Crooked, lazy motherfucker workers.

After our house was broken into in February, our company hired a guy to fix our broken door.

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Last week a guy was supposed to show up to bury our cable.  The first technician had carefully hidden it in a crack in the sidewalk the first Friday in April.  He put the cable out of the way, and wound it through a flower bed along a wall until that could happen.  They would, he said, call me and make an appointment co come out.  s

The following Tuesday morning a man who had a great deal of difficulty understanding me called and said he was at my house to bury my cable.  "I can't come home now," I said.  I didn't need to, he insisted.  "Oh, will you then take care of my dogs so that they don't go through the gate?"

He hesitated.  "When can you be here?"

Friday, after 5, I said.  Okay, he said, he would see me then.

When I got home that night, a spool of conduit was sitting in my flower bed, and the cable had been pulled up and stretched across the drive way.

Friday, I was here at 4:45.  No phone call.  Nobody showed up.

Monday morning I called and complained, and was told that the order was showing as "fulfilled".  "No, it is not fullfilled.  He didn't show up."  I had to call, by the way, because they refuse to acknowledge emails.  You have to call on the phone, or use their hideous "chat" feature, which involves somebody on the other end whose name is NOT Julie and how repeats the same phrases over and over again,, stuff like "I see that you are upset that your cable is not buried.  We apologize for any inconvenience".

They rescheduled for Friday after 4:30.

Thursday morning at 8:15 am the same guy who can't understand me called and said he was at my house to bury the cable.  I told him that I had an appointment for Friday at 4:30.  He said that he didn't work that late, and he was the only person who could bury the cable in Albuquerque.  That's what he said.  Nobody else does it, he said.  I said, well, "I have an appointment with Comcast for Friday after 4:30.  I need to be there to mind the dogs."  He thanked me and hung up.

Friday at 5:00 pm I hit redial on my button and called him back, and asked him when he was coming.  He informed me that he was in Santa Fe and that there would be another crew coming since there was an appointment.  I asked him, how can there be another crew when he was the 'only person who could bury the cable'?  No, he said, there are other crews.  Another crew would be here.

Friday at 6:15 I started using their hideous chat function and was repeatedly apologized to in the exact same words by someone in some unknown place that I don't think is capable of higher level thought and problem solving.  She said the appointment had been canceled.  "NO" I typed all in capitals "IT WAS NEVER CANCELED.  I WANT SOMEONE OUT HERE TO FIX THIS.  STOP APOLOGIZING FOR MY INCONVENIENCE AND TELL ME HOW YOU'RE GOING TO FIX THIS."

She reset the appointment for 8 am, an all day appointment.
Wait, I typed back, Does this mean that I have to wait here all day?  She responded, It means that it starts at 8.

Which, of course, I stupidly took to mean that they would start work at 8 am.

I called the local office at 8:30.  "Oh, no," I was told.  "The drop bury order is for between 8 am and 7 pm"

Fuckers.

I have decided that if they don't show up, I'm not calling again. I'll cable as is until it fails, and then I'm switching to another company.  It's tucked among the bushes again, and it doesn't rain here too often, so who knows how long that will be?

Meanwhile, I've clearly missed my calling.  I should have been a cable "drop and bury" technician.  they apparently don't ever have to work and can arbitrarily cancel appointments without anyone calling them on it.

Oh. And the Saturday guy never showed up. Nobody was able to tell me why.

..

Happy spring.  I think today is Easter, but my kids don't live here and so I don't have any reference for keeping track of christian holidays.

I think I've gotten a handle on my panic attacks.  Now I'm just working on worrying in general.  Like right now.  I'm supposed to get up and go work out, but I just don't feel like going.  Bleh.

I'll work on it some more.