I love you Telefónica Chile

You came to our house, finally! Yay! It was all YOU, Telefónica Chile, you really came through. And considering, you didn't have to even! You're a telecommunications monopoly, the only company that serves our district in downtown Santiago. But even so, you came and installed broadband internet and a telephone line -- in under a month! Well, 29 days, actually. Not bad!

Keep doing your thing. I only spent over 15 hours on the phone with about 9 different agents much of this calling cellphones from my cell phone which costs 30 cents a minute), plus about 3 visits to your office downtown, totally about 7 hours of my time (including transportation).

But it was all you, Telefónica Chile. Well, okay, you're right. It can be said that we 'worked together'. Like getting a project done together at the last minute. Yeah, okay, if you insist, I carried my weight toward the end. That was two days ago, when I left work at 1pm, bought a pre-paid phone card for $10, spent the afternoon calling you until my credit ran out, then picked up another cell phone with a pre-paid contract, and kept calling you. Starting at 2pm, when you told me I should be waiting at my house, because the installation guy would show up no later than 4pm. I was on the phone when your sparkling white Telefónica Chile truck showed up at 8pm. (After 2 hours on the phone the day before, a rep had told me the trucks would arrive at 3pm, at the latest). But no problem! You came at last! That's what counts!

Oh, you don't know how good I felt! As the technician set to work, I cracked open a can of cold beer and stood out on my balcony staring into the magnificently red-orange, smog-refracted onset of a 9pm Santiago sunset. I breathed in deeply, relieved. It had been a long day of work, calling Telefónica. There been moments of joy, moments of desperation, moments of fury and moments of grace. In the end though, we had emerged victorious. There were no losers. Both Telefónica and I had won. (Now, after all, you can start charging me close to $80 a month for your service, nearly 3x the price of the same service in the United States, plus over $.30 minute to local cell phones). Yes, we did it together.

Oh, just one little detail, where's the...

What? You're not installing Wi-Fi?

Oh, ha! That's okay. We had asked for it, but. Actually, our Telefónica Chile sales rep Marisol had forgotten to put it on there. But since we're a Team, I had pointed out her error and corrected it. I think it was me who had actually checked the little Wi-Fi box on the contract. Because we're a team. No, actually, it looks like Marisol's handwriting. Anyway, that was a month ago when we were ordering the service. Apparently, somewhere in between her and the installation guy, the order got screwed up. Oh well, ha! Human error. Whatcha gonna do.

Probably wait another month for Wi-Fi to be installed, and enjoy a couple workdays on the phone, yelling (in a team-spirited kind of way, of course).

But after all, Wi-Fi is a luxury. Why should more than one person have access to the Internet in the house, anyway? And why should I be afforded the conspicuous consumption in the form of a firewall that Telefónica will only enable with a Wi-Fi router -- who am I to ask for protection from malicious software viruses?

Really, I'm asking a lot. And after all the Telefónica Chile has done for us up to now...

I love you Telefónica Chile. Keep doing your thing.