Monday, March 21, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Saying goodbye
I was 13 when I learned that my grandmother wasn’t actually my grandmother, well, not by blood anyway.
As far as earth shattering news goes this was pretty much a non-event. What it did do was go a long way towards explaining some of the people who would periodically show up at family gatherings. And that picture on my mother’s night stand of the red headed woman, who I’d never actually met, suddenly made a lot more sense.
My grandmother died last Thursday of complications from a perforated bowel. Her health had been flagging in recent years and while everyone knew she was generally unwell the news that there was now some sort of ephemeral life clock counting down to zero was like a punch to the gut.
I’ve been fairly blessed in my life not to have had to truly experience the pain that the death of a loved one can bring. My great-grandmother died when I was very young and about 8 years ago my grandfather passed away. And that’s about it. In the grand scheme of things, those are pretty small numbers.
My grandmother could be a complicated, even prickly woman. As I grew older I was exposed more often to the tensions that came from joining two fully developed families into one. The melding wasn’t always harmonious. For reasons, never satisfactorily explained to me, my mother and uncles had been at times cool to this new woman in their father’s life.
And while the hatchet has been slowly buried over the years, in no small part to shelter us grandchildren, there was no doubting that my grandmother never forgot being slighted. And as the grandkids grew up into adult types in our own right the veneer of civility could sometimes wear a little thin. Holidays and special occasions would be notable by her absence as she chose to spend that time with her ‘other family’. And when she took my grandfather with her there would sometimes be hurt feelings and unhappiness.
In retrospect I think we were unfair to her. Now married, with a daughter of my own, I know full well how difficult it can be to please everyone when it comes to making the rounds on holidays. Some days it’s just impossible to please everyone.
But I never felt, not for an instant, that she was anything other than a loving grandmother.
I have so many great memories of her. So many stories of our time together that are mine alone to tell now. Like how, at four, when we went to Florida I picked up a dirty paper bag and couldn’t be made to let it go. Or when, at University, she’d take me out to lunch and wrap up the bread on the table in a napkin (and whatever condiments that weren’t nailed down) and stuff them in her purse to give to me in the car. (I was clearly a starving student who needed the food.)
Whenever she visited it was my job to keep her entertained. That usually meant endless games of cribbage until dinner was ready. Whenever we counted up our points at the end of each hand she always seemed to find one or two that I’d missed. She always told me that the little old ladies she normally played with would have eaten me alive if I played like that with them.
Nana died about a week after her initial diagnosis. I managed to see her twice in that time. On her deathbed she taught me that even when the end is near we’re still the same beautifully flawed and wonderfully generous people we’ve always been. She was just as fierce and strong on that hospital bed as I have ever seen her. And I am eternally grateful I had the opportunity to say good bye and let her know just how much I loved her.
At the funeral the tears and laughter of those who loved her was as fitting a tribute as any words I could ever string together. The joy and sorrow managed to bring two families together in a way we’ve never managed before.
Nana loved, laughed, fought, cried and was loved in return. That’s a life well lived and a legacy I plan to carry with me.
As far as earth shattering news goes this was pretty much a non-event. What it did do was go a long way towards explaining some of the people who would periodically show up at family gatherings. And that picture on my mother’s night stand of the red headed woman, who I’d never actually met, suddenly made a lot more sense.
My grandmother died last Thursday of complications from a perforated bowel. Her health had been flagging in recent years and while everyone knew she was generally unwell the news that there was now some sort of ephemeral life clock counting down to zero was like a punch to the gut.
I’ve been fairly blessed in my life not to have had to truly experience the pain that the death of a loved one can bring. My great-grandmother died when I was very young and about 8 years ago my grandfather passed away. And that’s about it. In the grand scheme of things, those are pretty small numbers.
My grandmother could be a complicated, even prickly woman. As I grew older I was exposed more often to the tensions that came from joining two fully developed families into one. The melding wasn’t always harmonious. For reasons, never satisfactorily explained to me, my mother and uncles had been at times cool to this new woman in their father’s life.
And while the hatchet has been slowly buried over the years, in no small part to shelter us grandchildren, there was no doubting that my grandmother never forgot being slighted. And as the grandkids grew up into adult types in our own right the veneer of civility could sometimes wear a little thin. Holidays and special occasions would be notable by her absence as she chose to spend that time with her ‘other family’. And when she took my grandfather with her there would sometimes be hurt feelings and unhappiness.
