Mature Life Features

…to fix your phone.

 My Panasonic landline phone receiver had an irritating glitch that I decided had to be eliminated after putting up with it for more than a week.

Where the time sits and caller ID appears when the phone rings was a constant message about getting a voice mail from my server. I don’t use voice mail and have no clue how to retrieve any voice mail I receive. And the light on the receiver that blinks ever five seconds when I have missed a call kept on blinking every five seconds.

So I called AT&T to stop this stuff.

After several stops and goes with Mr. Robot Answerer, I was directed to a human. I could hold or opt for a call back. I decided to hold on for “between 7 and 8 minutes.” Then a real person – her name was Sally — asked me what my problem was and transferred me to tech support after I told her about my problem. After a few more minutes of music, the phone went dead. I had been lopped out of the system.

So I called back. Mr. Answerer and I danced around several more rounds despite my asking for a human being time after time. The woman who answered — her name was Helen – transferred met tech service again and I got talking to a woman from somewhere across the Pacific.

It sounded like she was working in a police-station radio room. She asked me for my phone number and clicked in and out a couple of times, then for name, which I had to spell out for. Then she needed my account number, which I had handy in the monthly statement I get from AT&T.

She asked for my telephone number again and was unable to find my phone number, account number or name. So I asked to speak to her supervisor, which she agreed to willingly. However, her supervisor was busy and he would have to call me. His name was Ray.

Is was calling on my cell phone, which I use rarely but felt it was a good idea because I could them have them work on my land line while conversing on my cell phone.

I made a quick trip to the bathroom and heard the cell phone buzzing so I dashed back and the caller hung after two buzzes (rings). So I called that number back and got Mr. Answerer again.

After our verbal dance, and a chat with another female – her name was Vera – I was transferred to tech support again. This time was a charm.

The tech person found my phone and didn’t need the account number but pointed out I had to call the maker of telephone and he would get me the customer support number.

With the Panasonic number given to me, I got Mr. Answerer’s counterpart at Panasonic. I was told I could hold on or ask for a call back in “eight to nine minutes.” I decided to hold on – and on and on and on and on.

I hung up after about 30 minutes and redialed the number and waited about 20 minutes before hanging up.

While awaiting connections all through this process, I managed to pay a few bills and retrieved the instruction booklet that came with the Panasonic telephone when it was purchased. The booklet didn’t help.

So I decided to ask Google how the heck I could get rid of the message on the Panasonic.

And out came a page with instructions.

Simply hold down the # button for eight seconds and the message will disappear, it said.

It did. And so did the light.

This whole process covered some six hours when all I had to do was ask my computer.