&%$#@*% Verizon

So my DVR is not installed. Nor will it be until at least the first week of AUGUST! Back story:

Monday, John and I were at the mall. We'd been kicking the idea of DVR around and lo...there was the Verizon kisok. The God's had spoken! So we go to the kiosk and the very helpful young men tell us that they can't schedule a tech to come out and install a new box. We have to call our Personal Assistant Manager (PAM!) to schedule any upgrades or changes. This is to "streamline" the ordering process. They give us a card with Cory's name and phone number. I call Cory when I get home. He doesn't answer his phone. He screens his calls. Forty-five minutes later he calls me back. I tell him what I want and he tells me he will "get the ball rolling" and call me to let me know when someone will be here to install the new DVR. He does not call me the next day. I call him. And leave a message. Because he doesn't answer his phone. At 5:45 PM. Oh, didn't I tell you, he says, it can take up to 48 hrs for the order to process. Ummm, no Cory, you sure didn't. Now before they had PAM's you were told when you called or placed the order when someone would be at your house. So their theory behind "streamlining" is out the window as far as I'm concerned. Cory calls me Wed morning and tells me the DVR will be delivered to my home via Courier on Tue July 29. So then I ask him when they will be here to install it. Oh, you wanted it installed he says. Grrrrrrrrr! Yes, I tell him. Neither my husband or myself is qualified to install YOUR equipment. If we install it wrong, you are then going to charge us to come and fix our mistake. I thought I made myself clear when I talked to you on Monday about this. Ohhhh, well, I don't know what I have to do about getting someone there to install it. I'll have to call someone and see what to do. Fine Cory, you do that. Oh, and by the way, I will be leaving for a week on the 29th, so they will have to come after the 5th of Aug to install it. So he calls me back about a half hour later. He's got a very nice lady on the phone that he thinks can help me. She can't. She cannot get her system to let her schedule a tech because of the way that Cory wrote up the order. So she transfers me to a very nice young man. Who also can't change the order. So he overrides it, tells me a tech will be here with a DVR box between 1-4 Thursday. He will install the DVR box, take our old Set Top Box with him. When I get back from Orlando, I am to call the Courier service that delivers the DVR that Cory ordered to come and pick it up. Fine. Problem solved.

Not so fast! Four o'clock comes and goes yesterday. 4:30, I call the 1.888 number for Verizon. Frankly Scarlett, I'm done with Cody! All he's managed to do is screw everything up. I talk to another nice young man. Who says there is no record of anyone supposed to be here to install the DVR. And he can't change the order that Cory placed either. So he gives me to a Supervisor. So for the eleventybillionth time, I have to 'splain the whole sordid story again. She finally determines that the DVR was shipped on the 15th. From Pennsylvania. And it's not gonna make it to Florida til the 29th?????!!!!! I could walk to PA in a week and a half. And I don't walk fast! She does not know if the Courier service requires a signature to leave the package. I sure as hell hope so, because if they just leave it on the doorstep, I'm sure not gonna be responsible for it. So what she finally determined she would do is, call me on the morning of Aug 5. IF they left the DVR and IF no-one stole it off my doorstep, the nice Verizon tech that she will schedule to come install a completely different DVR will take the boxed DVR AND my old Set Top Box with him when he leaves. And when he will be here is anyone's guess. I am sooooo unbelievably pissed at Verizon. I'm just about ready to tell them to rip their equipment out and we'll go back to DirectTV. All I can say is, this DVR better be the best thing since sliced white bread once it is finally installed.