In retrospect I think we were unfair to her. Now married, with a daughter of my own, I know full well how difficult it can be to please everyone when it comes to making the rounds on holidays. Some days it’s just impossible to please everyone.
But I never felt, not for an instant, that she was anything other than a loving grandmother.
I have so many great memories of her. So many stories of our time together that are mine alone to tell now. Like how, at four, when we went to Florida I picked up a dirty paper bag and couldn’t be made to let it go. Or when, at University, she’d take me out to lunch and wrap up the bread on the table in a napkin (and whatever condiments that weren’t nailed down) and stuff them in her purse to give to me in the car. (I was clearly a starving student who needed the food.)
Whenever she visited it was my job to keep her entertained. That usually meant endless games of cribbage until dinner was ready. Whenever we counted up our points at the end of each hand she always seemed to find one or two that I’d missed. She always told me that the little old ladies she normally played with would have eaten me alive if I played like that with them.
Nana died about a week after her initial diagnosis. I managed to see her twice in that time. On her deathbed she taught me that even when the end is near we’re still the same beautifully flawed and wonderfully generous people we’ve always been. She was just as fierce and strong on that hospital bed as I have ever seen her. And I am eternally grateful I had the opportunity to say good bye and let her know just how much I loved her.
At the funeral the tears and laughter of those who loved her was as fitting a tribute as any words I could ever string together. The joy and sorrow managed to bring two families together in a way we’ve never managed before.
Nana loved, laughed, fought, cried and was loved in return. That’s a life well lived and a legacy I plan to carry with me.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
A letter to my daughter on the occasion of her first birthday
The inspiration to write this note to you came about in a very un-inspiring way. I was leaning over your crib, a little after midnight, trying to see if I could get a whiff of that tell tale scent that would let me know if you needed a diaper change. (You’d been sporting a bit of a diaper rash lately and the last thing I wanted was for you to be sleeping in a dirty diaper.)
Thankfully I came up empty handed. But before I left the room I took a moment to watch you as you slept, (creepy I know), and I couldn’t help but think that it was going to be a real shame that some day I was going to forget all about this moment.
There wasn’t anything particularly memorable about the scene. It was the same kind of thing I’ve been doing for a few months now and it had simply become part of my nightly routine before bed. All in all, it was a small, perfectly forgettable situation but for whatever reason the emotional ups and downs of the previous year crept up on me and I knew that it was important that I get this all out now before the feeling passed.
When we first found out we were pregnant we got a lot of advice from friends who suggested that we take advantage of these last child free moments to live life to the fullest. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. We had to spend our time selling our condo downtown and looking for a new house. And when we did move we had a lot of work to do getting the house fixed up in preparation for your arrival. It was a very busy time and I don’t think either one of us ever felt like we had a moment to just sit back and appreciate what was about to happen.
You showed up late.
We had to wait a week after your expected due date to see you. The days seemed to pass so slowly. With the growing anticipation it was a bit like waiting for Christmas, only you didn’t know the date Christmas was going to come. It could be three hours or three days from now.
I was at work when I got the call and I rushed home. Your mother picked me up at the train station and I drove us to the doctor’s office. After a quick discussion the doctor decided it was time for you to join us. We rushed to the hospital. Your grandparents and your aunts came and everyone was very excited. Pretty soon they had to leave the room though; you were coming faster than the doctor expected.
I remember the delivery room was very crowded. It was my job to brace your mother’s leg and count down how long she should push for. I was so nervous and excited I kept speeding up the count and the doctor had to tell me to slow down. But your mom was such a greater pusher, ask anyone, that the whole thing was over very fast.
I remember seeing your head. Your eyes popped open and you were looking around, angry at something it seemed. Then you opened your mouth and started screaming. (You didn’t stop crying for another twelve hours.) As the doctor passed you to your mother I shouted, “it’s a girl, a girl!”
Its impossible for me to describe what it felt like to see you for the first time. I was lightheaded and my knees seemed about to give away on me. I remember leaving the room briefly to tell everyone that you had arrived and feeling like my heart was to big for my chest.
I fell in love with you the very first time I saw you. I don’t think I’ve ever felt love erupt out of nothing to instantly become a raging bonfire. The transformation to crazily overprotective father was nearly instantaneous.
But there were some low times as well. The first few months were very trying. You weren’t a big fan of eating and you hated sleeping even more. And you cried, you cried all the time. I used to come home from work and strap you into the Baby Bjorn, walking up and down the hall with you for hours and hours. Sometimes I’d sing, sometimes I’d hum and sometimes I was even successful at getting you to sleep. But mostly we all just tried to tough it out.
