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| Be afraid. Be very afraid. |
Say a prayer for us. Today is the day we are signing our lives over to Comcast. We've been down this road before and those familiar with our, er, experiences, will understand this is not something we do lightly. But simply, we've reached a point where it makes no financial sense at all to have separate providers for internet, cable, phone and home security.
Although we already have them for internet, they made us an offer we couldn't refuse so we're bundling the lot and, if all goes according to plan, we will save a significant amount of money.
Now, since this is Comcast we're talking about, we already know that the words 'go', 'according', 'to' and 'plan' are not generally ones that sit too well together. Should we trust them when they pinky promise there will absolutely under no circumstances be any repeat of any of the previous shenanigans? Or are we completely out of our ever loving minds?? Oh no! they said. That was the OLD Comcast they said. Must have been run by a bunch of incompetent buffoons back then they said. They handed over their home phone and cell numbers, facebook, Twitter and Instagram passwords and the key to their mother's house in Charlottesville as a gesture of good will and a kind of security deposit.Which was good because not 15 minutes after the reps left our house that evening, Comcast HQ promptly shut off our internet. Gone. Disappeared. Buh bye. Why dear Lord? That's all we wanted to know. Well, that and where the cameras were hidden. It was a somewhat less than ideal way to begin our reconciliation but we are good for a few laughs so decided to let it slide when they promptly admitted fault and fixed the problem. Oops, our bad, they said.
Fast forward to today's big installation of our cable service, phone and home security system plus an internet upgrade. Things began well. They had been great about confirming and reconfirming the appointment. Our window was set for between 8 and 12. Tech guy Michael called at 8.15 (8.15 you guys!!!) and said he was 10 minutes away. Great! Looking good!
Unfortunately, almost as soon as Michael arrived, the wheels fell off. Michael believed he was there to perform a particular task (give us a brand new alarm system per his orders); yet we did not need a brand new alarm system (per Comcast alarm guy rep from last week who came to our house, scoped out the situation and declared they would be able to simply 'switch out the panel' on our existing system).
Michael quickly realized a 'Communication between Departments Error' had occurred and announced that the entire installation would have to be delayed until another day. Michael, it turns out, is untrained in the fine art of switching out panels. 'Why can't you do the rest of what you came to do?' I asked. 'No can do', he said, 'this job must be done as a 'bundle''. And just as quickly as he appeared, Michael was gone again. Off to wreak Comcast havoc on some other poor unsuspecting soul.
This is not the first, second, nor even the third time we have been at the mercy of a Comcast 'Communication Between Departments Error'. But perhaps my favorite was when a Comcast truck pulled up outside our house and a crew hopped out and began measuring and digging in the front yard. Curious, I wandered outside and asked them what in the Sam Hill they thought they were doing.
'We're laying some cable here so your service can be installed ma'am.'
Oh, is that right? Are you aware that you guys already came out and laid this cable, like, two months ago? Are you further aware that after we had your 'service' for 30 days that we cancelled it, and that we are not, in fact, Comcast customers at all?
'Oh, they said', scratching their heads. 'Are you sure? There must have been a 'Communication Between Departments Error'.'
Uh huh. Ya think?
One question. How is it possible to be one of the country's largest communications operations yet be so appalling bad at the very thing your business is founded upon? How?
So tomorrow (three days later) we get to play this little game again. Same time, same bat channel. Don't forget to tune in for the laughs folks!
UPDATE
Comcast guy Andy arrived at 10.30 Saturday morning. He was still here at 6pm so we just invited him to move in. We figure it will come in handy having our very own live-in Comcast tech on call in the basement.
