🚀 go-pugleaf

Interesting ... and more than just a little bit of truth.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: @HOME WILL ALWAYS SUCK
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 18:21:52 GMT
From: "FORMER AT&T @Home Employee" <insideinformation@home.com>
Organization: Excite@Home - The Leader in Broadband http://home.com/faster
Newsgroups: athome.discussion-athomesvc

I am a former employee of AT&T @home, that's right, the other guy who was
on
the end of that phone, chat or email and had to answer your questions. You
guys could sometimes be a bunch of assholes but I admit most of the time
AT&T was SOLELY to blame and I agree with you all. AT&T STINKS!!!

So here's the scoop

1) The email servers ALWAYS go down because AT&T WON'T spend the money to
fix them or upgrade them. They know FULL WELL of the problems with the
email
servers and that they go down so much but refuse to bother with getting
them
properly fixed. Hell even bad weather will cause them to fail which SHOULD
BE ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE, but it happens all the time. The same is true
for
the news server but its not quite as bad. My suggestion is to just give it
up and use a hotmail account or some other account in it's place. In the
end
you'll be much happier.

P.S. - On a note of fairness to some small degree, sometimes the @home
mail
server goes done because of the huge amounts of spammed junk email that's
sent across its servers, HUGE VAST AMOUNTS, but again if they'd upgrade,
these problems would go away and disappear.

2) Slow speeds happen because of things called nodes. A node is what
connects an entire block or community to the @home servers. Everything you
do, all the information running through your cable modem goes out through
the cables and wires to a node and then to an @home server and from there
to
the rest of the worlds computers. What is happening is that when a new
community gets @home available only a few people sign up. So you have 5-10
people connected to the @home servers through a node and you get good
speed.
BUT THEN more people sign up. Then more, and then even more. Eventually
you
can have 300-400 OR MORE, yes I've seen it, more people on a SINGLE node.
And when that happens, BOOM, the node is congested with traffic of people
all wanting something at the same time. 2 Things now happen. Either the
node
overlodes and shuts down, which is why you get so much disconnection and
downtime or your speed falls to shit, sometimes below a 33.3K modem.
EASILY.
And AGAIN, I guarantee you AT&T knows about this problem but doesn't want
to
bother paying to sett up multiple nodes to handle the traffic but instead
repairs the node making it good to go until the NEXT time it becomes
overloaded, maybe even the same day that it's fixed.

3) Billing is often a problem. I know, you get charged for time that was
actually downtime and you couldn't connect but end up paying for on your
bill. That's because the software AT&T uses is shitty and unreliable and
in
no way linked to other software that would automatically adjust for this
loss of connection. And it would be SO easy to set that up. Instead the
only
way to get credit for this is to call us up and request it. It sucks but
that's the only way there is, period. No amount of bitching will change
that, you're not god and you're only a single customer, so to AT&T, YOU
don't matter.
HINT: Here's a little trick to get $20 off a month. Billing no longer has
to
approve credit to get it to go through. Employees, the guys on the other
end
of the help lines, can approve up to $50 credit a month of it themselves
without any authorization. So all you have to do to get 1/2 off is to call
in once a month and say that it was down for two weeks. That's all. And I
know that often you'll call in and be told that you'll get credit and then
never get i at all, EVER, I know. But to get around this, request $20,
hang
up and call back. Then ask how much credit you see added to the account,
but
don't ask if the amount is $20, or they might just not look it up and say
"yep, it's $20". Their answer should match the amount of credit that you
asked for in your original call. Or you can say "was it $30" and they
answer
"no it was $20" you know you got that creditl. Also call in 6-9 days
before
you're billing cycle so that it will appear on the bill. Often they won't
care enough to even bother looking it up and just agree to whatever you
say.
And don't bother writing down their name, They won't get in trouble and
it's
probablt fake. So if they don't open up your account you can't be credited
in the first place. Comprender??

