I NEVER upgrade anything in my technological spiderweb until I have to. Either something breaks or, as the recent case, I get upgraded against my will.
Actually, that’s not exactly true. The changes my company made to our call/sales application were long overdue. Since any change in one place affects other parts of the tech web, I should’ve predicted I’d have some inconveniences.
With the new upgrades came audio issues for both me and the client. The phone system went down at an annoying rate. Overall, I missed calls, which meant lost opportunities. Then, my assistant sales manager (ASM) informed the team that if we had Spectrum, we’d have to switch internet providers.
I’ve had Spectrum cable and internet ever since I moved into my current apartment the summer of 2010. For the first couple of years, it was free. Then, I had to pay $50/year for it with my apartment lease renewal, which was next to nothing in the long run.
So, yes, I’ve been spoiled. Now that I’ve been working from home with my virtually free internet/cable service, setting my own schedule and clocking fewer than 20 hours/wk most of the time, life was truly good. Until this.
The first time I had the AT&T tech come out, my ASM had given me the wrong information about the upload speed. Once I had the correct information, the tech was long gone. At that point, I optimistically thought the Spectrum upgrade that the leasing office had spoken about might solve the issue. After all, they were bumping up the speed.
Come to find out, speed wasn’t the issue. The newly upgraded call/sales application no longer communicated well with Spectrum. I even tried working “incognito,” which had solved some issues for other agents, but not my tech issues.
I made another appointment for the following week. The second AT&T guy hooked everything up, even gifting me an Ethernet cable. That afternoon, everything worked like a charm. The second day, I had audio issues to the point I had to call my only sale for that day back twice to complete the transaction.
I fumed. The fucking reason I switched to AT&T was to stop the audio issues! One friend suggested that my connection was shared with others and when they came home, they drained my speed. That made sense because my connection was good up until when most people would have been off work.
At that point, I knew I’d have to change my work schedule. I had been working from about 3-6:30. Very sweet. At this point, I’d have to log on even earlier, which meant all other aspects of my schedule would change. My recently established yoga and writing schedule would be sacrificed once again.
A few days later, I attempted to print out my new car insurance card. The printer hadn’t connected with the new wifi. I went deep into the tech rabbit hole, trying to get the damn thing to work. I even called tech support, who coached me over the phone to discover a button on the modem I hadn’t seen before, but still, no success.
As a last resort, he offered to send out a tech guy. He informed me that since I had been recently charged for installation, I wouldn’t be charged again. That was at least a silver lining. Yet, I still had to adjust my schedule for the third tech guy.
Totally worth it. In no time at all, I showed him how the printer was supposed to appear on a list on my laptop, so I could add it. He requested the printer manual, which I kept in the original box in the outside storage closet. Before I could go outside to get the box, the tech asked me to verify if my printer had just appeared. When I asked him how he did it, he showed me the same two buttons on both the printer and modem that I had pressed before, but hadn’t maintained pressure on long enough! I didn’t feel as stupid as someone who forgot to plug the devices in or turn them on, but this was marginally better.
When he asked if I’d had any other problems with the connection, I told him about the audio issues, figuring I’d already problem solved that one. To my surprise, he informed me that I didn’t share a line with anyone else. He asked me to log on and let him see how the system work, using his cell number as a test. I definitely didn’t want to log on at that point since I’d taken the day off, but for the sake of possibly resolving the issue, I went along.
I’d turned the computer on when he announced that he already saw the issue. I was using an “A” Ethernet cable rather than a “B.” He retrieved a “B” cable from his truck, switched out cables, and I DIDN’T have to log on to my calling platform on my day off!
The next day, I logged on and everything worked like a charm. So, until the next system upgrade…