I have had some very frustrating dealings with the phone company lately. I use the same company for my land lines and cable as I do for my Blackberry and wireless internet USB card. I have had no problems with my wireless accounts, but my regular house phone, however, is a different story. As I mentioned last week, I moved apartments within the same building, 5 floors to be exact. How hard do you think it would have been to have a simple phone number moved 5 floors? Let’s just say, if I had high blood pressure, I would have had a heart attack. I became so angry, and I’m usually the nice gal on the phone. The problem specifically? First off, I never spoke to the same person twice when I called into their national numbers. Every time I called to check my account status, a different record of what had been happening was told to me. This must have happened 6 times over a week, no joke. There was never a supervisor to talk to and, I must admit, I did feel badly (sometimes) for the people on the other end of the phone. They do have restrictions on what they can and can not do without a supervisor, but do the consumer a favor and at least record the problems correctly. The last and final time I called, my line was dropped three times and I had to repeat my story three times, further aggravating me. Oh, and not to mention, my first installation date never happened because the first person helping me never entered the order — need I say more? Well, one more thing — a colleague told me when I have a problem to present a solution. One solution would be to switch phone carriers, but I am limited in the city as to what carrier I can use. Plus, that would have been a nightmare to change the carrier and keep my phone number (I know this from a past move). I would like to reach out to the phone company and ask them to try and improve their call-in systems. The company representatives I met in person are great. When the installation guy finally came, he went out of his way to ensure he did a proper job. A huge improvement when calling in to get a status report would be the option to call and at least talk to the same person twice. I would have more confidence that the situation at hand could be resolved more quickly. Lastly, how about a day or two more training for each employee — if one chooses to speak to a supervisor, it should not take over an hour! -Alex Young, vice president and associate publisher