4) Webspace is not guaranteed to work or function at any time and no
support
is given to it. With webspace you're on your own. And yes the servers
SUCK!!! So they often go down, learn to expect it. USE GEOCITIES FOR
WEBSPACE PEOPLE!!! GROW A BRAIN INSTEAD OF A BITCHY MOUTH!!

5) The @Home software was written by a dozen monkeys, locked in a room
with
a typewriter and their dicks and they used their hands to oil both
frequently. Don't get it installed. Many people have problems resulting
directly from it. Ever had your HD crash and you wonder why. If you got
the
@home software installed, you now know the answer. Its crashed more
computers than any software I've EVER encountered. UNBELIEVABLE!!! You
DON'T, Understand me, DON'T, need it to get connected to @home. @Home is
simply what allows your computer to connect to the internet. It's the
cable
modem and the wiring, NOTHING MORE. You don't need to have the @home
software to get the Internet. If you have Windows then you already have
Internet Explorer pre-installed on your computer system, JUST USE THAT!!!
Look for the Internet Explorer icon, a Blue E with a swirl through it, and
double click on that. ALL the @home software is is Internet Explorer with
an
@ symbol in the top corner, so that all stupid people will see the @
symbol
and feel relaxed and not so scared because the internet is so strange to
them but the @ symbol is so familiar, so cute and recognizeable. WHAT
SHIT!!
And for a MAC get Netscape or Internet Explorer from a friend on a disk
and
load that. It's better than a crashed and reformatted HD. And for all
those
losers who still don't believe me about the @home software, this
information
below is in the @home "END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT" thay you should have
gotten when it was installed, if you were lucky. I tried looking for it
online where it once was but it seems to have been "conveniently" deleted,
and once you read it, for obvious reasons.

Quote:

"7. High Risk Activities. The software is not-fault tolerant and is not
designed, manufactured or intended for use or resale as on-line control
equipment in hazardous environments requiring fail-safe performance, such
as
in the operation of nuclear facilities, aircraft navigation or
communication
systems, air traffic control, direct life support machines, or weapons
systems, in which the failure of the Software could lead directly to
death,
personal injury or sever physical or environmental damage ("High Risk
Activities"). @Home Network and is licensors specifically disclaim any
express or implied warranty of fitness for High Risk Activities."
I swear to you, I laughed till I cried the first time I read that and if
you
don't believe that something this idiotic could exist look it up yourself,
number 7 in the aggreement. I think I'll frame it.

6) Installers and Technicians are a HUGE problem, we know. That's because
they're all contractors. These guys come in, no one cares what their
background is, hell we've even had a few murderers who brag about their
kills to their customners, swear to god it's true, who we hire right
through
Newspaper ads and such. These guys get 3 days of training then they're
told
go and do it and some of them have never even SEEN a computer let alone
touched one before those three days of haha "training" where often they'll
come out and still wonder how to spell "computer". These guys don't know
shit and worst of all they don't care. As long as you sign their papers,
they get paid. PERIOD!! There's nothing more to it than that. SO Please
ONLY
sign stuff after they're finished. When you get installed, that paper you
sign, and they always want you to sign it before the job is finished,
states
that when they left your house EVERYTHING, and I mean EVERYTHING, was
working A++. Once you sign it they get paid, even if they destroy their
computer and put holes in your walls and shit in your attic while
installing
it. Contact me later for some funny stories on these guys. The shit bit is
true and there's even more to it. So please only sign it AFTER you've
confirmed everything is working. A lot of them will tell you that the
modem
will sync up after 2-3 hours, it won't, it should sync up and connect with
the network within 5 minutes. ANY LONGER THAN THAT, and there's a further
problem. If they leave and it doesn't work you'll have to schedule another
appointment for another week most likely to get the same guy or another
2-bit contacrter to come back out and apologize for the last guy before he
gets a chance to fuck you over. The bitter truth, how you hate it but how
you need to know it to avoid stepping in the bullshit. So please, see that
everything is working BEFORE you sign the papers and they leave cause all
they want to do is get the stuff done and go home for the day. They get
paid
$25 per install and technical run so make them work for their money.

