Do you seriously believe that any live person you get through to is going to know A) Where you are; B) Have any idea what is causing your outage or when it will be fixed; or C) Talk to you in less than an hour on hold.
Your calling will do nothing to speed the process or alleviate your stress.
And finally, shame on you for not having a landline for your disabled mother. You will get a 911 response several minutes faster with a landline.
Wow, what kind of thrashing was that? And what for?
FYI, Verizon has the cursed landlines that CANNOT run the old way on their own power.
SHE HAS LANDLINES, AND THE CELL PHONES ARE THE ONLY THINGS WORKING NOW.
Thanks a lot for your slam.
Having spent most of my career in the service industry, I can vouch for that. Calling the office all irate and "giving them a piece of your mind" will accomplish nothing. You will be speaking to drones with headsets who have absolutely nothing to do with getting your issue fixed. All they can do is open a ticket or case number and move on to the next caller. If you get especially angry, you might find your call getting disconnected...oops.
It's even worse with the utilities during a storm-related power outage. Trust me, the utilities are going to know when your power or your cell service is shut off. Without you even calling them, they are going to assign work crews and prioritize accordingly. Typically those in the least populated areas are going to get their services restored last. It's just the way it is.
So in these situations, you just need to relax, light your candles and find a nice book to read.