Before AT&T U-verse stands a doorkeeper...

To this doorkeeper comes a man from the country and prays for admittance. But the doorkeeper says he can not grant admittance at the moment. The man thinks it over and then asks if he will be allowed in later. "It is possible," says the doorkeeper, "but not at the moment."

Sunday - I ordered U-verse internet service on-line after having a dedicated, grounded electric circuit installed (old house, old wiring) and scheduled an appointment, or so I thought, for Monday afternoon. Sunday evening I get voicemail that my service will in fact not be installed on Monday and that I have to call back to reschedule.

Monday morning - Spoke with a decidedly unhelpful person at AT&T U-verse who informed me that I could not schedule an appointment until I had cancelled my AT&T DSL service. When I asked how I was supposed to cancel my internet service without knowing when I might get an appointment for the new service, I was told that that was what the supervisor had insisted upon. After the futile attempt trying to point out the absurdity of having to blindly cancel my AT&T DSL in an attempt to schedule installation of AT&T U-verse internet service I gave up on that particular conversation.

Later Monday - Called back and got a much more helpful person who spent several minutes reading up on the case. I was finally told that 'the system' had two orders in it for me and that the two orders had cancelled each other out. Whether this was similar to algebraic cancellation or like matter and antimatter annihilating themselves was unclear. In either case I would have to start all over again in ordering service on-line since it was impossible for AT&T U-verse customer assistance to process an internet-service-only order over the phone.

A little later Monday - I received a call from U-verse customer service telling me that I could in fact resolve my ordering issues over the phone. Overjoyed, I began the process of confirming phone number, address, date of birth, mother's maiden name, blood type, religious affiliation and so forth. Suddenly, it dawned on the customer service rep that the land line to the house, on which we were currently speaking, was registered in my girlfriend's name. I was told that only she could order the service change even though I had created the original order. When I pointed out that as a school teacher my girlfriend could not just take time to call AT&T customer service and hash-out an order that I had already created, the AT&T service window was once again slammed in my face.

Currently - Feeling mentally bruised from my dealings with AT&T U-verse, I am going to the Comcast web site to see if they might grant me faster internet service...

As someone else pointed out: You can always debase yourself to the fool's level - but he will beat you with experience every time.