"What is your childhood trauma?!"

Technology man.... the past couple weeks have been brutal. Nothing wants to work correctly. And can I tell you..an internet provider that shall remain nameless, we'll just call them "Xpectrum", is entirely to blame and you won't convince me otherwise.

A couple weeks ago, I got a call letting me know they were coming around and replacing old routers with newer ones. Ok, fine. Appointment scheduled. Few days go by.... lo and behold, internet outage. I'm running a business here. If I don't have internet, I can't take credit cards. Times are tough guys. I definitely can't afford to be TURNING CUSTOMERS AWAY! A little research tells me half the city is out. Someone somewhere cut some line and now thousands of people are pissed.

I use Square for my POS. Square has an offline mode, that I should be able take credit cards, store the info until it can reconnect and process. Can't for the life of me get it switched into offline mode. I can't even find the setting. Everything I can find is telling me where to find the setting, and when I look, it's just not there. Fine. I'll call for some help.

After a good half hour on the phone, long story short, the only way for me to access turning on the offline mode, is ONLINE. I need internet access to turn on something meant to use when you HAVE NO INTERNET. WTF. IDK how this can be true because it makes no sense, but that was what I was told. Addendum to my previous statement: Square is also partially to blame.. for this part of my nightmare.

Now, I can hear you asking, "don't you have a hotspot on your phone?" Yes... but I have very limited data, because I am literally ALWAYS on wi-fi, so I do not want to use it to run my business and risk going over and doubling (or more) my cell bill... same provider as my internet (important later).

So the day progresses, and every "estimated time of restoration" passes until they just stop projecting a time and admit they have no idea when it will be back up. I close for the day after a few cash customers and continue working on things that don't require internet... class curriculum, student practice sheets, etc.

Is it sad that having no internet for 15 hours absolutely ruins our day...? Maybe. But this is the world we live in.

Middle of the night, finally back up. Cue the notifications that I have now used 2 extra GB if data... make that 3... nope, make that 4... that's an extra $56 on my phone bill... WTF... because I went 15 hours with no wi-fi. HOW?

Also... I won't be paying that. I refuse. I'm livid at this point, so I'm avoiding calling customer service because I know I will be rude until I've had time to chill.

Couple days go by. Enter service tech to install new router, that I have ENTIRELY forgotten about. No problem. Do your thing. Oh right.. gotta take your internet down for a while to do this... ok, it's slow, that's fine.

In all fairness, the service tech was very nice, and very helpfully made sure all my equipment and devices were connected and functioning before he left.... laptop, phone, POS iPad, 3 tablets, secondary router for guest wi-fi... everything....

Or so I thought... until a few days later when I was trying to PRINT said curriculum I had suddenly had so much time to work on. The printers... I have 2 wi-fi printers. One for documents, and one for edible images. I had totally missed these when the tech was helping my get everything reconnected.

No problem, I've set these up myself in the first place, I'm not COMPLETELY tech illiterate. These are simple. They have the button WPS setting... hit the button on the router, let the printer find it... ta-da... done!

Only, not. New router has no WPS button. Enter google to search for alternate solution...

I won't give you all the gory details.. but I spent at least an hour or two searching, reading, and trying any so-called solution I could find. To no avail... I'm in tears... so frustrated... and not only can I not print my curriculum, but I have an order for 5 sheets of edible images that I also can't print, getting picked up in the morning.

So I call Xpectrum, hoping they can tell me some internal setting that will fix this problem. I am walked through every basic option like rebooting and unplugging and printer menus... aaaaannd all I got was more upset. They replaced my perfectly functioning router with one that simply does not have the same functionality, and why should they bother to have communicated that in advance? or given me the option to decline the "upgrade" based on said info?

Nah.. but they decide to send a tech back out to help me figure it out. Surely there is a solution.

Tech arrives... late of course... tells me he's here to "check on my internet that's out." Umm... that's not the issue. I re-explain the issue. He just stares at me. He just "needs to check the internet" which I explain, again, is working fine. I just need help connecting my printers...

He explains that's not something they do (mind you, this is the only reason a service call was put in and the previous tech had zero issues helping make sure all my other devices were connected and functioning)... but, ok... maybe it's not your "job" but then why are you here??

Now my anxiety is spiking and I feel a panic attack coming on, so I just said, welp, that's the reason you were sent here so if you can't help me I guess you can go? Again, he just stares at me. He tells me, "but I need to check the internet." Like, dude, I'm about to start crying, so I need you to leave... which of course I only say in my head.

Out loud, I reiterate, there is nothing wrong with the internet. I just need to connect the printers. He finally decides to look at one of the printers. He immediately starts slamming on the screen, like it's an old-timey typewriter with sticky keys, going back and forth through the like, 2 menus, expecting some other magic answer to appear.

After a few minutes of what feels like him trying to break it, he declares the only solution is to either go buy my own router with a WPS button, or buy a new printer. Or I can just run cables and plug them (2 more of my 3 printers) directly into my laptop. At this point, I'm literally shaking, tears welling up, panic attack ready to boil over.

