Should Have Gone with the Hyphen
Clayton warned me. He made sure that I understood taking on the Noa name was basically painting a giant bulls-eye on your forehead. That ends up being crooked and totally not the colors you requested. I thought the Noas were exaggerating about their trouble with companies and customer service departments. Two years in, I completely get it.
Yes, everyone has issues with installing this, setting that up, having this delivered. But with the Noa surname, it is EVERY installation, EVERY set-up, and EVERY delivery. Nothing goes smoothly. Ever. I understand that I am a middle class American about to whine about a deluxe cable package being installed in my three-bedroom home. You’re just going to have to get over that part.
The volcano of broken promises and miscommunication erupted this past week in our dealings with DirecTV. This won’t come as a surprise to them because they should have received my three-page letter by now. Seriously. I won’t bore you with every single one of their failings; just know that this is the cliff note version of their incompetence.
Clayton scheduled installation for this past Saturday between 8AM and 12PM. Confirmed it twice with two separate people. Saturday came but no one from DirecTV did. So we called. No record of installation scheduled for Saturday. Our set-up was “in the system” for September 27. Um, no thank you. Supervisor, please. After a long-winded discussion, the supervisor promised us someone would come install our DirecTV that Monday. Monday morning, Clayton received a recorded message saying there was a shortage of equipment and we would need to reschedule our appointment. After calling and being on the phone for nearly two hours, they gave us another installation appointment for September 22, 11 days later than our original date. I was already hours late to work (to a job that does not give me paid time off) because I’d been waiting for the tech and dealing with customer service. When Clayton got home that night, he called a different number that took him to what we think may be a corporate office. He spoke with a fellow who said some reassuring things about asking the contracted tech company to make our installation a priority. He also promised to call Clayton back within 48 hours, which he did not. Clayton called that number again last night since he didn’t hear from Mr. Promise Maker. The rep confirmed the latest appointment time that I’d been told: September 22.
Cut to this morning at 7:30AM. My phone rings. I don’t answer it because I’m half human, half giant bad mood swing when I get woken up. The message was from a lovely DirecTV technician who was on his way to our house. Today, September 17. Ok, DirecTV, your battle plan of enrage, confuse, and surprise is kind of working. Because Clayton and I still have no idea how there is, at this moment, a guy in a DirecTV shirt waltzing around our roof and drilling holes in our walls. But we ain’t asking no more questions. The optimist in me really wants to believe that DirecTV actually made a move to fix their mistakes. The other part of me is pretty sure that, when this guy leaves, we aren’t going to have DirecTV and my pearls are going to be missing. Stay tuned…