You mother and I were often delirious from a lack of sleep. Some nights your mom would go to sleep at 7 or 8 o’clock, just so she could rest for a few hours before I would try to come to bed at midnight or so.
We were pushed as close to the edge as I think two people can go. But somehow we managed to get through it. A good thing too, because I would have missed so many wonderful things.
One of the qualities that I love most about you is that you’re a fighter which, considering your parentage, means you come by it honestly. The same drive that makes you fight sleep or refuse to be held, because being held means sitting still and that’s NO GOOD, is utterly captivating. There’s a fire in your belly, one that’s going to cause me no end of grief when you get older.
I watched you struggle for days to roll over on to your belly and the second you mastered the technique it was like you born to roll your entire life. The next thing I know you’re doing your best impression of the log driver’s waltz and bumping into walls and furniture because you just couldn’t remain still. The same was true when you learnt to crawl. You used to drag yourself along by your hands, legs dangling limply behind you, in some kind of bizarre dead man’s crawl because you just couldn’t wait long enough for the rest of you to figure it all out.
And now you’re walking, which adds another chaotic dimension to everything. If want something you don’t have to wait for one of us to bring it to you anymore, you can go and track it down by yourself. And that means climbing up stairs, climbing down stairs, emptying shelves and boxes, doing endless laps around the kitchen island and terrorizing the poor cat who has suddenly discovered he really isn’t safe anywhere now.
And its all fascinating to watch.
There isn’t enough time. Each day you seem to grow up a little more. Every day you’re a whole new person and the little bits of time I get with you here and there are never enough. You’re barely a year old and I’m already lamenting, not-so-quietly to myself, that everything is happening too fast.
There are a lot of milestones in the days ahead of us, ones that I know you’ll hurdle past with barely a thought. But to me those occasions are moments in time that I will hold onto for years to come.
I hope one day you’ll read this letter and we can sit around and talk about what you were like when you were a baby. And I hope that when that happens you’ll have a story or two of your own about the things you remember growing up. And maybe, if I’m really lucky, it will jog my memory and I’ll recall some of those small, not-so-important moments that end up meaning so much. But that’s a story for later. Today I’m just looking forward to going home and seeing the smile that lights up your face when I walk through the door. Right now, that’s all the pick me up I need.
Thankfully I came up empty handed. But before I left the room I took a moment to watch you as you slept, (creepy I know), and I couldn’t help but think that it was going to be a real shame that some day I was going to forget all about this moment.
There wasn’t anything particularly memorable about the scene. It was the same kind of thing I’ve been doing for a few months now and it had simply become part of my nightly routine before bed. All in all, it was a small, perfectly forgettable situation but for whatever reason the emotional ups and downs of the previous year crept up on me and I knew that it was important that I get this all out now before the feeling passed.
When we first found out we were pregnant we got a lot of advice from friends who suggested that we take advantage of these last child free moments to live life to the fullest. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. We had to spend our time selling our condo downtown and looking for a new house. And when we did move we had a lot of work to do getting the house fixed up in preparation for your arrival. It was a very busy time and I don’t think either one of us ever felt like we had a moment to just sit back and appreciate what was about to happen.
You showed up late.
We had to wait a week after your expected due date to see you. The days seemed to pass so slowly. With the growing anticipation it was a bit like waiting for Christmas, only you didn’t know the date Christmas was going to come. It could be three hours or three days from now.
I was at work when I got the call and I rushed home. Your mother picked me up at the train station and I drove us to the doctor’s office. After a quick discussion the doctor decided it was time for you to join us. We rushed to the hospital. Your grandparents and your aunts came and everyone was very excited. Pretty soon they had to leave the room though; you were coming faster than the doctor expected.
I remember the delivery room was very crowded. It was my job to brace your mother’s leg and count down how long she should push for. I was so nervous and excited I kept speeding up the count and the doctor had to tell me to slow down. But your mom was such a greater pusher, ask anyone, that the whole thing was over very fast.
I remember seeing your head. Your eyes popped open and you were looking around, angry at something it seemed. Then you opened your mouth and started screaming. (You didn’t stop crying for another twelve hours.) As the doctor passed you to your mother I shouted, “it’s a girl, a girl!”
