Well, it's certainly been a long couple of weeks... month.... year... It's hard to believe that small fry will be 3 in January and tater tot will be 1 in December! Along with all the big birthday excitement, we are in the process of moving - and all of the "joys" that go along with that, and of course, the holidays are directly around the corner. The last few weeks have been a little stressful, to say the least, and I'm more than ready for our move to be done and the holidays over; I hate to sound like a scrooge, but I'm really just ready for things to settle back down! Things are stressful enough this time of year with Thanksgiving preparations, Christmas shopping, traveling, and in our family, baby birthdays! Not to mention, the additional cost that comes with all of that... That being said, I have been trying to pack as much as possible with 2 small children clinging to me the whole time, trying to line up new services like telephone and internet, and transferring other services such as gas and electricity, all the while, the nagging thought of all of the extra expenses on top of the holidays - birthdays, moving costs, double utilities, deposits for new services, etc. I know that this time of year is stressful for most people, especially in light of the current economy, but that doesn't make me feel much better right now! Knowing that we have a lot more than some, however, does make me feel better :)

I called AT&T this morning. We currently have AT&T U-verse and we love it, however, only the AT&T U-verse internet is available at our new address. The telephone and television will follow, but just aren't available right now. I spoke with Jason at 1 number, made an order for u-verse internet and regular AT&T telephone. I was then given a 2nd number to call and confirm the orders. I spoke with Ricardo. Ricardo wanted to charge me $100 for the modem and Jason had told me that b/c we already had att u-verse, that we could just use our same modem. Ricardo then took off the hundred dollar charge for equipment. I proceeded with Ricardo to get our home phone set up. Well, Ricardo didn't have the ability to "port" our same phone number, so he gave me another number to call... At this point, I had been on the phone for an hour. I called the 3rd number and got to speak with Tony. I had to explain everything from phone call 1 and 2 with Tony. He was confused as well. I told him that Jason had told me that we could use our modem that we already had for the internet and that Ricardo waived the $100 equip. fee. "Oh dear, well, that's not how that works... Because you have a bundle package, your equipment is leased - it's not yours - you have to give it back. Which means, Ricardo "waived" your equipment fee and at the same time, "waived" your equipment." Okay, so am I going to have to pay the $100 equipment fee? You know what, if that's the case, I don't want to do this today, because quite frankly, I don't have the money to spend on that right now - the ONLY reason that I went on ahead and signed up for this particular internet service was because we enjoy the service, and the equipment fee was waived.... SO, let's just go ahead and cancel this order! "Well, since you were told incorrectly, I'll go ahead and fix this for you, but it will take me a while to do. I have to e-mail Ricardo and get him to change the order and fix it himself. Once he fixes the order, you'll have a new confirmation number and he will call you back within 24-48 hours. Can you hold please?" Okay, so Tony was super nice and was obviously dedicated to helping me out, but I had been on the phone forever, I had 2 kids that were beyond restless, and I was really tired of talking to them. In spite of all that, I stayed on the phone to give them the chance to fix it (we hadn't even gotten to the telephone issue yet)... Tony gets back on the phone and says that Ricardo will get back with me and that he noted everything in my account. Okay, now on to the telephone - which should be pretty easy, right? WRONG. All that needs to happen with the telephone, is that Monday, November 22nd, the day that I requested, a tech would come out and turn the box on on the pole in the backyard and I would plug my phone in. My current phone service at the house that I'm currently in, would be "suspended" and on Tuesday, after my home phone number is switched over to my new address, I call and cancel all services. That shouldn't be anything difficult!! I guess I couldn't be more incorrect on this issue. He got me set up for Monday set-up at the new house and said that he would personally call on Tuesday or Wednesday (as soon as the information cleared my current account) and that we would cancel the rest of the services at my current address. Great!! Thanks Tony for straightening everything out! yeah, not so much... Charles calls me about 20 minutes later, saying that someone called him on his cell (which is not the primary number listed) and wants to confirm our telephone service at the new address on Thursday the 18th... NO!!! What is so difficult about all of this?!?! I then call att back, and talk to somebody - I didn't even listen to the name. I try to explain the entire situation to "somebody" and he's confused as well. He then proceeds to tell me that he can't look up the order for the telephone at all, because he only deals with U-verse, even though it was the same number that I called when I talked to Tony, who supposedly set up my u-verse internet order and my regular att telephone order. Okay, fine "somebody", if you can't help me with that, can you at least tell me if my internet order is correct and go ahead and confirm the set-up date with me? "Yeah, let me pull that up... well... all I can see is your current bill." What do you mean my current bill? You mean for the services that I *currently* have? at such-in-such address?! "Yeeeeeeeeeesssss..." NO!!!!! I'm not calling to ask about my current set-up, I have an ORDER that's supposed to be processing!!!!! What is going on here?! He said that the system was undergoing an update and that he was having problems pulling things up... I get the joy of calling them back when my husband gets home. At least then I won't have kids hanging on me, and I can yell at these idiots in peace! Oh, to top it all off, I was going to call and pay some bills this afternoon, and my oldest daughter, God love her, stole my wallet and hid it. I found it, but it's too late to make my calls now. I'm just done today, and probably for tomorrow as well, but I've just got to keep on keepin' on! Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day; GOD, I hope tomorrow is a better day!!