SBC sent me an email customer satisfaction survey and I filled it out a couple of nights ago. I was obviously not satisfied and let them know. I still had not been able to get my PC to connect. They must have gotten my survey because a very nice gentleman called and walked me through some procedures. The upshot was that it was either my network card or the modem. The laptops at my house connect but I told him that the speed, while much faster than dial-up was not what I was promised by the original person who explained the service to me. He checked my line and said that it did seem a little slow but not to far from average for my area so I guess the maximum speed they quote is dependent on your area. I took my PC in to work and tried to connect on the network and no luck so I made a little trip to Office Max and twenty dollars later I have internet. It was no big deal to put the new card in though the old one didn’t seem to want to leave it’s home – it took a bit of tugging.

After I installed the new card, I hooked everything back up, turned it on and followed the instructions to update the driver from their cd. I clicked on FireFox and did the happy dance. My daughter is now happily surfing MySpace and chatting on MSN messenger. Hmmm, maybe I should have left out the new card.

I will be calling SBC back and thanking them for their help. I really am not angry that I had problems. It wasn’t even their fault. What I am angry about is that they were going to charge me $100 to help me until I filled out my little survey. How many people would have bit the bullet and paid the fee? I remember when you could get service by being polite and nice and it seems that more often than I like, you now have to be mean and aggressive.

I don’t know if it is because we have become so accustomed to rudeness that we are immune to anything else or if we are just so caught up in our own routine that it takes rudeness to get our attention. My mama always said “you catch more flies with honey”. It seems to me that nowadays you do better if you sting like a bee. I hate getting angry and I always try to be polite. It makes me tired to do otherwise.

I would recommend SBC now but I would add a few disclaimers and I would ask some questions about the computer they would be using. I would also warn people about the possible extra fees.

Dale has a cold and had some minor surgery in Dallas this week so we are not running full blast right now. A cold for him is a bigger deal that it is for most people. Dialysis patients immune systems are not very strong and they don’t have a lot of reserves for fighting off even minor illness so he feels terrible and we feel bad right along with him. The DSL problems took a back seat for awhile but at least that was something I could fix.

I’ll take a win even if it’s a little one.