Its impossible for me to describe what it felt like to see you for the first time. I was lightheaded and my knees seemed about to give away on me. I remember leaving the room briefly to tell everyone that you had arrived and feeling like my heart was to big for my chest.
I fell in love with you the very first time I saw you. I don’t think I’ve ever felt love erupt out of nothing to instantly become a raging bonfire. The transformation to crazily overprotective father was nearly instantaneous.
But there were some low times as well. The first few months were very trying. You weren’t a big fan of eating and you hated sleeping even more. And you cried, you cried all the time. I used to come home from work and strap you into the Baby Bjorn, walking up and down the hall with you for hours and hours. Sometimes I’d sing, sometimes I’d hum and sometimes I was even successful at getting you to sleep. But mostly we all just tried to tough it out.
You mother and I were often delirious from a lack of sleep. Some nights your mom would go to sleep at 7 or 8 o’clock, just so she could rest for a few hours before I would try to come to bed at midnight or so.
We were pushed as close to the edge as I think two people can go. But somehow we managed to get through it. A good thing too, because I would have missed so many wonderful things.
One of the qualities that I love most about you is that you’re a fighter which, considering your parentage, means you come by it honestly. The same drive that makes you fight sleep or refuse to be held, because being held means sitting still and that’s NO GOOD, is utterly captivating. There’s a fire in your belly, one that’s going to cause me no end of grief when you get older.
I watched you struggle for days to roll over on to your belly and the second you mastered the technique it was like you born to roll your entire life. The next thing I know you’re doing your best impression of the log driver’s waltz and bumping into walls and furniture because you just couldn’t remain still. The same was true when you learnt to crawl. You used to drag yourself along by your hands, legs dangling limply behind you, in some kind of bizarre dead man’s crawl because you just couldn’t wait long enough for the rest of you to figure it all out.
And now you’re walking, which adds another chaotic dimension to everything. If want something you don’t have to wait for one of us to bring it to you anymore, you can go and track it down by yourself. And that means climbing up stairs, climbing down stairs, emptying shelves and boxes, doing endless laps around the kitchen island and terrorizing the poor cat who has suddenly discovered he really isn’t safe anywhere now.
And its all fascinating to watch.
There isn’t enough time. Each day you seem to grow up a little more. Every day you’re a whole new person and the little bits of time I get with you here and there are never enough. You’re barely a year old and I’m already lamenting, not-so-quietly to myself, that everything is happening too fast.
There are a lot of milestones in the days ahead of us, ones that I know you’ll hurdle past with barely a thought. But to me those occasions are moments in time that I will hold onto for years to come.
I hope one day you’ll read this letter and we can sit around and talk about what you were like when you were a baby. And I hope that when that happens you’ll have a story or two of your own about the things you remember growing up. And maybe, if I’m really lucky, it will jog my memory and I’ll recall some of those small, not-so-important moments that end up meaning so much. But that’s a story for later. Today I’m just looking forward to going home and seeing the smile that lights up your face when I walk through the door. Right now, that’s all the pick me up I need.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Enter Sandman
Of the countless new things that I have learnt since I became a father the most important one of all deals with the importance of sleep.
Not since my University days have I had to function with the absolute minimum of soul restoring z’s. And even then, I can recall more than one project gleefully binned in the pursuit of a good night’s rest.
These days, fatherhood has become synonymous to me with the mind numbing fog that clouds your every waking moment.
The little sleep I do manage to glom onto is often fitful and frequently interrupted.
The irony here is that there are three people living in the house, all of us dying for a little rest and not one of us seems to get a wink.
My daughter is a fighter, which fills me with hope and dread. (I can just imagine what her teenage years will be like. No stranger myself to going a couple of rounds with the ‘rents for no good reason I can already foresee the ‘take no prisoners’ battles that await me in a dozen years or so.)
In the meantime it would serve her well to pick her battles a little better and give the sandman a pass every now and then.
Ever spent two hours struggling to get a baby down for a twenty minute nap? Hardly seems worth it, don’t it? And why don’t babies get calm, rationally presented arguments? I mean, I’m pretty sure what I’m saying makes perfect sense. I know I’m convinced
What’s really sad though is how the exhaustion and lack of sleep can really destroy any of the fun associated with being a new parent.
It’s not about cooing and cuddling your baby anymore. It’s about struggling to keep your sanity despite the endless crying, the lurching from feeding to feeding and those little moments of insanity where sleep deprivation crawls into your mind and makes you do funny things.
