Your call is important to us. Please hold while we twiddle our thumbs.

Today I'm trying to cancel my utilities in St. Louis and subscribe in California. Somehow, the low-tech utils--gas, electric--are able to take care of my requests very promptly, with no hassles. Very polite, too, I might add. Killing my cable TV isn't so bad either. But the telecommunications, oh, that's a whole different story.

I really shouldn't flame SBC because if they (or their bots) read this they'll probably squash my DSL connection down to sub-dialup speeds when I'm not looking, but I just feel the need to vent. I call and am immediately (as in, not even one ring) greeted by an operator. But this is a dirty ploy to get my hopes up falsely, as this operator's sole job is to get my area code (why wouldn't the phone company have caller ID?) and direct my call to the proper region. Then I listen to not-too-bad music at a far-too-loud level while on hold, and am able to speak to someone who can disconnect my phone in STL but can do nothing about transferring my internet account or setting up new phone service in Cali. She transfers me to a "DSL Expert" who is supposed to handle the internet. But for some reason, he thinks that, despite it being clearly described on their website and in all the literature I've ever seen, I can't transfer my account between MO and CA since the regions are handled by different branches under the SBC umbrella. Eventually he gathers enough of my personal information to see a screen that told him exactly what I had been saying all along. So he is going to discontinue my DSL at my current address and set me up with someone to talk to in L.A. to take care of everything on the west coast.

I am connected relatively quickly with somebody from SBC-Cali, but unfortunately it's someone who deals with SBC Business, not Residential. So more waiting. Then an uber-service-rep picks up and we're ready to roll. So I think. Turns out whoever had been living in my new apartment before me had set up a business phone line with AT&T that SBC cannot touch. My job is now to call my property manager and have her verify to the phone company/ies that the old guy moved out, no longer there, gone, bye-bye, and then I get to call SBC again to set up my service. I wait a good hour (after already having been on the phone for nearly an hour) and continue packing in the meantime. Then I call back. Well, landlord can't get in touch with the old tennant, as he seems to have skipped town without leaving any means of contact. We somehow convince SBC to simply tack an additional line into the apartment, completely bypassing the AT&T wire, so I can finally begin to set up my service.

Now, I'm getting local and long distance. But the package I had found on the internet isn't good enough, because I hadn't read the fine print and so for $35 a month I can call within 10 miles or farther than 50 miles, but I can't call anyone 11-49 miles without getting charged my life savings. Upgrade to the $48 package. Fine. And Mr. SBC reads me all the legal mumbo-jumbo that would otherwise be the fine print that nobody ever reads. Next at bat is DSL. I have an account with SBC-Yahoo, still some time left on my contract, and I want to be sure I don't get charged the early termination fee or the setup fee or the gotcha-by-the-balls fee. I think I won't, but after so much confusion I'm not really sure. But now I have my phone set and my DSL set. Time to get television, since SBC also deals with Dish Satellite. Oops! Party foul, I can't get "The Dish" without landlord permission. And I really don't feel like bothering them again today. So maybe I'll just go with the competitor for TV. Digital cable or satellite, I don't care. I don't watch much tv. I could almost get by with bunny-ears, if I was sure broadcast stations aren't attenuated by the mountains nearby.

I'm off the phone now. Thank God. Two hours on the telephone (thank you, headset) just to move my phone and internet. The thing is, the people I talked to were nice, and they tried to be helpful, so it's very hard to get mad. But shit, this was a little out of hand. Done deal. I think next time I move I'm going to get a direct uplink to the U.S. government satellites so I don't need to deal with all these telecom-conglomerate-service-techs.