A small joy at the end of a crappy day

Well, apparently Telus managed to foul up ADSL service to big chunks of greater Vancouver again. At least this time when the service finally came back on I got the right IP address back and didn't have to deal with some minimum wage "I know computer real good. I took MCAD course in homeland before I move to Canada in 1998" call-centre/sweat-shop cubicle-monkey that doesn't even know what DHCP, unlike the last time they fucked over half the city. Good thing, too, because after the other FUBAR's I dealt with today I would have chewed his head off.

As I mentioned, after checking on what I thought was a tripped breaker at lunch I discovered that absolutely nothing had been done with the balcony and let the cats out of the bedroom and returned to work.

When I got back to the office I decided to check my online banking to see if the credit card that I had to get replaced twice after losing my wallet had been connected to my ATM card yet. This is the same account where they failed to change my address not once, but twice. So, per the instructions on the online banking ("If your account has not been added in 24 hours please call ...") I called the support line. They told me that I could not add the account because the middle name on the card did not match the middle name on my primary account (one has René and the other is just the initial R) and "the system" sees that as a difference and rejects the add request. Fine. I can see an automated system failing on something like that. I asked the guy (who, I might add had an FOB accent furthering the call-centre/sweat-shop analogy - our century's crap job for new immigrants) if he could then do it for me. "No," he said. The system would kick out his entry just the same as mine, I would have to get someone at the credit card call centre to change my middle name to match before the system would accept the card.

So I called the credit card call centre and explained my problem. "We can't do that" I was told. I would have to send in proof of my identity to do this. I protested the absurdity of it all, pointing out that I have another credit card, from the same bank attached to the same ATM card with the same middle name on it. I asked when the system was put in place. "Nine months ago," I was told. "Absurd," I responded, since this other card has the same middle name as the one I am trying to add and was added without a problem not more than two weeks ago. "I can't help you," I was told, "You'll have to call the customer service call centre." Exasperated I reiterated that they were the ones who told me to call you. "I can't help you," she maintained. "Fine. Put me through to customer service."

Again, back where I started, but now wholly annoyed and frustrated I explained the problem again to a new customer (dis)service rep. She began to tell me that she couldn't help me. I told her she was wrong, that this must be possible because it was done for the other card. I was then transferred to the magical and all-powerful "supervisor" who heard my exasperated story and, effectively, told me the three people I spoke to earlier must be on glue and proceeded to attach the credit card account in question to my ATM card.

I hate banks. I really, really hate banks.

My work day wraps up uneventfully and I return home. When I open the door I find it odd that the cats aren't there to greet me as they usually are. That's because they are in the middle bedroom - sometime in the afternoon the workmen did finally show up to do the balcony, only they didn't finish it. All they have done is cut away more of the balcony. Behold:

The plus side is they did something, the (big!) minus being they didn't finish and at the moment I haven't heard anything about when they are planning to finish. It took two weeks between them initially ripping it up and cutting this larger hole today. Will it be another two weeks before it is done?

Now, the small joy at the end of the day has to do with my DeadJournal. On the 6th DJ applied the same S2 code that LJ just applied. All the tweaking I've been doing to my LJ took all of a minute to apply to my DeadJournal as well. I have an early adopter account at DeadJournal, which kicks butt. I'd use it as my primary journal but for two things:

1. Most of my friends are on Livejournal
2. DeadJournal is run by one guy as a hobby, and some of his recent rants sound very, very familiar, especially this part:
   

   ...take into perspective that I started this site as a hobby and it continues to be my hobby. I do not require this site to live, to pay for my house, etc.. I am the sole person running this site...