Monday, November 20, 2006

Less-Than-Triumphant Return

Hello, one and all!

I have returned from my trip, to discover that some time Friday night, the cable (and cable modem) in my apartment went out. So, I'm back, but Heimlich Maneuvers, for another day or two, is not.

Let me just take this moment to say how dumb cable phone operators can be. I call to schedule an appointment last night.

"Have you turned the box off and back on?" Sure, I'll do that to humor you, but that's not it -- my cable AND my internet are out, and I have a splitter going into two TiVos, and they're getting no picture either.

"We're not currently showing any outages in your area." Um, I beg to differ, dumbass!

"We showed an outage early today that was repaired." Well, my cable has been out since Friday, champ. I know this from the nothing I got when I was supposed to be recording Battlestar Galactica while I was away.

"We can schedule you for 3:00 - 5:00 on Tuesday." I work. What person living alone is home at that time on a weekday? "Well, otherwise my next window is next Monday, the 27th?" Is that supposed to make me laugh, suggesting you're going to do nothing about my lack of service for a week?

Anyway, Shocho's LWC has graciously volunteered to be at my place tomorrow for the appointment I can't make. So, with any luck, I'll be back to my regular blather tomorrow night. Thanks to her for the assist, and all of you for your patience.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

man I hate dealing with lousy customer service stuff. you should get them to pro-rate your bill to subtract the days of lost service (5 days out of 30 is 16%!) and make them throw in some extra $$ for your hassle... give me a phone let me speak to the manager!!!! okay calm down.... but yeah I hate dealing with those types of phone calls.

so if you need to take a more days off due to technical difficulties we'll all understand. and thanks for taking so much of your time to give us all a bit of entertainment each day! (did you see the Sonic commercial where the guy was going to blog about the new shake or whatever...)

the mole

Roland Deschain said...

Hey, customer service doesn't exist anymore. I paid my Verizon bill today and they charged my account twice. So instead of $150, they took $300. And "we don't do refunds, all we can offer is a credit to your account."

Nice.
And my bank wouldn't stop the payment either???

I sense a carrier not getting a contract renewal.

And I sense a bank getting a kick in the butt as well.

Oh, and a complaint letter to the FTC and the FCC. Because I hate going quietly. >:)

I feel your pain with Comcast though, sir. I had to pay $45 for some monkey to come "install" my cable modem...and I STILL had to show him how to plug the cables in and set up the software on my machine.

Sometimes...late at night...I wonder if Tyler Durden had the right idea. lol!

DrHeimlich said...

the mole -- Yes, I do intend to complain about my missing days. No, haven't seen the Sonic commercials you speak of. Though I have once or twice been tempted to get a T-shirt that says "I'm blogging this."

roland -- You have more bad customer service stories than just about anyone I know. And it's not like you bring them on yourself. (Not all of them, anyway. ;-) )