The Case of the Lost Phone Number

Did you know that a phone number can be "Lost"?

I am not sure how long we have had our home phone number, but I think it is somewhere around 20 years. You don't realize how significant that number is until you need it to get a haricut, refill a prescription, pick up the dry cleaning, get a discount at the grocery store, or order a pizza. And even though most friends and family have your cell number now, it is amazing how many professional, alumni, and volunteer organizations only have your home number. Then there are the vendors, repairmen, doctors, schools, and the old friends who knew you before you had a cell phone. All in all I figured it would take me hundreds of hours to make a list of people to notify and then to contact them all, so I was quite annoyed when my phone company informed me that our number had been "lost" and that there was no way to get it back.



It started about 18 months ago when a friend called Cherri's cell phone and told her that our home phone number just rang and rang and was not even answered by a machine. It was out for over a week before I notified the carrier, then I waited. After another week I called back and got more promises of "working on it". This went on for a about a month before the phone company confessed that a computer glitch had lost a couple of hundred phone numbers, but they were working on it and restoring a few each day. Each month for the next 6 months I would call to get an update on the status only to be told in the end that while most numbers were recovered, ours could not. In the mean time our number went from ringing to nowhere to being answered by some Asian language recording.

Our phone company explained that a third-party actually holds the numbers for them and most other small, independent, and most cell phone companies. They explained that only the "majors" hold their own phone numbers, so, this could have happened to anyone on any carrier (i.e. not thier fault). I repeatedly asked them to identify the third-party company, but they refused.

Eventually I filed a complaint with the FCC. The company responded to the complaint by saying that I agreed to a free year of service on a new number. The FCC seemed to find it reasonable that a phone number can be permanently lost and acceptable that being "told" what was going to happen is the same thing as "agreeing" to a solution. I never agreed to give up hope of getting my number back.

I have long had this idea that if anyone could get my number back it would probably be AT&T. I finally went on-line and signed up for service and requested to transfer my old number. I received a phone call from a customer service person who confirmed that they could get my number but it would take longer than their normal one day to switch; it would take two. Knowing the history of the number, I was not surprised when I received an email saying it would take an extra 4 days. I was surprised when I received and email on day 3 that my service was active.

I called the number from a cell phone, a VOIP line, and a land line with mixed results from ringing to busy signals, but no Asian recordings. Progress, and still not surprised because I know it takes a while to propogate changes throught all the routers in all the interconnected systems. I plugged in a plain old telephone at home to see if I could call out - no dial tone.

I figured I would give AT&T time to see what would happen. After a couple of more weeks I received my first bill and used that as the prompt to notify AT&T that my service did not work. I called the 800 number to report a service outage and worked my way through their automated system. They tested my line while I was on the phone and responded that it would be fixed by 8 o'clock that night - That's service!

The next morning I received a presonal phone call. They were sorry that they were not able to fix it last night, but that it had been escalated to the next level, they are currently working on it, and would someone be home if they had to send someone out? - but it would be fixed today!

I was still impressed with their commitment to service since I knew the history of the number. A few hours later I received a call from a field service guy, you know, a man with a truck full of tools. He was going out to our house to fix this. He asked how long the service had been out. I explained that I had not had a land line in many years and that I had just ported a troubled number back to AT&T.

A couple of hours later I received an automated call from AT&T explaining that they would not be able to get to my problem today. Again, not too disappointed given the problem that I had thrown their way. I was then shocked when Man-in-truck called back to say that he had fixed my service. Being a techie, I just had to ask him what the problem was. He said that there was no card in my service slot at their bunker at the front of my subdivision. "Somone probably noticed no dial tone on that line and used the card to fix another line". I was ecstatic that my service was finally back, laughing that a piece of hardware was missing, and amazed that they had actually gotten our number back in four days when others could not get it back at all.

Lesson Learned: I'm not sure. I am thankful to AT&T for getting my number back. I don't know how long I am going to be willing to pay twice the price for basic phone service. I think I will probably go back to VOIP at some point. Now to go cancel my current VOIP service.

Short People

Remember the Randy Newman classic from the late '70's "Short People". In that song he says "Short people got no reason to live", but, I have found their purpose. I have now flown 5 times in a Embraer ERJ-145 and have had a differenct Flight Attendant on each flight, not a one of which was over 5'5" tall. The most memorable of these was Nelson, a middle-aged asian man with designer glasses - quite dapper in his uniform. Nelso also took his job more seriously than most. I think he was a tour guide in a previous career.

I am now working on a theory that it is intentional. It actually comes in quite handy for them. Even at my rather average height I have to duck when every 5 rows to go under a cross brace. They, on the other hand can happily wheel the beverage cart up and down the aisle. It is a cute little cart; I would have to bend over to get ice or pretzels, whereas it is just the right height for them. It is narrower and shorter than most and designed for only one person, no serving from both sides.

So what other jobs could be reserved for the vertically challenged? I mean really, a lot of jobs would be difficult for them. Even as a parking valet they would have to adjust the customers seat to park the car. In a commercial kitchen the prep tables and stoves are not the right height. Public speaking always looks funny. But they are just right for something. How about as plumbers? Think about the last time that crack weilding heavy weight tried to crawl under your sink to work on the disposal or install a new faucet. Or air conditioner repair, climbing in attick crawl spaces. Put your ideas in the comments below today's post and I will create a poll from them.

Doing The Charleston

Flying into Charleston (no, not that one - WV) for the first time made me think of the movie Air America with Mel Gibson. You remember, the civilian airline, run by the CIA, in Vietnam, delivering arms and supplies in Laos, where we officially never went.

Was it the beautiful mountains, the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants pilot, or maybe it was the runway itself. Remember the scene where he takes the new guy out on a run and find this runway.

See, when you build a runway on the top of a mountain there is always a wind, and when space is limited you have short runways. Combined, you get to land small planes in high winds.

I was okay with the "bouncy" approach in the rain, in fact it was a little reassuring to hear the flight attendant yell "Ride 'em Fly Boy!", but when the plane started leaning over AFTER the wheels touched the runway I wasn't so sure. I just knew the wing was going to scrape the runway! It is good thing I have direct pipeline to God since you can't use your cell phone "while the main cabin door is closed". By the time JC and I had said our peace we were at the gate.

Well, "gate" is a bit of a misnomer. I climbed down the rope ladder, climbed into the cargo hold and unloaded my bag. I was preparing to walk towards the faint light in the distance, presumably the terminal, when I was abruptly stopped by a flashlight weilding airport ninja covered in reflective tape. "Sir, you must wait for the other planes to reach their gate" (yes, real gates - covered, heated, and plane height).

Did I mention wet and cold? This is where my Boy Scout survival training paid off. As the only one carrying a supply of Clif Bars and rain gear, I new that I would survive the night. I caught myself sizing up the rest of the team though, deciding who would drop first and what kind of sauce would be appropriate. Something zesty for "Z"; Sweet and Sour for Long - no, too sterotypical; maybe a mole for E&Y.

Back to the two Charlestons, you are not the only one who thought of SC before WV. One of the vendors to the project got booked into SC by his travel department. That's okay though, it is only a 7.5 hour drive. Note to self...