broadening my Verizon's

We already had Verizon for our land line phone, cell phones, and DSL internet - but Comcast was our cable company. Well, until they decided to drop Sue's favorite chanels off of their basic package. So we went all out and dropped cable and added Direct TV satellite. The problem was we had been experiencing troubles with our internet connectivity. Calling the online tech help got us customer service agents from India or the Phillipines "pinging" our line and telling us to reverse our wires and that it must be in our house wiring. I meanwhile was convinced that the real issue was the Network Interface Box [NIB] on the outside of the house. The cover has been missing for the 15 years we have lived here, the wires and connectors exposed and rusting - which would easily explain why we had static on the phone line, volume would drop off and the internet would go out more often in rainy weather, and that I had a makeshift cover made out of an upside-down plastic gallon milk jug. I told this to numerous tech-help people but they only wanted to reset our connection remotely. After refusing to repeat all of the "service test" steps for the third time in two days, I got very aggrevated with the tech person on the phone and insisted that they send a repair person to the house. They connected me to the repair department - to whom I repeated every step I had already taken and every in-house wire that I had already replaced and re-explained the condition of the NIB and insisted that they come and replace it. They agreed and we scheduled them to come on tuesday between 12 and 3. They insisted that some responsible person over 18 years old had to be there, dogs had to be out of the way and access to the property available when they came. At 2:00 on tuesday, I called Verizon to find out if they were indeed coming. I was told that there was no work order for it. When i gave them the reference number given to me, they said that was from the online service department and switched me to them. They told me that the work order was closed already. I asked how that could possibly be as nobody had come yet. I was told that they ran a test on our line and we were getting a perfectly good signal so they closed the order (evidently they considered it a job well done!). OF COURSE THEY DID! THE SUN WAS SHINING I shouted! My children cowered in fear as I over the phone ripped the customer service technician, then his supervisor, and then the repair department- reminding them about the unpaid time off from work they cost me as well as the expense of all of the wiring that I had un-necessarily replaced and that I will cancel all of my services with them if they don't send someone out to replace the NIB. They agreed, and we made an appoinment for Monday between 1:00 - 4:00. Well today (Monday, MLK Day) the Verizon truck pulled up in front of the house. I greated the repair man who started to tell me that he would start by checking how much signal I was getting at the router. WRONG, I told him. In case he didn't get the background information, he was here to replace the NIB. To his credit he said "OK, if that's all it is that'll be easy".

And it was. In under 20 minutes he was done, but he admitted that Verizon would be better off if they would just send a repair man out instead of diddling with remote tests and all. He also admitted that this was the worst NIB that he had ever seen and wanted to know if I would mind if he took the box and the milk-jug cover with him to show off!

He fixed the problem, friendly and efficiently - it was the least I could do for him.