I remember one hellish night where my daughter refused to sleep and let us know, loudly, about her thoughts on the issue. My wife and I would tag each other out every hour or so, but our spirits were slowly being eroded by our fatigue and our complete inability to do anything about the situation.
Thankfully we’re starting to leave that kind of stuff behind us now. Time is already glossing over the worst experiences. But as I mainline my fourth cup of coffee for the day I realize just how much further we have yet to travel.
Not since my University days have I had to function with the absolute minimum of soul restoring z’s. And even then, I can recall more than one project gleefully binned in the pursuit of a good night’s rest.
These days, fatherhood has become synonymous to me with the mind numbing fog that clouds your every waking moment.
The little sleep I do manage to glom onto is often fitful and frequently interrupted.
The irony here is that there are three people living in the house, all of us dying for a little rest and not one of us seems to get a wink.
My daughter is a fighter, which fills me with hope and dread. (I can just imagine what her teenage years will be like. No stranger myself to going a couple of rounds with the ‘rents for no good reason I can already foresee the ‘take no prisoners’ battles that await me in a dozen years or so.)
In the meantime it would serve her well to pick her battles a little better and give the sandman a pass every now and then.
Ever spent two hours struggling to get a baby down for a twenty minute nap? Hardly seems worth it, don’t it? And why don’t babies get calm, rationally presented arguments? I mean, I’m pretty sure what I’m saying makes perfect sense. I know I’m convinced
What’s really sad though is how the exhaustion and lack of sleep can really destroy any of the fun associated with being a new parent.
It’s not about cooing and cuddling your baby anymore. It’s about struggling to keep your sanity despite the endless crying, the lurching from feeding to feeding and those little moments of insanity where sleep deprivation crawls into your mind and makes you do funny things.
I remember one hellish night where my daughter refused to sleep and let us know, loudly, about her thoughts on the issue. My wife and I would tag each other out every hour or so, but our spirits were slowly being eroded by our fatigue and our complete inability to do anything about the situation.
Thankfully we’re starting to leave that kind of stuff behind us now. Time is already glossing over the worst experiences. But as I mainline my fourth cup of coffee for the day I realize just how much further we have yet to travel.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Baby steps
Today my daughter managed to wedge her foot in her mouth and suck on her toes for the first time. Its fascinating to watch her as she lurches her way from achievement to achievement. A week ago she couldn't roll on to her stomach and now we can't be more than an arms length away from her because there's a very real danger she could roll clear across the floor in pursuit of her favourite toy or the unsuspecting cat.
In a very small way I get to relive some of my own childhood with her. I've experienced more than one pang of jealousy by her ability to lose herself in the pursuit of little things, like trying to fit a chew toy in her mouth or the unbridled joy that lights up her face when her grandparents start cooing or clucking at her.
I still haven't adjusted to being a parent yet. At times I still chafe about how its impossible to go to the movies on a whim, or how scheduling extracurricular activities now has to be coordinated around feedings or nap times. I'm still struggling with the remnants of how things 'used to be'. But its amazing how much of a pick-me-up I get when I walk in the front door and her face splits into a big toothless grin when she sees me.
In a very small way I get to relive some of my own childhood with her. I've experienced more than one pang of jealousy by her ability to lose herself in the pursuit of little things, like trying to fit a chew toy in her mouth or the unbridled joy that lights up her face when her grandparents start cooing or clucking at her.
I still haven't adjusted to being a parent yet. At times I still chafe about how its impossible to go to the movies on a whim, or how scheduling extracurricular activities now has to be coordinated around feedings or nap times. I'm still struggling with the remnants of how things 'used to be'. But its amazing how much of a pick-me-up I get when I walk in the front door and her face splits into a big toothless grin when she sees me.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Bell Fail
I have a better reason than most people to defend Bell Canada when it comes to their disinterested customer service, bumbling administrative practices, non-existent communication between departments (Phone, Internet, TV) and overall shoddy service.
Growing up, Bell helped put food on our table, so I’ve always been inclined to cut them a little slack and treat their seemingly inevitable mistakes like you would the cherished family pet that’s grown a little long in the tooth.
Shucks, so what if Spot just piddled all over the floor, remember when he was a puppy and used to sleep at the foot of your bed? Gosh, that was cute.
S has had so many problems with Bell over the years that she flat out refuses to deal with them anymore. If it was up to her we would have switched all our services over to Rogers years ago.
