Yeah, I started La Grasse Matinée last night. I found my #2 circular (24 inch) and also a circular #3 that will work for the body. I would like to get to the point of "just increasing" by Thursday so I can carry it along to the assessment tests I have to give.
(Assessment is one of those mini-banes of professors' existence these days. I don't remember ever having to do this kind of testing as a student, but then again my alma mater was somewhat different from where I teach, and also, times have changed, and we are supposed to "prove" everything we do. I know the students dislike the testing, but whatever. I figure that in some senses the "prove you are worth keeping on" stuff like this is something we partly brought on ourselves. I would prefer that we "proved" we were doing an okay job based on surveys of alumnae and data from job acceptances/professional school acceptances, but you don't always get what you want)
I also called A T and T. Got the "we are experiencing a high call volume" bit. (I don't know but both times I've had to call them I've got that, maybe it's actually a "We don't hire enough employees" bit). Typed in all my details on the cell phone. (It is kind of annoying to do. I have an ollllllld flipphone and I'd have to take it away from my ear to punch buttons). They said they had a ticket open for me.
My house line is mostly trashed - the phone won't ring, I can't get a dial tone BUT calls will come through; then they show up as a missed call. So I can check the missed calls and call voicemail from my cellphone. Got a call a couple hours later from A T and T - automated voice claiming they'd "checked" the line remotely and it was fine.
it's not fine. So I don't know whether to try calling back (maybe from my office phone, but when?) and trying to get a real human and explaining to them my line is still messed up and I honestly think it is either the junction box or whatever you call those pillar things because the last time a dude was out it was left open for a while and I looked in and it looked like a spaghetti of really old messed up wires, or else there's something up with the underground line (which, it would be bad to have to have my yard or the alleyway dug up, but whatever). Or whether to just sit tight because the recorded message said to call if everything was fine.
I dunno. I can't do the online thing because you are supposed to have a registration online and, get this, to get one you either have to have a working landline phone they can call, or you have to wait for them to postal mail it. I understand the security reasons for that but it makes it difficult if you never registered with their system before you had a problem. And because I am in some ways a relic of the pre-Internet era, I don't think of doing things like that "registration."
(Update: there is a way to examine your "trouble ticket" online, and I finally got in to it. Gonna add some information)
I know this is a minor problem as "home services" go, but it's annoying, given what I pay A T and T every month for the privilege of having a landline. (I wonder - if I went over to Vyve for home-phone or Chickasaw, would they maintain the lines, or does it still fall to A T and T, which would give them even less incentive to do it?)
My other thought is this: maybe this (if they can't get the line working again quickly) is what drives me to go get a smartphone (but ugh, which one? I don't know what choices US Cellular supports) and upgrade that, and just cancel the landline and figure the higher cost of a smartphone plus a data plan is cancelled out by the fact that I'm not sending a check to A T and T each month.
As I said: I like having a landline because often our cell phone coverage here is kind of staticky but if I'm going to have to harass A T and T every time we get heavy rain now (and go a couple days with a non-working land line, for which I am paying), it's not worth the hassle to keep it.
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