Friday.

One of the (few) things I like about my job is that I have every other Friday off. Before you get too excited, this means that all other days I work 9 hours, which is really 10 ½ hours by the time I commute both ways and have lunch. Those of us who have these schedules are split down the middle so that half the people are there each Friday. What this means is that half of the building is empty on Fridays. Now, I don’t know if it’s the same in other corporate environments, but Fridays at my company are notoriously slow. Except for a few random times there is flat out nothing to do. Basically, we’re there in case someone calls, emails, etc…and that rarely happens.

The (very small) plus side to this is that I can generally get mundane things like setting up personal appointments and paying bills on Fridays, before I spend the rest of my day reading blogs and wondering why CNN still hasn’t covered the typhoon that hit India this week. So, today at 7:00 am, I’m paying my bills and lamenting the media when I noticed an anomaly on my cable bill. Since I have nothing better to do and I will not let someone charge me more that I think is appropriate, I called the number listed on the bill.

8:00 am must be a very busy time for the Cable Company’s help desk, because I was on hold for 15 minutes before I was connected with anyone. I don’t really have anything against being on hold, but y’all, their music just about made me pull out my hair. It was this tinny Caribbean tune about 6 or seven bars long that repeated…and repeated…and repeated. Then the “your call is very important to us” recording nonsense…and back to the repeating. My call may have been important to them, but my sanity obviously was not. Eventually, I was connected with a lady who asked for my phone number, and then proceeded to tell me she could not pull up my voice account. Apparently the number I called was not for the Company’s cable and internet service, but for the voice service-only.

The lady was very polite, gave me the number to call in the future, and transferred me. I was nice because, after all, it was my fault that on my cable and internet bill when I saw the words “For Billing Questions” followed by a “:” and a 1-800 number I foolishly assumed that the person at that number would be able to help me. Where I got this notion, I don’t know.

I was transferred to a nice man who cleared up the anomaly on my bill. As I said “thank you for your help, good-b…” he said “oh, ma’am, I noticed something with your internet.” Thinking there was a problem with the network or something, I asked what it was. “Well, ma’am, I was noticing that you have one of our lower connection speeds. For just [phone crackles] more a month, I’ll upgrade that for you.”

Ah-HA! Not so fast buddy. “No, thank you, I am happy with the current connection speed.”

He didn’t give up. “It’s not much more, and you will definitely notice how quickly your connection will work.”

He doesn’t know who he’s messing with. “No, I’m rarely at home, and it’s even rarer that I turn on my computer at home. The current speed is perfectly fine.”

“Alright ma’am. Have you thought about upgrading to the next channel bracket for your cable? It includes movie channels! It will only be $5 more a month.”

What did I just say? “No, I’m not home enough to take advantage of that.” I also have about 70 shows piled up on my DVR.

“Well, ma’am, let me sign you up for a free month at the next channel bracket.”

“If it’s completely free, yes, that’s fine.”

He proceeds to tell me how to reset my system when I get home so the upgrade will take effect. I think I’m finally in the clear when “We also have a special promotion where you can get our 24-hour computer assistance for just $15 a month.”

“My dad’s a computer guru. I don’t need that.”

“Well, you can call any time of day and they will walk you through any computer problem you have!”

I don’t really think the guy understood me. My father being a computer guru means that I have 24-hour computer assistance that will actually come over to my apartment to fix my computer and then proceed to rewire my washer/dryer while I watch "Hogan's Heroes" before taking me to dinner. All I have to do is give him a hug. If it happens to be too late to call my dad, I can call my brother, who is also a computer guru, and is in a time-zone two hours behind us. Besides that, living with two such people means that I can fix the majority of problems myself…and I don’t have them often to begin with. Why would I want to pay $15 a month, again? Instead of explaining all that though, I just said “No. Thank you. Bye,” and hung up.

And that was the interesting part of my day.