It’s only out of my misplaced sense of loyalty that we have stuck with Bell after their many, many screw ups.
And it’s not just S. I’ve never met anyone with something good to say about Bell. So for years I have stood up for the company, despite the horror stories from my friends and my own less than stellar experiences with the company.
I justified my actions by fooling myself into thinking that all big telecom companies must have these kinds of problems. Otherwise customers, fed up with being treated like nuisances instead of assets, would simply have defected en masse to another company, right?
Wrong.
It’s time to realize that despite all the warm fuzzy memories you might have of Spot that your house smells like piss and your carpets are ruined.
Its time to say goodbye to Bell Canada.
Now it’s important to mention that I don’t have anything bad to say about most of the individuals I’ve dealt with at Bell. For the most part they are helpful, pleasant people simply trying to do their job from within the confines of a bloated bureaucracy.
It’s not the customer service reps that are the problem, it’s the god damn customer service.
This story deals with the trials and many tribulations I had dealing with Bell Canada and their inability to move my current services to a new address.
I’m sorry, but there’s no easy way to condense 15plus phone calls into an easily understood narrative. What started out as a simple move order quickly descended into series of marathon phone calls; in which if I wasn’t correcting some error they made (with steadily eroding patience), it was listening to their eternals sales pitches and snippets of elevator music while languishing in the infernal limbo known as ‘being on hold.’
Timeline of events.
1. Call Bell a month before the move to arrange the moving our home phone, internet and televisions services.
Snag #1: We want to keep our old phone number when we move to our new address, which apparently is some bureaucratic nightmare on their end that necessitates Bell calling us back to inform us if such an outlandish request can even be processed. Said call never comes.
Snag #2: Our television and internet service is currently run off the same box, Bell ExpressVu for condos. When we move to the new house these services will need to be split off from each other. From here on in, the TV will run off a PVR receiver and the internet will run off a modem. Never again shall these two services be joined in holy matrimony. This is less of a snag and more of a bureaucratic knot that needs to be untangled.
Snag #3: We need to cancel our television service outright and sign up again from scratch. This is because Bell ExpressVu for condos clearly doesn’t service homes and therefore we need to set up a new account if we want television service. Only, I’m not authorized to cancel our television account. Despite the television being in my name for the last two years and despite the fact that my name is on the bill every month I’m not authorized to close the account. No, because my wife made the initial call two years ago only she has the power to close the account.
And my wife doesn’t talk to Bell anymore, not after five straight months of consistently overcharging us, telling us the error had been noted in the computer and that the oversight would be corrected on the next bill. At which point dealing with Bell became my exclusive responsibility.
2. S calls Bell to cancel television service.
3. I call Bell to set up installation of new television service. At this point I think I should mention that when I call Bell it’s never me dealing with one person. No, I have to be shuttled to every individual department (Phone, Internet, TV) whereupon I’m expected to tell each Customer Service Rep my story from beginning to end, from who I am, to what I want and to when I want it.
And after every conversation I get the rep to repeat back to me what it is the conversation has been about and to confirm the particulars of the move order.
4. I call Bell back to confirm that we can port our number over to the new house. The customer service confirms that this is possible. I double check the details of our move order (with all the various departments) and sit back, secure in the knowledge that nothing can possibly go wrong.
5. A week later, when scanning my credit card bill, I notice Bell has charged me twice for the PVR I ordered to go along with our new television service. When I call them up to fix the error, they have no record of me setting up the new television service. Despite giving them my name, my current address, my new address and my credit card number it takes them 45 minutes to locate my file.
Once again I double check the details of our move order (with all the various departments) and sit back, secure in the knowledge that nothing else can possibly go wrong.
6. Bell Canada cuts off our phone service two days early, on a Saturday morning. Although she has a cellphone my wife prefers to use the home line. And in fact, this is the number that most people call us on.
Since we have people who need to get in touch with us regarding details of our impending move (and only know our home number) I call Bell’s emergency repair line, where I sit on hold, for a long, long time. Finally, when I reach a human being, I explain the situation. The rep tells me that he can have the phone turned on tomorrow morning. In reality, the phone service is activated the following night, roughly 12 hours before it was due to be disconnected anyway.
No credible reason is ever given for the early disconnection.
Once again I double check the details of our move order (with all the various departments) and sit back, secure in the knowledge that this time nothing else can possibly go wrong.
