Customer support hangs up the 'phone

Her first impression was that I was not able to get access to a website that I was creating on their system. But in fact I was trying to find out why, on my Chorus-NTL broadband access account, I can not view my website at geocities.com — or indeed any page hosted by geocities.com.

It took me moment to explain to her. When she got it, she made strange sounds.

Her voice went low, and slowed to a ratcheting, popping crawl, as the sound of somebody just realizing the extent of their psychedelic high. It wasn't a happy sound. She excused herself, and put me on hold.

Several times, she went away for a bit, and once asked if she could ring me back.

At one point, she just went away from the 'phone — she didn't excuse herself at all, just left. I didn't know whether she'd cut me off, or we'd been cut off, or she'd put me on hold, or just what.

Finally she came back. She told me that they'd done a check, and that Geocities had taken down their server.

I argued, as kindly as I could, that this was impossible. I knew that it was not impossible — but it was unlikely to be true.

I can go to a cybercafe, I told her, and see my website just fine.

She insisted that Geocities had taken their server down. She said that they are not able to offer support for Geocities.

"This is Geocities, a subsidiary of Yahoo," I said. Yes, she said. She insisted. Geocities had taken their server down.

I didn't think this could be the explanation. I told her that I am able to upload files; that I'd been doing so just a while before.

She hung up on me.

— 28 November 2007, Kilkenny Ireland