F@#!$%&* - Take 1

Sometimes you can get so frustrated with something that there isn't a word in the English language to express how you're feeling. So I've made up this word to use in these instances - F@#!$%&*. Today's F@#!$%&* is brought to you by my Internet provider, Cox Communications. For the past two days, I've been unable to get Internet at my house. Yesterday morning I had an error message come up in my browser saying that Cox had to temporarily disable my Internet connection. I thought this was strange considering that I just paid my bill. But I didn't think too much of it because we've also been having Internet issues at work. Since I live right down the street from my office, I thought there may just be some sort of problem with Cox in our area. 

But when I went to log-on to my home computer again this morning, I got the same error message. So I called Cox, and proceeded to speak to a computer for a half hour. I call the computer a "she" because it has a female voice and I don't really know how else to refer to her. Have you ever noticed that the self-help computer always sounds the same? It's always this bitchy lady's voice. The same goes for my GPS unit in my car. Whenever I make a wrong turn, it's like she gets pissed off and it's such an inconvenience for her to reconfigure my route. "Sigh ... Make a legal u-turn ... Sign ... I guess I'll reconfigure the route since you're too dumb to follow my directions." The other day my friend told me that you could download different voices for your GPS unit, which I'm going to have to look into because I can't stand my lady anymore. I wish we could also pick the voices for these self-help phone calls. It would really make the whole experience a lot less painful.

Anyway, of course the dumb computer couldn't help me so I was actually transferred to a live person, who, after another half hour (yes, this means I was on the phone for one whole hour) decided she STILL couldn't help me and said she'd have to give me a ticket number and transfer me to Tier 2. What the hell does that mean? Is it really that hard to figure out how to connect my laptop to the Internet? I've been at my apartment for a year now and have never had a problem, and then all of the sudden it's impossible for me to get on. It's 2009 ... Should it really be a mystery anymore about how to log on to the Internet? You would think we wouldn't have to deal with these dumb problems anymore. 

I thanked the gal who was "helping" me, and told her I'd have to call Tier 2 back because I was now late for work. So tonight, I'll have to waste another hour of my life on the phone trying to figure this out. F@#!$%&*