by Bob Walsh
Synchronicity is a term that was coined by Carl Jung. It is a temporary relationship of otherwise unconnected, often minor or even trivial events that can end up have a totally unexpected and even significant outcome when they come together at a certain time under certain circumstances.
About ten days ago my internet went down. After waiting a reasonable period of time I called AT&T, waded thru their phone tree and eventually got a live human being. After going around and around with the phone company IT guy ( he seemed really pissed at me that I could not tell him if the computer line had a dial tone. There is no phone hooked up to it, so how the hell would I know. He didn't like it when I pointed that out to him.) finally allowed as how there was in fact a problem on the line and we scheduled somebody to come out between 8-noon on Monday.
Monday morning came and went. No tech. I called AT&T about 12:15, waded thru their phone tree, finally got a live human being who told me there was in fact no scheduled appointment for me. I told her that I was not surprised, since nobody showed, but there HAD been an appointment as of Friday the previous week. The young lady finally confirmed that yes, there had been such an appointment, but it was cancelled from their end when the line cleared. I expressed my extreme unhappiness that nobody had the courtesy to call me and let me know as there were a lot of things I could have been doing other than waiting around for a tech to show up.
I was pissed. After a few hours I jotted off a very strongly worded letter to the HMFIC at AT&T back in New Jersey. I waited the few hours because that way I could be reasonably sure I would not threaten to kill his family and burn his house down. I did, however, point out my unhappiness at their complete lack of anything even approaching a reasonable level of customer service. The letter went out in the mail Monday late afternoon.
On both Monday evening and Tuesday morning I received moderately apologetic and polite phone calls telling me the line had been cleared and wanted to know if my computer was acting correctly.
On Friday I got a phone call from an older (as in older than 30 or even 35) person who confirmed he was calling in response to my letter. I explained to him that my beef was not with the tech on the phone (even though he was a dick) because I am something of a Luddite and have a hard time dealing with IT people. We do not share a common vocabulary. My problem was with their policy and / or procedure that said it was OK to leave a customer sitting on his ass half a day waiting for a tech that they KNEW would never come. He was noncommittal (big surprise there) but did say that if it was OK I would be getting another call from their tech people to schedule a guy to come out anyway and make very, very sure the problem had been cleared. That in fact happened and we set up an appointment for Monday (today) between 8-noon.
Saturday was a beautiful day. I washed both my 64 VW and my 65 Mustang and took the Mustang out for a drive. I didn't do a good job of clearing the hose out of the way and parked on it when I got home, something I didn't notice until Sunday.
On Sunday my dog trainer / handler came by just as I was moving the Mustang back off the hose. She told me that I had a non-functional brake light on one side. No problem. They are LED lights and I was pretty sure they were not burnt out so I got out my wiring diagram and tools, took out the spare tire, and started looking for a loose wire. Found it, fixed it.
While this was going on my neighbor Ernie came over and told me that there had been a phone company truck and guy looking for me about a half hour earlier. Ernie said he offered to call me but the phone company guy said NO and went on about his business. I was surprised on two counts. One, it was a Sunday. Phone company guys are not usually out on a Sunday. They hadn't called. And, I was at home. Why hadn't I heard him ring the bell. So, I tried my bell. No DingDong. Just a BUZZZZ. Same noise my clothes drying makes when it was done. I had some laundry in. It seems I had heard the door bell but mistook it for the clothes dryer while I was in the back of the house digging out my 65 Mustang wiring diagram. Had that not happened I maybe-probably could have gotten my phone computer line issue taken care of Sunday at my convenience rather than this morning, at my modest inconvenience.
So, there it is. The fickle finger of fate? Kismet? The Lords of Karma flipping me off. Carl Jung having a few laughs at my expense. I don't believe in absolute fate, but I do believe that things are a LOT more interconnected than they appear to be. Especially on a Sunday afternoon when you are bored. Hell, I even went to the hardware store and bought and installed a new bell.
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