So…we still don’t have phone or internet service.
Here’s the saga so far:
January 2009:
1. I told Arcor I wanted to move my service from the old apartment to the new one via their internet site. They told me this would happen on February 2 and that they would send confirmation of this along.
2. Sometime while we were on vacation, this actually happened: mail was waiting for us when we got back with a confirmation letter saying we should let a Telekom technician guy into our building/apartment to hook us up. And they sent us a new wireless router/modem, which was a nice thought (but probably not necessary).
Okeydoke.
February 2:
It was a work day, so Sarah stayed home for that 08:00 to 16:00 window while I got my office job on. No technician showed up. Nobody called. No note was left. Nuttin’. So I called Arcor and was like, “what’s the deal, dudes?” They told me to wait until Friday and see when the next appointment would be — they promised to send an appointment by snail mail (um…ok…did you know that some people have more than one phone number at which you can contact them?). Sarah pontificated on this a bit in a previous post already. They said to call on Friday if an appointment had not yet arrived by mail. Great, so 8 hours that could have been better spent.
February 6:
No Arcor letter came. I got home from work and called Arcor — this time using the Stoerungsannahme phone number (to report disruptions in service). Dude was apologetic and asked what we were doing the next 24 hours…he would send a guy our way to hook us up right away. “Nice,” I thought. “It’s four days too late, but I appreciate the willingness to try to correct the problem.” I told him we’d be available today between 8 and 13 to let the technician in to hook up our line no matter what.
February 7:
Nobody showed. We’d postponed some final apartment move-out activities (perhaps more on that later) to wait around for the Telekom technician Arcor’d now promised twice to no avail. 13 hours wasted and counting.
I of course got on the phone after a 20-minute grace period. Called the “Stoerungsannahme” hotline again. Lady was like “What? They didn’t show up twice? How annoying!” Yeah…I know.
“Wait – has your phone line ever worked at that address?”
“No! I am waiting for the initial setup visit!”
“Oh, well, you see, there are different hotlines for that!”
“That’s fine — I’m calling the number your colleague told me to call.”
“Well, OK. That might explain some of the confusion. How’s Monday morning look for you?”
“Great, but only from 8 to 11 – we’ve got to leave our apartment at 11.”
“OK, Monday morning, 8 a.m. Oops, Monday morning’s full. How’s Monday afternoon?”
“Not good! We have to leave the apartment at 11!”
“OK then – Tuesday morning, 8 a.m.?”
“OK, thank you.”
I think somewhere in there mentioned that on Saturday afternoon the letter expected by Friday arrived with a rescheduled appointment for installation on February 16th. We’ll see whether any of those appointments actually take place.