An Actual Rant

Often, I allege that a post is going to be a rant and then it ends up being a semi-coherent philosophical argument. This is not one of those cases. This is an actual real, true rant, motivated by nothing beyond rage, frustration, and the joy of having an internet connection. This story of that internet, in fact, is the motivation for this rant.

Once upon a time, there were two roommates who decided to get internet for their dorm room. So they went to the Bezek booth at the Bar Ilan orientation fair, for it was Bezek who could provide them with a phone line that was enabled for internetness. And the Bezek people sold them internet and a phone line and a router and some other confusing things, and much money was spent and there was much rejoicing.

Then a week passed and all of the girls' friends had gotten the Bezek man to come and connect their internet, but the Bezek man did not come to these girls. And so one of the girls began to call Bezek, often several times daily, and this is the litany of the calls, as best as they can be remembered at the moment:

Call 1: Bezek tells the girl that it has never heard of her. Her ID number does not match anything on their computers and that it is impossible to look her up by name.

Call 2 (2 hours later): Bezek tells the girl that it has still never heard of her, neither by her correct ID number, nor by the one that she finds mistakenly written on one of the forms. Is she sure she does not have the order number? Considering that she was never given an order number, she is.

Call 3 (10 minutes later): Bezek tells the girl that they have still not heard of her, but now agrees to look her up by name. Upon doing so, they discover that she really does exist, but there is no order for internet. When questioned, they explain that it takes several days to process the order for a phone line, after which they can begin to process the order for internet. They do not know when the order for the phone line will be processed. Try again in a couple of days.

Call 4 (the next day): Bezek still has not gotten the order for the phone line processed, but they assure the girl that once it is, the internet can be processed quickly. There will be no need to have the Bezek man come around to the room. Are they sure that everyone will be done automatically? You bet they are.

Call 5 (a couple of days later): The girl wonders when she will receive internet. Bezek informs her that her order has just been processed and that in around a week and a half, the Bezek man will come around and adjust the line. Bezek man? asks the girl. Week and a half? asks the girl. Bezek says yes, that is when his schedule is free, and really it has nothing to do with the processes back at their end of customer service. Have a nice day!

Call 6 (a few minutes later): Bezek repeats its statement that the Bezek man will come in a week and a half, except that it decides that there is a vacancy some 5 or 6 days earlier. The only catch is that apparently the Bezek man prefers not to cramp his style by narrowing down his time of coming to less than three hours, all during a time when both the girl and her roommate have class. Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, the girl asks for the earlier time slot. Class will be dealt with when it comes.

Call 7-9 (Over a few days) Girl confirms the coming of the Bezek man because there has been created in her a deep and abiding distrust of anything that Bezek tells her.

Call 10 (From the technician) Since the girl and roommate have gone to a great deal of effort to figure out how, when, and which of them will miss classes at every particular moment, they are somewhat surprised, but gratified when the technician calls offering them their choice of time slot.

Call 11 (To the internet service provider, a whole different company. Later the same day) Internet service is ordered. After a 4 hour wait, the girl may call up their technical support and access the internet.

Call 12 (Four hours later): Tech support encounters a problem with the modem, purchased from Bezek, which means that the girl should turn to Bezek tech support.

Call 13 (A few minutes later): Bezek tech support would love to help, but it seems that there is no record of internet being ordered for this number. Is the girl certain it wasn't ordered for a different number? Tech support is terribly sorry, but this is a problem that must be dealt with by customer service, who are no longer working but will be glad to help the girl tomorrow.

Call 14 (The next day): Bezek customer service does have the girl down as having internet. They would be glad to connect her to technical support, who will be able to help her connect.

Call 15 (30 minutes later, but actually just spent on hold): Bezek technical support does see that there is an order for internet, but that they don't see any modem ordered for this line. Is the girl entirely sure that she bought the modem from Bezek? Other than the word Bezek written repeatedly on the box and the fact that she purchased it from a Bezek fair, the girl has no reason to assume so. Well, technical support can't deal with the issue, so it sends her back to customer service.

Call 16 (After 20 minutes on hold): No, there is no modem on this line. Perhaps it was for another line? Did the girl inform the person from whom she bought the line that she has purchased a modem? Is the girl sure that it's a Bezek modem? After these and similar inane questions, Bezek asks the girl to come into some Bezek store somewhere and prove that the modem came from Bezek. The girl declines and launches into a very minor hissy fit. Bezek fiddles on their computers and sends the girl back to technical support, with promises that the modem thing will not interfere.

Call 17 (Tech support, 20 minutes later): Internet is successfully installed.

And the twist end of the story is that a mere 6 hours later, when the girl was in the midst of her rejoicing at the existingness of her internet, she goes to class to discover that her law faculty has managed to lose her first, four-page long, much labored-over paper. Perhaps the girl forgot to hand it in? She could call the secretary's office, or possibly the TA...

And so another saga begins...