A what?

I think I am a Luddite, although the fact that I am writing this on a computer that is hooked up to the Internet is a bit oxymoron-ish.

Perhaps I am a partial Luddite, I have Luddite-like tendancies.

Technology baffles me. It really isn't as time saving as often thought.

Today was a fine example of "when technology fails".

1. Shaw Cable had cable problems. Said cable is buried under our yard, and granted, the city has 3 feet right-of-way, but we have to care for that 3 feet. Steven spends a lot of time caring for our yard so that it looks nice and tidy. But, the cable needed to be updated/replaced/fixed...whatever, and here they came, back hoe and all. They dug, made a mess, left, came back, made some more mess, dug deeper, left because it started to rain, came back, parked in our driveway so that I couldn't get out, blew up their hoe, left, came back and made a bigger mess....oil from the hoe all over the place, cracked the cement in our drive-way, tossed the dirt back in the hole and proceeded on to the neighbours yard to continue their mayhem.

I shan't go into detail of the conversation between Steven and them. Suffice to say, a nice load of topsoil was delivered to the house, as well as some new rolls of sod..neither of which we laid down. This evening it looks quite nice.

2. Same day. Came down to use the Internet (as a Luddite, I shall call it the Interweb of the Magic Box) and nothing would happen. Telus (our provider) kept telling me I had to "register my devices", and before that could possibly begin to happen, I had to proceed with my user name and password. Of course I have neither. And I've been using these same devices for months now.

I phoned the number and after the "press one" runaround, I was connected with Rajad, who, from the noise, was sitting by his laptop on a street in Mumbai. *sigh*.

He eventually got me reconnected ("Please be waiting one more minute Miss Shannon, thank you veddy much.") (umm, this is my blog and I can be politically incorrect if I choose!)

Turned out it was their fault, some signal error.

3. Our reception on our TV has been not very good lately. We have a satellite dish, which annoys me at the best of times, and this past while the picture gets all boxy...you know? Like little boxes. I think the term "pixels" comes into play here, but again, I don't swing that way.

So we phoned ( some more "Press One") and when we explained the problem, they said they'd send a technician up. And they did, promptly (just 3 days late). He arrived today.

He was actually very nice, and did some readjusting and switching things and moved antennae from here to there, and said we needed a new something or other and gave us the info to call Shaw....Ok, yes, the SAME Shaw as was mentioned in the beginning of this post...yeah, Shaw has bought out Star Choice, our satellite company. I can sort of hear the Gods of Fate laughing already.

So we phoned Shaw ("Press One") and we were on hold for...guess how long? Guess! 73 minutes. I finally hung up, went out, jumping over the mud and bits of sod that Shaw had left all over, and came home a few hours later. Called again. On hold for 14 minutes. Hung up and swore a bit, made supper and phoned again. On hold 36 minutes.

As of this writng, I have had no answer, but you know what's funny? We "left" Shaw because their customer service was SO awful. I cannot abide poor customer service. So, as I am on hold,one of the little blurbs that they repeat ("your call is important to us.") was this: "Now that Star Choice is Shaw Cable, we want to reassure you that you will recieve the same wonderful customer service as always."

*sigh*

My entire day was virtually wasted by waiting for repairmen, phoning repairmen, trying to track repairmen down to move their vehicles, waiting for phone calls, waiting to NOT be on hold, and just waiting, waiting, waiting. All in the name of modern time saving technology.

~Technology is a queer thing...it brings you great gifts with one hand, and stabs you in the back with the other. ~CP Snow