The AT&T U-Verse Installation Saga Begins….

Well, here we go. I figured I’d document this because you know there will be a story. About six weeks ago, I noticed fiber being laid to my neighborhood. I asked the construction guy and he confirmed that it indeed was AT&T U-Verse. Imaging my joy as I immediately summarized that I would be fred from the shackles of TWC.

So a couple of weeks ago I get a flyer in the mail advertising that U-Verse is here and available in my neighborhood. I immediately run inside, go online to their site and check the availability of my address. Wham-o, it’s available !! So of course I immediately order U-Verse, just the broadband and television. Not phone, I use Vonage. I get an install date of June 8th, from noon to 2pm.

So on Saturday the 6th, the doorbell rings and it’s an AT&T guy. He says, “Hi, I’m from AT&T”. I say “wow, you’re a bit early”. he laughs and tells me that he is here for a pre-site survey and qualification. Wait, you’re not sure if I’m qualified? Your website says so. He explains that he needs to check the quality of the line and that I’m within 3000 feet of the DSLAM. Well, I’m a couple of hundred feet from it (it’s behind our subdivision) and it’s a new neighborhood, lines couldn’t have rotted that fast. About an hour later the doorbell rings again and he’s looking real sad. I know that look. It’s the look of “we have a problem and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it” look on his face. He proceeds to explain.

First the simplified explanation. My phone line is connected to that little phone box about four houses down, instead of the box that is actually between my house and my neighbors. Go figure. That in itself isn’t a problem. The problem is that in their many databases, it shows me connected to the wrong box. He explains that it is simply a matter of doing a change of record, a relatively simple data entry tasks that takes about two minutes, and that he could do it himself, but he would get in trouble because that’s not his role. Also the maintenance dept. is closed on Saturdays. And that this process usually takes up to 48 hours.

Now for the wild part. He begins to confide in me about the internals of AT&T. YOu see, he’s a union guy, and the U-Verse division is non-union and they hate each other and don’t get along, and they’re not treated well. Also, if you’re going to get U-Verse, better get it now because it looks like a strike is coming in August because the evil AT&T wants to pay the union guys $15 less per hour to put their payscale in line with the non-union U-Verse folks. So the union guys do all the exterior work and the non-union guys do all the internal work for U-Verse. And it’s not fair. Well…thanks for that primer. I think because I’m a minority he thought I was in full agreement with him, but that’s another post in the political category.

So, on to yesterday. A complete no-show. So, on to this morning. I call…. navigate the voice response unit trying to avoid getting trapped in the VRU flowchart of death. I finally get a voice that’s backed by a temperature of ~98.6, a blood pressure of 122 over 80, and a heart rate of 86 beats per minute. After providing all the relevant information about my first born, sexual preference and what I ate last night, I could tell that her vitals were quickly going out of whack after I mentioned that yesterdays’ U-Verse installation was a U-Verse stranded at the alter event. So three people and two long on hold transfers later, I get the selected scripted apology based on the computerized detection of the stress level in my voice (that’s actually a real system, btw). So, the change of record was done yesterday (probably between noon and 2pm) and I was told that someone was “probably” going to call me today about it. Ok, whatever. So I’ve been prioritized and have a new appointment between 8am and 10am tomorrow morning. So stay tuned for part II of this post, it should be a fun filled day but I have faith and Im looking forward to U-Verse eventually…. possibly….. hopefully.