File under: Do these things only happen to me?

My landline dies – no jacks in the house are working – so I put in a service call to Verizon. They say, oh, okay, looks like there’s a line error. We’ll send someone out on Friday to fix it. Great.

Today (Thursday) at 8:30am, as I’m commuting to work, I get a call.

Verizon tech: Hey. This is John. I’m outside your place now.

Me: Um… You were scheduled for Friday morning, right?

Tech: Yeah. But they gave the call to me today.

Me: Oh. Well. I’m not there.

Tech: I know! Think you can get here in a few minutes?

Me: No. But I can get there Friday for, you know, the appointment that you scheduled.

Tech: Oh. I…can’t make it here Friday.

Me: Of course not.

Tech: So you can’t make it today?

Me: I’m at work.

Tech: You can’t get here in a few minutes?

Me: I had to go through hell to get time off tomorrow to meet you.

Tech: You can’t change that to now?

Me: I’m an hour away. How far away are you from your home right now? Could you get there in a few minutes?

Tech: Well…what’s the problem?

Me: The jacks are all dead. Your people said it was a line problem.

Tech: Oh! We don’t do jacks. That’s electrician stuff.

Me: “Electrician stuff”?

Tech: Yeah. And there might be a charge. So tell you what…80% of the time, the problem is outside, and 60% of the time the problem is inside. So I’ll look at the outside and see if I can fix it. If not, you can call and reschedule.

Me: How about I reschedule now for tomorrow? Say…during the appointment already scheduled?

Tech: I’m…here now, though.

Me: Yes, well. You’re a day early. Stick to the schedule.

Tech: I probably can’t do anything anyway.

Me: Electrician stuff?

Tech: Yeah. So I’ll look and…well, we’ll take it from there.