I am a personal trainer and a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist through the NSCA. Therefore I have to attain continued education credits. So I registered for a webinar today. It was about how to train athletes in heat and humidity(very applicable considering the summer we're having). I registered a couple days ago, paid my fee and thought all was well! Au contraire (forgive me if my spelling is lacking).
The webinar was scheduled for 1:00pm. I was ready to go at 12:45. Signed in and eating some leftover pizza until it began. I should mention that this was my first ever webinar and I was nervous about messing something up. I kept looking at the clock. 12:56. 12:59. 1:03? It hadn't started. I figured I goofed somehow and connected over the phone to cut my losses. My wonderful cell phone requires you to turn on speaker before you dial so I had to turn my earpiece sound WAY UP and sit bent over with my ear an inch from the phone so I could write and eat (there's a statement about my priorities). So as I'm listening, eating, and writing I am getting more and more irritated that it didn't work on my computer. So then I email the webinar host, Greg, to ask if there is anything I can do. After 3 emails he asks for my phone number so he can call me. After 20 minutes on the phone he gives me the number for tech support, a free webinar pass, many apologies for my missing this webinar, and the promise of an email with the recorded webinar for me to watch. Very nice guy!
Then I call tech support....phone tree... awesome. I get through the phone tree without too much trouble, phew! I don't remember my rep's name, but she had an accent and our connection was breaking up.... which I thought ironic for tech support. So it was a little difficult to hear/understand all she was saying. First we tried again what I'd done 5 times already...it didn't work. Shocker! Then she had me download some software. Still wasn't working. Then I tried it in another browser, still no good. ** a good piece of information for you to know would be that I am on a wireless network** She kept saying that it is not recommended to attend webinars on a wireless network. I'm unsavvy enough to not really know how to change back to an ethernet connection so I said I couldn't really help her much there. Anyhow, after 45 minutes she got the ok from her superior to tell me she couldn't help me. Great! So now I'm all alone, trying to troubleshoot this ridiculous computer that won't let me attend a webinar. So I'm unplugging cables and replugging them and generally just hoping that if I touch enough cables and plugs, they'll feel loved and want to work for me. (You might be able to see where this is headed).
Next phone call goes to Cox (our internet provider). I got an awesome tech support guy on the phone. As I was talking with him my ethernet magically connected! Hooray Jeremy! Apparently, I had plugged something in right and the modem just needed a second to catch up. I was incredibly happy and appreciative of Jeremy's helpful attitude, so I thanked him and hung up.
At this point in time I try to re-log on to my webinar. It might have worked.... had the webinar not been over. So now I have no idea if all that trouble was for anything. And now I will have to try another webinar someday to see if it works. And now I feel just fried enough to not want to do any packing at all for the trip I'm leaving for tomorrow morning. I just want to sit, and bemoan my wreck of an experience with webinars, and eat as many M&M's as it takes to make me happy.
(but I won't because come tomorrow morning I'm off to Boston and I might be more bummed if I'm not packed)
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