7. Bell cuts off our phone, TV and internet service promptly at the scheduled time. I call from work to confirm all our move information is on file. I confirm the details. I am not re-assured. Our phone and internet service is schedule to be set up two days later. A new modem is scheduled to arrive at the same time because the internet is no longer connected to the TV.
A tv technician is schedule to come out to our house in four days and install our television service.
8. The phone is not activated when it is supposed to be. The modem does not arrive. I call Bell inquiring why and I am informed that I apparently contacted the company and asked them to cancel the phone technician. I’m aghast. First of all, I didn’t even know we needed a phone technician to come out to our house. In fact, I was specifically told that the phone could be set up remotely, by flicking some switches somewhere else. And secondly, WHY ON EARTH WOULD I CANCEL THEM?
After some long baffling conversations with the CS Rep I also find out that they have no record of our ordering internet service at all.
Since I’m having this conversation from work I’m trying, and failing, to keep an even, reasonable tone of voice.
I arrange to have the internet set up and reschedule the phone tech.
As has become my habit. I confirm that the television tech is still scheduled to come tomorrow and install our tv. Unfortunately, they have no record of the order, until they find that the work order has somehow been mysteriously filed under my cell phone number. I hang up phone and cry quietly at my desk.
9. Ten minutes after I hang up the phone a Bell TV tech calls to confirm his appointment for later today. After correcting his error I begin to suspect I was a bad person in another life and this is karma’s way of balancing the scales.
10. The next day, my wife calls me from my house to say that the Bell tv technician is there but is unable to install the satellite as a tree blocks the dish’s line of sight. This is the only a reasonable explanation for a problem that I’ve heard from Bell yet.
However, the technician refuses to hand over the PVR we purchased, and were charged twice for, and recommends we call Rogers instead. Despite my wife’s insistence the PVR was ours and we bought it outright, he will not relinquish it. Jackass succeeds in making a pregnant woman cry.
11. I call Bell. I have a two hour conversation with them about phone, internet and their shoddy treatment of customers. I cancel the television service.
12. I order television service from Rogers
13. I write this post.
Growing up, Bell helped put food on our table, so I’ve always been inclined to cut them a little slack and treat their seemingly inevitable mistakes like you would the cherished family pet that’s grown a little long in the tooth.
Shucks, so what if Spot just piddled all over the floor, remember when he was a puppy and used to sleep at the foot of your bed? Gosh, that was cute.
S has had so many problems with Bell over the years that she flat out refuses to deal with them anymore. If it was up to her we would have switched all our services over to Rogers years ago.
It’s only out of my misplaced sense of loyalty that we have stuck with Bell after their many, many screw ups.
And it’s not just S. I’ve never met anyone with something good to say about Bell. So for years I have stood up for the company, despite the horror stories from my friends and my own less than stellar experiences with the company.
I justified my actions by fooling myself into thinking that all big telecom companies must have these kinds of problems. Otherwise customers, fed up with being treated like nuisances instead of assets, would simply have defected en masse to another company, right?
Wrong.
It’s time to realize that despite all the warm fuzzy memories you might have of Spot that your house smells like piss and your carpets are ruined.
Its time to say goodbye to Bell Canada.
Now it’s important to mention that I don’t have anything bad to say about most of the individuals I’ve dealt with at Bell. For the most part they are helpful, pleasant people simply trying to do their job from within the confines of a bloated bureaucracy.
It’s not the customer service reps that are the problem, it’s the god damn customer service.
This story deals with the trials and many tribulations I had dealing with Bell Canada and their inability to move my current services to a new address.
I’m sorry, but there’s no easy way to condense 15plus phone calls into an easily understood narrative. What started out as a simple move order quickly descended into series of marathon phone calls; in which if I wasn’t correcting some error they made (with steadily eroding patience), it was listening to their eternals sales pitches and snippets of elevator music while languishing in the infernal limbo known as ‘being on hold.’
Timeline of events.
1. Call Bell a month before the move to arrange the moving our home phone, internet and televisions services.
Snag #1: We want to keep our old phone number when we move to our new address, which apparently is some bureaucratic nightmare on their end that necessitates Bell calling us back to inform us if such an outlandish request can even be processed. Said call never comes.
Snag #2: Our television and internet service is currently run off the same box, Bell ExpressVu for condos. When we move to the new house these services will need to be split off from each other. From here on in, the TV will run off a PVR receiver and the internet will run off a modem. Never again shall these two services be joined in holy matrimony. This is less of a snag and more of a bureaucratic knot that needs to be untangled.
