Dear Mr. Phone company

[Jon Solomon]

Dear sir,

I am writing in reference to my hunting service. Hunting is
defined to be a service whereby calls to a busy number are routed to
a different number. Alot of businesses have hunting. Some residences
have hunting. I would like to be one of those residences which has
hunting.

I called your business office and scheduled a date for my
two lines (+hunting) to be installed. You thoughtfully gave me
the numbers of those lines, and happily committed to installing them
on a date. Unfortunately, for me, that date had to be postponed
because of a hurricane. Oh well, I guess I can understand acts of god.

Finally the day came when the installation was to happen. I
took a day off of work to make sure the installers could access my
basement, and so I could tell them where I wanted the network interface.
All proceeded well (incidentally, I also had cable TV installed on the
same day to save time). Finally the installation completed. I decided
to check my hunting service. Unfortunately for me, the hunting service
didn't work. I asked the installer about it. He checked his order, sure
enough, the two lines were supposed to hunt. He called his foreman,
and said that the hunting would be turned on shortly after the installer
left.

A day later, hunting *still* didn't work. I phoned your repair
service, explaining it. They apologized profusely and committed to
reparing it "by 6pm tomorrow". I thanked them and was temporarily happy
that someone was looking into it.

Two days later I called repair service again, and they took yet
another order, committed to "6pm tomorrow" again, and hung up. Two more
days passed. Still no hunting. I decided to try the business office again.
I wanted to speak with the representative who wrote the order. I was
immediately diverted to someone who had no knowledge of the order. I spoke
with them briefly. They explained that since their order showed that
the lines were installed and the installation had been completed, that
my problem was with "our repair department". They offered to give me
the number (silly them, they don't realize they are talking to someone
who still remembers the phone numbers of himself and all of his relatives
when he was 7 years old). I told them it wasn't necessary.

I called back repair service over and over again for three
weeks. Each time I got the usual committment "6pm tomorrow", until
finally, one of them actually decided to help. She called the foreman
and was told that the install order did not appear to have hunting on it.
She said that she was sure I was supposed to have it, and would see to
the correction personally. I was amused.

That brings us to tonight. After speaking to three supervisors
and who knows how many repair clerks, I finally get told by a supervisor
that according to the foreman I was not scheduled for hunting service.
Further, she explained that I should use the "correct" terminology (i.e.
it wasn't on the T order, whatever that means). I said I would call the
business office.

One of the other supervisors I spoke with said she found the
hunting service on the line record for my numbers, so since it was there,
some paperwork had obviously been crossed. She indicated that I didn't need
to call the business office, and also gave me the number of the "Executive
Complaint" department at New England Telephone. This time I got names.
The forman's name, the names of the two supervisors at repair that
I spoke with and the name of the representative who originally wrote
the order in the Business Office.

Armed with this information, I am faced with the decision
of trying to get repair service to fix my line "by 6pm tomorrow",
or calling Executive Complaint and quite possibly being forgotten
there too.

Who knows, someday I might even *get* my hunting service...

Having fun,
--JSol
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