Unpaved

My heart is burning like I've never felt it burn
My soul is yearning like I've never felt it yearn
And I didn't know it was possible
I never though I was capable of this
Part of me leaps for joy
The other part tries to stay grounded
Because I know the road isn't paved yet
But never have I felt anything so splendid
Oh, how I hope that you can complete me
And how I pray to God that he'd bless me
You would be the blessing I never thought I'd attain
If everything in my life was loss, at least you would be gain
You've lifted me up when I couldn't stop falling
You took the knife from my hands when I wanted to die
You've shown me God in every word you speak
You've shown me love I never thought I could feel
I lay in bed hoping and praying
And counting my blessings
Because you wandered into my life
On an unpaved road to my heart

Sometimes: A Poem by Me

Sometimes hope goes beyond what you see
To the core of everything
Even when your heart is completely black
Hope is still lingering

Sometimes strength is unmeasurable
Sometimes we don't know our own
Sometimes the weakest among us
Is the one that moves the largest stone

Sometimes love is our rock
Sometimes we're stranded in a storm
But if we remember what love looks like
We'll never be alone

Sometimes we're understanding
Sometimes we're not
But somehow things get mended
No matter how hard we fought

Sometimes our faith is a beacon
Sometimes we can't believe
But as long as we don't give up
Hope will go beyond what we see

Linksys Will Learn Not To Send Me Surveys

Originally posted on FullContactPoker on May 19th.

So, every time I call Linksys (which is once every week it seems like now), they send me another damn survey to fill out. I refused to fill them out.

I ultimately have had it, and when the opportunity arose again, I decided to fill them out.

After giving them poor marks across the board, they give me a spot where I can type. The subject:

What can we do to improve your experience with Linksys?

You insolent fools.

So here's what I wrote:

First: Stop outsourcing to India. Second: Stop making your routers out of plastic and duct tape.

Your products are horrible. I don't know how your technical support could get any worse than the products you sell, but you succeeded in doing that. If that was your goal for the fiscal year, congratulations!

Your agents, in the 30 times that I have called Linksys or used your Live Chat in the past year, has yet to fix any of my problems. Here is usually how my Linksys router or wireless NIC has began working again:

A) It just magically starts working again (yes, this has happened
B) I finally figure out the problem while waiting TWO HOURS to get in contact with your representatives.
C) I'm on the phone with Linksys, and while they're in the process of trying to "fix my router" (by "fix my router," I do mean "screw it up worse"), I say, "I'm going to try this..." They then talk over me, start running me through needless troubleshooting steps that I told them I had already went through before I called them. I do what I suggested I do anyway, and it fixes the problem. Your representatives then claim that what they had me do fixed the problem, when the troubleshooting steps are completely irrelevant to the problem itself.
D) Linksys does succeed in "fixing my router" (once again, I mean "screw it up worse"), I have to go into either Yahoo! Chat or IRC Chat, and have them help me undo what Linksys did, and then fix my original problem. This process takes 30 seconds. I kid you not.

Today, I called, and, frustrated with the way your support agents handles things, immediately ask for a supervisor. I'm in Technical Support. I know you cannot deny a person a supervisor if they ask for one. Guess what? You're geniuses of technical support denied me a supervisor.

I don't know how you train your frontline agents, but if we were to do the things even once that your agents do regularly, we would be fired on the spot. They would take our badges, and walk us straight out of our call center's doors, and we would not be allowed back in.

Unfortunately, that is apparently not the case in India, where it seems that to be in Technical Support, all you have to do is be able to read the word, "The." If you can, you're hired, and get the pleasant opportunity of working for lower-caste slave-wages, and confuse the hell out of us people who are just trying to get our routers fixed and get on with our lives. Unfortunately, that's never possible with you. As 75% of the phone conversations with Linksys have to do with the weather in America. Like whether it's Spring or Summer in America is going to fix my router. If I want to chit-chat with someone, I'll call a friend or 1-900-SPANK-ME.

And then, at the end of call, after you either destroy my router or I fix it behind your backs, your agents have the audacity to actually tell me to spread the word about how good your products is. That'll happen about the time I get in the sack with Elton John. And seeing how I'm not gay, I guess that's not going to happen.

At work, 100% of my calls on Belkin and D-Link routers are for first-time router users that just need their modems bridged and didn't know it. 80% of the time, the reason I transfer them to above companies is because I can't go into those routers myself, because they are out of my support boundaries.

40% of my calls for Linksys routers (which I can do support on), however, are for the above reason. The other 60% are calls where my customer's router has completely had an Attention Deficit Disorder moment and refuses to work anymore. On 100% of those calls, I have to transfer them to Linksys, because I can't get the thing working. Everytime I dial that number, I say a prayer for the customer. Because I know the minefield I'm sending them to. I'm sending them to your Indian douchebags with no concept of anything except for the barometric pressure in Chicago (and why the hell all of your agents have such a hard on for finding out the forecasts in our areas, I have no idea, but every agent I speak to does this to me. For the love of God, look it up on weather.com or something).

So basically, to sum this all up, if I were given the choice between buying another Linksys product, and having my testicles ripped apart by angry sharks, I would ask if there were any other options. If there wasn't, I'd stick my nuts in the ocean, and let Jaws have at it.

Since writing this, I'm completely 100% independent of Linksys products. I run a Netgear router, and a Belkin wireless card, and have much less problems than I did with the Linksys set up.

