1. I am inquiring to the status of my 3Web Broadband Cable installation. I have yet to receive reply tomy last email of the 6th of november regarding clarification on my address for installation. As previously stated, my residence does not have a unit number, if your installer has confusion with finding my unit please advise him/her that I live in a house of only 3 residents and the buzzer to my unit is the only one clearly marked “Purves” (that would be my name).
Please advise when your installer will next be available to reattempt installation.
2. Now, I’m not saying that every previous failure to date is necessarily your fault, but… As a matter of interest, I would just like to point out that this particular e-mail now marks in fact the 5th time I have contacted you in some manner in the (thus-far remarkably futile) attempt to BECOME YOUR CUSTOMER.
There’s a word here I know I’m searching for, quixotic? Kafkaesque? masochistic?
At any rate you may be wondering, what can possibly explain such seemingly irrational persistence on my part? well here are the only explanations I can offer…
a) Ambition – maybe only a dozen more go arounds and perhaps we can set some kind of record?
b) Desperation – Yes, the reliability of my current Bell Sympatico DSL connection is actually That Bad that This is somehow preferable.
c) Academic Curiosity. You see I’ve unexpectedly had the opportunity recently to embark on a study attempting to derive a statistical correlation between the probability of an actual reply from a customer service department with the font size employed in an original email request. Thank you for continuing to contribute data points to this very important research project. Results thus far:
| Font size | Emails | Replies |
| 10pt | 2 | 0% |
| 24ptbold | 1 | 100% |
| 14pt(this email) | 1 | ? |
d) Oh, and as far as this process continues to tread further into the domain of sheer comedy, I’m blogging it.
patiently as always,
Tom Purves
http://thomaspurves.com
EPILOGUE: In the end 3Web finally did provide me with fast, “cheap”, and trouble-free internet for about 90days before being mysteriously cut off. After some further, not inconsiderable effort I was able to glean from them that this was because I had “not been paying my bill”. My polite reply, in my own defense, that 3Web had not actually, at any time, a) sent me a bill b) attempted to contact me in any way regarding billing related matters c) attempted to charge the card number I left on file with them when I registered – did not elicit a reply.