The Internet being out reminded me why it is hard to live here. I can put up with the bells, the roosters, the noise in the hood, the shopping challenges but doing business in Mexico seems terribly complicated and customer service is so far from the US model that it is hard to recognize that it exists.
You can't call the cable company and tell them that your cable is out. Oh, there are phone numbers but no one ever, ever answers. The only way to let them know is to go there, take a number and wait in line. I estimate that the cable company is about 3/4 of a mile away from my casa. I walked there, took my number, waited and reported that my cable was out. They told me that they would check it out in the office and call me in the afternoon if they needed to come to my house the next day. It was two days later when the cable guy showed up at the door but the Internet had started working about 30 minutes before he knocked. He told me it was a system problem but he checked out my modem anyway.
I was ready to switch to TelMex for the Internet and I still may. Some people I know have both MegaCable and TelMex because they do business via the net and they can't be down for several days at a time.
All of this just points out how dependent we have become on technology. When we first started coming to San Miguel there wasn't such a thing as Vonage phones or MagicJack or Skype. And the Internet was slow and not dependable at all. No one had a cell phone of any kind much less a Smart Phone. In fact, it could take you a year to get a phone line in your house. Here we are 12 or 13 years later able to connect with the world. And we expect that technology to be available all of the time or we start to have withdrawal. I think it is stuff like this in San Miguel that just snowballs for some people until they decide to head North. I wasn't a happy camper last week but I'm not heading North.
The image is of shadows on the terrace. I have a new photo toy I'll tell you about in another post.
A few years ago we went to Holland for 2 months. My husband had just been laid off of the career job. We were in town to paint the main floor of his brothers house and to holiday with the financial proceeds. The Internet at his fancy office flat(a posh apartment) did not work so we could only get on line at his house. Eventually I found great freedom in that, we could sit at our house and just chat or read with no need to check emails, Skype or what ever. I liked being un connected.
ReplyDeleteWhy didn't you just go to an internet café? Far better than nothing.
ReplyDeleteInternet in Mexico is less reliable than in the USA or in Canada but it does not take long to get used to the (usually short) outages. One's heart rate slowly ceases to quicken when it happens. There are other things to do.
ReplyDeleteLike playing with a new "Photo Toy"???!!!
I get flustered for about half an hour, then go to the stack of books or magazines and now the Kindle which is loaded with more books, and realize the enjoyment I get by reading.
ReplyDeleteFYI, you can get a smart phone from TelCel that you can use as a backup when your cable goes down.
I have an Iphone, that will work that way, they also have the Samsung phones that are really cheap that will act as your Internet connection as a backup. Worth the investment if you really need the connectivity.
I am like you, Billie. Connectivity is the new normal. And it is a great tool for developing relationships -- as long as we do not short-change the relationships we have at hand.
ReplyDelete