There is no customer service and we need to embrace that fact

My internet stopped working. Now I know all of you are gasping and feeling your heart rate go up - we are all dependent upon the internet. More so than air, water, food, clothing - those things we were taught were needed to sustain life. As we have gotten more experience, I think we would agree that while those things are great, without internet, who cares?

The first day the internet was out, I suspected some local problem that would get fixed soon. I had tried all of my routine fixes without success so I knew the problem was with Charter, my internet dealer. (I don't like to call them providers. They sell me this product, get me hooked on it, raise the price it costs me, and know I can't so no. They are dealers.)

The second day without internet was all I could take. I picked up the phone.

Have you ever tried to call your internet dealer? Of course, you get the standard recorded menu:
Thank you for calling Charter. For Espanol, press one now. For Portuguese, press two now. If you think someone who answers will be able to speak in English, press "I am an idiot" now.
If you are calling about a problem with a business account, press 4, etc., etc.

Now I don't know about you all, but I can never figure out what I want the first time through that menu. For instance, in this case, I kept listening for "If you want to come through the line and strangle someone because you have been without internet for 24 hours, press 7 now." I never heard that option.

I always have to go back through the whole menu again.

Often, I will just press "0" because sometimes (meaning once when I was a small child) it gets you a real person quickly. I pressed "0". I got a dial tone.

Start again.

This time I reached someone after only pressing four or five buttons. I explained my problem to her, remembering to be nice and start with my new mantra, "I know you will be able to help me with this."

She couldn't. Why? Because my husband's name is the one on the account.

Now this man is brilliant and is the best husband in the world. However, he could not begin to tell you how we pay a single bill in this household. That is my job. How much is our cable bill? He couldn't tell you. So why is his name on the account?

When we moved here, I had three year old twins and a 6 month old. I spent my days nursing a baby, changing diapers, and chasing preschoolers. That was about all I could manage in a day. Often, I tried to figure out how fortified Cheerios really were and how many meals in a row I could get by feeding them to my kids before someone tried to take the kids away from me. I would imagine I said to him in a fit of exhaustion, "Honey, go sign us up for cable." And he did.

So this fine customer service representative refused to give me any information about my account since my name wasn't on it. I begged, I pleaded, I tried every trick in the book. Police interrogators are not as good at being firm as this woman. She did relent that if I gave her my original service order number, she could look up my account. The original service number that would be on my bill from 14 years ago.

Yeah lady. I have dust bunnies that age but I'm not thinking I can put my hands on a 14 year old bill that was paid on time by me. But, thanks for that option.

I hung up after she refused for the 10th time to help me. I called back and chose a different series of numbers to push to try to get a different woman.

I got a man. Bingo I thought. They always give in sooner or later.

Not Charter's men. I don't know how that company trains their employees but when those people say no, they mean it. I begged him to help me. I told him to ask me any question he wanted about my husband. Social security number - I know that. Mother's maiden name, ditto. Place of birth, schools attended, locations of moles - I'll tell you anything. No dice.

I called a third time. I got another woman. When she told me she could only talk to me if my husband gave her permission, I finally had a brain storm. I passed the phone to my 17 year old son who I promise, said to the woman, "It's cool with me if you give my wife access. Yeah, that would be awesome." Satisfied that she had discussed my super private cable account access with my 47 year old husband, she came back to the phone and helped me. I had cable back in less than 5 minutes.

The whole process took over two hours, aged me several months, and taught me that the world of customer service is either a fairy tale or a thing of the past.

On the other hand, my son was cocky the rest of the day.