After an uneasy night worrying about what was next with Verizon, I got up and contacted the construction foreman at Zoe to let him know to call me if Verizon showed up unexpectedly on Wednesday. As soon as 8 am rolled around, I called the secret Verizon dispatch number that I had somehow garnered from one of my many call transfers on Tuesday. The man who answered told me "You are number 2 on the list today - he should be there by 10 am!"
I quickly gathered the things that I needed to take with me, including other items for appointments I had later in the day. I also canceled a doctor's appointment that I had scheduled for yesterday morning. And I was off to the shop!
The good news is that a lot of work is going on at Zoe (I promise pictures in tomorrow's post - I have been a little exhausted the past two days, dealing with this mess). The drywall guys were making great progress closing in the walls now that the inspector had signed off on the close-in inspection. The wheelchair lift guys were there working on the lift switch. The Project Manager visited the site and told me that all of the flooring was in and waiting in their warehouse (this is good - this is one of the long lead items that we thought might hold us up). He feels we should be ready to paint soon. Lots of goodness!
The Verizon guy showed up at around 9:30. Parked his truck, put his cones out. Comes in and I show him the phone closet. He goes outside and looks at the big green box outside (some kind of junction box for those who have knowledge of these things). He then tells me "They set up your lines to connect in at the junction box closest to 130 NORTH Union Street. So I can't do anything here. Let me call my supervisor...
So, you can imagine, after yesterday's incident, my head was about to explode with this information. He tells me that he will have his supervisor call me so that we can determine what to do next and then he leaves. I made a couple of calls that I needed to make unrelated to Verizon. By then, it was time to move my car (I was parked in a free 2 hr space but Parking Enforcement saw me park so I knew they'd be back to check on me). I moved my car to the garage at City Hall to visit the permitting office about the signage permits. (I told the foreman to call me if Verizon came back!)
I began working through the process with the signage permits in the Planning and Zoning office (they know me there now, which can be good or bad!) I was concerned that I had not brought the right drawings but they confirmed they were fine. We finalized the permit applications I had done online and three of the approvers had approved the application. There is one more approval to be done but the woman was at lunch when I reached that point so I will follow up on it today.
Since we will be erecting a ladder on the sidewalk, we have to get a temporary right of way permit to close the sidewalk. Part of this involves me drawing a schematic of the closure area to go with the submission for this permit. Those who know my drawing skills know to feel sorry for the City at this point.
I then went back to Zoe's home since I had a 1:30 appointment at Union Street Public House. I took down Zoe's Coming Soon sign since yesterday was the last day it could hang per the temporary sign permit. While waiting for my appointment, I called the Verizon tech again (I had not heard from anyone and the foreman reported that no one had come back). The tech said he would try to put me in touch with his supervisor and, in doing so, hung up on me. Fortunately, it was an inadvertent hang up so he called me back to tell me that I was going to have to talk to 1-800-VERIZON to get the addressing problem straightened out.
After I got home, I decided to take care of two quick Zoe calls before sitting down with Verizon again. I very fortunately got a very nice young lady who was pleasant, helpful, and actually concerned about my problems. Although it took her 40 minutes to work through all of the addressing issues and reschedule my service! At first, the schedule said that the earliest a tech could come out was April 1st! Oh, not acceptable at all! She then was able to expedite it to Monday, March 7. Although I still have the same hideous 9 hour window, she gave me a number to call that would let me know where I was on the list so that I can at least have a better idea (if I'm #2, I need to get there ASAP - if I'm #6, it will likely be in the afternoon) of when the tech will come. She also said she would check on me on Tuesday. I will send this woman chocolates.
I cannot wait to have these aggravations out of the way!
No comments:
Post a Comment