September 05, 2004 - 9:45 a.m.
Our router died. I'm praying that I sent in the warranty card last fall... or that the rebate information might count. After an hour of trying everything suggested in the manual and a few things that I thought might also bring it online, I finally gave in and called tech help. (For those of you who don't already know - I hate calling tech help. I invariably get someone completely apathetic or devoid of intellect who walks me through everything I've already done and talks to me like I'm 4 years old. After everything they know to try doesn't work - which I already knew because I'd tried it previously - they pass me on to someone else who, if I'm lucky, knows what they're doing.) And tech help for Linksys is currently based somewhere in India.
Well, I navigated the phone menu and got someone on the phone fairly quickly. I told her the model of my router and other pertinent information, laid out the problems and what I had tried to do and was immediately put on hold so she could "reference her resources," which I assume either meant "read the manual" or "ask the person next to her." She came back twice to make sure I was still on the phone before walking me through the steps to reset the router back to factory settings... and, yes, I had already done that. When that didn't work, we tried to the same thing but threw in unplugging it. I hadn't tried that (it's not in the manual) but it didn't work either. I expect her to move on to setting a static IP and attempting to flash the firmware but instead she asked if I had purchased the router within the past year and happily declared it a warranty issue, gave me a case number, and instructed me to send it back to Linksys for a new one.
This is all well and good but still leaves me without a router for at least a week since they won't ship the new one until Tuesday or Wednesday, this being a holiday weekend. I'm grateful to Cox Communications (for once) for the extra long length of coax we received with our kit when we moved to Herndon last year because it's just long enough to reach the office from the cable hookup in our bedroom. OSHA would flip out at the cord running down the hall and over the landing of our stairs but that's what it takes to be online right now - one computer only :(
And I'm also staring at the part of our steam cleaner that recently broke and needs repair. I'm starting to think my horoscope reads something like Stay the hell away from appliances and toys with small parts. My mother says things come in threes, so look out!
Reminds me of one of my first jobs out of college. I was temping and sent to a nice little office in Chesterfield. Within a week I had broken the post machine (it was old anyway), the copier (severely jammed but fixable), and a window (though I swear this was not my fault). And yet they kept me on... I think it was because I was the only one who could keep the office network up and running.
How's that for irony?
The neighborhood pool closes this weekend so we're taking the boys swimming today. Here's hoping I can't break that...
