I'm concerned about human society.  I mean, let's be honest....you can't be alive in 2023 and not wonder about our longevity.  I don't even know where to start on the list of Holy Shit events in the last few years.  Covid, anti-vaxxers, refusal to mask, an ex president indicted in 2 different jurisdictions (SO FAR) for a variety of serious crimes, including violations of the Espionage Act.  Governments are ignoring the will of the people (Florida, allowing felons to vote.  Ohio, refusing to draw fair districts despite a constitutional amendment.  The US Supreme Court stacked with hyper conservative offspring of oligarchs, and deciding in favor of the scary christian right)

You can't be alive in 2023 US, and not see it...the consistent erosion of empathy.  No one cares anymore.  We hear religious nuts screaming about god's love, in the same breath that they say ti's fine to force a 10 year old to carry and give birth to her rapist's baby.  We have so-called conservatives representing the accomplishments of a wildly successful administration as irresponsible and squandering, despite ALL FACTS clearly showing the opposite.  We see a republican party that is hell bent on stripping the few social safety nets left to us, in what i can only assume is an attempt to control the electorate by keeping us poor, uneducated and exhausted.  

In the last week I have had a half dozen incidents where a service i had paid for failed to provide me with the promised service.  In each case...every single one....i was told there was no recourse.  I was stuck.  So, I paid $270 to get a fedex package there by 10:30am the next day? oops.  we didn't make it. oh well.  I paid $600 for 3 UPS packages to be shipped Overnight Red...and only  2 made it?  oh.  <shrug>  it'll get there eventually.  The fact that I had a crew sitting on site, burning money, waiting on that last package...oh.  sorry.  

Bought an airline ticket.  Need to be there by Sunday afternoon to get the job started.  Flight delayed.  multiple times.  Got there too late to start the job.  Airline's response?  oh well. these things happen.

Bought an airline ticket home.  Flight delays, again.  Realized there was no way my husband would make his connection, so I rescheduled the connection....but that meant he would get on the ground after midnight, a 90 minute drive away from home.  So. we got him a hotel near the airport.  He's had an amazingly long week and is completely exhausted.  

More flight delays.  flight finally pushes back from the gate 90 minutes late...then sits on the tarmac for Two. More. Hours.  in Florida.  in July.  In case anyone was unaware, airplane a/c just cannot keep up with several hundred people in an enclosed tube, sitting in the blistering sun, on black tarmac.  they roasted.  And, did i mention that my husband has a blood clot, and is required to get up and move every 1 to 2 hours, to prevent further clots from forming.  to move "vigorously"?  he was stuck on that plane for almost 4 hours, between sitting on the tarmac, flight time, then another delay getting to the gate when they landed.  

And remember that connection i changed?  cancelled. he was put on a 0630 flight the next morning.  it is now after 11:00 pm, he has no luggage, he hasn't had dinner, he has to find a hotel, the line to get a voucher for a hotel is, no lie, all the way past 3 gates.  hundreds of people.  He knows, if he waits, not only will he be exhausted, but it's unlikely there will be any rooms left nearby.  So he calls me, i help him find a hotel, and he gets the shuttle there.

I call customer service at the airline, try to get him on a later flight.  0630 when he doesn't even get to a hotel until almost midnight, and still needs to find something to eat?  no.  he needs to sleep.  he'd have to be up at 5am, on the shuttle back to the airport by 0530. he has no clean clothes, or his c-pap.  

Customer service is backed up.  no surprise.  Wait time for a call back is 1 to 2 hours.  it's currently 11:20pm.  i'm also exhausted, because we've been dealing with this garbage for days.  But...i stay up and wait for the call.  How bad can it be?  the latest should be around 1:30am, and hopefully will be sooner.  

I went to bed at 2:00am.  just could not keep my eyes open any longer.  told my husband to go to sleep, set an alarm for 0500, and i'd leave him a message on whether he can go back to sleep.  

Remember my internet was out? yeah. still out.  it's been 10 hours by now.  no explanation. no estimate of repair,  no idea of cause.  nothing.  I call again, asking for an update.  i can't even get a yes or no that they have an issue, or it's on my site. nothing.  someone will call you when they get to it.  can i talk to tech support? no.  they will call you.  Can i talk to your supervisor? no. Can I talk to SOMEONE?  no.  

Phone rings at 2:09am.  It's the airline, finally.  dude asks for my husband's record locator number. I don't have it.  ok, how about his ticket number.  don't have that either.  What is his flight number?  I have no idea.  he says, "well, you're welcome to call back when you have the information necessary..."  i say WAIT DON'T YOU DARE HANG UP ON ME!!!" 

The next 20 minutes are excrutiatingly unpleasant.  no, he cannot look up my husband by his name and birthday.  No, he cannot find the ticket without  this info.  I said, i've been waiting for 3 hours for a call that was supposed to take 1 to 2 hours...an already stupidly long time for a so-called "customer service" line.  I'm in bed, because it's 2 in the goddamn morning.  I said, if i pay for a service, i expect to be able to receive that service, and not have repeated delays resulting in horrendous inconvenience and costing me thousands of dollars in work delays.  he said, "well, when i call in to a business i know to have my information available."

omg.

