intertwingly

I was apt-get install'ing mysql-server when the Internet stopped for me.  Again.  Checked the modem, and yes, once again RoadRunner was down.

So, I walked from the room that I use as an office when I work from home to the room that my wife uses as an office when she works from home, and let her know.  You see, I've come to accept that my first responsibility when she works from home is to act as her tech support, any time I have left over after that I am free to do with as I wish.

As we are discussing whether or not I should set things up again so that we share a 28.8 modem connect, the phone rings.  It is Time Warner.  I'm momentarily impressed.

This passes just as quickly when I realize that it isn't tech support, or even customer relations, it is telemarketing.  What do they want to sell me now? Voice over IP.  Unfortunate timing.

Immediately thereafter, I called Time Warner's tech support line.  After a short wait, I was transferred to another person.  This person was pleasant, didn't inquire about my operating system or firewall, and confirmed that there was an outage that was affecting me.

I asked for a ticket number, and was given a work order number.

I asked if the outage would be reported and tracked on the web site.  The answer: probably not.

Overall, the outage was less than an hour.

I was told that I will be credited for the day.  That's not really important to me.  Nor do I expect six nines of reliability.  What would, however, make me a happy as a customer is the ability to check status and get straight answers when I do so.