Dish Network is the devil

Yeah, the title of this post says it all. DISH Network is the devil (or, as Kathy Bates would say to Adam Sandler in The Waterboy, The Debil). Why are they the devil? Well, I'm glad you asked (and you know you did).

Last weekend my wife's debit card was compromised, so she had to get a new one issued from our bank. While she was waiting on her new card to arrive, she realized that we pay our DISH Network bill via auto-pay (we did this so we could get free HD service), and if she didn't call them to let them know that her card number changed we would have an issue with our payment not going through this month.

One would think that calling them ahead of time to let them know of this situation would be a good idea. One would be wrong to think this, because DISH Network doesn't work that way. They don't do things the common sense way. They have to make things as difficult as they can for their customers, because apparently they enjoy putting people through absolute hell just to get a simple task completed.

When my wife called customer service, she was told that in order to change the credit card on file she would have to pay the current charges on our account (our bill is automatically drafted out on the 18th of every month). When she asked why she would have to do something so foolish just to change information in our customer profile, she was told "that's just the way we do things". She asked to speak to a manager, and was transferred to someone who apparently was less qualified than the entry level phone operator she originally spoke to when she called.

The manager told her that if we wanted to change our credit card information on our account that we would have to pay the current balance. My wife told the manager that we weren't going to pay our full balance because it was foolish to pay it two weeks before it's due just to change the credit card number so future bills are actually paid (you would think they would want this to happen since you know - they wouldn't be able to collect their money otherwise).

My wife exchanged a few unpleasantries with the manager, who eventually told her that if we wanted to we could cancel our auto-pay option and re-enable it at a later date to avoid paying the balance to change our card number. The manager said that as long as we re-enabled the auto-pay option within 17 days we wouldn't be charged for the free HD that we have, and if we waited until the 18th (17 days from now) we could change the credit card number, pay the bill, and re-enable the auto-pay option for future billing cycles.

My wife asked the manager if we could just re-enable the auto-pay option tomorrow since it was within 17 days. The manager said no. My wife, perplexed, asked why this wasn't possible. The manager said that we would still have to pay the balance in full if we wanted to change the credit card number, but we could only do the disable auto-pay then re-enable it if we waited the 17 days and called back on the 18th to pay the bill and sign back up for auto-pay.

My wife and I were confused. We didn't understand why the manager told her that we could disable auto-pay, change the credit card number, and then re-enable auto-pay as long as we did it within 17 days, but then turned around and said we couldn't disable auto-pay today, change the card number, and then re-enable auto-pay tomorrow so the bill would be paid on the 18th.

When she pointed this out to the manger, she said "that's just the way we do things". My wife asked "So why did you just tell me two minutes ago that we could do that, and then tell me we couldn't do it?!" Apparently the manager said something that made my wife out to be a liar, because I heard her voice raise as she said "Well, you just told me that we could do that!"

After a few more minutes of back and forth with the manager, my wife agreed to disable the auto-pay feature and threatened them with cancelling our service if they screwed our account up and charged us for our HD programming after the manager told us they wouldn't, and she told the manager that we would call back on the 18th to re-enable the auto-pay feature and pay the balance on our account.

So basically, we wasted a half-hour of our day that we can never get back and got nothing out of it from DISH Network. Thanks, DISH!

Now, my question is this: Why in the hell is it necessary to go through all this rigamarole just to change the credit card number on our account? Is it really that hard to type in a new number in the credit card slot on our account? Do they treat all their customers this way, or are we the lucky ones?

As expected, we got an email from DISH Network about an hour later acknowledging that we disabled the auto-pay feature on our account, and...wait for it...if we didn't re-enable our autopay within 17 days we would be charged for any promotions that we received from signing up for auto-pay (i.e. - we would have to pay for our HD programming).

So, we wasted our time jumping through hoops on the phone with a customer service rep who told us that we wouldn't have to pay for our HD programming, and then received an email from DISH saying that if we didn't re-enable the auto-pay feature we would have to pay for our HD programming. Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

Needless to say, my wife isn't very happy about the way we were treated by DISH Network, and we've both decided that if they try to charge us for our HD programming from this month that we are simply going to take our business elsewhere because we feel that our continued loyalty for almost six years should be enough for them to treat us with a small modicum of respect, and if they can't do that then they don't deserve our money every month when there are other companies out there who will give us what we want (tv access) for comparable prices with much better customer service.

The moral of the story is this: if you're thinking about switching to satellite tv, don't switch to DISH Network because they're the devil, and the devil is bad.

