[smartads]
Once again my internet went out. It seems to be a bi-monthly thing since they’ve done the upgrade. It went out the afternoon of Tuesday, 13 Nov. I waited the rest of the day to see if it would come back up, as it has a tendency to do at times. Not this time.
The next day I called Globe in Manila, since they are the ones that schedule all maintenance. They told me that someone in my area cut a fiber optic line and that all DSL in my area is down. They said they are aware of the problem and will take care of it. They didn’t say “when” they would take care of it.
All day (14 Nov) … Nothing.
Next day (15 Nov) I called them back. They said that someone was there working on it now. I waited some more.
All day (15 Nov) … Nothing.
Two days later (Saturday, 17 Nov) I went to the Globe office downtown. I explained everything to the nice young lady there. She wants to know if they gave me a work control number. They normally do, but in this case, they did not because they were “working on the problem” and it was not “just me”. She says that they must have one to do any work. She calls the main office in Manila, the same place that I called twice already, and they give her a control number. Why they wouldn’t give me one, I don’t know.
As per their normal procedure, they said it would be tomorrow (18 Nov) before they could have someone out. The time frame they gave me was 0900 – 1800 (9 am to 6 pm). A couple of times they have shown up early (same day). That wasn’t the case this time.
Next day (Sunday, 18 Nov). Some of the relatives starting telling me that Globe does not work on Sunday, so they won’t be by today. I had already been told twice that they would be, but who really knows because things are not what they always seem around here. So I call the Globe office in Manila again. After I typed in all my information, I got a recording that said I had a scheduled maintenance visit for that afternoon. I’m good with that, so I hung up.
Finally, that afternoon around 3 pm, Globe showed up. Yes! I’m so happy. They walk into the computer room and POOF, power outage. SOB! I can’t catch a break. The 3 guys tell me that they are going to check the line at the pole outside. That’s fine, as long as they are doing something while we wait for the power to kick back on.
I must have misunderstood what they said because they got in their truck and left. Now they did leave one of the guys behind. He was playing with his phone. I suppose he was waiting for the lights to come back on. At least that’s what I choose to believe.
The power did come back on after only about 15 minutes. The guy phoned them to let them know the power was back. They showed up, they all 3 talked for a little bit, without talking to me, then they said they’d be back, got in the truck and left (@ 3:25 pm). At this time, I’m waiting on Globe to return.
This is when I decided to write everything down and make a blog entry out of it. It been way too long since my last entry anyway.
One of the guys showed up again (@ 4:40 pm). He talked with someone on his phone for a few minutes and left again. Fortunately, he wasn’t gone long this time. He came back with some testing equipment, talked with someone on the phone for a little bit more and finally got a little action out of my modem. The DSL light came to life. After a little more work, the internet light also joined in. The internet is back in the house.
[smartads]
The guy explained to my wife that they still needed to come back tomorrow to fix a minor problem, but as long as I am online, I’m good.
I’m getting caught up on all my Facebook, but my Fantasy Football and downloading more music were my biggest concerns. I needed to have my teams properly manned before the games started this weekend. That is especially true with the local league that I’m in with TJ. I have been downloading and converting YouTube music and I want to continue with more of that. I’ve got almost 500 songs right now and plan to have over 500 before the night is through.
So, my internet is back and I hope it will be for a long time this time and not for 2 or 3 weeks before I need to call them again.
Salamat Y’all
This is why us expats drink so much… when power and internet are gone, the only thing left is the cold beer! And then, you have to drink it all before it gets warm!
I’ve had a very interesting time with this internet thing. My next few posts will break it down. I’m on, so it has obviously been resolved, but it was very frustrating.