I know he was doing his job.  i know being a CSR sucks.  but jesus.....if i felt, even for one minute, like these companies actually cared about supplying decent customer support, i would be kinder, i swear. But it's just call after call, long hold times, then a CSR who does not give 2 shits about anything.  they have scripts they have to repeat. 

His snark is astonishing.  

The ONLY flight available leaves at 4:44pm.  My husband will get in at 6:15pm to 6:30pn.  ugh.  another wasted day...but his day will be wasted either way - if he flies at 0630, he'll be so exhausted he'll sleep all day.  

next day....it's a Sunday.  In the middle of the airline saga, our home and office internet went out.  Tried troubleshooting.  called our ISP.  submitted a ticket.  they can't tell me if there's a problem with the circuit.  nope. just have to submit a ticket. someone will get back with me.  

We pay $460 a  MONTH for unlimited data, high speed LOS internet, guaranteed 100% uptime. 

My husband, waiting on the flight, washing his only clothes in the bathroom sink, using a hair dryer to try to dry it.... he starts getting calls from one of our customers.  They're down.  It's the unit we just finished a massive shut-down job on.  it might be our fault.  he's stuck in a hotel, in Charlotte, NC.  

It's approximately 10:00am.

Try to reach our employee who managed that job. he's out of state.  Because my husband was supposed to be back, he decided to leave for vacation a day early.  Normally no harm in that, hut he should have informed us....but he left his work phone at home.  i had to track him down on his personal cell.  so he can't go to site.  and is clearly hesitant to take calls for work where he is (i did not ask).  But..it's a 24=7 emergency service company. that's why we provide a company phone.  it's in the paperwork when he was hired that he MUST have it on him, and charged, at ALL times.  we don't expect him to drop everything and run to site if he's out of town, but he MUST be reachable if there is a question.  

My husband asks me to head to site.  be his eyes and ears while he tries to figure out what's wrong.  I get showered, dressed, and am about to head out when the ISP called - can i troubleshoot with them?  ugh.  fine.  the access point where the internet comes onto the property is in one of the outbuildings.  10' in the air.  you need a small ladder to access the locked enclosure.  even with the ladder, it's really hard to see the tiny 1" x 1" screen on the hardware firewall.  I've been using my phone with both bluetooth headset, and hot spot.....and i'm using the camera to enlarge the tiny screen so i can see it.  

phone died mid conversation.  

Went to my car (parked nearby cuz i was literally on my way out the driveway when they called) and plug it in.  wait for it to get 1% charge, and call them back. they can't connect me.  i have to wait for another call.  no idea how long it will be.  

<grinding teeth>

wait 10 minute.  give up, and head out, going to site. Meanwhile, my husband has been on the phone with the down plant, helping them troubleshoot the problems.    I manage to get ahold of him, and i ask if i'm going to site or not. No.  it's clearly not our fault, something weird is going on, and there's nothing i could do.  he will have to head there when he  lands.  

ISP calls back.  There's nothing wrong as far as they can see.  but, says i, the access point clearly says "NO INTERNET.  CALL YOUR ISP".  um....um.....I will continue to troubleshoot.  we'll get back with you.  

around 6:30pm.  an hour away from site.  oh goody.

guess what?? FLIGHT DELAYS!!!

he lands at 8:30pm instead of 6:30pm.  a full 24 hours after he was originally supposed to be on the ground.  

we paid for three hotels for saturday night.  1 in florida (he thought he'd be there until sunday...) 1 in Charlotte (stranded), and 1 in Pittsburgh (he though he'd land too late to drive home).  three. hotels.  

He finally gets to site about 10:00pm.  He was there until 4:30am Monday (today).  still in the same clothes he put on Saturday afternoon.  

I still don't have internet.  I still don't have any answer as to what is wrong.  I have a local tech coming to check my hardware side sometime in the next couple of hours.  

FedEx and UPS just billed us for the failed packages from last week.  full price.  we have to contest the charges, even tho' they KNOW they screwed up and failed to get the packages delivered on time, because we already talked to them.  nope.  we have to do it, now that the charges have been sent. 

Airline hasn't responded to a request for help, to pay for the hotel, the meal, while stuck in Charlotte. 

Haven't heard back from Hilton yet.  hopefully they'll comp us at least 1 of the 3 rooms my husband supposedly stayed in Saturday night. Kind of hard to be in 3 cities in 3 states at the same time.

and, none of these companies will make me feel like my money was well spent, that i paid for a service and will get what i paid for.  No one cares.  No one tries.  punch a clock, take your pay...corporate bosses tell you to punch a clock, take your pay, and do what we say. don't ever promise to be helpful.  

don't ever admit that we don't care what the customer wants, or that no one is every going to call them back.  Just read these lines, dump the problem into someone else's queue, and go on to the next call. 

and for that, you will make $15/ hour, if you're lucky, with no benefits, no vacation, and no sick time.  welcome to america.

we are all fucking doomed.