Being the unelected, unwilling, and default I.T. Manager in our household, I am faced with daily stresses and problems far beyond what I could have ever imagined or was designed for. I never wanted the job, and I hate it. When our television or internet goes down, it’s my job to reboot and otherwise attempt to set the world back on its axis. Because my husband has dementia and watches a lot of TV, life becomes very difficult when our internet or cable connection dies. And, in the fifteen years we have lived in this house, our service has been down more than it has been active. The question is why?

On numerous occasions when we’ve had a Bell Canada technician visit our house and he puts a band-aid on the problem, I’ve tried to talk the repair person into moving in with us. That’s because you can be sure that before long, everything will crap out again. To say it’s frustrating is an understatement.

After years of speaking to call centre representatives in third-world countries, who insist I spend an hour unsuccessfully repeating the rebooting process that I have become quite proficient at, my issues were escalated to a higher level. Lately, when I’ve been calling, I’ve been connected with a technician in Ottawa or Montreal, which is somewhat better, but the problems persist.

Over the past couple of weeks our internet/tv connection was off more than it was on. Our neighbours across the street, who also have Bell, and next-door neighbours who have Rogers, do not have these problems. The issue seems to be specific to our house. The other night at 10:00 p.m. a service representative in Montreal put me on hold for twenty minutes before our call was mysteriously disconnected. Not encouraging.

The next morning, I persisted (angry old lady vibes), called again and got someone who said they would send out a senior technician who would definitely get to the root of our problems. And, it seems he did! Miraculous Mr. H. spent three and a half hours in our home testing lines on the box outside the house, as well as on our street, and further away on another street. Then he returned and replaced wall jacks, rewired the configuration in the basement, kept going upstairs and down to the basement, fiddled with the last two modems we had on hand, and generally never stopped doing techy things for the entire morning.

Whatever he did, so far it is working, and I am confident it will continue to do so. Our internet was down at least 50% of the time over the past winter, and when I requested a billing concession, an offshore representative of Bell told me I would have to provide them with a summary of the exact dates and times we did not have service—information I have no doubt Bell already has. Again, very angry old lady vibes. I suppose they weren’t happy about having to write off the many tens of thousands of dollars they had invested over the years in sending technicians to temporarily solve the problem.

It’s shocking how impotent we feel when we’re not online. I had already made three unsuccessful calls to offshore call centres, and one personal visit to a Rogers store in the mall for information about whether their services run on Bell lines or whether our neighbourhood is serviced by fibre optic cable, and got nowhere. This makes me reluctant to switch providers.

It appears that Bell is prioritizing fibre optic services to rural and under-served areas so Mississauga is not worthy, and I received conflicting information from Rogers representatives. Ultimately, I hate to expose myself to the inevitable problems that will arise if I switch all of my services to another provider. When hubby cannot get his Blue Jay games, or I cannot work on my blog because the internet is down, we both get very testy. When we cannot get anything on TV in the evenings and, out of boredom we are faced with the prospect of resorting to having sex to pass the time, we can become resentful and nasty. Not conducive to a good love life.

Anyway, I am keeping all my fingers and toes crossed that this latest drastic rewiring experiment will permanently restore our services. When I woke up this morning and came downstairs to see hubby peacefully asleep in his La-Z-Boy in front of CP24 as usual, I could feel all the stress and tension drain from my body. I’m still feeling it and might even welcome his hourly updates on the weather and being awakened at 3:00 a.m. to be told whether the Blue Jays won or lost.

Once again, and hopefully forever more, there is peace in our queendom. Now I can devote my time to car or appliance repair issues and banking problems. Is this what retirement was like for our ancestors?

Footnote: I came downstairs this morning to find hubby staring once again at a blank blue screen. No TV! After rebooting and fiddling with the receiver for a few minutes, service was restored, but only temporarily. Bell is scheduled to return on Tuesday. Was I too optimistic, too hopeful, too desperate? Should I move to Outer Mongolia, where I hear the service is somewhat better?