How does one reach a human being at AT&T?

Wed Jan 28 15:10:13 UTC 2004

What about using byte intervals to BEEFDEAD its space in memory ;~)

                            Scott C. McGrath

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Adam Maloney wrote:

>
> On Wed, 2004-01-28 at 00:12, Jay Hennigan wrote:
> > I have an AT&T T-1 taking errors.  Their trouble reporting number dumps
> > me into the IVR from hell.  It even has machines calling me back at
> > intervals with status.  The status says "A test was run..."  No hint as to
> > the results of the test.
> >
> > One of the choices is to say or hit "2" if you need further assistance.
> >
> > Doing so gets a response telling you to call their maintenance center which
> > is the same machine that I used to generate the ticket in the first place.
> >
> > Furrfu!  The telephone company doesn't have anyone to answer the telephone.
> >
> > Even "Floyd"[1] is looking pretty good at this point.
> >
> > Anyone have a secret number or touchtone sequence to share?  Swearing at
> > it doesn't work.  This is a point-to-point circuit, not an Internet T-1.
> >
> > [1] http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/02/21/BU227355.DTL
>
> The ATT TickeTron loves you!  It will open your ticket, work your
> ticket, and then close your ticket for no reason.  Then you can call
> back into it and open a new ticket, which will again be closed.  You can
> yell and scream at TickeTron all you want, and it will still give you
> the same friendly, useless service as it did the first 10 times you
> opened your ticket!
>
> "Open the fscking Ticket, TickeTron"
> "I'm sorry Jay, I'm afraid I can't do that, your ticket has been
> closed."
>
> I have a number for "Richmond Maintenance Center", e-mailed to you
> off-list.  It may not be the right group for PtP, but at least you'll
> get a real person to vent at.  They will probably be able to open your
> ticket and get it to a warm body without getting "HAL" involved.
>
> Make sure you ask the engineer you speak with what the ATT techs call
> that system internally.  They have their own name for it (and it's not
> TickeTron), and it's absolutely hilarious...and appropriate.  For the
> life of me, I can't remember what it was.  At least the engineers know
> how frustrating it is.  Really though, the worst part is that yelling at
> it is just no fun.  And threatening to DEADBEEF it's space in memory
> won't earn you any points either :)
>
> Adam Maloney
> Systems Administrator
> Sihope Communications
>