision some mysterious technical difficulty that shortly after the modem setup sent all service, dial tone AND internet away again.

Please envision the RED light on RantWoman's modem flickering sometimes white but mostly RED. STILL NO INTERNET.

Please envision sundry other steps and calls.

RantWoman now consistently has a dial tone.

RantWoman now has voice mail, on which RantWoman has received exactly the sort of calls she wants voice mail for, robocalls from her pharmacy telling her a prescription is ready.

Please envision the Queen of Spades noting a SLIGHT uptick in Cat furniture time. The Queen of Spades likes to drape along RantWoman's shoulder and supervise calls from RantWoman's land line.

So now, RantWoman is waiting, waiting, waiting.

RantWoman ever the optimist thinks, HOPES, she might be able to do a couple other things while she waits for her home internet:

RantWoman wanted to download some books from BARD, the Library of Congress National Library for the blind Site. RantWoman's email groans with messages about some extended outage that now supposedly is fixed. RantWoman WILL check that out as soon as she gets done all of the beginning of the month financial transactions the world expects and that she cannot bleeping do at home because ... because....

Finally, RantWoman owes the world several bouts of writing about different things. And the fully licensed version of Word 2013 on RantWoman's laptop is bleating at RantWoman something about unlicensed software version, demanding internet access, and today when RantWoman finally got it some Wifi STILL refusing to load. Cue Excel: at least Excel emitted an error message suggesting that if RantWoman gets her laptop an internet connection and re-enters her product authorization code, probably life will be all better. Grrrrr!


Time for TeleCommies. Time For TeleCommies!

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