Snag #3: We need to cancel our television service outright and sign up again from scratch. This is because Bell ExpressVu for condos clearly doesn’t service homes and therefore we need to set up a new account if we want television service. Only, I’m not authorized to cancel our television account. Despite the television being in my name for the last two years and despite the fact that my name is on the bill every month I’m not authorized to close the account. No, because my wife made the initial call two years ago only she has the power to close the account.
And my wife doesn’t talk to Bell anymore, not after five straight months of consistently overcharging us, telling us the error had been noted in the computer and that the oversight would be corrected on the next bill. At which point dealing with Bell became my exclusive responsibility.
2. S calls Bell to cancel television service.
3. I call Bell to set up installation of new television service. At this point I think I should mention that when I call Bell it’s never me dealing with one person. No, I have to be shuttled to every individual department (Phone, Internet, TV) whereupon I’m expected to tell each Customer Service Rep my story from beginning to end, from who I am, to what I want and to when I want it.
And after every conversation I get the rep to repeat back to me what it is the conversation has been about and to confirm the particulars of the move order.
4. I call Bell back to confirm that we can port our number over to the new house. The customer service confirms that this is possible. I double check the details of our move order (with all the various departments) and sit back, secure in the knowledge that nothing can possibly go wrong.
5. A week later, when scanning my credit card bill, I notice Bell has charged me twice for the PVR I ordered to go along with our new television service. When I call them up to fix the error, they have no record of me setting up the new television service. Despite giving them my name, my current address, my new address and my credit card number it takes them 45 minutes to locate my file.
Once again I double check the details of our move order (with all the various departments) and sit back, secure in the knowledge that nothing else can possibly go wrong.
6. Bell Canada cuts off our phone service two days early, on a Saturday morning. Although she has a cellphone my wife prefers to use the home line. And in fact, this is the number that most people call us on.
Since we have people who need to get in touch with us regarding details of our impending move (and only know our home number) I call Bell’s emergency repair line, where I sit on hold, for a long, long time. Finally, when I reach a human being, I explain the situation. The rep tells me that he can have the phone turned on tomorrow morning. In reality, the phone service is activated the following night, roughly 12 hours before it was due to be disconnected anyway.
No credible reason is ever given for the early disconnection.
Once again I double check the details of our move order (with all the various departments) and sit back, secure in the knowledge that this time nothing else can possibly go wrong.
7. Bell cuts off our phone, TV and internet service promptly at the scheduled time. I call from work to confirm all our move information is on file. I confirm the details. I am not re-assured. Our phone and internet service is schedule to be set up two days later. A new modem is scheduled to arrive at the same time because the internet is no longer connected to the TV.
A tv technician is schedule to come out to our house in four days and install our television service.
8. The phone is not activated when it is supposed to be. The modem does not arrive. I call Bell inquiring why and I am informed that I apparently contacted the company and asked them to cancel the phone technician. I’m aghast. First of all, I didn’t even know we needed a phone technician to come out to our house. In fact, I was specifically told that the phone could be set up remotely, by flicking some switches somewhere else. And secondly, WHY ON EARTH WOULD I CANCEL THEM?
After some long baffling conversations with the CS Rep I also find out that they have no record of our ordering internet service at all.
Since I’m having this conversation from work I’m trying, and failing, to keep an even, reasonable tone of voice.
I arrange to have the internet set up and reschedule the phone tech.
As has become my habit. I confirm that the television tech is still scheduled to come tomorrow and install our tv. Unfortunately, they have no record of the order, until they find that the work order has somehow been mysteriously filed under my cell phone number. I hang up phone and cry quietly at my desk.
9. Ten minutes after I hang up the phone a Bell TV tech calls to confirm his appointment for later today. After correcting his error I begin to suspect I was a bad person in another life and this is karma’s way of balancing the scales.
10. The next day, my wife calls me from my house to say that the Bell tv technician is there but is unable to install the satellite as a tree blocks the dish’s line of sight. This is the only a reasonable explanation for a problem that I’ve heard from Bell yet.
However, the technician refuses to hand over the PVR we purchased, and were charged twice for, and recommends we call Rogers instead. Despite my wife’s insistence the PVR was ours and we bought it outright, he will not relinquish it. Jackass succeeds in making a pregnant woman cry.
11. I call Bell. I have a two hour conversation with them about phone, internet and their shoddy treatment of customers. I cancel the television service.
12. I order television service from Rogers
13. I write this post.
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