SBC hell
Disclaimer: While SBC has given me a lot of grief over the years, they have always made things right in the long run.

I made sure I was long out of the Tavist ® Zone before I picked up the phone to call my phone company, SBC. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to follow the never ending rounds of auto attendant menu choices so that I could be given a recorded message that I needed to call another phone number. This phone number was stated exactly ONCE before I was disconnected. I called back, with pen in hand only this time I missed hearing a few of the numbers because the connection faded out so I had to go through this a third time. Upon calling the new phone number I discovered another round of auto attendant menu choices and end up with one of two options: listen to "infection removal instructions" or some other "instructions" that didn't apply. I don't need either of those, thank you very much - where is the option where I get to talk to a human? Not available, so I listen to the "infection removal instructions" for 15 minutes and eventually get the option to talk to a human. Ah, but that was worse. You see, the problem here is that I know what's wrong with my DSL line, but it doesn't fit in the stupid call center script so the human had no idea what to tell me other than to reboot my computer and when that didn't work tell me I needed to reinstall Windows. Somehow I don't see where reinstalling Windows is going to make the little green DSL light come on in the modem when the problem is that there a POTS splitter on the line. He'd never heard of a POTS splitter. Okay, I'll admit this is from the dark ages of ADSL and maybe if I hadn't switched to SDSL then I'd still have the old ADSL port, but ... what, you don't know what SDSL is either? ARGH! Please, just transfer me to the line repair folks, who according to you can't do anything with DSL, but I'll take my chances. He attempted to transfer me, but I get disconnected. I think this is the point where I threw the cordless phone handset across the room. Only to pick it back up, find the batteries, put it back together and try, try again. Eventually I get someone who still doesn't have a clue what I'm talking about, but figures if I want a technician to come out, then, by God, they will send one out tomorrow (thank you, thank you, a thousand times, thank you!) Let's just hope the tech has been around long enough to know what a POTS splitter is! I'm starting to think I should have just broken the security tabs and rewired the damn thing myself.