Thread by @jeffjarvis

WARNING to @verizonfios customers: If your system is working, do NOT update or upgrade anything. I made that mistake and now I'm stuck in HELL. 1/

The latest: One by one, over days, our TV One Mini set-top boxes are dying, unable to connect to the network, giving us NO TV. The were working fine, then they were not. Makes no sense. 2/

I tried everything: nothing. I then tried to set up the boxes with wifi, which is supposed to be possible. Impossible, it turns out. I found secret menus on the box and tried to set up my own SSID. Nope. Nothing. 3/

I called tech support AGAIN and did everything I was told: holding one foot up, twirling on the other while rubbing my tummy counterclockwise and sucking on a coax cable. Nothing. All the tech would do is schedule a "repair" call. 4/

I wanted the tech to walk me through trying to get the boxes working on wifi, Verizon's or mine. Nope. Tech wouldn't do that. So now I will go days without TV in most rooms until the service call. And that's not all... 5/

After AN HOUR AND A HALF in the original order call, a tech was supposed to arrive to do everything: upgrade my router & terminal to gig service, and install all the boxes. All he arrived with was the router. He supposedly scheduled delivery of the boxes & another call.6/

First only two of the boxes arrived. Then the rest did. But the service call disappeared. So I put the boxes in myself, because that's supposed to be easy. HA! 7/

On top of all this, my @verizonfios internet, which had been reliable for years, now had an outage EVERY DAY. 8/

Oh, and I"m now paying for gig internet service. What am I getting? Not even HALF that speed. 9/

So my advice is if your @verizonfios is working, DON'T FUCK WITH IT. Any contact with Verizon spells only doom. 10/

Message to my Rep, @Malinowski: If you're itching to regulate technology, instead of Google, which is popular, & FB, which 3 billion people still use, try going after the fraudulent & abusive customer "service" from phone/cable companies, which all voters abhor. @verizonfios 11/

Yes, a nice @VerizonSupport person DMed me hereabouts on Twitter offering to help and I explained what's going on. I will continue to chronicle this saga in public, on social media, as you all deserve to know what's happening. More chapters to follow.... 12/

Here's the sad part: I used to love my @verizonfios because it worked. Now I HATE it. It is the bane of my existence. It is a nightmare hanging over me, distracting me from everything else I should be doing. I want to turn back time and act as if I never called them. 13/

I'm supposed to be working on a syllabus, a book proposal, and lots of memos right now, but all I can think about is my goddamned cable not working.