Being in the IT industry I find it interesting sometimes when I run into my own problems. As companies get bigger knowledge gets displaced, vision is lost, effort becomes… well little to none when your on the wrong side. I know the reality of my pain is just the way things work sometimes, I just wish they wouldn’t.

Now I’ve never had a big brother but large corporations that do favors for their small time customers are few and far between. If politics, bad PR or media exposer were in play then they might care but otherwise you are only a number. My recent/current expierence with porting a wired phone number to a wireless number is a case in point. Every question answered honestly and correctly yet as it stands today I’m at 12 days and counting to get the port completed. Of course the disclaimer was it can take 3 days to 3 weeks to make it happen, I guess I should have believed them.

A comedy of events has taken place, from an assumption of the billing and termination address being the same to my remote forward holding up the transfer. In hind sight I should have started more than a week before the date I needed it move, but cell reception at the old house was questionable so I wanted to keep that exposure to a minimum. Did I mention the number was a business line… probably not. As 24 hours before D-day came and no word of the port being completed I put in a request to have the number remote forwarded to my personal cell. Remote forward is a service that allows the phone company automatically forward your number to another, but the “old” number doesn’t need to terminate anywhere. So wouldn’t you know it not 2 hours after I did that the cell carrier called and said the port could not be completed due to a pending order on the line… unbelievable.

So here I am at day 12 I’ve talked with both carriers today, listened to the song and dance, bit my toung and still waiting. So be thankful if big brother (corporate america where you will always get a different person at customer service) does you a favor and shows more than a little effort.

Update May 10: At last, at last…. the number has been ported !!!!!