So, you force an equipment change on me, disrupting my business, and the only solution is for me to have to go spend more money on new equipment. No. Just... no.

I ask, can I just have my old router back? "I don't have it" Well really?? It's not like I thought you were carrying it around in your pocket.

I can feel it happening. I'm being so rude. Because I'm freaking out. The panic attack is here and I'm about to lose it, and OMG I just NEED him to leave before I make us both super uncomfortable with my uncontrollable sobbing and hyperventilating.

Trying to just end the misery, I bluntly exclaim, "well, that's that I guess. Thanks, have a good day" and I turn to face my computer, hoping and praying he will just accept his dismissal and just go.

Nah.. this guy just stares at me and once again insists he has to check my internet. Beyond curt at this point, "my internet is FINE. THANK YOU" and I turn my back to him again. After a few moments he finally starts to make his way to the exit. No doubt pissed, because by the end my anxiety has completely overwritten my polite programming. I did everything I could to get him to leave, short of yelling "GET OUT!"

Finally, he's gone. I run to the door, lock it, flip my sign and immediately let loose the panic attack... bawling, shaking, trying to manage my breathing. When I say times are tough, I mean money is tight, I can't pay myself a wage yet at this point, and I've been homeless for almost a year. So you know what I definitely don't have money for? A new printer or router.

There is just no way that's my only option. I won't accept it. I manage to calm myself down and get back to work. I'm going to figure this out. I've already spent almost my entire work day on this. Why not spend my whole night too.

Guys... no joke... it took me until almost 2am... BUT I did figure it out. I can't tell you how many times I had to physically stop myself from throwing a printer across the room. It took 2 or 3 attempts at the workaround (that took me hours to find), on both printers, but eventually, I was able to connect, and get my orders printed. Thank you Jesus!

Is this the end of the story? No...

Next day, I'm exhausted. Mentally, emotionally, and physically, because I was up half the night! After the past week, I'm done with Xpectrum (I feel like I should be waving a wand..?), and dreading the search to get switched.

Enter customer getting coffee: occupation, Xpectrum competitor account rep.

Well fancy that... she's out scouring the neighborhood, scooping up new clients left and right because everyone else has had similar weeks to mine, after the outage, and they are equally fed up.

What can you do for me? Save me $50/month? Done. Did I forget to mention, there was ANOTHER rate increase on my most recent bill? Yeah... So, back and forth with said rep, give her all my info, get my account set up.

Take that XPECTRUM! (As if they actually care.) Yay! Things are looking up!

And then.....

Ok... so hear me out...

When I logged into my new account to finish filling out my profile and settings. On the home page, it has "Welcome (my name)!" Only... it wasn't my name. It was a variation of my name, like a nickname, but it was not my name. Think Rebecca/Becky.

I was immediately irritated. I promise, I'm not totally neurotic, but I have some childhood trauma surrounding the use of this nickname and it really triggers me when people use it. We moved A LOT when I was a kid, and every time I had to introduce myself in a new school, "hi, my name is (Rebecca)," people insisted on calling me (Becky), no matter how many times I corrected them. It was a constant battle... to the point I had a teacher try to give me detention because I wouldn't call myself (Becky). WTF... that's NOT my NAME! To the day I graduated high school, there were still people that refused to stop. Not in a "I'm gonna annoy her, hahaha" way, but in a "I still couldn't be bothered to care what her actual name is".

I'm just trying to think of any reason someone would assume a nickname, much less enter it as billing information on a business account...?? I edited it on my profile settings but on the home page, it remained incorrect. I logged out, and logged back in. Nope.

I emailed my new rep and asked for it to be corrected, but the response I got was.... shall we say... unsatisfactory. "The system just pulled that in." What does that mean? A computer generated nickname? I don't think that's how it works. Someone typed that in. They can go in and change it then, right? "As long as it's correct on your profile, it will be fine."

But it's not fine. I'm telling you it's not fine. If it said "George" or "Robert", you'd find a way to correct it...yes? But because it has 3 letters in common with my actual name and associated with the right gender, that should just be good enough?

Clearly she was missing the point. I wasn't concerned about it for billing purposes. I didn't want to be triggered every time I logged into my account! It needs to be changed. My name is not (Becky). It's as simple as that.

I get continued assurances that it won't matter.... I'm seeing red at this point. I absolutely hate when people are dismissive when you are trying to make yourself understood.

GIRL... it MATTERS to ME. DON'T THINK I WON'T CANCEL THIS WHOLE THING AND CONTINUE PAYING AN EXTRA $50/MONTH TO AVOID BEING CALLED (BECKY).

I 100% will. Completely worth it.

Does that make me nuts? IDK... maybe.. I can accept that.

Did I say any of that out loud? No.

When I logged back in the next day, did it still say (Becky)? Also, no.

I am calmly climbing off this roller coaster of a week... TGIF

So, what is your childhood trauma?! (said in a Cordelia Chase voice) (Buffy & Spike forever <3)