Flashback to Noos

We had Noos in Paris for our internet and it worked very well for several years.

Then we moved. They came to our new apartment and strung cable from room to room. But the internet never worked.

It was a nightmare for three months. We had a contract. It could not be broken. But, they could not deliver what they promised, the internet.

So, we went to their offices, thinking that it would be easy to sort it all out in person.

But, this is France. We went, with all our equipment in a sack, to their main offices at Bercy. We thought we were being smart, we arrived before they opened. We were there with about 20 other people with the same idea, with the same ugly bags of routers, modems, cables, etc.

The doors finally opened and we filed in, heads down. Each of us took, a number and sat down. There was one person behind the counter. Each new person had a big problem and each problem took a long time. We waited and waited. Each person's request was summarily rejected. Still (naively) we were optimistic.

We started to get hungry. Lunchtime came and went. We waited. Eventually, our number was called. We approached the lone man in his kisok. He asked a few questions, walked away for a few minutes, which made us hopeful, and then came back to pronounce that we had to pay for our internet through the contract period even though they were unable to deliver the service.

We felt bruised but not defeated and we eventually won, signing up with France Telecom for internet, which has been sightly better than Noos (now renamed Numericable, probably because Noos had such a bad reputation).

Today, several years after our Noos episode, it was time for a flashback. I'm in San Diego where people are nice and there are no lines for services. Our internet provider is Time Warner. We have used them for years, with a high degree of satisfaction. When something breaks, we call, they come to our house and it is fixed.

I had to return a router for my Mom. She's moved and has a new router. They can't close her account until I return the old router. It didn't seem difficult. I have my iPHONE GPS so I thought I could find their office. This was the first problem. Their office is in one of these business parks with the byzantine systems of connected parking lots that lead to another parking lot but never the parking lot that you need. So, I drove around and around for about 30 minutes before I found the (unmarked) TIME WARNER building. I parked. I got the router and walked in to the lobby. I think I was expecting to walk right up to a counter, turn in the router, get a receipt and leave. Au Contraire. There was one of these machines where you take a number. So I took a number. I got 782. Then I looked at the lobby. It was full of people with bags of equipment. Lots of people. People sitting and people standing. People pacing. No one was smiling. Except me. I quickly wiped that smile off my face in order to conform. A man approached me.

"Lots of people have left," he said. This still didn't register until I did the math. The number of the screen, showing the last person served showed the number 750; That's 32 places away from 782.

My life flashed before my eyes. I cannot possibly re-create the horror of Noos in San Diego. It's not possible! I ditched number 782 in the trash can and threw the router in the back seat. I have no idea how I'll ever get my Time Warmer account closed but I'm not waiting for 32 other people on a beautiful February afternoon.