The Verizon Files: There's No Spelling Letters

A customer calls in asking for their username and password. So i verify the billing address and start telling the username.

Me: "Your user name is as follows: The letter V as in Victor--"
Customer: "Spell that."
Me: "Oy vey. IT'S THE LETTER V! NO SPELLING!"

Later on, they start trying to connect their DSL through DIAL-UP DIALER. Man this is a smart one. So I now I get to hold their hand through setting up their modem.

Me: "Ok, let's type in 192.168.1.1 and then hit enter."
Customer: "Ok."
Me: "What does that bring up?"
Customer: "Nothing."
Me: "Nothing?"
Customer: "It loads a blank page."
Me: "Ok, click on Tools, and then Internet Options."
Customer: "Where is that at?"
Me: "It's at the top of Internet Explorer."
Customer: "I see Tools. But where is Internet Options."
Me: "..................................................................you see that after you click Tools."
Customer: "Ok."
Me: "Are we there now?"
Customer: "Yes."
Me: "Ok. Click on Delete Cookies."
Customer: "Ok."
Me: "Now, we're going to click on Delete Files, and then put a check in the box that says 'Delete all offline content.'"
Customer: "Ok."
Me: "Let me know when that gets done."
Customer: "Ok. Wait."
Me: "Ok."

Two minutes later:

Me: "Has it finished yet?"
Customer: "No."
Me: "Ok, we'll give it some more time then."

One minute later:

Customer: "Ok, it's done."
Me: "Ok, great. Click on the Security tab please."
Customer: "Wait. Damn it, it hasn't even loaded Internet Options yet."
Me: "You suck at life. I'm transferring you to Microsoft."
Customer: *whimpers* "....Ok."

There should be a noose included in our installation kits for times like these.

The Verizon Files: I retract the statement in the last one

The "Heavy and Sticky" call was not the first special call I got. I had completely forgotten about this one.

This was the second call I got ever. The lady was trying to set up her DSL. So I start going down my troubleshooting steps:

Me: Ok, what kind of DSL modem did we send you?
Customer: I don't know.
Me: Can you find out for me?
Customer: I can't.
Me: Why not?
Customer: It's not here.
Me: What do you mean, "It's not here?" (Thinking she meant her installation kit hadn't arrived yet)
Customer: I mean, I don't have it with me.
Me: Where are you ma'am?
Customer: New York City.

*looks up the billing address*

Me: Ma'am, my records indicate your DSL service is set up in Philadelphia.
Customer: That's correct.
Me: Why don't you call back when you're in Philadelphia and you have everything in front of you?
Customer: Good idea.
Me: Yeah. I thought so too.

The Verizon Files: Heavy and Sticky

**The following is actual events. Nothing here is made up.**

I haven't had too much to write about on here, so I figured I would start posting some old stories I have. This line of stories is what I call, "The Verizon Files."

In February of 2006, I gave up the dream of TP/MM (Turning Pro/Making Millions, for the non-poker players out there), and got a job at a call center doing technical support for Verizon DSL.

During the three weeks of training, our trainer continually said, "You will get some weird calls on the floor. I'm trying to prepare you for this." I think most of us shrugged it off.

Until we got out of training, and on the floor.

We started off our first week in Training Bay, also known as The Tank. This is where we take actual calls. The only calls we got in Tank were installation calls. So pretty much redundant stuff at this point.

My entire first two days of Tank were uneventful. I had absolutely no problems whatsoever with my calls.

On my last call of the third day, the crap hit the fan. I need to reiterate this fact before we begin: We have mute buttons on our headsets. This comes into play many, many, many times.

I get a call from a Spanish woman, who, naturally, wants to install her DSL. Verizon does have a Spanish support line, but at 5:30PM, the line shuts down (for siesta, one would assume). After 5:30, all Spanish calls get sent to English support. This is where Zanax becomes your best friend.

Let me explain the first step of installation to you. There are gray boxes in the installation kit called filters. These filters look like phone jacks that plug into your existing phone jacks. What you do, is you plug the filters into all of your phone jacks except the one that you will plug your DSL modem into.

Well, this lady had plugged one into the jack the modem will be going into, thus causing her not to get a DSL signal. I kindly ask her to remove it, and she obliges...kind of.

I hear her grunting and groaning in the background. Geez, is it really that hard to get it out. She's really heaving at this. By now, I'm wondering if I should call 911, when all of a sudden, I hear her say into the phone, "I can't."

"You can't?"

"No, I can't."

"Why not?"

"The filters...they're heavy...and sticky!"

...By now I'm stifling laughter. Surely I completely misheard her. Surely to God she did not say what I think she did.

"I'm sorry...what was that?"

"The filters are heavy and sticky!"

"Please hold ma'am...*mute*"

Now I am on the ground laughing my head off, mainly because of what was running through my head when she said that. I'm sure the exact same thoughts were running through your mind:

"...Just what exactly was she doing with those filters?"

By now, everyone in Tank is now looking at me, and trying to get me to tell them what's going on.

I finally got out exactly what she said, and the entire Tank erupts in laughter, all except one guy, who was bold enough to say exactly what was on my mind:

"...Just what exactly was she doing with those filters?"

We never got an answer to that question, because I suddenly hear her in the background saying, "Hello, is there anyone there who speaks Spanish? Spanish?"

I had no clue at this time that Spanish support shut down at 5:30.

"Spanish support? No problem ma'am, I'll connect you."

I hope the next ENGLISH representative she got had as much fun with that as I did.