Cimorene

The old kitchen at work contained a cabinet above the door, on the inside, that you'd have to stand on a chair to reach. Two doors, and behind them were a bunch of old telephone wires and electrical wires in a big old tangle.

Obviously the new kitchen plan doesn't include working cabinets at that height, but these are very ugly cabinets, so the building's electrician was asked about this cabinet and said we could take it out with no effect, that the wires weren't live and had probably not been used in decades.

The board were planning to take it out as a cosmetic change only next year when painting the rest of the space, but then the cabinet installer called last Tuesday to say the adjoining wall had a cabinet whose door would be blocked from opening by these. One of our board members is a contractor, so he came over in the evening and quickly ripped it all out so that the installation could be finished.

But I got to work Wednesday and had no internet. I turned the router off and on, reset it, looked up the manual and went through the troubleshooting steps and setup, and determined the router itself was fine, but it just wasn't connected to the internet.

Because of the history of the cable removal, my boss wanted to call the same electrician, but when I talked to the contractor and another board member Thursday (so after a full 8 hour workday of investigating the router and trying to answer emails and edit Google docs on my work phone) they suggested the phone and fiberoptic internet provider, which was obviously my first suggestion when turning the modem off and on didn't work but had got shot down by my boss. But she okayed it this time!

The telephone company tech guy immediately said, "So you're doing renovations and did something! We have multiple customers in the area without internet, and we've been trying to find the fault in the network since yesterday!" So I invited them over.

Two guys showed up within an hour and I showed them the location of the cabinet and described it and the events. They asked if we had more information on what the cabinet was like, so I had the contractor call them and they said they would have to speak to him before they could do anything about the problem. (He hadn't taken the contents of the cabinet to the dump yet so he drove it over to them.) And then the resident of the apartment upstairs came to ask if our net was out, because hers was and so were the store and apartment next door to us (we're on the end). I told her about our guilt and the visit from the phone company.

AND SINCE THEN I'VE HEARD NOTHING. All day last Friday I was constantly expecting the phone company to finally come back, but they never showed. Monday I got to work and there was still no internet, but my boss pointed out that my work phone can create a mobile hotspot, so I was able to use the computer again. Today I was using the hotspot again - it works, but it's slower. And still nothing from the phone company.

Electricians and plumbers were here today - I was only alone from 3:30 on - and the oven and stove are now in place and the drain vents connected through the walls, but still nothing from the phone company.

Monday I kinda thought it was clearly now up to them to get the internet back up, but tomorrow is Thursday again, which is a whole week since we first talked to them. I'm hopeful that they've at least restored service to our neighbors, even if they haven't been back on our premises, but like, come on?!