When Your Patience is Stretched to the Limit

What do you do when your patience is stretched to the limit? How do you maintain a professional and calm appearance?

I’ve been faced with this for the last week and I’m slowly losing the battle. My land line went down on Wednesday November 27^th after the 1^st big snow storm of the year. Here is my saga.

Day 1:

• Electricity, internet and phone go out.
• Electricity is back in 6 hours later, internet is back, no phone – call Bell Canada – appointment scheduled for the next day
• End of Day 1: Internet, no phone

Day 2:

• 1^st tech shows up, young guy – no experience. Get one phone to work but no other phones work. Internet still working.
• 1^st tech goes gets his boss
• 1^st tech and boss come back and work for 3 hours. They can’t fix it.
• End of Day 2: Patched together solution for the night. Flaky internet and one phone working. Will be back 1^st thing in the morning.

Day 3:

• 2 pm no one here. Call Bell – told the ticket is closed. Get a manager, who calls the dispatcher. The Dispatcher tells him they don’t want to release the job, 10 minutes later 1^st tech plus another new tech show up. Work 3 ½ hours putting wires and rewiring lines into the house
• End of Day 3: No internet, one phone working, alarm system down.

Day 4:

• 2 new techs show up at 8 am – work 3 hours, phone lines back working, no internet, alarm not working (not their problem?). Wired hanging out of the ceiling. They leave to check outside box, say they will be back – don’t come back.
• Another new tech calls – surprised anyone else has been here today (he gets that I upset). He tests the outside line saying that it is an outside problem now. (Doesn’t make sense to me, as it was working yesterday before the techs rewired everything.) He leaves to go check the central box.
• He comes back and tells me it a problem in the central office. To be fixed in 24 hours.
• Phone and complain – get 1 month compensation for my problems.
• He can’t fix the wires hanging out of the wall or the line to the alarm not his job.
• End of Day 4: Phone, no internet, alarm system down.

Day 5:

• No internet. Call again. Get the run around. All tickets closed.
• Tech number 9 comes, nice guy, fixed the wires in the ceiling even though it isn’t his problem. Internet is a central office problem will be fixed with 24 hours…Hum heard that yesterday.
• End of Day 5: Phone, no internet, alarm system down.

Day 6:

• No internet – call get the run around again. Different problem at the Central Office. Will be fixed in 3 hours. Will call back.
• No call back, no internet.
• Call again. Getting really angry by now. Ask for the complaint department again. Get compensated for another month of service. Agent does her best to help, get a guy at second level support who agrees to call back but doesn’t call back.
• Agent does call back. Finds another second level support woman who does call back. Books appointment for the next day.
• End of Day 6: Phone, no internet, alarm system down.
• and I wait…

(Note Day 7 to Day 9 – Updated on December 5th is at the end of this post) 

Ok, the situation is ridiculous, everyone I talk to at Bell agrees the situation is ridiculous, but still no ownership. I keep being told the tickets are closed or there are no open tickets on the problem. Where has the concept of working on something until it is fixed gone? Where has pride in your job gone? Where has making sure it is right gone?

It seems pretty simple to me, I had a working internet, the techs came in to fix the phone and broke the internet and my alarm. What boggles my mind is I’ve had internet from them for 10 years and now they can’t make it work.

For those who aren’t Canadian, Bell is Canada’s largest telephone provider who is making enough money to be buying T.V. stations and other things but not enough to be providing its customers with decent service. They seem to have a problem tracking system that allows people to close all tickets without fixing the problem.

As an entrepreneur who works from home, my livelihood is directly attached to my access to the internet so this has a direct effect on my business. I can’t leave and work elsewhere because they need access. As you can expect I’ve investigating changing my internet supplier but my hands are tied until this is resolved.

I am very lucky to have a neighbour give me access to his internet over the last few days so I can work. Although with all the interrupts it has been hard to focus.

As this drama continues my patience is stretched to the limit… I’m normally very patient and polite with people but I have lost it a few times now.

What do you do when something like this happens? How do you go about finding your patience again? How do you maintain a professional and calm appearance?

(Day 7 to Day 9 – Updated added Dec 5th) 

Day 7:

• Tech shows up before the schedule time. I’m not home. I call him, it is a central office problem!
• He does come back and I have to say he has been wonderful, fixing most of the problems the other techs caused but still no internet.
• Again a central office problem. Wait for 3 hours, central problem fixed…no internet.
• Tech speaks to his manager and leave to go test the outside lines once again.
• Now I’m told another central office problem – really?
• The great techie is pulled of the job by his manager – not his problem.
• Phone Bell again, get the run around through agents, managers, finally get transferred to level 3 support. They will track the problem and get back to me the next day. On the phone with Bell for over 2 hours.
• End of Day 7: Phone, no internet, alarm system down.

Day 8:

• Get called at 4 pm. Central Office problem fixed, cable issues, will be sending a tech to look at it tomorrow between noon and 6 pm.
• End of Day 8: Phone, no internet, alarm system down.

Day 9:

• Tech shows up at 8:45 am, why I don’t know?
• Great tech, best yet, spend time really fixing the problems and is gain on the solution when he gets called of the job. How can that be? The guys fixing the problem and he gets called off? What logic is in that?
• Level 3 support calls, they’ve made progress they are can communicate with the modem but it isn’t staying up. I know there is too much noise on the line that the tech was trying to fix this morning. Going to lower the speed to see if that works. What? Fix the line seems like the logical solution.
• Level 2 manager calls from India to see if it working. What? Not connected to any of the Level 3 guys.
• Alarm guy comes, spends 2 to 3 hours trying to figure out what happens, turns out the Bell techs cut the alarm wires. Alarm fixed – no phone lines, internet back! Back to DAY 1 state!
• Level 3 calls back – tech on the way.
• Tech here for 5 hours, reworks everything. Inside and out. Gets phone up, alarm up and internet but it is much slower that what I had.
• Current end results: 9 days, 14 or more field tech, 4 or 5 central office tickets, 40+ hours of work, working phones, alarm works, very slow internet connection.
• Oh what will tomorrow bring?

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Heather Cameron

I am the creator of the Ignite Your Market Programs and I'm passionate about empowering entrepreneurs to see beyond their current market and grow their business.

I love to see entrepreneurs follow their passions, serve more people and create the lifestyle of their dreams.

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