Okay AT&T - What is your problem?

So at my place of business we provide internet services to clients.
Some of these clients are unfortunately in rural areas and only have the evil folks at AT&T to help them out, or I should say take their money and run.
Basically it seems that every time I call in a down circuit or a circuit taking errors it never goes anywhere.
I have to put in escalation after escalation.
Then if I want to speak to a tester AT&T has this great service where it says "All testers are currently busy This message does not repeat."
Seriously!!
Then you're left on the line with dead air waiting and you wait a long time.
Further AT&T has this bad habit of closing tickets before your circuit is fixed.
Then they can't reopen the old ticket, oh no.
You have to open a brand new ticket so in their system it looks a brand new issue and then whoever you talk to next doesn't understand why you're mad.
I am, in case you're wondering on hold on the dead air line, waiting for a tester right now.
I am working on a ticket for a T1 that went down yesterday.
I originally called the ticket in yesterday morning at 9:50 AM
I had put in three escalations and found that it still hadn't reached a tester.
This morning I added another escalation at 7:10 AM ( 21 hours later) and was transferred to a tester.
He actually found an error or claims to have found an error in AT&T's CO
I think something is happening.
I got a call at about 11 AM now 25 hours later.
They tell me what the tester said this morning, they found something in the CO (Central Office) and are doing repairs.
I haven't heard anything since then so I called them back at 3, my mistake.
Ticket status now says repaired and closed.
WAIT!!
My T1 is still down you bastards!
So I call it in and get somebody who is like, "hmmm, what's going on here"
I explained my T1 is still down
He said, "ummm, let me transfer you to a tester"
Now I have been in the tester queue for 10+ minutes....listening to silence.
The hell??
Now the line is ringing!!
Dead silence and now ringing!!
Yay, finally got someone "Roy" on the line and he's looking up my ticket!
He hasn't said anything for about 3 minutes now...I am getting a little concerned.
Have I been put back on hold?
Wait he's back, he must have muted his phone.
He tells me "the computer" was inconclusive in it's testing.
He's going to test it again for me.
I am pretty sure this is going to require somebody to go onsite.
I would think a company like AT&T would be more efficient.
It seems no one knows what anyone else is doing and they rely too heavily on automated processes.
Every other provider we have does some type of either proactive or reactive monitoring where if a circuit goes down they notify us, a ticket is already open and people are working.
AT&T needs to customer to do all that themselves and unless you're a huge corporation putting down serious money they don't take the time to resolve your issues properly.
In case you're wondering I'm filling in commentary waiting for the tester!
YAY!
Their opening a ticket with the local telco...
Now I have to wait another day because the access hours are only 8 to 4.
Now I have to open another ticket for circuit errors at another site!
Also AT&T's trouble tickets begin with the letter N right now, problem is their automated system can't differentiate between my N and M so I have to repeat myself over and over again!
Anyway it takes about 5 minutes to call in one circuit using their automated system.
I'd rather speak to a person, but AT&T would prefer I wouldn't.
I also have to say "YES" as opposed to yeah or yup
The only good thing is 1 means yes and 2 means no so I don't have to talk to much
I wish they had a web based trouble reporting system, but it would be down all the time because of high usage.
WHAT??
SERIOUSLY??
They cancelled the circuit?
The local telco cancelled the circuit on the local loop?
WTF??
I don't know what to say.
I am so utterly confused!
FML!

We will eventually forget

9/11 was a terrible day, but it is not going to always be on our minds. Most Americans alive today have no memory of when the Japanese bombed pearl Harbor and although we do commemorate the day it is not the same as before. The same thing will eventually happen with 9/11. Especially as the widows, widowers, children and parents of those who died age. Eventually we'll just have plaques and memorials. But they won't mean the same thing and eventually 9/11 will just be an event from the past to most people. Don't misunderstand me I know that for now people need to grieve and have closure. I am just saying that in 20 to 40 years from now it will just be another day.

Pizza

Made pizza for dinner. Delicious. Too full for write up.

So...still losing weight.

318 this morning. I suppose this is a good sign. This weekend I need to do yard work so that should help too! Not sure if I'll start exercise of any kind yet, mostly because it's been busy.

Busy at home and busy at work. My wife started working again, she's a teacher, so I have had to help out more around the house. I don't mind at all, it just keeps me busy. Then work is crazy. I don't really want to expand on that.

Efforts at dieting ...

So for one reason or another I am dieting again. Mostly to better qualify for life insurance, but also to better my own health situation. It is so far a slow and nonuniform start. I started out in June weighing 334 pounds on my annoying bathroom scale. This morning I came in at 320. So 14 pounds in 12 weeks, which is slow and steady weight loss. I haven't stopped eating anything,  but just less of everything.  I am trying to reduce my portions, but not always. Also I have been doing a lot of house and yard work, which are my primary exercise. Although I am also trying to use the stairs at work whenever possible and occasionally go for walks with Evie in her stroller around my neighborhood at home. Its a start and I plan on continuing as long as it takes because I am just tired of being my usually morbid obese self.

Monthly Shopping Update 1

Well, we've bought everything and the pantry, freezer and refrigerator are fully stocked. Including household goods such as laundry soap and diapers plus other things like that we came in around $360. We'll have to see how this endeavor goes. I think the helpful thing on my part is that I am also dieting. More on that later.

Monthly Shopping

We're trying out this new thing where we buy all our groceries, save a few perishable items, on a monthly basis. This got us to buy a lot of stuff at Sams Club. However we're also shopping around at all the other local stores, not that Tyler has much variety besides Walmart, Brookshires and Super1. Although we also got a few things at Walgreens and Dollar Tree. Basically we're looking for the most economical and at the same time largest quantity. The exceptions are Bananas, milk and yogurt, plus a few other items with short shelf lives that we don't want to freeze like bread.  We're trying to do whatever we can to save money. We're also trying to not eat out anymore and cook at home as much as possible. It's just hard to avoid the temptation and convenience of fast food. Either way we'll see how this experiment goes.