The Iggblog

iggdawg – so I’ve been on hold with Cisco for just over an hour now.
iggdawg – I can;t think of many cooler ways to spend a saturday morning
deimos – and their answer will be to reboot it
deimos – or upgrade to the latest ios
iggdawg – the thing is, I have a field engineer on the other end
iggdawg – who’s been waiting 40 minutes now to be released =P
*** iggdawg is at work
iggdawg – he finished the job he’s on in the time I’ve been on hold
deimos – you work for a telco?
deimos – if so, don’t you have secret priority phone numbers for cisco support?
iggdawg – I work at a NOC, we’re partners with Cisco. I have some numbers, but it’s only to get VISE engineers mostly
iggdawg – for dispaches and stuff
sideshow – Jesus christ
sideshow – an hour on hold?
sideshow – fuck that
sideshow – Stab a bitch
iggdawg – it’s funny cause I’m not even the customer really. we just get paid to organize the dispaches and shit
iggdawg – so I’ve got this field engineer on site waiting to be released, and my phone is tied up the whole time
iggdawg – all set now though. about damn time
iggdawg – I used the time-honored method of calling in and using the wrong options just to get to a human.
dubbz – hah
iggdawg – I liked the “stab a bitch” option, but we don’t have remote stabbing implimented on these phones

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A note on “using the wrong options to get a human” on automated phone systems… AT&T is by far the worst company to open and chase tickets with. They try as hard as they can to keep you from talking to someone. When you open a ticket, you talk to a machine. you give it the circuit ID, you speak your name and number, select what trouble you’re having from a menu of like 4 options (no, it’s not adequate), and a few more pieces of info. it rattles off a ticket number. when you call the number back, it gives a generic update when you input the ticket number. it will not give any detailed information.

SO… we here at Dimension Data have figured out how to get a human on the line. when you call in, there are 6 options. The first 5 cover whether it is a voice or data circuit, what type of trouble it is, etc. the 6th option says “If you are calling from an Alaskan location, please dial 6”. if you hit option 6, you get directly to a human with no wait time. WTF kind of crazy deal does alaska have with ATT O_o? we here at Didata are very frequently from Alaska.