It's been a long time since my last regular post. Lots have happened since - we moved into new offices, almost went to court and got a pet that slowly learns how to talk. To recap...

Centrro moved into new offices around November-ish. Still in Jack London Square about 4 blocks from the old office. Cool building with interesting architecture. Below are some pics...

And a very inventive shelving system we built with the help of Ikea and the USPS.

As for the court thing. Our old landlords over at The Commons were refusing to return our security deposit for damages. Interestingly, not for damage to the actual suite itself but for scuff marks on the stairs. What's even more interesting is that we didn't use the stairs to move our things out since we're on the 3rd floor and would be crazy to haul our stuff down two flights of stairs when there's a perfectly good elevator. After some back and forth including a filing with small claims, they sent us a check minus some bullshit minor charges. I'm still pissed but have spent way more time on this issue than I wanted to so we're dropping the claim. For future reference, I do not recommend doing business with Equistone Partners or their building management firm LCB Associates, which showed a total lack of integrity throughout the process. Oh well, live and learn.

Lastly, when we moved into the Ironworks Building, we were a little miffed to learn that Comcast wasn't available as a data option. Basically only AT&T came into the building so we signed up for AT&T phone lines and DSL. BIG MISTAKE. First, the DSL service was horrible - completely unusable. 6MB down and less than 1MB up for 8+ computers brought everyone's connectivity to a crawl. We were using Ooma VOIP phones at the old office but switched to plain land lines to avoid data congestion but even without VOIP across the lines, the service was just way too slow. On top of everything, AT&T service is not cheap. DSL came in at about $29 a month and each of our 8 phone lines costed us about $55+. With tax and fees our monthly bill was running about $550. After much begging and pleading with our new landlords, we were able to get Comcast into the building. Nice fat 50MB down and 10MB up data connection and 8 digital voice lines. Total monthly cost? Less than $300. It blows my mind why AT&T's landline and DSL business are still around. Not only am I paying half as much for better service, AT&T customer service has got to be one of the worst I've encountered. Once my wireless contract is up, I'll be moving that over to Verizon, as well. Farewell and good riddance, AT&T.

I am an AT&T customer. I have been for many years. I have my family on AT&T Wireless, I have an AT&T landline at home, and my office has AT&T local/long distance plus DSL. All in all, I'm directly responsible for over $500 a month of revenue to AT&T. But after my experience today, I am actively looking for alternatives for every single service I have with them. Let me explain...

I was supposed to have AT&T's UVerse DSL installed at our new offices today. The ordeal to get this in was excruciating. I called almost 2 weeks ahead of time to set everything up and was assured everything would be ready before our move date. AT&T Customer Service told me that someone from the UVerse group would call me with the appointment date/time for installation. A few days go by and no contact. As I am busy with the move, I didn't realize this until we were a week away. I called customer service and was put through hold hell for about half an hour. Then when I reached someone they told me I missed the appointed time last week. Huh? I had no idea when the appointment was because nobody called me! No problem, mistakes happen. I asked them to please have someone out by Friday to get the install in before the employees show up on Monday. They said they'd make it happen. The technician shows up at the appointed time but they activated the UVerse DSL on someone else's phone number, not the ones in my suite. I have to call Customer Service back and beg them to switch it to the proper number. Their response? It may take up to three business days to occur. Basically, my employees are going to be unable to do their jobs from Monday to sometime Wednesday. AT&T Customer Service will cost me 3 days of productivity. 3 days of lost time is an eternity to a small business.

I've included AT&T's Twitter reps in the hopes that they see this. This is your opportunity to step up and be heroes. Excellent customer service is not the absence of complaints but how you handle and solve them. I had an issue with our Ooma phones at the old office and was instantly met with one of the best customer service responses I've ever had. Trust me, if the new offices could accommodate data services faster than AT&T's pathetic DSL, I would have gone that route and dropped my AT&T local/long distance lines. Unfortunately, AT&T has a near monopoly on telecom services in our building and they are using it to bludgeon everyone with horrible products and even worse customer service.