I Hate My ISP Today

Dishnet decided in their infinite wisdom on Friday to convert their existing email system to Google's Gmail system. This in itself would not have been a bad idea if they had planned the rollover in a systematic way. That did not happen. We received a letter on Friday that stated that conversion to Gmail would be seamless, that a password change might be necessary, and that the system would be more stable and powerful than what we had in the past. Again, this did not happen at all.

Here is what DID happen:

1. Friday email failed to work in the early evening. No one in the house noticed.

2. Saturday my elderly parents DID notice that the mail was not showing up at the house, and asked for help. I was asked to help, because nothing was working. I spent a good part of the morning on the phone with tech support, attempting to find out what settings I needed to change here at the house, so that they could get email. The lady on the phone was really great, gave me all my information, actually spoke English, and we got through it in little time. I made the changes and we had email back for a while.

3. Sunday came, and the email was back to messed up again. No one had an explanation as to why that was. My Dad's laptop, which is set up identical to mine, was not getting email. He made no changes, but yet the server at Dishmail was not accepting his password. I made many attempts to fix it, to no avail. I talked to my brother, who was a super trooper, and drove 60 miles to deliver a brand new portable 160 gig hard drive so that I could back up Dads machine and reload it from scratch. He spent the money, showed up, hung out, and I did the backup and reinstall on that machine. Everything worked great, except the email. Again, it was not accepting the passwords.

I called Dishnet again, waited forever on the phone, and talked to a guy who sounded so frustrated with the problems. He acknowledged the problems, and we walked through the settings yet again, with no change. He admitted that there are serious problems with the rollover to Gmail, and it was their fault. They were working on the issues and doing their best.

You would think for 150 plus dollars a month for high speed internet, that at least the email system would work~!! I was kind to both reps on the phone. I have been there. I spent many years doing that kind of work, as well as the back end kind of work. I have had literally thousands of angry customers in my day, and they are all the same. I can honestly say that one kind customer can wipe the problems away. So I tried to be that customer. Maybe it helped, maybe not.

Was there a resolution? Nope. We *may* get our service stable by Friday of this upcoming week. They are working on it. That might mean that I *may* get the check out to them when the service gets working again.

Note to Dishmail:

Listen. Tell your Admin's that they need to have a much better disaster plan the next time a system change is made. Talk to your customers before you make changes, ask them what they think about the service, what their needs are, and what they want from you. Make plans, COMMUNICATE those plans to the customers, and get feedback as you go. If things are going badly, stop painting the rails on a sinking ship, and go back to what you had. Analyze the situation, and have the manpower to repair any damage that occurs when mistakes happen! Most of all, keep everyone informed on what is going on. Truthful information goes a long way when customers aren't happy.

In other news:

I made a nice sized list of great guitar websites and put them up here to share with everyone. Some of these sites are just manufacturers sites, and others are really interesting blog type sites. Even if you aren't a total guitar geek like me, you may find some of these sites interesting.

Tomorrow I go back to work, after a week off. I am looking forward to it. A little alone time, just me and the road, might be just what I need. Talk to you all later!!