Motherfuckin’ Cogeco.

Tuesday, there’s two Cogeco vans at the end of the street that pull up while I’m walking the dogs. There’s no way that’s good, and sure enough, we’re out of internet for an hour.

Not terrible, listed as maintenance on the Cogeco website.

But then…

A Cogeco tech returns around 3:30 yesterday, roots around in the box in the neighbour’s yard and boom, we’re down.

Not a big deal, right? Site reads maintenance again, probably only be for a bit. Got me out of the last half hour of work.

Except, when I look again at four, dude’s gone. Box is still open; no sign of him.

And we’re completely out.

He never returns.

So, we pulled some strings with the internet company my wife works for and whose tech department I used to run, and get ourselves a hub, but man, let me tell you. I thought I was being nice going through front line staff first, assuming they’d prod Cogeco and find out there’s a local outage.

Nope. Turns out Cogeco already booked a tech – for two days from now. So now, we’re scrambling, trying to find places to work, figure out what to do with dogs, possible sick days, etc., and knowing how this game is played, I can already see the screwjob coming.

Because Cogeco booked the tech, with no prompting from us, that means that it either is an area issue that for some inexplicable reason they’re willing to leave that way for days or they know they fucked something up specific to our line and put in early. Unfortunately, I also know our provider didn’t ask for anything, which means when things go sideways, there’ll be no recourse to escalate, because we never opened anything, even if Cogeco scheduled their own tech (who could no show on the grounds that we’re a third party and not a Cogeco client, and that any and all dispatches have to go through our provider).

To think, I know these people. I didn’t train any of them, because they were all customer service people forced into tech roles after I left, but damn, kids.

Do better.

Target: 1100 words
Written: 1030 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Trust Me, I'm Lying, Ryan Holiday (a very important book that will leave you completely bereft)
Comics: Codename Strykeforce 12-13, Ripclaw 1-2
Music: Infected, The The