I started to wonder where everyone was... Were they studying more than usual? It would make sense, after all the semester just started amping up with the arrival of the first wave of tests. No, this is unusual. Maybe I smell and they are trying to stay away from me. I became paranoid.
After a water main breaks and the Bradley campus and surrounding areas instantly feel as if they had moved to the Sahara we have run into another problem. I have confirmed with some people close to me and we decided that we would rather not have internet at all over REALLY slow internet. That being said, having no internet in the house for 5 days puts everyone a little bit (more like a lot) on edge.
I didn't smell after all! Just that thing we all can't live without, was instantly not working. THE INTERNET IS DOWN! Man's greatest tool is absent from our home, so the occupants must go on campus to get their daily intake of networking.
We went through the typical manly man: "I'm going to fix this myself! Who needs a professional technician!?" And on and on it went for four days until we decided to call the Comcast people.
Let me be clear. Next to the guy that works "lost luggage" at the airport, working the customer service lines at Comcast has to be the least desirable position in the American economy. Their is a certain place in heaven for the person that makes it through five years of that profession without raising their voice at obnoxious customers.
Now, to the gritty. It took me 15 minutes of her running diagnostic tests over the phone before she gave up and tried to tell me to contact the manufacturer of our modem while attempting to sign off.
"No, No, No!!!," I said. "You aren't getting off that easy!" Calling Motorola and trying to replace the modem would take at least two weeks, even if I managed to talk to a human being. I told the tough to understand lady from Comcast that was pretty terrible customer service and to just send a technician and sort this whole thing out. Well instantly she turned on the apologetic mode that must be ingrained in their DNA at this point. We sorted out a time for the next morning and several thoughts came to me.
How said is it that Comcast was just going to let me go? They weren't going to send someone to resolve the situation and attempt to make good service. No, they just wanted me to go away and make it someone else's problem (specifically Motorola). It took me complaining and telling this poor woman of the terrible customer service before she decided to give me what I deserved as a paying customer: resolution.
This behavior starts to become the norm for our society: complain until you get what you want. Sad but true. And while it my seem trivial, Comcast let it happen.
I hate Comcast, but damn am I glad to have the Internet back!
This is a very real part of my life as well. I live in an off-campus house, and fortunately our internet has not had too many issues, but our cable is another story. It was quite the process calling Comcast to come over and fix our cable. After about the third time calling them they tried to "resolve the issue over the phone" and I had to stop them in their tracks and say "I simply need someone to come to my house and help me face-to-face." Thankfully, they arranged it and in the end it worked out. But I agree, just having to do deal with them multiple times is somewhat of a hassle.
ReplyDeleteI chuckled a bit reading this today because just this morning my roommates and I were in a group chat talking about our troubles with Comcast. Our TV has not been working for the past 2 weeks and one of my roommates talked about how she had spent a hour on the phone with a Comcast employee, was extremely frustrated, and may or may not have used some profanities. But hey, Guy Kawasaki even said that is okay to do sometimes.
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