My move to Hollister has been a good one. So many people have
been friendly and helpful.
My move to Hollister has been a good one. So many people have been friendly and helpful.
But after hanging my hats in approximately 50 different locations in 20 different cities during the past 35 years, I have learned this: There is always one major headache.
This time it is AT&T, which is making me ANGR&Y.
First some background. I don’t know how a lot of stuff works and to be honest I don’t care.
Take television for example. How the heck a live, miniature version of Barry Bonds swatting a baseball into the seats appears in a glassed-in box in my living room is beyond me.
Same goes for radio, CD players, turn signals, toasters, light bulbs, computers, and, especially, my plastic beer mug that plays the Notre Dame fight song as soon as I lift it.
You name it, I have no clue and give it little or no thought. I would much rather ponder more worldly matters, like which golf club or lure to use.
But I do feel quite strongly about this. When I click the remote, flip the switch or turn the key, the damn thing better work.
Why? Because I’m paying for it.
The apartment that I rented in Hollister three weeks ago now has: Running hot and cold water, electricity, heat, cable TV and local telephone service.
It does not have long distance access. Why?
Let me put it politely. Despite 17 phone calls, no one seems to be home, there literally is no answer at AT&T.
I signed up for local service with SBC. Their representatives were polite, informative and honest. The day they said that I could first hear another voice after pushing seven numbers was accurate.
But on May 31, I apparently made a grave error in judgment. When asked which long distance carrier I preferred, I went with the national slugger: AT&T.
In fairness, good old powerful AT&T has been OK for me in the past. And I mean no offense to the thousands of competent, friendly and hard-working men and women who work for AT&T.
However, in the 17 calls – each going through a head-banging, fist-shaking, never-ending series of prompt after prompt after prompt, only two live persons were polite, sympathetic and helpful.
None could figure it out. AT&T representatives are in a horrid 0-for-17 slump at my home stadium.
They scratched their coast-to-coast anonymous heads and blamed: SBC, the phone lines, my phone, me, paperwork and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for the failure to successfully flip a switch in less than a month.
It has now been 20 days and I still can’t pick up my home phone to call my mom in Chicago and thank her for the box of towels that she sent.
Now that makes me MA&D.
The AT&T calling cards, however, showed up in the mail lickety-split. You know, the ones that cost 25 cents a minute compared to the 7 cents a minute direct dial rate promised way back when.
The last live person (I think she was still alive. Who knows? Maybe it was taped.) whom I spoke with Thursday summed it up when I once again explained my plight.
“Wow” she said, before transferring me to another number that rang and cut me off.
Well, I have a solution, which should work despite my lack of expertise in the mechanics of the modern telephone, satellites, rude, dead or alive AT&T operators, and their hellish prompts.
There must be a sale on tin cans and string somewhere in Hollister.
And I’ll need to make a substantial purchase.
There are a lot of miles between here and Chicago.
Mike Fitzgerald is Associate Publisher/Executive Editor of the Hollister Free Lance. He can be reached at 637-5566, ext. 337 or mf*********@fr***********.com.
