acroyear | an afternoon wasted on hold...

First, I skip work this afternoon to await the direct tv guy to come over to theoretically fix my problem of missing the HD versions of the local channels from 3 weeks ago when I last had to skip work (for no reason - they didn't show up 'til 630 so i might has well have stayed in the office then) to get the HD upgrade.

Only the guy tells me it's cause they installed the wrong fucking dish and he "doesn't have a work order to do an upgrade" (which is what his bureaucratic supervisor called it, an upgrade, not a repair). So 1 hour of the afternoon was shot and so is my temper enough for it to be impossible for me to concentrate on working the rest of the day.

So I call DTV, 5 minutes on hold to get to the front line, then 30 minutes on hold to get to the service protection people, only for THEM to tell me the supervisor fucked up and in spite of that, *I* have to stay home another day (this time, Jan 3, 'cause I'm on an f'ing vacation this weekend and can't stay home to do it) to get the real replacement. At least this time, the guy left me instructions for the service guys to contact the national people to get confirmation that YES THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO FIX MY FUCKING PROBLEM, NOT HASSLE OVER INTERNAL BUREAUCRATIC BULLSHIT.

If this was Douglas Adams's "Bureaucracy" game from Infocom, it would be telling me, "your blood pressure has just gone up."

Temper is high, afternoon is shot, I'm now one full day behind @ work effectively on an *extremely* tight deadline with no time to spare, really.

So I debate "going shopping" to cheer me up, but wisely say no, I should actually try to enjoy some of the presents I've already gotten and/or toys I've bought @ Tower the last few weeks.

Going through the presents, I remember my parents got me a new "Universal DVD Battery" that's compatible with the portable I've got, giving 6 hours of time instead of the mere 2 that the one that came with the pack does (at least we found the original as well, 'cause it was missing for months).

Mom saved a little money by buying an open-box item from Best Buy, which was labeled "complete".

Trouble was, it wasn't.

It was missing the 5 adapter plugs that are supposed to come with it, thus it can't actually plug into my dvd player and is, effectively, useless.

So now it's "1-800-BestBuy" to figure out what I should do with this given that I don't have the receipt and likely my mom doesn't either and might not even be able to remember which store she actually got it from.

And likely another 30-40 minutes on hold.

At least they're all 800 numbers NOT being dialed from my cell phone, so that 1) i've got speaker phone so i don't have to hold it all day and 2) it's on THEIR FUCKING BILL.

Got Best Buy guy - he is, of course, telling me they won't do jack shit without a receipt or the original credit card number, and we have to go to the original store it came from, neither of which are an option. I've forwarded to "parts" to see if they've got any ability to get these damn things.

Answer a big fucking no, they don't carry replacement parts for that company.

Now, I'm googling for options...

Now, on hold @ Dynex customer service to see if they can just send me the little shits. Failing that, maybe just a part number I can take to a radio shack and get blank stares to go with my hold time to REALLY make my day.

Nope, RS won't have what they need. BUT, they did make an entry of "ownership" into my name and supposedly I can take it to "any" best buy and get the replacement. Of course, that means another round of blank stares after standing in line for an hour, but I'm too frustrated to get anything done around here. I got NOTHING done of what I wanted to get done.

Next year, regardless of anything, I'm taking the day after Christmas off.

Here goes...