7) A lot of you people ask for supervisors but it's always funny when you
do. You think that you're getting one. HA!!!! That's the funniest joke of
all. All we do is pass it to the guy next to us, who comes on the line and
"SAYS" he's a supervisor. Don't Believe Me?? If I came on the line and
said
"King of France Here" you wouldn't believe me. But I could "SAY" it even
if
it wasn't true there's nothing stopping me, remember no one in @home can
get
in trouble because AT&T doesn't care enough to bother taking the action
necessary to do it. So what's stopping me to say "Hi, I'm John Doe a
supervisor here at AT&T @home". Hell we don't even work for AT&T, we're
contractors (read below) just like everybody else so I guess I just said
two
lies in that sentence then. And no the "supervisor" has no more power than
a
regular agent, they're only available to make people "fell" like they're
being heard. Often we'll tape these conversations and play them back later
making fun at the person for their problems and when they shout or swear
we
all crack up laughing because they have no idea how incredibly stupid they
sound. YEAH, I'm talking to you cum-wad!!

8) And finally there's us, Technical Support, the guys you spend hours on
the phone waiting to talk to. That's because of over 100 other people just
like you in que all wanting to complain about some problem in their life
or
maybe they'll limit it to just @home. BELIEVE ME, I've heard it ALL!! AND
I'M USING CAPS TO SHOW YOU THAT I MEAN IT!! And for the most part, except
for the cock-sucking-incest-kiddie-porn lovers who shout in my ear, I'm on
your side in all this, hell why else would I have spent an hour writing
this
long message if I wasn't??? All I can say about us is some are good;
others
you talk to are the exact opposite of good and were spawned in Hell with
Fathers for Mothers and Balls for brains, a bunch of little hitlers
running
around determined to make your life with @home miserable. That' s because
there's almost no monitoring with @home. Supervisors rarely look in to see
how the agents on the phones are handling their customers. And there's no
record of ANY calls ANYWHERE unless the agent makes a record by his OWN
CHOICE!!! There's NOTHING that monitors if there was a call at what time,
what was said by either party or WHO took the call. After you hang up,
unless the agen you talked to wrote something in your call history notes
in
your account, we don't even know that you called in in the first place,
You
don't exist. And the reason NO ONE knows anyone else is because AT&T
contracts out the work that we do to other companies to do it. So the
person
you talk to says they're AT&T but they only do WORK for AT&T but are
employeed by another company entirely. And there are 3 different Centres
maybe more and they have NONE, NO CONTACT WHATSOEVER with each other. So
when you say "I was talking with brad" and the person has no idea who
you're
talking about it's because that person is in another state altogether and
that person left NO notes stating what had transpired the last time you
called in. SO NO ONE knows what's going on. Also we employees are never
told
about anything new that might come up through @home. Often the first time
we
hear it is from a customer calling in about it. It's funny but oh-so-true.
But to sum it up about us, after taking 40-50 calls a day, most of us JUST
DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOU!!!

Essentially AT&T's point of view is this: "For every 1 of you who quits,
there's 4 to take your place"

So piece of advice. If you really want someone to help you and actually
try,
try to make a small joke to make us laugh. Make us think you're cool a bit
and the world will be yours.

"I swear that I shall tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the
truth, so help me God!" And by god, did I keep my word.

Enjoy
Trench

If you wish to contact me and have individual questions please feel free
to
email me at
attdie@hotmail.com <mailto:attdie@hotmail.com>

I will answer them to the best of my ability and when I can find the time

Hope you enjoyed the bullshit truth without the bullshit

Oh and I hope you enjoyed my dramatic flair for writing
And if you didn't I don't care