My modem ate itself On Friday, and I made myself call Charter for a new one. Unfortunately, Charter can't just take my word for it. We had to go through 5 minutes of "Try this" "I did that" until they were willing to agree that my modem was busted, but before I even got a real person, I had to go through their voice-driven automated troubleshooter on the phone, which was actually more informative and more helpful than the real person I got afterwards.

And when Miss Tech Support Drone decided I needed a new modem, she was certain I wouldn't be able to get a tech to my house earlier than Wednesday, with labor day weekend and such a short notice call and helpfully told me I could go to the nearest Charter store on Wednesday to pick up a new modem. When I asked her to check to see if a tech could come out any earlier, she said that yes, one of them could be there Tuesday.

In the course of the support call, Miss Tech Support Drone told me that my cable internet line was rated at 20 MBPS and my modem was only 10 MBPS. She wasn't sure if that was what was causing my problem (my problem was low download speed) but to be safe, they would be installing a better modem when the Tech came out on Tuesday.

Of course when Mister Tech Support Drone came out on Tuesday, he said that no.. I had the right kind of modem. It was just broke. I asked him to check to make sure, and he called it in. Whoever he spoke to checked the line and confirmed that I only had a 10 MBPS signal coming to the house. Concerned, I asked him to check to see if they had been over-billing me. He made another call and confirmed that no... I had not been over-billed.

I don't ask for much out of life, but am I being unreasonable to insist that when I call a tech support line about a problem with my service... something they are supposedly trained to deal with.. that the person who picks up the phone on the other end should actually know what they are talking about? Am I crazy?

These are the same people who when I called about my email server, asking them if I could use a non-charter outgoing mail server (because of my floatingbadger address) first the tech thought I was having trouble connecting to the charter mail server. When I explained three times that I was able to connect to the charter server just fine but I wanted to connect to another server dove into troubleshooting, getting me to try several things before transferring me to another person who said that it was impossible for me to do that.

"Impossible?" I asked. "Do you mean technically impossible or that it is against policy."

"Technically impossible" was the answer.

I had been able to connect to a different mail server when I was with CenturyTel so I knew this was BS, but "Technically impossible" was the answer I got when I asked for his supervisor. We went back and forth for a while before he said that yes, it is possible but not with Charter service. It had taken me talking to three different people before A) by problem had been understood and Someone knew to give me a straight answer, which was all they would have had to say and the call would have been 15 seconds long, instead of 80 minutes.

And I'm not getting specifically on Charter's case for this. They're no better or worse (from these examples) than anyone else, and back in the dim, dark past I worked the tech support desk for AOL. I know the training they give these people and I know the conditions they work under. They aren't given any advanced training and they are encouraged to get the customer off the phone as soon as possible so that they can help the next one in line. There is no incentive for them to learn what they need to know and to be invested in solving the customers problem in any sort of final way. They've got a checklist they are working from and if the problem doesn't appear on the checklist, then they send you to another person, but not before they eliminate everything on the checklist, even if you already have.

In any case, I'm glad I have a working modem now. I'm back to being dangerous.