At least that's what momma always says...

Deja, Deja, Deja, Deja, Deja Vu

Have you seen the iPhone commercial with the stupid hipsters standing in line for hours just so they can buy a new phone, and then the one hipster who looks like he hasn't bathed or shaved in three weeks stands there counting his chubby little fingers while asking the question "Have you ever had deja, deja, deja, deja, deja vu*?

Yeah, I know you've seen it because they play it Every. Freaking. Commercial. Break.

My wife hates that commercial.

I hate it too, but that's beside the point. The point is: I feel like that chubby little hipster is talking about me. No, I don't have an iPhone (Android FTW), but it seems that I always tell myself "I'm going to start blogging again" and then I write a few posts and then put it on the shelf.  Rinse and repeat. Over and over. Every single time I start, I stop again because I get scared that people are actually going to read this and they won't like me because what I write about is stupid and I don't want people to think I'm stupid.

Slow down. Deep breath...

Anyway, I'm going to give this a shot again. I might make it three posts, and this might be the jump start that I needed to get back into the habit of blogging all the time. This could be  beginning of something fantastic, but it's probably going to end up like it always does - me doing this for a few weeks and then falling off the wagon again. After all, this cycle has played out many times before.

This time I think it's different though. This time I'm doing this because I want to, not because I feel like I have to. I know, you're probably sitting there thinking "he says that every single time", and you'd be right. I do say that every single time. But this time I mean it. (I know, I say that every time too, but this time I'm for real.)

This time around I have inspiration to write. A fellow blogger I greatly admire is doing a 30 days of writing challenge**, and it's inspired me to get off my lazy butt and write more. I feel a desperate need to communicate my thoughts with whomever may be reading this even though I don't know who I'm talking to unless I'm talking to myself, because I know who I am.

Or do I? Do I really know who I am? Maybe I do, and maybe I don't. Do you know who you are? Do any of us know? These are questions that I don't know the answer to, but maybe I can find the answers by writing in this space. Or maybe I won't, but at least I will be able to look back and say I tried.

In the end, that's all that really matters.

* The one that really gets on my nerves is the hipster who says "the headphone jack is going to be on the bottom", and then does the whole "my head is exploding" thing. I want to punch him in the face every time I see the commercial, but at the same time I don't because I'm afraid if I touch him I'll turn into a hipster.

** I am going to try and write a blog post every day for 30 days. If I can't keep this blog up after writing for 30 consecutive days, then it's a lost cause and I'll shut it down. I hope it doesn't come to that, but if it does - at least I'll know that I gave it my best shot.

War...and Peace, Part 5

If you've never planned a funeral before it pretty much goes like this: you cry your eyes out for about half an hour as you talk to the funeral director, you manage to pick out the day/time/location for the funeral, pick out a casket to bury your loved one in, and you somehow tell them enough information about the deceased so they can write an obituary (if you choose to have one). That's how it's supposed to happen.

For us, it was different from the norm because we were burying a veteran, so there was the added bonus of having a military funeral. Or so we thought.

We were informed by the funeral home that because my brother didn't die as a direct result from combat (i.e. - he wasn't shot or blown up overseas), that he was not eligible for a full military funeral. The problem with this is we wanted a full military funeral, and because he died from cancer that was proven to be a result of his service in the military, we felt that it was the least the government could do.

And so, it was time for the real battle to begin.

We made countless phone calls to every single person who had any say in how things are run in the state of South Carolina. We had friends of friends make calls to people who we thought might have connections to the inner-workings of the government. We had people posting to Facebook asking everyone they knew to call anyone they could to help us out, all to no avail. They weren't going to budge.

That's when we went on the news.

Someone in our community contacted the local news and told them the story, and they came to my parents' house to do a story on my brother and our fight to give him the funeral he deserved. They talked to my parents and my wife (I refused to go on tv because I couldn't bring myself to do it at the time) and aired the special the night before the funeral as a last ditch effort to convince the people in charge of the situation to make an exception for my brother.

After the news crew left, it was time for us to get ready for the wake, which is never an enjoyable task. It's even more difficult when it's one of your family members because that means you have to get there early to view the body to make sure everything is in order. That's the second hardest part of the process: the first time you see the body and know that it's not a person anymore.

Viewing the body was definitely an experience I will never forget for as long as I walk this earth. Seeing him lying there peacefully - knowing the personal hell he had been through for the previous 12 months of his life was finally over -  was strangely relieving to me. I could feel his peace, and for the first time - if only for a brief moment - I was okay with what was happening.

