The World Champion Complaint-Letter Writer would be so proud

Oh, Moxie, you would be so proud of me.

"I'm sorry ma'am, our system shows the provisioning of the line is complete but we're just waiting on the vendor to do the soft switch."

"I see. And that means what, exactly?"

"It means it's in the hands of the vendor. And I'm sorry, I can see from the account notes that you've really gotten the run-around here, but I can't say when your phone might be working."

"The vendor. Who would that be?"

"A company called Loop 3."

"And do the nice people at Loop 3 have a phone? Can we call them and ask them when they might getting around to flipping this soft switch, or softly flipping a switch, or whatever it is that they need to do?"

"No ma'am, we can't call them."

"Can't call them - like, they have no phone? Or they are in Mongolia and it's the middle of the night right now? Or they don't speak English? Or you will be fired if you call them? Or...?"

"We just have to wait, and all I can say is that your case seems to be progressing. I'd suggest you call us back once a day to check in. I'm very sorry."

Right.

Well, it turns out the nice people at Loop 3 DO have a phone! It's published, right there on their Web site. And I tell you what, Ricky at Loop 3 was none too happy about being disparaged by the Planetlink guys. No sirree. Plus, he was apparently having a slow day. So when he recovered from the surprise of hearing from me - I'm sure he was impressed with my determination and spunk! - he conferenced in his "tier 3"contact at Planetlink and said things like, "We're pinging you with call-outs but you guys aren't responding with a 183 or a 267. Looks like the IP is all built out on your end so maybe the gazoozadoodle needs to be re-honked." And, "This lady hasn't had a phone for a couple of days and has spent like four hours getting the run-around from your tech support." Go Ricky!

Apparently the key to getting someone's attention is to start a finger-pointing match between the tech guys over whose fault it is. To stalk, provoke and startle them into revealing the super-secret phone numbers shared only among themselves, the elite clube of techies who can actually DO things. The whole tech support system is set up to protect those people from commoners like me.

Still no phone. But I now have the direct line for Tommy at Planetlink, who seems to speak the strange insider language and who gave me my (apparently very top-secret) Master Ticket Number. Hopefully they have resigned themselves to the fact that I can't be brushed off with lame excuses like "It's somebody else's fault and we can't call them," or "you need to talk to the guy who's beaming your phone signal from the tower." Hopefully they understand that it is in their best interest to solve my problem and make me go away, before I track down their junior prom pictures and publish them on the Internet.