I understand where you're coming from. I actually see it as people not taking this professionally enough. I'm not taking it personally. I just have a level of expectation when it comes to the companies I decide to give my money to on a monthly basis. Being a consumer in the United States, I sort of have that right. On a side note, UIA called me, apologized for the confusion, tried their hardest to answer all my questions and some how managed to get me an appointment for install. That's all I expected from the beginning. Unfair expectation? I guess that's up for debate.
You referenced Dilbert, and I read where Scott Adams asked readers to contribute things that their "Pointy-Haired Bosses" asked.
My favorite: "before we start, I want a complete list of unforeseen circumstances that might cause a delay." I think there have been lots of unforeseen problems. There are lots of pole replacements going on in Section 5, and that can't help the schedule.
My E-Mail client is horribly cluttered, and I was going back and deleting useless junk. I found a whole bunch of E-Mail dealing with T-1 circuits over the past 20 years -- the most recent 7 years ago. These were 1.5 megabit, 100% committed information rate, guaranteed low latency, maximum down time of no more than 2 hours. In the contract. Average was about $500/month.
In one case, I told the vendor "do not install on or before this date!" and the LEC (Verizon) installed while I was sitting on an airplane -- and they installed to the wrong demarc.
The best experience was more than 10 days early. The worst told me they weren't going to meet the contract and to cancel before installation was complete -- and had the gall to bill me.
Level3 was the best, but my T1 went from Level3 to a company called XO, to Telepacific and the last mile from Verizon. Thankfully, my point-of-contact was Level3. I had a Savvis connection that went through MCI to Verizon and was on the phone when the MCI tech was testing to the Savvis end, not to my end and refused to go any further.
After Level3 I was with Timer Warner for a while. One support person said "it's all fine" and the next said "we need one of our techs to sort this out" but the tech never showed, it was always a contractor with no test equipment. One tech showed up, took the circuit down, then call in to find out what they were supposed to do. I threw him out.
Every one of these were using an established infrastructure. They weren't building new.
When I read your post about wastewater systems, I kinda got the idea that you see planning and building treatment plants the way I see telecom.
That's why I'm excited to have UIA when they get here. They have their own fiber from their own office, with their own backhaul(s) to their NOC.
I suspect that the most frustrated individual with all of this is Wes Zuber. Maybe Laura, but I'm pretty sure Wes.
Glad to hear you got a call and they were able to make things right. Sometimes you just have to call.