We buried him in his military uniform. We felt it was the best thing to do for him, because we felt that's what he would have wanted. One benefit to doing this was allowing everyone to see all the medals and badges that he had earned during his service, and having people who knew what each badge symbolized tell us what they all meant. We learned a lot about him through this, and we discovered that he had done a lot more for our country than we thought he had.

For example, we learned that he won not one, but two Purple Hearts. That's a big deal. It's an even bigger deal that he never spoke a word about them. It's a sign of his true character. He was more concerned about others to the point where he wouldn't even brag about himself when he had something worth bragging about. Not very many people can say that. (I sure as hell know I can't.)

The wake was inspiring to me when I saw just how many people showed up to pay their respects to my brother for his sacrifice and for his service in the military. I felt like I shook a million hands and hugged a million people that night. One of the most awesome feelings I got from being at the wake was from meeting a lady who said she saw our story on the news and felt compelled to come pay her respects to the family. It was an unbelievable feeling knowing that there still are people out there who appreciate the sacrifices that members of our military make each and every day, and that's one of the few things that helped me get through the tragedy of losing him. I knew that his death was not in vain, and it did bring a feeling of peace to my soul.

We left the wake and returned to my parents' house, and sometime shortly after we arrived we learned that arrangements had been made for a full military funeral. We were thankful to everyone who had joined together to help us get what we felt he deserved, and we were glad that we were going to be able to remember his life the way that we thought he would have wanted us to. (When you're planning a funeral, you'll take any small bits of relief you can get.)

We were also informed that there was a group of veterans who wanted to escort the hearse to the burial site via motorcycle, and even though my mother was uncomfortable with the idea at first (she didn't want to add any more attention to the funeral than it already had), we finally convinced her that it would be a good idea to include them. (Looking back on it now, I'm glad we did.)

As unusual as it is to say this, the funeral was absolutely beautiful. We arrived at the church for the first half of the service, and when we got out of the car we noticed two long lines of American flags leading up to the entrance. Each flag was held by one of the motorcycle veterans, and each veteran was standing at attention as we walked into the church. It was surreal. It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life, and it's a shame that it took such circumstances as a funeral for me to be able to see it, but unfortunately that's the way it goes sometimes.

The first half of the funeral was the typical protocol that most everyone follows. There was a prayer, a few songs, a message about the deceased, and another prayer. When we got to the grave site, however, it was a completely different story.

If you've never been to a military funeral you are missing out on one of the most beautiful exercises known to man. They follow a strict protocol that is intense, respectful, honorable, and moving all at the same time. I've never seen anything like it before, and I don't think I'll ever see anything like it again. It was a beautiful day for a funeral (as macabre as that sounds), and luckily we didn't run into any major problems with the weather (aside from the sweltering heat that only the South can provide). There's a unique air of calm surrounding a military graveside service, like nothing else I've ever experienced before. And, as strange as it sounds, I felt at peace.

The 21 gun salute was breathtaking. Hearing the shots fired into the dense summer air knowing they were meant to honor and respect the life that my brother had lived and the sacrifice he had given sent chills down my spine that I still feel every time I hear the sound of a gun shot, even thought it's been a little over 9 months since the funeral.

It didn't become real to me until they lowered the vault into the ground. Up until that moment, it felt as if I were living in a dream that would eventually end. But, when they lower that burial vault into that cold pit of dirt six feet below the surface, the reality of what's happening hits you like a freight train, and all the weight of regrets that you had for things you'd done (or failed to do) starts to sink in. That's the hardest part of the process - the realization that your loved one is gone forever, never to return again.

It's a reality that I've been battling ever since the funeral, and it's a reality that I'm just now able to talk about (hence the long amount of time for me to tell this story). But, thankfully I'm at the point now where I can finally talk about it to an extent, because that's the first sign of moving on. I know that it's a process and it takes time and that I'm not going to be over this for a long while, and knowing is half the battle. The other half is going to be adjusting to life without him, because from time to time I still find myself wanting to send him a text message, or checking to see if he's on Facebook just to chat.

I know I'll never get to chat with him again (at least not in the physical sense), and that's the part that eats at my soul every single day. I've lost my best friend, but I know that I can at least take comfort in the fact that he's finally at peace. He's certainly earned it.

War is definitely hell, but peace is everlasting. My brother went through war, and because of that war was able to find his peace. Someday, I hope that I can too.