My father was a bit of a hot head. Growing up I always told myself I could not let that become me.
Today, AT&T's world class let-down of a support system (some of it overseas if it matters...it does) brought out the the worst in me and I'm not proud of it; oh, and this was after I wasted the previous visit working out access.
After 7 transfers, an uncountable number of touch tone prompts, an immeasurable level of ineptitude, and 2 hours of my life that I'll never get back, the circuit is still not up. The most helpful person on the phone was someone in the wrong department (onshore, we've established that it matters), where they finally told me the tricks and keywords I need to say to get where I need to be. I thought it would be all gravy from there-on in; oh boy was I wrong. I used the aforementioned tricks to get someone on the line who said they could help me, but they proceeded to ask me about the AT&T demarc and a piece of optical gear. I politely informed them that I was in an AT&T data center (non carrier neutral might I add) and they have all of their gear locked away. He then continued to insist that I request access from the building to look at this gear. I, a little more firmly this time, informed them I did not have access and would certainly not be granted it. After being told they would have to dispatch a field tech to look at it, I started to come unglued.
I explained how I thought it was unacceptable that they were not able to test the circut in their own data center and, after being denied escalation, I lost all of my shit on the poor guy. That was the 1:34 minute timestamp. I eventually conceeded to a field tech coming out, but demanded an exact method of operational testing I knew they probably wouldn't do anyway and explained, again, how it was completely abserd that my gear was link-up on the port they specified, but they couldn't see anything on their end. I lectured on the security implications of incorrectly provisioned cross connects knowing it fell on deaf ears.
Tomorrow will be day 3 of bringing up this AT&T circut, inside of an AT&T data center. <opinion> I am appalled that anyone would ever consider doing business with this company, let alone the Government. Growing up after the split up of Ma Bell, I never had to experience what it as like when they actually were the only player in town, but now I get it. I have always been against AT&T acquiring more businesses, but this has shown me what we have to look forward to: a company that could not give any less of a fuck about the customer. AT&T is a fucking disgrace to the capitalism that built America.</opinion>
Feel free to post your own horror stories or good experiences. I'll also put my time where my mouth is by offering pro-bono consulting to anyone who needs help talking their management out if going with AT&T for literally anything, PM for more info. Must request within 96 hours of this post's original submission timestamp, limit 2 hours/company.
(Apologies to any of you who work for them. I'm sure you're all great people just trying to earn an honest living and don't need yet another person telling you how terrible your employer is)
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