What State Am I In? Confusion?

Happy Donk Years everyone!

2006 has is here, and to bring in the new year, I have a nice case of pneumonia! Other than that, things are going well. I somehow survived 2005 and am ready for a new year full of donkey sightings.

This one comes to us from my local cable internet provider, and isn't the greatest entry, but remember, quantity over quality, and in case you haven't notice, we've been lacking in both lately. I won't give their name here, but it rhymes with Toad Gunner. I have had nothing but troubles dealing with the complete donkeys that work for this company, but since the connection has been good, I haven't looked at moving my service somewhere else.

So of course for the last 3 weeks or so I've been having connectivity problems in the evenings, where my internet connection would just drop. A simple DHCP renew brings back the connection, and it doesn't seem to happen with any regularity. It went away for a few weeks, but came back this week. So I went to Toad Gunner's support page and checked their network status.

Sure enough, under "Internet Connectivity" the status is Red, which stands for unplanned event/outage. The standard "...subscribers in this area may have problems...we apologize for any inconvenience..." message is listed. Then I notice the affected area, which is listed as WICONSON. I wasn't aware that the name of our state was so hard to spell, but I figured who knows, maybe the support company that is located in a small island in the Pacific somewhere isn't familiar with the spellings of each individual state, especially the ones with more than 3 letters. I decided to bring up their support chat page, so I can be told by a support donk that they can't help me and that I have to call another support donk to fix the problem. But that requires effort, and all I'm looking for is information as to why their internet connectivity for my state (or WICONSON, whatever the hell that is) has been an issue for almost a month now.

Here's a transcript of the chat, with my comments inserted:

XaQMorphy has entered the chat room [note: not my real name]

Chris H: Thank you for choosing Toad Gunner Technical Chat. My name is Chris H. , could I have the first and last name, and the phone number with the area code of the account holder please?

XaQMorphy: XaQ Morphy 414-555-1212

Chris H: Thank you. With whom am I speaking currently?
[OK, so I'll let him go on this one. He probably has a section of things he just copies/pastes into the window, and I'm sure he has to see "BigBoy420" and "FluffieBunny" all day long. He gets a pass here.]

XaQMorphy: I've been having intermittent problems with my internet connection dropping, for the past few weeks. Today I checked the network status page and see a Red status for WICONSON that dates back almost a month. Can I assume this is for Wisconsin ? What is the status of this issue, and when can I expect it to be resolved?

Chris H: We have no technical issues listed for your area. That network status page is updated by the local office. When you lose your connection do any of the lights on the cable modem turn off or start flashing?

The rest of the chat went as expected, with him telling me I had to contact the support line, but I had to wait until I lost my connection before I called. But wait, what was that he said? "That network status page is updated by the local office." Huh? The local office, which is located in Milwaukee, WISCONSIN? Milwaukee, as in the biggest city in WISCONSIN? Are you telling me that the person responsible for updating the network status page that can potentially be seen by tens if not hundreds of thousands of customers, the donkey who LIVES IN WISCONSIN, can't spell the name of the freaking state he/she lives in? Shit, even Microsoft Word can figure out that "WICONSON" should be "WISCONSIN," and look at all the possible donkey blog entries that company could create.

Come on people. I fear for my childrens' futures. This donkey somehow managed to get through filling out a job application and passing an interview to get hired by this company. Granted, they are in an entry-level customer service job, but what freaking donkey can't spell the name of the damn state they live in? Even the biggest donkey redneck can still figure out how to spell Alabamer, or Kintucky, but come on, this isn't very hard here!

Hey, ummm, fellow Manifestites, do me a favor...email me at xaqmorphy@gmail.com or post a comment to this thread and tell Mukwrm to get off his ass, send me the pictures, and post his blog entry from his adventures in Kingman, Arizona. I promise this one will bring a good laugh. Until next time!

Morphy